She regarded him uncertainly. “You don’t want me to leave?”
Hell, no.
He bit back the quick reaction and spoke with as much avuncular reassurance as he could muster. By the look on her face, that wasn’t much. “My mother is in better spirits these days.”
“That’s because you’re home.”
He frowned. “Not completely.”
“That night you thought I was stealing.”
A few days ago, he’d pushed for her banishment. Now he must have gone mad, because the thought of her departure made him want to punch the wall. “Nothing’s missing.”
“I could have been deciding what to take.”
“Was that what you were doing?”
“No.”
He waited, wondering if she’d confess her reasons for invading his apartments. But she remained silent. And watchful. Always watchful.
“I will discover your secrets, you know,” he said evenly.
She started, then stood tall in the lamplight. “Your imagination runs away with you, my lord.”
A faint smile curved his lips. “I don’t think so.” He collected the bowl and the cloth. “My instincts never fail, Miss Trim, and they scream that you’re not what you seem.”
“Then why keep me here?” she asked, puzzled rather than pert.
He shrugged and met her eyes, feeling as though he drowned in autumn gold. “Heaven knows, Eleanor, heaven knows.”
Chapter Eleven
Nell slept late the next morning, a luxury for a servant. The doctor had pronounced Mr. Crane unhurt apart from his broken arm, but the hall clock had struck four before she’d settled the patient and cleaned up. The marquess had stayed to the last, which had surprised her. Something else that surprised her was Mr. Crane’s unmistakable respect for his employer. During her previous encounter with the two together, Leath had snapped at Crane for wasting time with her.
The light outside her windows was bright. Yorkshire had such strange, violent, unpredictable weather. Howling tempest one minute, unreliable brilliance the next. It was so different from the green gentleness of her home. The landscape was as mercurial as the man who owned this barren wilderness. Except that the moors weren’t barren. There were rich mines and valleys of good farmland. At first glance, the moors seemed all desolation and solitude. But when one looked more closely, there were hidden subtleties, secret treasures—an appeal more powerful for not being immediately visible.
Very like the Marquess of Leath.
After that odd, confiding conversation in the kitchen, his lordship had punctiliously kept his distance. One would imagine that he’d always called her Miss Trim and that he’d never kissed her.
She should be grateful. It would be too ironic if this quest to bring Dorothy’s seducer to justice resulted in her own ruin. But stupidly, she missed that resonant voice saying her name as if she was the first and only Eleanor in the world.
Exhausted as she’d been, she’d taken forever to fall asleep. Now that she’d learned that her position was safe, she should feel reassured. But somehow she didn’t. Instead, questions buzzed around her mind. As ever, with Leath, she had no answers. When she’d taken a risk mentioning Dorothy, she
’d watched avidly for some hint of guilt. She’d seen nothing.
Then he’d drawn her into speaking about her father, something she always found painful. Nell had loved Robert Trim with a little girl’s adoration, and through her mother’s eyes, she’d learned to love him into maturity. Her mother had always mourned her first husband, fond as she was of scholarly William Simpson. It continued to anger Nell that some administrative bungle had deprived Frances Trim of those last tangible memories of Robert’s life in Portugal.
When Nell hurried down to the marchioness’s apartments, Leath was taking tea with his mother. The last time she’d seen his lordship, he’d been dirty and rumpled and worried for Mr. Crane. This morning, in a dark blue coat, buff breeches, and boots polished to a mirror shine, he looked ready for Mayfair. But the burning glance he cast her was familiar from last night. And as it had last night, the sight of him set her heart racing with excitement.
“Your ladyship, I’m so sorry. I overslept.”
The marchioness waved her hand. “James told me about your heroics. You needn’t have rushed. Have you had breakfast?”
“No, my lady,” Nell said, her conscience twitching at Lady Leath’s concern. She’d imagined a closer relationship with the family would promote her cause. Instead it muddied her convictions. Perhaps she should leave, even without the diary. Every day, her loyalties became more tangled.
The marchioness gestured to a tray of cakes and sandwiches. “There’s plenty here. Or I can ring for more.”