More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress (50 page)

He cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. How gratifying that she could discompose a
lord
. Her eyes sparkled with amusement.

“I asked the landlord of the Boar's Head for the direction to Pinewood Manor,” he said.

Ah, so he had known yesterday who she was? She had not known his identity or sought to discover it. But she was glad he had come to introduce himself before riding on. She was glad their encounter yesterday had meant something to him, as it had to her.

“The fête was a great success,” she said. She wanted him to talk about it, to mention their lovely dance.

“Quite so.” He cleared his throat again and flushed. But before he could continue, the door opened and the parlormaid brought in a tray of coffee and set it down in front of Viola before bobbing a curtsy and leaving. Viola poured two cups and rose to set one down on the table beside Lord Ferdinand. He watched her in silence.

“Look here, ma'am,” he blurted as she resumed her seat. “Has Bamber not written to you either?”

“The Earl of Bamber?” She stared at him in surprise.

“I beg your pardon, ma'am,” he continued, “but Pinewood is no longer his, you see. It is mine. As of two weeks ago.”

“Yours?” What
was
this? “But that is impossible, my lord. Pinewood Manor is mine. It has been for almost two years.”

He reached into an inner pocket of his riding coat to draw out a folded sheet of paper, which he held out to her. “Here is the deed to the manor. It is now officially in my name. I am sorry.”

She looked at it blankly without reaching for it, and foolishly all she could think of was that she had been mistaken. He had
not
come to call on her. At least, not because of yesterday. The contest for her daisies, the dance about the maypole, the kiss beneath the old oak had meant nothing whatsoever to him. Today he had come with the intention of ousting her from her home.

“It is a worthless piece of paper,” she told him through lips that felt suddenly stiff. “The Earl of Bamber has made off with the price you paid for it, Lord Ferdinand, and is laughing at you from some safe distance. I suggest you find him and take up the matter with him.” She felt the stirring of anger—and fright.

“There is nothing to take up,” Lord Ferdinand told her. “The legality of the document is not in question, ma'am. It has been attested to by both Bamber's solicitor and my brother's—he is the Duke of Tresham. I was careful to verify the authenticity of my winnings.”

“Winnings?”
Oh, yes, of course. She knew his type—yes, indeed she did. He was the brother of the Duke of Tresham, with all of a younger son's weaknesses and vices—boredom, shiftlessness, extravagance, insensitivity, arrogance. He was probably impoverished too. But yesterday she had chosen to be beguiled by a handsome face and a virile male body, and to be flattered by his attentions. He was a gambler of the very worst kind, one who played deep without any concern for the human consequences of his addiction. He had won property that was not even his opponent's to lose.

“At cards,” he explained. “There are any number of witnesses to the fact that Pinewood was fairly won. And I
did
have the document checked very thoroughly. I am indeed sorry for this inconvenience to you. I had no idea there was someone living here.”

Inconvenience!

Viola leaped to her feet, her cheeks flooding with hot color, her eyes flashing. How dare he!

“You may take your
document
with you and toss it into the river as you leave,” she said. “It is worthless. Pinewood Manor was willed to me almost two years
ago. The Earl of Bamber may not have liked it, but there was nothing he could do to prevent it. Good day to you, my lord.”

But Lord Ferdinand Dudley, although he too got to his feet, made no move to leave the room and her life, as any decent gentleman would have done. He stood before the fireplace looking large and unyielding and unsmiling. All his false geniality had been abandoned.

“On the contrary, ma'am,” he said, “it is you who are going to have to leave. I will, of course, grant you sufficient time to gather your belongings and arrange for a destination, since Bamber has not seen fit to give you decent notice. You are a relative of his, are you? I suppose you should go to Bamber Court, then, unless somewhere else leaps to mind. He will hardly refuse you admittance, will he, though I daresay he is still in London. His mother lives there all the time, though, I believe. She will doubtless welcome you.”

