Lois Menzel (18 page)

“I
trusted
you, from the first. I thought you sensitive and caring and gentle. You were there when I needed you; you smoothed out the rough places, had all the answers, made me face my fears, allowed me to respect and admire you. And all the while you were deceiving me, never concerning yourself with who I was, but only what I was worth.”

When she finally paused he said, “Much of what you say is true; I cannot deny it. At first I did see you merely as a responsibility—even an inconvenience. But at some point, between then and now, things changed.”

Suddenly she rose from her chair and lifted her reticule from a nearby table. “I am sorry, Lord Tenbury, but I must go now. There is a coach waiting for me.”

“I sent it away.”

“You sent it away! You had no right,” she snapped.

“If, when we have finished our discussion, you still want to leave, my coach and servants will take you wherever you wish to go.”

“As far as I am concerned, we have finished our discussion, sir.”

“I suspected you would be angry when you learned the truth,” he said, “but I did not think you would be so unfair as to refuse to hear my explanation.”

“I
have
heard your explanation.”

“About my reasons for employing you, yes. But we have not discussed Thursday night.”

When he mentioned the night they had kissed, she felt herself blushing, but when she tried to walk away, he took hold of her arms above the elbows.

“I had not meant for it to happen,” he said. “When it did, I was uncertain how to proceed. I wanted to tell you then how I felt, but found I could not with so many secrets between us. That was why I went to speak with Chadwicke. I thought if I could first explain to you about the inheritance and the part I had played in your being here, then it would be easier to explain what happened that night.”

She was listening to what he said, but finding it difficult to concentrate. His hands, despite all she now knew of him, felt warm and wonderful. His voice was like the sweetest music. He was so close, inches from where he had been that night, pressed tightly against her.

“Anne.” The single word was half-caress, half-pleading question. She looked into his fervent blue eyes. How easy it would be to lose herself in them.

No doubt sensing her weakness, he lowered his head to kiss her, but the moment contact was made, she pulled away.

“I think it would be best if we simply forget what happened that night, my lord. I was kissed by a man I thought I knew. But I was wrong. I do not know you at all, and I do not believe I wish to. I have said good-bye to everyone, and I should like to leave the Castle—immediately.”

As he stood regarding her in silence, she felt he was about to argue, but he said only, “I will have a coach at the door in fifteen minutes.”

He moved toward the door then but stopped before he reached it. “There is one thing you must believe. No one besides Chadwicke and myself knew anything about this—not my mother, nor Arelia, nor Jack. There is nothing false in their feelings for you.” He left the room without looking at her again.

Tears sprang to her eyes as she stood there alone. She was not sure why, but she believed him, and she was grateful he was the only one involved. At least the relationships she had shared with the other members of his family had not been a lie.

In the hall Tenbury ordered his chaise-and-four brought round immediately. Then he instructed Kimble to speak with the maid Cassie. “Tell her she has ten minutes to pack. She is to accompany Miss Waverly. When they reach their destination, if she wishes to continue in Miss Waverly’s employ, she is free to do so.”

Tenbury shut himself in his study, leaving strict orders that he should not be disturbed. He withdrew from an inside coat pocket the special license he had collected in London. As he propped it against his ink stand and reached for the brandy decanter, he wondered briefly what had led him to believe that a woman as principled as Anne Waverly would ever consider an offer of marriage from a man who had so completely betrayed her trust.

Chapter 14

Anne’s journey into Lincolnshire took the better part of two days. She ate a meal at each stop and though she suffered not at all from motion sickness, she suffered greatly from heart sickness.

During her interview with Lord Tenbury, she had wanted nothing more than to be gone. Now, even though she tried again and again to force all thought of him from her mind, that meeting kept coming back in bits and pieces to haunt her. She had accused him of much, he had admitted much, yet there was so much more that had been left unsaid, so many questions unanswered.

