It had been as much as she could do, not to reach out and touch her fingertips to his hair as he had knelt at her feet, head bent over her sewing box. Theo. His hair had been cut short but it was growing out now, with just a hint of curl at the ends and a blur of soft hairs at the nape. Did he realise the effect he had on her? She thought she had hidden it well – she had become skilled at disguising her emotions recently, although she had never had to hide desire before. Fear, revulsion, anger, despair – yes, those she had become an expert at concealing.
‘Don’t you sit there all night, my love.’ Mrs Bishop, bless her, jerked her out of her thoughts.
‘No, I won’t. I am just wool-gathering. I’ll take my hot water and be off, unless there is anything I can help you with.’
‘Not a thing, my dear. The lads are locking up, the meat safe is secure, the oatmeal is soaking for the morning. Nothing to do but bank up the fire and snuff the candles.’
The end of another day in a pleasant, well-ordered household, Laura thought as she checked that the fire under the copper was out and carried her water jug back to her room. A household of decent, hard-working people with a decent guest to look after.
And to dream about, bother the man. At least disturbing, but pleasant, dreams were a small price to pay for sanctuary away from danger and deceit. Life would be uneventful here until Perry returned; all she had to do was not to let that very decent gentleman see that he brought colour to her cheeks and yearning to her foolish heart.
‘Mrs Albright. Might I have a word with you in the study?’ Lord Northam stood in the doorway into the hall.
‘Certainly, my lord.’ There was nothing like a brisk morning’s work inventorying the linen cupboard to banish the after-effects of a restless night’s dreaming.
He held the door for her and politely let her precede him into the room. Petals had dropped from the vase of peonies on the desk and she went to gather them up, a handful of tissue-thin crinkled crimson.
‘Laura?’
‘Yes?’ She turned, her hands cupped around the petals, smiling before she realised what he had said, how she had reacted. There was no point in pretending, trying to bluff. He knew, how she had no idea, but he knew her name. Her gaze dropped before the intense blue of his and she watched the crimson fragments flutter to the floor, bruised by her fingers.
‘I am not going to betray you, I swear. Are you hiding from Giles Swinburn? Has he tried to assault you?’
‘No.’ Laura sat down with an inelegant bump on the nearest chair. ‘He looks, he passes remarks, his hands are always just a little too… No, it is not that. Not yet, at any rate. My Aunt Swinburn is my father’s sister and my uncle is the trustee for my affairs. There is quite a lot of money, I think. And I suspect that he has been spending it,’ she added bleakly. ‘And now they are pressing me to marry Charles.’
‘That block!’
‘He is the heir,’ she said simply. ‘But he does not have to father the next in line after him.’ She said it fast, that nightmare idea that had taken hold, the product of hints and whispers and snatches of overheard conversations.
Theo sat down too and stared at her. ‘You mean – ’
‘I mean that Giles is the favoured one, the one with the brains and no scruples. The son who has no desire to settle down and be a dutiful spare to his hopeless brother. He wants to be free and he needs money for that.’
‘You can refuse to marry Charles. Good grief, this is 1813, not the Middle Ages. They can hardly drag you to the altar.’
‘Giles tried to get into my room at night, a week ago. That was when I knew I had to run. If he forces me they must think I would be only too glad to marry anyone. But they will be getting desperate, because it is my birthday in three months time and then I have control of my money and may marry as I please.’ The words came tumbling out, the effect, she supposed, of finding someone she trusted.
‘So you came here. To Mrs Bishop?’
‘To Perry. He will help me. And all his staff know me and I know that none of them will betray me. I hope he can get me to London and can find a good lawyer who will be able to challenge my uncle’s management of my money.’
‘Perry. I see. You are confident he will risk the scandal for you?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘We have been friends for ever. But six months ago Uncle forbade me to come here. I suspect he thought we were becoming too close and that might be why I was refusing Charles. As though any woman in her right mind would not prefer Perry!’
‘Quite,’ Theo said. ‘So Perry has no idea you are in so much trouble?’
‘No, or he would never have left and gone off wandering. He can be the most infuriating creature sometimes.’ She smiled fondly, then bit her lip when Theo’s expression darkened. He would not like her making fun of his close friend.
‘Which leaves us needing to conceal you here until he returns.’ Theo got up and began to pace between desk and window.
She had hoped, for a fleeting moment, that he would offer to take her to London himself. He must know as many good lawyers as Perry did. But, of course, he had a fiancée in London who would be decidedly unhappy if it came out that he was helping a runaway female.
Laura gave herself a brisk mental shake. So much for dreams and fluttering pulses. ‘You do not mind me being here? I mean, I am asking you to engage in a deception, perhaps even to tell untruths.’
‘I think my duty to protect a lady outweighs any amount of lying I might have to do.’ He was sounding sardonic again, which probably meant that by questioning his willingness to help she had insulted his male honour, always a touchy an
d mysterious thing to deal with, in her experience. Not that her uncle or Giles appeared to possess any.