Anne Barbour (2 page)

“As if you need to ask such a question, Mr. David!”

The words were spoken in warm feminine tones, and David turned to discover that Westerly’s housekeeper, Mrs. Seagrave had entered the room. Evidently she had been warned of his present disability, for she waved a minatory finger as he struggled to rise.

“And you’ll stay just where you are, if you please.” She paused to give him a measuring look. “It’s about time you came home, young sir. You look like a death’s head on a mop stick, if I do say so, but we’ll have you all right and tight in no time. Cook has been baking since word came yesterday that you’d be arriving soon, so you’ll have fresh scones for tea.”

David’s dark eyes lit with laughter.

“Ah, Siggy, you have not forgotten my addiction! Come here then, please, so I may greet you properly.”

The housekeeper bent to receive a hug and a hearty kiss on the cheek. Mrs. Seagrave let her hand rest a moment on the shaggy head, then turned, her eyes bright. She bobbed a curtsy to Lucius.

“If you’ll follow me, sir, I’ll show you to your room.”

“Yes, but...” His eyes were still on David. “You’ll need help getting to your own room. Shall I...?”

“No.” David waved his hand. “Thanks, but I believe I’ll just sit here for a moment, and then make my own way. Really,” he added, as his friend hesitated. “I shall do very well now that I am not being shaken from stem to stern over every boulder and pothole in the county. I would like to walk for a bit before I go upstairs.”

“That doesn’t seem like ... Oh, very well,” Lucius concluded, recognizing only too well the thrust of that very determined jaw.

After the group had left the saloon, David sat in silence and looked about him. At last he sank back into the settee and closed his eyes wearily, remembering the last time he had been in this room. His stepmother, Regina, Countess of Falworth had stood at that window over there, and it seemed as though her words still echoed from the walls, settling as they had six years ago, in the pit of his stomach where they churned in a maelstrom of humiliation and rage.

“I’ve stood this long enough, Thomas. How many other women would have allowed the presence of her husband’s by-blow in such close proximity for so many years? Is the boy to remain here forever, leeching off an estate that can barely maintain itself as it is?”

The tirade had continued at some length, but David, now sickened anew, closed his mind to the painful memory and rose from the settee. He limped from the room and crossed the entrance hall, fleeing toward the rear of the house and out to the stables.

“Mr. Davey!” The head groom hurried across the stable yard. “I couldn’t believe it when they said you was here. Lord, but it’s good to see you, sir.”

David stared at the grizzled form before him.

“Moody! Josiah Moody!” He enveloped the man in a fierce hug. “Are you still here, you old reprobate? Good God, you haven’t aged a hair!”

“Go along with ye now, Mr. Davey. I’m gettin’ by, don’t ye know?”

The two chattered for several minutes, reliving old times that David had not allowed himself to think of for an eternity.

“And do ye mind the time,” Moody said, “when Miss Kate’s cat had her kittens in the stable, almost beneath the feet of his lordship’s stallion? And do ye think we could keep her... ?”

David stiffened, and a sick feeling settled in his stomach.

“Where is little Kate?” he asked hesitantly. “I haven’t seen her.”

Moody seemed taken aback.

“Little Kate? Well, I guess I wouldn’t be knowin’ that, Mr. Davey. She took her mare out some two hours gone. Wouldn’t hear of takin’ a groom with her, o’ course.”

“I wonder...” mused David, a faraway look in his eyes. His desire to see his old playmate overcame the dread he felt at what he must tell her. “Do you have a mount available for me, Moody?”

“Well, of course, sir, but... ?” he trailed off, his glance straying dubiously to David’s lame leg.

“I do all right on a horse, as long as I don’t try any steeple-chasing. I’ll need a leg up, but then I can manage.”

The pain was bad, but, David assured himself, manageable when he cantered out of the stable yard a few minutes later. He made his way slowly toward where the sun’s rays gleamed low in the sky. What would be Kate’s reaction on seeing him, he wondered idly. She had certainly been in the devil’s own temper at their last encounter. He could not even remember the childish slight he must have inflicted on her to inspire her anger, but she had raged at him like a young virago, hurling her spite at his head. And she had gotten to him. Even then, she had known how to use words as a weapon, and she had made him furious. He, a wholly mature, superior eighteen-year-old! He had been tempted to take her over his knee and give her the paddling she so richly deserved, but he had been hurt beyond childish retribution. He had simply swung away from her, and had not spoken to her again before he left.

