Slapping the branch of candles down on the table, he raked his hair severely with both hands, as though he meant to keep his brain from bursting. Then snuffing the candles out with the palm of his hand, he stormed out of the wine cellar and bounded up the back stairs and into the servants’ hall corridor. Cook and Mrs. Laity were alone in the kitchen when he burst into the room.
“Bloody hell!” he thundered. “Where is she? Don’t dare presume to tell me that you do not know, Mrs. Laity, or I will call you a liar!”
Cook dropped the dish she was washing on the floor, where it smashed to pieces, and stood with the suds sliding down her plump arms. Mrs. Laity’s heavy bosom had begun to tremble as Drake strode closer with a crashing disregard for the furniture in his way. His eyes oscillated between them. Oh, yes. The look on their faces alone damned the pair of them.
“Well?
Speak
, or, bigod, you can both collect your wages. Where is Lady Ahern?”
“I… we…” the housekeeper stammered.
“Come, come, I know she’s gathering herbs. I’ve seen your little secret in the wine cellar. Is there no one in this house that I can trust? Where… is… she? I warn you, I shan’t ask you again as employees on Drake’s Lair.”
“I don’t rightly know for certain, my lord,” Mrs. Laity said defiantly, squaring her posture. “I believe she’s gone to the east woods after the peppermint for my indigestion.”
Drake stared, breathing through flared nostrils. The blood was pounding in his brain, and his heart was thudding wildly against his white lawn shirt and gray brocade waistcoat. The little witch had gone beyond the beyond this time. How dared she disobey him—deliberately abuse his hospitality—defy him right under his very nose?
He didn’t speak—couldn’t speak. For a moment, raw passion wouldn’t let him take a step one way or the other. It was as though rage had nailed him to the kitchen floor.
“Begging your pardon, but the little miss is
not
the Lady Eva, my lord,” Mrs. Laity said, somewhat less than steadily. “This isn’t like five years ago, and I’ll not let you hurt her for loving what grows in the ground, and doing something fine for us folks who need it. You’ll have to do to me first, and you can sack me over saying it if you want.”
Drake stared at her, scarcely believing what he’d just heard come out of her normally respectful mouth. It was too much. She’d gone too far. Fists clenched, he took a ragged step toward her. Though her posture clenched, she didn’t back away. Rage misted his eyes with tears, and he lunged, but not at her. Instead, he launched his rigid arm, sweeping the table clean of pots and kettles and dishes in one mighty swing of his white-knuckled fist.
“
Damn you
for that!” he snarled. And spinning on his heels, he streaked from the room.
*
Melly had just started to glean toward the meadow, when she turned at the thunderous sound of hoof beats. The earl was bearing down upon her astride the sleek black Andalusian bareback. Her knees began to tremble. She’d been found out, and the heat of his rage scorched her where she stood.
He slid off the horse and reached her in two strides. The hand that grabbed the basket from her was no more than a blur as he flung its contents into the wind. Horrorstruck, she watched her day’s labor sift down—greens, flowering herbs,
tussie-mussies
, all taken by the wind, falling like rain over their heads. She stood speechless as he stomped them into the earth—basket and all—with his polished tasseled Hessians.
Moisture glistened in his flared nostrils, his face was blotched with red, and his hooded eyes, dilated black, were drawn beneath the ledge of his brow. He looked like a fire-breathing dragon advancing on her, and she uttered a strangled gasp attempting to run, but his quick hands grabbed her arms and spun her around to face him.
“How dare you disobey me?” he gritted through clenched teeth. He shook her. “How dare you take advantage of my hospitality—flaunt your flagrant disregard for my wishes? What do you mean, turning my wine cellar into a… a herbarium behind my back?”
“I have harmed nothing,” she snapped, struggling to break free, “I’ve only rescued a few innocent plants that you would destroy for no reason save meanness. And, though you rant and rave—wear your groundskeepers to a raveling—you shan’t ever destroy the whole lot you know, not unless you burn off the entire estate—woods and all. That is absurd.
You
are absurd! There are millions of botanicals on this land. Two others will spring up next Season for every one I’ve just plucked. This land is more prolific than any I have ever seen.” He showed no signs of releasing her, and she struggled more fiercely then, giving his shins a fierce drubbing with the useless toe of her Morocco leather slipper, wishing she had her heavy ankle boots instead. “Let me go, you’re hurting me!” she shrilled.