His words filled her with icy terror. Her nostrils flared. “Let me make one thing very clear to you, Lord Ferdinand,” she said. “This is my home. You are a trespasser here and an unwelcome one, despite … well, despite yesterday. I understand clearly now that you are a gamer and an opportunist. I had evidence of those weaknesses yesterday but did not realize they were habitual. I do not doubt that you are also any number of other unsavory things. You will leave immediately. I will be going nowhere. I am already at home. Good day to you.”

He gazed at her with those almost black eyes, which were quite unfathomable. “I will be taking up residence as soon as you have had time to pack up your belongings and remove yourself, ma'am,” he said. “I would advise
you not to delay too long. You would certainly not wish to be forced to spend any night beneath the roof of a single gentleman who is also a gamer and an opportunist, among other unsavory vices.”

And she had danced about the maypole with this cold, unfeeling, obstinate man the night before and thought it surely the most glorious experience of her life? She had kissed him and thought she would warm herself with the memory for the rest of her life?

“I will simply not allow you to do this,” she said. “How dare you expose me to public attention yesterday by wagering on my—my
daisies
! How dare you haul me onto the green to dance about the
maypole
! How dare you maul my person and
k-kiss
me as if I were a common milkmaid!”

His brows snapped together and she realized with some satisfaction that she had finally rattled him. “Yesterday?” he barked at her. “
Yesterday?
You accuse me of common assault when you
flirted
with me from the moment your eyes first alighted on me?”

“And how
dare
you have the audacity to come here today to invade my home and privacy, you … you Bond Street fop! You conscienceless rake! You callous, dissolute gamer!” She had lost control of both the situation and herself, she knew, but she did not care. “I know your sort, and I will
not
allow you to ignore my very existence. Get out of here!” She pointed toward the door. “Go back to London and your own kind, where you belong. We do not need you here.”

He raised his eyebrows haughtily—and then lifted one hand and ran his fingers through his hair. He sighed out loud.

“Perhaps, ma'am,” he suggested, “we should discuss
this matter like civilized beings instead of scrapping like a couple of ill-bred children. Your presence here has taken me by surprise. You know, it was unpardonable of Bamber not to have informed you that the property is no longer his. You of all people should have been the first to know. But—I beg your pardon—does he
know
you are living here? I mean … well, he did not
say
anything about you.”

She regarded him scornfully. There was nothing to discuss, civilly or otherwise. “It is quite immaterial to me whether he knows or not,” she said.

“Well,” he said, “he should have informed both you and me, and so I shall tell him when I see him. It is a dashed awkward thing that I have descended on you like this without warning of any kind. Accept my apologies, ma'am. Is he a close relative of yours? Are you fond of him?”

“My affections would be sadly misplaced if I were,” Viola said. “A man of
honor
surely does not pledge at a card game what does not belong to him.”

He took one step closer to her. “Why do you claim that Pinewood is yours?” he asked. “You said it was willed to you?”

“When the Earl of Bamber died,” she said. “This man's father.”

“Were you there for the reading of the will?” he asked. “Or were you informed of the bequest by letter?”

“I had the earl's promise,” she said.

“The old earl?” He was frowning. “He promised to leave you Pinewood? But you have no proof that he kept his promise? You were not there for the reading? You received no letter from his solicitor?” He shook his head slowly. “You have been hoaxed, I am afraid, ma'am.”

Her clasped hands felt cold and clammy. Her heartbeat was thudding against her eardrums. “I was not there for the reading of the will,” she said, “but I trust the word of the late Earl of Bamber, my lord. He promised me when I came here two years ago that he would change his will. He lived for more than a month after that. He would neither have changed his mind nor procrastinated. No one belonging to the present earl has been here or communicated in any way with me. Is that not proof enough that he knew very well the property is mine?”

“Why do you not have the deed in your possession, then?” he asked. “Why did both Bamber's solicitor and my brother's assure me that the property was indeed his before he wagered it and lost it to me?”