He smiled, remembering the stiff little notes tacked onto Father’s letters to him. She had obviously been trying to apologize without letting her uncle know that she’d called him an “overbearing toad”—among other things.

He allowed his glance to roam over the gently rolling land of the Home Farm, and his throat tightened. He’d thought never to see the fields and coverts of Westerly again. Now that he was here, the sight was almost more than he could bear. Why had he been cursed with such an abiding love for this piece of earth? He, who had no place here and no right to cherish it.

His attention was caught by a grain field in the distance, its growth only half what it should have been. It looked as though it had not been fertilized for several years. As he rode, he noticed other signs of neglect—-tenants’ houses in poor repair, woodlots in disarray. He should not have been surprised, he mused ruefully. Even when Father had ruled here in good health, the estate had not been productive. The earl readily admitted he had no head for management. Nor, apparently had he a talent for hiring others to manage for him. Pettigrew, the bailiff, was a good man, but not forceful in persuading Lord Falworth to spend money on land improvement, which he preferred to spend on gambling, horses, and all the other essentials to the life of a gentleman.

He crested a craggy hill. He was far out of sight of the manor house now, and, ignoring the smooth slope that fell to a meadow on the other side, he turned into a tangled little ravine that dropped precipitously to a rocky mound overlooking the River Avon, shining in the distance. He saw no one, and disappointed, began to turn back. He had gone only a few yards when an odd sound caught his ear. It was the chink of metal colliding with stone and earth. Someone digging? Reversing course, he moved cautiously past an outcropping of rock, and there he saw a little mare tethered. Beyond, the chinking sound continued.

“Hello?” he called.

The sound stopped abruptly, and phased into a clatter of skittering pebbles. A small, grimy hand appeared over another outcropping, followed by a cloud of fiery red hair and a pair of enormous hazel eyes.

“Oh dear,” cried the owner of the flaming mane. “I did not realize it was so late. Aunt will be furious that she had to send someone ...Oh!”

Having clambered into full view, the girl stopped and lifted a slender hand to shade her eyes from the sun glaring on the horizon. She pushed her hair back from her forehead, and so flamboyant was its color that one might have expected sparks to fly as a result.

“Who ...?” she murmured uncertainly. Then ... “David?”

David sat motionless as a wave of apprehension washed over him. The moment he had looked forward to for so long with a mixture of longing and dread had arrived.

For a moment, Kate Millbank stood still while the world rocked about her. How many hours, she reflected wildly, had she spent curled on this sunny knoll, dreaming of his return— reliving memories—and now—right before her...

But what was he doing here? He was not expected until tomorrow, Aunt Regina had said. Kate recalled the displeasure on her ladyship’s thin face as she had called her into the crimson saloon earlier this morning.

“It’s David,” she had announced abruptly, waving a note that had evidently just been handed to her.

At the sound of her cousin’s name, Kate’s hand had flown to her throat, and she lowered her eyes to hide the gladness she knew must shine there.

“David?” she echoed blankly. “But, I thought...”

“Yes,” replied her aunt in a voice of controlled irritation. “It came as a surprise to me, too. I had thought him tucked snugly away in that little village in Kent, sponging on his friend.”

“Wrotham,” said Kate, her voice brittle. “He is recuperating in Wrotham at the home of a man who owes him a great deal.”

“Yes, yes.” Her ladyship broke in impatiently. “I have heard quite enough of his gallantry at Toulouse and how he was wounded in the hip—or leg, or whatever—saving his friend’s life, and all that.”

“But he could have been killed!” Kate cried.

Lady Falworth’s penciled brows rose.

“That would have been unfortunate, of course, but you must remember, my dear, that David is no longer considered part of the family.” She continued hurriedly, observing the tightening of Kate’s mouth. “It was to be expected, of course, that he would leap at Thomas’s invitation to come ho—to Westerly.

He’s always been obsessed with the place. I wonder if he knew of Thomas’s paralytic stroke when he decided to scurry back.”

