Anne Barbour (7 page)

“I must go,” she gasped.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” he asked solicitously, encircling her waist with one arm. “May I assist you?”

“You become impernament, Jennary.” She tried again. “You are impert—inant, J—my good man. I am perfectly capable of leaving—this room—now.”

Claudia pulled away from him, and swayed only slightly as she hurried from the room, leaving Jem to stare after her.

After a long moment, he made his way once more to the library.

Chapter Five

Morning came very early for Jeremy, Lord Glenraven. In fact at cockcrow, his eyes had not yet closed in sleep. Last night’s rapid search of the library’s remaining volumes had proved fruitless. There were two books containing the word “rural” in their titles. One was Cobbett’s
Rural Rides,
which Jem had read some years ago. The other was a series of short poems extolling the pastoral life, and neither contained a small wad of crumpled paper stuffed between the spine and its leather cover.

When at last he returned to his chamber, more sleepless hours were spent in consideration of the time he had spent earlier with the beautiful Widow Carstairs. Beautiful, yet seemingly unconscious of her loveliness. An unusual quality in a woman, he mused. Against his closed eyelids her image remained startlingly clear, stroking the laboring mare. Jenny, and crooning reassurances to her, unmindful of the lateness of the hour or the blood and animal sweat that stained her garments. And then, later, as she had sat across the small table from him in his chambers, a brandy glass cradled in her slim fingers, he had been drawn despite himself to the shining spirit that lay beneath the beauty.

It was only with her comfort in mind that he had poured her that enormous glass of brandy, but when in her fatigue she had begun to succumb so rapidly, becoming so very forthcoming in the process, it had been beyond his admittedly limited supply of scruples to refrain from taking advantage of the situation. At least, he thought virtuously, he had not attempted to take advantage of the widow.

His eyes took on a faraway look. What was he going to do about this utterly fascinating creature?

When, on his arrival in the village of Little Marshdean, he had learned that Ravencroft was in the possession of Carstairs’s widow, he had prepared to transfer all the loathing he felt for her husband to her. After all, was it not reasonable to assume that the person married to the monster must be a hard-eyed harridan with grasping tendons for hands and a heart of obsidian?

He had been entirely unprepared to find a small, determined person of serious mien, dressed in stable hands’ garb occupying the position of lady of the manor, and he had been equally startled at the vision into which she was later transformed. Jem reviewed the moment he had seen her descending the great staircase, dressed in a plain, rather shabby muslin gown, and bearing herself with the grace of a princess royal. Her hair had been caught into an obviously hurried knot atop her head, allowing lacy tendrils to fall about her cheek, and he had known an almost irresistible urge to stride to her and pull the shining fall from its constraint so that he could bury his face in it.

Jem shook his head dazedly. Good Lord, what was he thinking of? This woman was a lady, and not for dalliance. Moreover, she was the woman he was planning to evict from her home. He had spoken the truth to Jonah when he had assured the old man that Mrs. Carstairs would not have to live in penury, but the revelation of her deep love for Ravencroft had come as an unwelcome shock. She spoke of children. A new dynasty at Ravencroft?

The thought skittered through his mind, there was a method other than adoption that could provide Mrs. Carstairs with her squads of offspring, and such an effort could prove most pleasurable.

He flung his bedcovers aside and planted his feet firmly on the polished wooden floor. He was sorry for the Widow Carstairs, and in other circumstances would have set himself to the enjoyable task of consoling her in her sad straits. Things being as they were, however, he would simply see her on her way with a suitable stipend. He would be fair, but that’s as far as he was prepared to go. He was not a heartless man, but he had survived twelve years in the meanest of London streets by looking out for himself, assiduously and with great persistence, and he saw no reason to change his modus operandi at this time in his life.

Dispelling the memory of a cloud of disheveled golden hair, and warm caramel-colored eyes gazing at him from across the top of a brandy glass, he strode to a nearby commode where a pitcher of water and a basin awaited him.