Viola's stomach somersaulted queasily. But she dared not give in to terror. “I have never thought about it,” she said curtly. “The deed is merely a piece of paper. I trusted the word of the late Earl of Bamber. I still do. Pinewood is mine. I do not intend to discuss the matter further with you, Lord Ferdinand. I do not need to. You must leave.”

He stared at her, the long fingers of one hand drumming a tattoo against the outside of his thigh. He was not going to go away quietly. Had she expected that he would? She had known from her first sight of him yesterday that he was a dangerous man. He was one who was accustomed to having his own way, she guessed. And he was the Duke of Tresham's brother? The duke was a notoriously ruthless man, whose will no one dared cross.

“There is an easy way to settle the matter,” he said. “We can send for a copy of the old earl's will. But I
would not hold out any hope of its saying what you wish it to say, if I were you, ma'am. If the old earl did indeed make you such a promise—”

“If?
If
?” Viola took an incautious step forward so that she was almost toe-to-toe with him.

He held up a staying hand. “Then I am afraid he did not keep it. There can be no doubt about it. I made very certain, before I left London to come down here, that Pinewood was Bamber's to lose. It is now mine.”

“He had no right to wager away the house,” she cried, “when it did not belong to him. It is
mine
. It was left to me.”

“I can understand your agitation,” he told her. “This was dashed irresponsible of Bamber—both Bambers: the father for making a promise he did not keep, the son for forgetting you were here. If I had only known of your existence, I could at least have given you ample notice before I came here in person. But I did not know, and so here I am, eager to acquaint myself with my new property. You really are going to have to leave, I'm afraid. There is no sensible alternative, is there? We cannot
both
live here. But I'll give you a week. Will that be long enough? I'll sleep at the inn in Trellick during that time. Do you have somewhere else to go?
Could
you go to Bamber Court?”

Viola clenched her hands even tighter. She could feel her fingernails digging into her palms. “I have no intention of going anywhere,” she told him. “Until I see that will and it is proved to me that I am not named in it, this is where I belong. This is my house. My home.”

He sighed, and she realized that he was too close for comfort. But she would not take a step back. She tilted her head and looked him straight in the eye—and had a
flashing memory of standing even closer to him just the evening before. Could he possibly be the same man?

Beware of a tall, dark, handsome stranger. He can destroy you
.

“If there is nowhere,” he said with what she might have interpreted as kindness had the words not been so brutal, “I'll send you to London in my own carriage. I'll send you to my sister, Lady Heyward. No, on second thought, Angie is too scatterbrained to offer any practical assistance. I'll send you to my sister-in-law, the Duchess of Tresham, then. She will gladly offer you shelter while she helps you find some suitable and respectable employment. Or a relative willing to take you in.”

Viola laughed scornfully. “Perhaps the Duchess of Tresham could do that for
you
, my lord,” she suggested. “Find you respectable employment, that is. Gamblers frequently find their pockets to let, I understand. And gamblers are invariably gentlemen who have nothing more meaningful to do with their lives.”

He raised his eyebrows and looked at her in some astonishment. “You
do
have a sharp tongue,” he said. “Who are you? Have I seen you somewhere before? Before yesterday, that is?”

It was entirely possible. Though no one else in the neighborhood of Pinewood had. That had always been a large part of its charm. The only twinge of alarm she had felt at first downstairs—it seemed laughable now—had come with Mr. Jarvey's introduction of yesterday's handsome stranger as Lord Ferdinand Dudley—a member of the
ton
, possibly someone who lived much of his life in London and had perhaps done so for several years. She guessed that he must be in his late twenties.

“Viola Thornhill,” she told him. “And I have never seen you before yesterday. I would have remembered.”

He nodded, but his brows were still knitted in thought. He was obviously trying to remember where it was he had seen her before, if anywhere. She could have offered a few suggestions, though it was true she had never seen him before yesterday.