“Herb gathering is not permitted,” he pronounced unequivocally, shaking her again. “You
know
it is not permitted. You knew that from the start!”
“Why? What harm to glean a few weeds that will help someone? I want you to give me a reason. You should see yourself—all over a handful of plants. I believe you’re mad!”
“Because I do not wish it; that is reason enough.”
“You brought me here at a disadvantage, and I may as well be a prisoner.”
“You are not a prisoner. You may come and go as you please.”
“How, my lord? You offer for my land, and then run off and leave me without anything begun—
twice
. I have
nothing
, nowhere else to go which you yourself pointed out, and no money until you honor our bargain. You seem not to have a care for that, jaunting off on holiday.”
“Unfortunately, that could not be helped, I—”
“Meanwhile,” she went on with raised voice, “I’m beholden to you for my meals and my clothes and the roof over my head. I do not wish to wear the countess’s castoff clothes. I want to wear clothes of my own choosing under my own roof, where I can fulfill my dream of constructing a proper herbarium—not some makeshift, begrudged corner of a dungeon. You’ve wasted time—
my
time—time that is precious to me. How can you stand there and say that I am not your prisoner? It matters not if I am here, or elsewhere. I have no means to make my way but this. This is who I am. This is what I do. Maybe it is not what society meant for me, but society cast me out, and I am proud of the way I’ve made for myself in my abandonment. You knew that when you brought me here—you knew it when first we met.” She waved her arm wildly toward the flowering plants at the edge of the wood, and cried, “The next flaw will likely take the rest of them. What possible harm can come from saving the few that have escaped this last one?”
“You may do what you please elsewhere, but not here—not on Drake’s Lair—never again on Drake’s Lair. Am I making myself plain?”
She gazed up into riveting eyes dilated black with rage. He hadn’t let her go. Even stooping he towered over her. His closeness was unbearable, his scent, all around her, making her dizzy, tampering with her reason, sparking that icy-hot fluttering inside. She had fantasized being in those strong arms again, but not like this. He was fearsome, yes, white-lipped, unbending, and shaking with passion, but she wasn’t afraid. She was angry.
“No, my lord, you are not making yourself plain,” she sallied. “Your own wife kept herbs. I know, because my cousin taught her the art. Cousin Calliope never told me, Bessie Terrill did when Mr. Ellery drove me ‘round to view what’s left of my home, during the first leg of your holiday, and Bessie’s word is sacrosanct. Calliope Dane instructed the countess—even gave her books. Did you know that? No, I can tell by your expression that you did not. What do you country aristocrats do? Are you so self-indulged, so immersed in your own separate pursuits that one marriage partner doesn’t know what the other is about? Was it boredom or neglect that drove the countess to herb gathering, Lord Shelldrake?”
He seemed like a statue glaring down, his dark stare deadly, and though he didn’t let her go, the pressure of his grip on her arms lessened. His rapid heartbeat moved his waistcoat visibly. He let one of her arms go then, raked his hair back, and dropped his hand to his side, the fingers flexing in and out of a white-knuckled fist. He hesitated, and for a split second she thought he was about to strike her with his broad, open palm. She would not give him the satisfaction of her fear, though her breath caught in anticipation of an imminent blow. But he did not strike out. His posture expanded, the fist clenched again, and he pounded his rigid thigh instead.
“You are not to gather herbs on Drake’s Lair again,” he said gravel-voiced.
“You allowed your wife, my lord. How is it that I may not? What have you got against me? Hah! Bother that. What have you got against the
herbs
that your wife so enjoyed?”
It was a long moment before he put her from him roughly and raked his hair again, with both trembling hands. He had put a few feet of distance between them, but there was scant comfort in that the way he paced stiff-legged before her, taking long, ragged strides. Then all at once he stopped in his tracks and faced her. His eyes were hooded and cold.
“They
killed
her,” he thundered. Then kicking the wounded basket a vicious blow with the toe of his boot, he spun on his heels, leaped on the bare back of the Andalusian stallion, and galloped off in a shower of churned-up sod and pollen spores, coattails flying.