Kate stared at her aunt in growing wrath.

“Are you implying that David is coming home in order to take advantage somehow of Uncle Thomas’s illness?”

“Of course not,” replied her ladyship calmly. “What could he hope to gain? David was informed long ago that he can expect nothing more from your uncle. What is left of the estate resources must be husbanded for the heir to the title. Lawrence has little enough to look forward to as it is.”

Kate struggled for composure, repressing the urge to scream her anger at the countess. For perhaps the thousandth time, she tried to understand Lady Falworth’s enmity toward David Merritt. Perhaps it was not to be expected that she would accept the presence of her husband’s by-blow in her home with any degree of equanimity, but merry, dark-eyed David had never wished harm to anyone. He had not asked to be born a bastard. It was Uncle Thomas who had decided to raise him here at Westerly—and that was long before Aunt Regina had come to reign as the Countess of Falworth.

Her ladyship was speaking again.

“I, of course, cannot be expected to make the necessary preparations. You will have to take care of getting his room ready, and you will have to find a manservant for him. I suppose he will need someone to care for him. I gather that he cannot manage for himself yet.”

“It is possible, Aunt Regina,” Kate replied calmly, “that David will bring his own servant. He is a major in the army, after all, and not a pauper. As for caring for him, I shall be glad to do that myself.”

Lady Falworth’s narrow features sharpened in displeasure.

“That would be unseemly,” she said, clipping her words.

“Unseemly! But, I have known David all my life. He was like a—” she choked suddenly, remembering—”a brother.”

The older woman lifted her hand in an impatient gesture.

“Yes. You and David and Philip were close, too close I always thought. However, just because David was with Philip when he was killed, I fail to see why we should grant him any special attention. We will find someone besides yourself to nurse him. I must go to your uncle now—he becomes restless when I am gone from him for long.”

Kate stood aside, biting back the angry words that sprang to her lips, as Lady Falworth swept from the room. She turned to the fire and stood staring into the flames for some moments.

David. Coming home. His image had stayed with her all these years, but she had thought never to see him again. Certainly, he had seemed relieved to depart Westerly. Why, the last time she’d seen him... Dear God, the last time she’d seen him, his eyes had been filled with anger and pain—all directed at her.

Now, returned to the present, she straightened, thrusting the unpleasant memory from her mind. The important thing was that he was home. She leaned the shovel she carried against the outcropping and was surprised to note that her hand trembled. She drew a deep breath, then plunged over the rocks toward him. But, why did he not dismount? Why did he remain astride his horse, with that strange expression on his face?

She stopped suddenly, her hand flying to her mouth. He still remembered! He remembered and had not forgiven her for her inexcusable outburst. Her heart sank to the soles of her scuffed walking boots, and she pushed her hair back with a self-conscious gesture. Her steps slowed and then, seeing David’s outstretched hand, she lifted her own to be enveloped in his warm clasp.

Chapter Two

“Kate!” David cried. “Little Kate, indeed.” How stupid of him. Of course, she would not have stayed forever the wild, independent child he had held in his heart all these years, an image crystallized by affection. Little Kate had grown into a splendidly beautiful young woman! The setting sun caught her in its brilliance, highlighting her delicate features and outlining curves that had matured to lissome fullness. Her hair was a fiery halo.

“Please forgive me,” he continued a trifle breathlessly, “for greeting you like this. As you may have heard, I suffered a slight, er, indisposition during the late fracas in Spain, and now the only way I can dismount a horse is to simply fall off. Then it takes a helpful passerby or two to reinstate me in the saddle.”

He had maintained his hold on her hand, but now released it. Kate hastily thrust it behind her, blushing like a schoolgirl, her heart pounding jubilantly. There had been laughter in his voice, and a smile in his eyes—he had forgiven her! A weight that had burdened her for six years melted in the warmth of his gaze.

“Oh, David,” she cried, “I was so sorry to hear of your wound. Are you recovering?”

He had shifted his position slightly, and now she could see his face clearly in the sunlight. She almost gasped as the horror of his appearance struck her. Dear Lord, was this really David? The smooth-faced, smiling boy she had known had been transformed to a gaunt, harsh-featured, infinitely weary man.