Not Quite a Lady (The Dressmakers 4)

In the process of taking up the picture, he contrived, without being obvious about it, to draw nearer to her.

She edged away from him, which brought her closer to Darius. He ought to move away, too, to give her space. But he knew that Morrell hadn’t closed in merely to be near her. He knew she would back away, and he thought Darius would retreat to give her room. This would push Darius to the very edge of the table. One more such maneuver would force Darius to the other side of the table, where he must view the material sideways.

A territorial move, in short.

One could be amused, and let the fellow have the lady to himself. After all, Darius had no use for her.

However, he had grown up as the youngest of five aggressive males. He never gave up ground without a fight.

He moved not an inch.

Morrell reached out to pick up another sketch, moving nearer still to Lady Charlotte as he did so.

She backed away, and since Darius stood with his hip against the table, this brought her rump against his breeding organs. They instantly took notice of her.

As did she of them, with a sharp intake of breath.

Though his own breathing wasn’t steady, Darius casually reached for another picture. “Ah, the dairy,” he said. “One thing—one of many—I miss in London is fresh country cream and butter. City cream doesn’t taste the same at all.”

“You will need cows, then,” said Lady Charlotte. She set her heel down on his toe.

She put some weight on it, and though he was wearing thin evening shoes rather than boots, it was not enough to make him yield. “I’m a countryman,” he said. “I know where milk and cream come from.”

She shifted her weight onto the one foot. Hers was no great weight, but his toes, unlike his upper body, were not constructed to bear it. He swallowed a gasp…and withdrew.

“I thought you were a London man,” Colonel Morrell said as he perused a plan. “You lecture there often, I believe.”

Careful to keep his toes out of danger, Darius picked up another document. A crayon sketch, which must have been stuck to the bottom of it, fell to the table.

Lady Charlotte reached for the sketch, but Darius got it first.

“I lecture in London,” Darius said. “I learn in the country. In Derbyshire—not very far from here, in fact. My brother Alistair lives in the Peak, near Mat-lock Bath. Who is this sweet creature, Lady Charlotte? I cannot read the inscription.”

In the picture, a woman sat on the doorstep of a cottage, dandling her infant.

Lady Charlotte snatched the picture from him. “It must have fallen on the floor,” she said. “One of the maids must have picked it up when she was cleaning and put it with the others. It doesn’t belong to this lot. It’s one of the villagers with her child. Merely the sort of rustic scene ladies are expected to draw. Well, I will leave you gentlemen to debate the finer points of dairy farming.”

She hurried out of the library.

That was odd, Darius thought.

Morrell must have thought so, too, because his brow knit as he turned and watched Lady Charlotte go. But neither man remarked on it. With stiff courtesy they exchanged opinions about dairies, brew-houses, and bakehouses. They agreed that Lithby Hall’s kitchen court was conveniently situated and arranged. Then Mrs. Badgely came in and woke her husband, after which they all returned to the drawing room.

Darius kept away from Lady Charlotte. He could not believe he’d taken such risks in the library. He was not a boy of fifteen. He knew better. Now of all times he needed to keep a clear head. He was going to prove his father wrong. He was going to revive Beechwood. He was not going to get into trouble with a nobleman’s unwed daughter.

He was already in trouble, and he’d no one to blame but himself. How in blazes was he to finance Lady Lithby’s refurbishing of his house?

He wasn’t. He couldn’t. He had to get out of it somehow.

He was still trying to determine the “somehow” as the party began breaking up. Then, as he was taking his leave of his hosts—and looking forward to a long night of kicking himself—rescue came, all unexpected.

“My lady tells me she means to take charge of your house,” Lord Lithby said. “I advise you to have a care, sir. She looks dainty, but she will run roughshod over you if you let her.”

“I hope I am not as bad as all that!” said Lady Lithby with a laugh. “I only want to make a refuge for Mr. Carsington, as Charlotte said: a comfortable place to come to after his labors.”

“Your and his notions of what is comfortable are not likely to be the same,” said Lord Lithby. “Mr. Carsington is a man of science. I have not received the impression that he wishes, as we do, to entertain multitudes. Certainly he is not interested in following the latest fads and fashions.”

His genial grey gaze returned to Darius. “You must stand up for yourself, sir. Tell my lady plainly what you want.”

Don’t touch my house, Darius wanted to say.

That wasn’t the politic answer, and even he knew better than to utter it.

“I merely wish to make the place habitable for the present,” he said. “At a later time, I shall consider beautifying it.”

“Clean and in order,” said Lord Lithby. “That’s all, Lizzie. Then let the man do his work, which is of somewhat greater importance, as you well know, than the latest fashion in curtains.”

As he spoke, Lady Charlotte joined them. Darius didn’t linger. He took a polite leave of them all and made his escape.

He couldn’t escape her.

She plagued him during the ride back to Altrincham. Along with the first mystery, he had another puzzle to wrestle with: the strange reaction to her drawing of the woman and infant…the odd expression he’d so briefly glimpsed in that beautiful face, an expression he hadn’t expected.

Grief?

And why not? he asked himself impatiently. She had been on the brink of womanhood when she lost her mother. Why should a picture of a mother and child not remind her of the loss, even many years later?

Dogs were known to pine when their master died. Sometimes the pets died of grief. Certain species of birds mourned their mates’ deaths and would not mate again.

Why shouldn’t a woman—of any age—continue to mourn the loss of her mother?

Still…

“Plague take her,” he muttered. “What the devil is it to me?”

Balked lust, obviously.

That neck. That bosom. That round, warm derrière. He could almost feel it still, pressed against his groin.

“Stop it,” he said. “Stop thinking about it. Nothing’s going to come of it. Virgin, remember? Put it—her—out of your mind.”

He couldn’t.

It was maddening. Beautiful and wellborn and rich and seven and twenty and unwed…

It was unnatural was what it was. That sort of thing ought to be against the law.

He turned his mind to the inn and its comfortable bed and the two willing maidservants, either or both of whom might join him in the comfortable bed.

And yet, in the end, he spent the night alone.

Eastham Hall, outskirts of Manchester

Evening of Sunday 16 June

Now that Colonel Morrell had returned from London, he spent his Sundays with his uncle, the Earl of Eastham, at the ancestral pile on the outskirts of Manchester.

He arrived in the morning in time to escort the cantankerous old man to church and did not leave until late in the evening or early on Monday morning.

Colonel Morrell didn’t do this out of affection. He’d always loathed his uncle. Lord Eastham’s only redeeming quality was the misogyny that had kept him from marrying. Thanks to his failure to produce a son, his eldest nephew, the colonel, would inherit an old title, several large properties, and heaps of money.

A year ago, Lord Eastham had decided that his nephew must give up active service abroad for an administrative post at home, in order to concentrate on finding a wife and filling his nursery. Without cons

ulting the nephew, his lordship had used his considerable influence to arrange matters.