Twelve
Melly refused to go down to dinner. She had Zoe brush the remains of the herbal wreath from her ringlets, and fill the hipbath. She climbed into it exhausted, not from the herb gathering, from her volatile confrontation with the earl. After a thorough soaking in the silky lavender scented water, she let the abigail help her into another of the countess’s nightdresses. It was of the palest peach silk, an even finer, more revealing gown than the blue. It did—thank the stars—have a matching wrapper, which she put on as well for the sake of modesty.
She was riddled with conflicting emotions. Every instinct in her told her to run, but where? If she’d had a halfpenny, she never would have come back to the house that afternoon. No one in her right mind would put up with such treatment. But she wasn’t exactly in her right mind. She’d come to that conclusion, when all she was thinking of while he was apparently about to strike her down was his embrace. Madness. There was no other explanation. But if she were mad, he must be also—driven mad by heartbreak. What had he meant—herbs had killed the countess? That made no more sense than her feelings for the man, feelings that brought jealousy to the surface each time she stole into the library to view the countess’s portrait, each time she looked at herself in the cheval glass in one of the woman’s costumes, each time she felt the caress of one of her exquisite nightdresses next to her skin, reminding her how far she’d fallen short.
Being jealous of a ghost was surely madness, but that ghost was more alive to him than she was—than she could ever be. There was no hope for it. His grief was inconsolable, his love for his beloved Eva, eternal, while she meant nothing to him, that was painfully evident. He had very nearly struck her down. What stopped him? Certainly not any feelings she secretly hoped he harbored for her. More likely, fear that in his rage he might do murder and wouldn’t be able to get his hands upon her land until it went up for public auction. But then, he certainly wasn’t in any hurry for that, the way he jaunted off on holiday without even bothering to collect the signed contract.
The man was an enigma. She’d come to the conclusion that he was also dangerous. He could well have been the one at her door, the one hiding behind the draperies in her sitting room as well. Rosen’s words kept coming back to haunt her:
You have an enemy… one who is not what he seems… he has a secret… there is danger… much danger
…
That, at least, was the truth. She had been in danger that afternoon; there was no disputing it, and he certainly wasn’t what he seemed. The rest was a muddle. Had she discovered his secret? Not entirely. He’d only whetted her appetite. She wanted to delve deeper into that, wondered if she should. What was she thinking? She had to put as much distance between herself and the Earl of Shelldrake as swiftly as was humanly possible… but not tonight. Tomorrow, in the daylight, she would throw herself upon the mercy of the Tinkers.
Zoe had brought up a tray earlier, but she wasn’t hungry, and when the abigail returned it to the kitchen untouched, Mrs. Laity waddled up the staircase like a juggernaut.
“What ails you, Miss Melly?” she said, rushing in on the abigail’s heels. “He didn’t hurt you did he? He was half off his head when he went looking for you.”
“No,” she replied on a sigh. “He remembered himself just short of that, thank the stars—
just
short.”
“I don’t know when I’ve seen him this bad,” the housekeeper said, clicking her tongue. “Why, he broke half the dishes in the kitchen you know, after he found our little secret in the wine cellar. I thought sure he’d snapped his twig. I haven’t seen him go off like that since—”
“Since five years ago?” Melly concluded dismally.
“Yes, miss,” Mrs. Laity murmured.
“He said something quite… shocking out there,” Melly mused. “When I asked him what he had against the herbs on Drake’s Lair, considering that the countess gathered them also… he said that they…
killed her
. I found that to be a curious remark—shocking even. Whatever did he mean?”
“You’re going to have to take that up with him, Miss Melly,” she said. “It isn’t my place—”
“No, no,” Melly cried, holding up her hand. The woman’s face had drained ash-white all of a sudden, and her twitching lips were tinged with blue. “Take ease, I shan’t put you on the spot. I was just thinking out loud in any case. Besides, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to be here long enough to puzzle it out. I’m leaving in the morning, and quite frankly it isn’t all that important.”
“It’s just… I daren’t go against him, miss—not even for you.”
“I can certainly appreciate that, after he showed his colors to me this afternoon. I don’t blame you. He must have loved her very greatly to have nursed such a madness for five years, through war and wounds and the stars alone know what horrors.”