He said he had wanted to tell her how he felt. What did that mean? She realized now it could mean almost anything. Why had she not asked him to explain?

Did he know the extent of her wealth? She had failed to ask him that. After consideration, she decided he probably did. She also thought she understood his actions the evening in the pool. She had no great beauty, but it was possible she had more wealth than Lady Mason, Lady Constance, and Miss Redditch combined. Certainly enough wealth to make her palatable as a wife. Tenbury had never shown any interest in the lively butterflies Arelia paraded before him year after year. Had he concluded that an extremely wealthy, quiet wife, who would sit at home and allow him to go his own way, would suit him best?

Her most unsettling memories of their last meeting were the emotions that took control when he touched her. How was it that he still had such power to attract her? Why for that brief moment had she considered yielding to him? Passion, she decided, was a complex and fearsome thing. But Anne Waverly—reasonable, intelligent woman that she was—had no intention of allowing such an emotion to rule her reason again.

* * * *

The Duke of Chadwicke had told Anne little about Pentworth House beyond the fact that it was well managed; therefore, she was pleasantly surprised when she arrived there. Approached through a heavily wooded park, the red brick manor nestled on the far side of a small clearing. It was compact and rectangular, two stories overall with a third story rising above the central portion. A raked gravel drive, retained by a skillfully constructed stone wall, turned in a gentle arc before the house. From a break in the center of the wall five shallow steps descended to a natural pond surrounded by carefully scythed lawn and wildly colored flower beds.

Inside the house all was clean and orderly. A crisp housekeeper curtsied and greeted Anne with a smile, then invited Lord Tenbury’s servants to spend the night. When they departed the following morning, Anne was left with only Cassie in a house full of people she did not know.

Yet the transition from stranger to mistress did not take long. Anne met her steward and saw immediately that the duke had been correct about him—he appeared to be an honest, able, industrious man. All the servants at Pentworth seemed pleased to have the house occupied again, while Anne was happy to involve herself in any activity that came to hand, for the busier she stayed, the less time she had to think of Tenton Castle and the friends she had left behind. Pentworth House had been decorated with both taste and style; she found it suited her well.

Anne wrote to her old vicar, Mr. Boone, to discover if his widowed sister-in-law, Mrs. Sophia Boone, would be interested in coming to Anne in the position of companion. Mrs. Boone was approaching fifty, but she and Anne had always been compatible; Anne was certain they could cohabit comfortably. If she must have a companion, she preferred Mrs. Boone to anyone else.

Sophy Boone, nearly as pleased at the opportunity to help Anne as to relieve her brother of the burden of her support, purchased a ticket on the mail coach and was with Anne within a few days of receiving her letter.

Anne spent the month of August settling in to her new home. She wrote to Belinda, Tom, Lady Tenbury, and Arelia, but only Belinda and Lady Tenbury answered with any regularity. When Arelia did write, she dashed off a quick note only, always apologizing for being a poor correspondent, admitting she was not good at friendships over long distances. Anne was neither offended nor surprised by this. It would have been uncharacteristic for Arelia to sit for any amount of time laboring over the composition of a letter.

All who wrote to Anne mentioned the earl occasionally; none of them knew that he and Anne had quarreled. And, of course, with each correspondence she received from the Castle came Tenbury’s frank, scrawled across the corner. She could not recall ever seeing his signature before; now she had a collection of them tied with a ribbon in her desk drawer. It was a bold, self-assured hand. Sometimes when a letter arrived, she would gaze at the signature and try to imagine him writing it there.

It was a short note from Arelia in early September that started Anne thinking about a visit to London.

Arelia stated that she and Lady Tenbury were going to the city soon. She suggested that Anne open her house and come up for the Little Season.

The efficiency of the staff at Pentworth House left Anne with little to do. It was tempting to think of wandering through some of the London shops she had merely glanced into. She had always dreamed of visiting the museums, the libraries, the theater, perhaps even the opera. Her aunt had kept her too busy for these entertainments on her first visit to London; if she went now, she could do as she wished.

