She grabbed his hand. “Don’t,” she said, her voice cracking.
The tears stung her throat. “I can’t bear it.”
Henry was watching her, his dark gaze steady and impassive.
Suddenly she did not want him to see her feelings; he would judge it a weakness
to show such emotion. For Henry, everything came back to duty, not love. She
turned her face away, trying to hide from him.
Her grandfather squeezed her hand gently. “I hope to be with
you a good while yet, Margery, but one must make plans,” he said. “Now, the
terms of your inheritance of Templemore are that your fortune remains in trust
until you are thirty years of age or until you wed.”
“How typical,” Margery said, so incensed that she forgot to be
upset. “I suppose that is because I am a female? I cannot be expected to manage
the estate before I attain a vast age or before my husband takes it all in
marriage!”
“It was indeed thoughtless of your great-great-grandfather to
set up such a stipulation,” Henry murmured, leaning back in his chair and
crossing his elegantly booted legs at the ankle. “But I believe he had no sons
and three very unruly daughters.” His dark gaze mocked her. “Perhaps that is
where you have inherited your character from, Lady Marguerite.”
“One does not have to look far to see where yours derives
from!” Margery snapped back.
“I have appointed Henry as your trustee alongside Mr.
Churchward,” the earl continued, unperturbed. “He will take on the role of
guardian—”
“Guardian!” All the pent-up frustration within Margery
exploded. “I don’t need a guardian,” she said. “I may not be thirty years old
but I am not a child!” Her gaze picked Henry out and accused him. “You knew
about this!”
“I did not,” Henry said. He was frowning now. He drove his
hands into the pockets of his coat, spoiling the beautiful line. His eyes lifted
to hers. “I can think of nothing I would like less than to be your guardian,
Lady Marguerite.”
“Of course you can,” Margery said sweetly, the anger and
resentment fizzing inside her. “You would abhor to be my husband!”
They stared at one another while the air between them hummed
and crackled with antagonism.
“I was about to say guardian of the estate,” the earl said
calmly. He looked at Margery over the top of his glasses. “In the event of my
death, Henry and Mr. Churchward will advise you on the running of Templemore,
Margery. It is Churchward who will act as your treasurer.”
Margery jumped to her feet. “I suppose I have no say in this at
all,” she said. “I’m no more than a pawn. I had more freedom when I was a lady’s
maid.”
With one swing of her hand she sent the chessmen tumbling from
the table. They rolled across the floor to clatter against the skirting board.
Tears stung her eyes and swelled her throat. She was furious with her
grandfather. She already loved him so dearly that she could not bear to lose
him. Yet it was intolerable to be treated like this, as though she was of no
account.
First there was Lady Wardeaux, dressing her like a doll,
telling her how to behave, and now her grandfather and Henry and Mr. Churchward,
drawing up settlements and trusteeships and parceling out her life as though she
had no mind of her own.
The angry beat of her blood was in her ears. Her head sang with
the effort of repressing her fury. She stalked from the room and along the West
Passage, the soft tap of her slippers on the tiled floor of the hall echoing to
the dome in the roof and back. She had no notion where she was going, only that
she had to get out of this stifling old mausoleum before she ran quite mad.
“Lady Marguerite!”
She heard Henry’s voice behind her and the echo of his boots on
the floor. She did not turn. The last thing she wanted was to listen to Henry
preaching her duty to her. It was no wonder that her mama had run away if she
had had to bear so much interference in her life. Suddenly the idea of running
off with a notorious scoundrel seemed positively appealing.
She picked up speed. So did Henry. She could hear him getting
closer, his long strides eating up the distance between them. He seized her arm
from behind and whirled her around. Margery caught her breath. His face was set
and hard and he held her wrist tightly as though he thought she was about to run
away.
“Your grandfather is doing this because he loves you,” Henry
said. “He wants to protect you.”
“He is going about it quite the wrong way,” Margery said.
“He always does.” Henry dropped her arm. “That does not mean
that he does not care for you.”