Upstairs, Claudia greeted the day with somewhat less equanimity. Consciousness arrived slowly, and as she squinted at the sun slanting through her windows, she rolled over with a moan. After a few moments, having come to the decision that she really could not spend the rest of the day with her head stuffed beneath her pillow, she sat up and was immediately sorry she had done so. Pressing her fingers against her temples, she waited for the room to cease reverberating.

Abruptly, a horrified expression fell upon her features as memories of last evening flooded to her. Good Lord, had she really allowed herself to lounge about with her butler in his pantry in the dead of night? What in heaven’s name had possessed her to speak so to—to that man. He was her butler, for Lord’s sake. Not that that made any difference, of course. She was not in the habit of exchanging confidences with perfect strangers, after all. Come to think of it, it was her opinion that this particular stranger was far from perfect. If she were not very much mistaken, Mr. Jem January had been plying her with liquor.

But why? Had he designs on her virtue? She snorted. Enveloped in her stable boy rig, and covered with blood and horse sweat, she hardly presented the picture of a damsel ripe for seduction. There had been straw in her hair, and she was sure there was a definite whiff of manure clinging to her person.

Then, what
was
he after? Why had he come to Ravencroft? He had said he was competent to act as a footman, or a valet— or a butler. She had to admit that so far, aside from the very personal way in which he looked at her, he had slipped very easily into butlerhood. He had claimed to be a horseman, too, but he had shown his claims in that area were a lie within five minutes after he had begun ministering to Jenny. She smiled. His panic had been obvious, and she had expected him to flee ignominiously. But he hadn’t. He had stayed to help, and in doing so, he had saved Goblin’s life.

But she did not trust the man.

She finished dressing in an uneasy state of mind. Surely she had seen him somewhere before. Had he been among her husband’s acquaintances? No, she would not have forgotten had they met before. She chose not to consider the implications of this thought. It was not until she stood before her mirror, sweeping her hair into its usual bulky chignon that recognition flared in her mind. Flinging the comb down on her dressing table, she whirled and ran from the room.

She flew along the corridor and up a flight of stairs until she came to a door that opened to a room containing odds and ends of furniture that had been discarded by Emanuel because they did not fit his standards of what a country gentleman should display in his home. In one  stood several paintings, stacked against each other like a winter’s supply of firewood, and Claudia struggled to free one of them. Dragging it to the window, she stood staring at it in mute horror.

Wide-eyed and with heart beating in great, lurching thuds, Claudia studied the picture in her hands. It portrayed a slender, arrogant young man, dressed in the silks and laces of the previous century. It was not precisely a mirror image of Jem, but the resemblance was strong. Eyes of a peculiarly luminous gray were shadowed by hair black as evil. The portrait, she knew, was of the fifth Lord Glenraven, and she could only conclude that, judging from his style of clothing, he must be the grandfather of the man who currently resided in her butler’s quarters.

So, Jem January was in reality a Standish. Was he merely a relative of the family who had lived here? Or was he—? She recalled the familiarity with which he had prowled the child’s bedroom down the corridor from her own, and an icy finger curled within her.

She knew the previous owner of Ravencroft, Lord Glenraven, had sired only one son, and that the child had left with his mother and two sisters shortly after Emanuel had acquired the place.

“...
And after I offered her and her brats the opportunity to live here as long as they wished. She crept out of here like a
thief in the night—well, she was a thief, wasn’t she? Takin’ items that rightfully belonged t’ me... “

Claudia shivered as she recalled Emanuel’s words, spoken in pious indignation. From what little information she had been able to glean, Claudia strongly suspected that the still-beautiful Lady Glenraven had been hounded from her home by a man who insisted that in sharing his home, she would be sharing his bed as well. As for the “items,” which appeared promptly on a list that Emanuel kept by him until the day of his death, they apparently consisted of clothing and a few keepsakes.

Claudia returned to the portrait, and she stared transfixed at the gray eyes whose gaze seemed to lock with hers. Cold as a northern sea they were, and seeming to hold an unspoken threat.