With Arelia’s letter in her hand she went in search of her steward. She found him in his office and, as was her custom, came directly to the point. “Mr. Romney, how long would it take to prepare my London house for occupancy?”

“If I could take some experienced staff with me and be authorized to hire more when I arrived in town, I would say less than a week.”

“Could you spare the time now to undertake the project?”

“I could leave tomorrow.”

Anne was not surprised at his willingness to leave immediately, for she had encountered this spirit of cooperation at their first meeting. Knowing next to nothing about land or property ownership, Anne had determined at the outset to make her wishes known, and then allow those who were experienced to implement them for her. She had explained to Mr. Romney the way she wished her household to run and then left the hiring of a complete staff to him. She had defined what she needed in terms of carriages and horses, but left the choosing of the vehicles and animals entirely to others. Now she simply stated that she wished her London residence prepared, and she knew without question that when she arrived there, all would be orderly and proper.

Throughout the whole process she tried to listen and learn, but she soon discovered that the change from isolated country spinster and governess to lady of property would not be accomplished overnight. Her bank account might place her among the wealthiest women in England, but in her mind and heart she was still the scholar’s daughter.

Having the money at her back gave her a wonderful sense of freedom and an almost childlike delight in shopping, but it added little to her self-confidence. Nor did it add to her sense of security, for somehow she believed that if wealth could come so easily, without warning, then it could disappear just as easily.

Sometimes at night, she would dream that the gems had been stolen and the house reduced to ashes. She saw herself tired and hungry, using her last coins to take a coach to Tenton Castle. She stood on the steps in the rain as Tenbury answered the door; she begged him to take her in, to allow her to be governess again. He never answered her, but only stood there with an inscrutable expression on his face.

At this point the dream would invariably end, the image of his face slowly fading away, disappearing into a mist of light and shadow. And in those first moments after he was gone, despite the trauma of loss—loss of her wealth and loss of her home—it was another matter that troubled her most. She longed to hear him speak, was frustrated time and time again by his silence. If only the dream would continue a moment longer, what would he say to her?

* * * *

Anne and Sophy Boone arrived in London to find the house in Charles Street modest in size but lavishly decorated. Handsome paneling and stylish paper brightened many of the rooms, while throughout the house, floors were spread with rich Oriental rugs.

Costly Eastern vases sat in niches that appeared to be designed specifically for them. The salon exhibited a collection of jade and ivory figurines crafted with remarkable skill. Anne was admiring these when Mr. Romney arrived home from one of his many trips to the employment agency.

“We found those in one of the trunks in the attic,” he said. “I don’t know if you admire Eastern art, but I thought they were rather spectacular.”

“They are ... indescribable,” Anne replied, replacing a small elephant with slender, delicate tusks.

“There are numerous crates and boxes in the attics, Miss Waverly. It seems your grandfather collected a great many things. Some of the crates shipped from India have never been opened.”

“He cannot intend me to have them.”

“Sir Giles’s instructions state clearly that this house and its contents are entirely yours,” her steward insisted.

“Well, if my grandfather went to all the trouble to collect these, then we shall make every effort to     display them as lovingly as he would.”

A short time later, while Anne continued to explore her salon and Sophy stitched comfortably near the windows, Anne’s new butler, a dauntingly sober figure hired only two days earlier, announced from the doorway, “Mrs. Saunders, miss.”

“Arelia, I did not expect to see you so soon!” Anne exclaimed as she moved forward with both hands outstretched.

“Your note said you would arrive this morning. I hoped I would be your first visitor.”

“And so you are. You look wonderful; what a charming gown!” At this flattering tribute to her aquamarine morning dress, Arelia did a pirouette before she came further into the room to be introduced to Anne’s companion. Since Mrs. Boone was not a gregarious person, she soon returned to her work, content to listen as the two young women exchanged news.