Margery rubbed her wrist where he had held her. She noticed
with detached interest that she was shaking.
“I can allow that Grandpapa may have honorable motives,” she
said. “But what about you, Lord Wardeaux? Would you be my trustee so that you
can regain control over Templemore? Is that what prompted you to agree to his
plans?”
She saw Henry go very still. “I accepted Lord Templemore’s
charge out of duty, Lady Marguerite,” he said very quietly. “Don’t ever insult
me like that again. If you do I promise I shall not be a gentleman about
it.”
Margery’s anger was acting on her like wine. She felt dizzy,
out of control, drunk with frustration and fury. All the feelings she had
repressed in her grandfather’s presence came bubbling up and there was no
stopping them.
“I do not see that my suspicions are so misplaced,” she said.
“I know that you must resent my coming here and taking Templemore from you!”
“That,” Henry said, “is not true. I never resented you.”
“You must have done,” Margery said. “It would be unnatural not
to. Why do you never speak of how you feel?”
Henry made a sharp movement and she flinched. “Because it makes
no difference how I feel,” he said. His voice was still level, betraying
nothing. “Templemore is yours now. Nothing changes that. How I feel does not
matter. My role is to fulfill your grandfather’s commission and protect his
heir. You.”
“It seems to me that asking you to be my guardian would be like
setting a fox to protect the chickens!” Margery burst out.
She knew she had gone too far as soon as the words were out.
She wished she could take them back now, because she did not mean them for one
moment. But it was too late. The atmosphere in the hall had changed. It had
cooled, hardened. They were on the edge of something dangerous and one small
step would push them over. She felt frightened. She wanted to run.
“What do you mean by that?” Henry asked very softly.
“Nothing!” Margery said. She could feel her heart beating a
suffocating pulse in her throat.
“You implied that you are not safe with me, that I might be a
danger to you because I want Templemore back,” Henry said.
Margery could not look away from the compelling darkness in his
eyes.
“I’m sorry—” she started to say, but he shook his head.
He put a hand about her waist and pulled her hard against his
body. His frame was taut with fury and his eyes blazed. “That is not the danger
that you are in from me,” he said.
All the emotion that had burned between them since he had
walked into her life blazed into vivid being. Margery could feel the elemental
anger in him, all the more frightening because it was held under such absolute
control. For one long, heart-stopping moment he looked down into her eyes. Then
he started to lower his head.
“Don’t you dare—” Margery began. Her heart was beating so
violently against her bodice that she could feel the batter if it through her
entire body.
“I do,” Henry said. “I do dare.”
He covered her mouth with his. The touch of his lips instantly
obliterated everything except sensation. There was the stunning shock and
pleasure of gaining what she knew she wanted, the sense of rightness, the
consuming need that made a mockery of her defiance. She could feel the hunger in
him and something that felt almost like desperation. It was a match for
hers.
There was a raw edge of anger in him, too, and it elated her.
Henry seldom showed emotion and she felt a wicked pleasure in driving him to
this. She gasped and opened her lips to his, and felt the fury in the kiss
transmute almost immediately into sweetness.
She drove one hand into his hair so that she could pull him
closer and for long moments she lost herself in him, careless that they might be
seen. She was far, far beyond anything she understood or could control. She was
swept by a desire that became more familiar and more demanding each time Henry
touched her. She only knew that she wanted him and that the need was so acute it
hurt.
Then he let her go so abruptly she almost fell.
“Don’t ever doubt me again,” he said abruptly and this time he
was the one who turned and walked away.
* * *
M
ARGERY
STOOD
BY
HER
bedroom window watching the moon
chase patterns across the lawns. Her window was open, letting in the cool night
air. Somewhere away in the woods a deer barked in sharp alarm. The wind was
rising, tossing the shadows of the lime trees across the grass and ruffling the
surface of the lake.
With a sigh, Margery let the curtain fall and curled up on the
cushioned window seat. Her toes were cold and she tucked them under the hem of
her nightgown. The huge bedroom was lit by a roaring fire and looked cozy and
welcoming, but still she shivered.