Was the stranger truly Lord Glenraven? She paced the room thoughtfully. Her first instinct was to charge into the butler’s pantry, banners flying, to accuse the spurious servant to his face and to evict him peremptorily from the premises. Reflection served to alter her purpose. She had no real proof that the dark-haired stranger who had tried to fill her full of brandy last night was in truth the current Lord Glenraven. Even if he were, would she not be better off keeping him under observation? She must learn why he had come to Ravencroft in disguise.

She chewed her lip thoughtfully. Yes, that was odd indeed. Why come in disguise? If he wished to visit the old homestead, why not just knock at the front door and request entrance? No, the man had an ulterior motive, and the only one that she could think of was that he planned to take Ravencroft from her.

She clenched her fists. By God, he would not! Ravencroft was hers by right. She had the papers, and she had the law on her side. She would face him down no matter what his claim.

She shifted uneasily. Hers by right? She remembered other words Emanuel had spoken—phrases absently mouthed in drunken maunderings and bitten off as soon as they were uttered. She rose abruptly. No, she would not think about that. She must focus on the issue at hand, which was to keep Ravencroft as her home. My God, where else would she go? She could not return to her parents’ home where she would in all probability be forced into another distasteful marriage by her ne’er-do-well-father, while her mother stood in the background wringing her hands ineffectually.

Nor could she make her home with Rose and her husband. Thomas seemed to have his own agenda for her, equally unappealing.

No, Emanuel had willed Ravencroft to her. It was the one thing he had done in all their married life to stand her in good stead. She stiffened, and a smile hard as iron curved her mouth. If my Lord Glenraven had designs on Ravencroft, he would be in for the war of his life. One, moreover, he had no hope of winning. With a rustle of her skirts, which sounded in her ears like a clarion call to battle, she turned to leave the room, glancing once more at the portrait of Lord Glenraven. Smiling serenely into the cold, gray eyes, she gestured a small salute before closing the door firmly behind her.

Descending to the lower regions of the house, she hurried first out to the stables. Jenny and her colt were still in the birthing barn, and Claudia watched mother and son in bemused delight.

“A beautiful sight, aren’t they?” She whirled to face Jem and Jonah, just entering the building. Jem was dressed in work clothes and boots, and carried a pitchfork in his hand.

“I didn’t think you needed a full-time butler,” said Jem in response to her lifted brows. “So I thought I’d spend the morning hours out here. If that’s all right with you, ma’am,” he added respectfully, fingers touching the brim of his shabby cap. There was no hint in his eyes of remembered intimacy.

Claudia nodded coolly. “Yes, I think that’s a good idea. We rarely receive guests until the afternoon. Well,” she amended, “we rarely have guests at all. In fact, January”—with an effort, she forced her voice to a calm courtesy she did not feel— “I would prefer you to confine the major portion of your duties to the stables. I feel you will be of much more use here.”

Was that a flash of disappointment she caught in his eyes?

“Of course, ma’am. Do you still wish me to serve at dinner?”

“Of course.” She most definitely did not, but the man had to come into the house sometime, she supposed. If nothing else, Aunt Gussie would insist on it. “And,” she continued, “when my sister and her husband arrive in a few days, we will need you in the house all the time.”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Jem, with a bow, he turned to the task at hand.

Whew! he thought, exchanging a glance with Jonah. The widow was certainly coming over all lady of the manor this morning. Last night’s tentative rapport had apparently evaporated at some time during the dark reaches of the night. He sighed. Back to the stables, eh? Actually, if it weren’t for his desire to broaden his search for the “rural” book, he wouldn’t mind maintaining his status as a stable hand. He rather enjoyed the mindless but energy-consuming tasks he’d been set to as providing a sort of lull before the storm. It would be soon enough that his heart and mind would be set to an altogether different sort of task. It was fortunate, he concluded, that his quarters were in the main house. He would have to use the midnight hours to continue his search.

He watched the widow in conversation with Jonah, struck again by the luminous beauty that clung to her like a casually worn cloak. She was a widow—had been a wife—yet, there was something rather touchingly virginal about her, as though her spirit had remained untouched by whatever carnal demands her husband had inflicted on her.