The house was quiet. Margery remembered the chatter and
camaraderie of the servants’ hall, the yawning as they all made their way to
bed, the ache in her bones. Sometimes she had been weary to her soul but she had
felt more alive, more a part of something than she did here. At Templemore she
was lonely and more than a little lost. The size of Templemore still daunted
her.
She fell asleep dozing over
The Old
English Baron
and her dreams were filled with ruined castles and
ghosts. She woke to the sound of the dog barking and a hammering at the door,
and for a moment the noise, the heat and the tangle of her bedclothes formed a
nightmarish prison from which she could not escape. Then she came awake with a
violent start.
Her bed curtains were on fire, the flames leaping toward the
ceiling, the whole of the wooden four-poster creaking and groaning like a
foundering ship. The spaniel was already by the door, barking urgently.
With a scream Margery leapt from the bed, ran to the dressing
room and grabbed the ewer of water on the stand there. She hurled it over the
bed and in the same moment the door of her room burst open and Henry erupted
through it, Chessie and several of the servants hot on his heels.
He grabbed Margery and pulled her clear of the smoldering ruin
of the bed while Chessie, with enormous presence of mind, beat out the remaining
flames with Margery’s dressing robe. Henry pulled her close to him, swearing, a
thing that she had imagined he would never do, and there was raw fury and
something else, something far more disturbing, in his voice and in his
touch.
“Of all the
stupid,
irresponsible
and downright dangerous things!” Henry’s arms were about her and Margery could
feel him shaking with rage. His eyes were black with it.
“I don’t think you should be so rude,” Margery said. “After all
I put it out myself.”
“After starting it yourself!” Henry’s gaze went to the candle,
tumbled on the floor, and from there to the book, lying half-open on the table
by the bed, its pages charred and blackened now. “God Almighty, you could have
burned the house down and yourself with it!”
Margery was starting to shake now, too. The acrid smoke from
the burnt draperies filled her throat. Her eyes smarted with smoke and tears.
And still Henry held her with arms as tight as steel bands. She could feel the
fury elemental in him but somehow she knew instinctively that it was anger born
of fear for her. Her hands were pressed against the silk of his dressing robe
and she could feel the heat of him through the thin material and feel, too, his
heart racing against her palm.
For one brief moment his cheek rested against hers and she
breathed in the scent of his skin and felt the tumult of emotion in him. Then he
loosed her and she stepped back, very aware of her hair tumbled about her
shoulders and the thinness of her cotton nightgown. She felt an acute sense of
loss without his warmth and his touch.
Lady Wardeaux was hurrying forward with a blanket, more to
cover her up respectably than give her comfort, Margery thought. Edith had gone
to heat some milk for her and everyone else was talking at once. Lady Emily,
white and frightened, was twisting her fingers anxiously in her shawl.
“How could this happen?” she was asking of no one in
particular. For once, the tarot cards did not appear to have furnished her with
an answer.
“It was fortunate that Lord Wardeaux smelled the smoke,”
Chessie said.
“I was on my way to the library for a book.” Henry’s gaze
touched Margery’s briefly. “I could not sleep.”
“The door was locked again,” Chessie said, and Margery caught
the sharp glance Henry threw at her with its unmistakable order to keep quiet.
She shivered and immediately Chessie was by her side.
“Come along,” she said. “There is another bed in my chamber.
You can have that, for tonight at least.”
Chessie’s room was another huge space lit by a pitifully
inadequate fire and with dramatic wall hangings depicting a medieval scene.
Margery shivered harder, whether from cold or shock, she was not sure.
“You’ve got one, as well,” she said, pointing to another of the
spaniels that was snoring on Chessie’s bed cover, oblivious to the drama.
“I always keep a dog with me in country houses,” Chessie said.
“It’s far too cold otherwise.” She shepherded Margery into the enormous
four-poster and Margery burrowed under the comforting weight of the
bedclothes.