Once an Innocent (19 page)

Jordan’s face darkened. “Not even Master Soto Vega?” He strained forward, leaning in the direction of the nursery.

“Oh, yes!” Naomi blurted, surprised by Jordan’s alarm. “Yes, I saw Enrique. He was having breakfast. He didn’t say anything to me, of course. That’s … that’s all I meant.” She smiled ruefully. “I should have said I
spoke
to no one.”

Which is a wretched lie
, she chastised herself.

Jordan looked rather bedraggled. His brown breeches sported water-dark blotches, his damp boots had bits of vegetation stuck to them, and his cravat hung hopelessly limp. His face was flush, and a sheen of perspiration caused several curls to cling to his forehead.

“Have you been hunting this morning?” she asked.

“I have,” he replied. “I brought down several brace of game.” He clasped his hands behind his back. Jordan’s restless eyes moved from her to the nursery door and back again.

“Congratulations,” Naomi said. “Well, don’t let me detain you. Good morning, my lord.”

“Jordan,” he corrected sharply.

For an instant, a cloud of turmoil crossed his features. Frowning, he absentmindedly lifted a loose tendril of her hair and rubbed it between his thumb and fingers. The gesture startled Naomi. Even when he’d released the lock and once more met her gaze, he didn’t seem to realize what he’d done.

“I must check on Enrique,” he said. “After that, would you accompany me to the gallery? I thought we could begin the tour you unaccountably desire.” His crooked smile was devastatingly charming. Naomi doubted she could refuse him anything when he smiled at her so.

“Of course,” she readily agreed. “I should like that very much.”

She waited at the top of the stairs while he went to his ward’s apartment. When he’d vanished behind the nursery door, Naomi exhaled heavily and slumped against the wall. Her stomach roiled. Lying did not sit well with her. Her heart felt especially sick about misleading Jordan.

At the sound of the nursery door opening, Naomi straightened. Jordan reappeared and offered his arm. The formal gesture juxtaposed against his rumpled, damp state was endearing. As she hooked her hand into the crook of his elbow, she felt more strongly drawn to him than ever.

Nevertheless, she would lie to him again, if she must. His determination to keep poor Enrique cloistered away in friendless solitude was nonsensical and bordered on cruel. Jordan was not a cruel man, but she sensed it would be best to circumvent him on this topic.

They entered at one end of the gallery, a long, airy room running the length of the back of the house. The sun poured through the many windows at a low angle, creating puddles of buttery light on the marble floor. The illuminated spots were stepping stones for Naomi’s eyes, leading her attention from one piece of art to the next.

Jordan seemed distracted. His lips twisted to the right, drawing up the end of his scar so that it mirrored the perturbed set of his mouth. His dark brows pulled down hard over intense eyes, which roved the room without appearing to notice anything.

Naomi had not been convincing enough in peddling untruths, she realized with a sickening start. He was probably attempting to riddle out the real reason she’d been near the nursery — or perhaps Enrique had volunteered the information. She flushed hot and cold in turns; her back prickled an instant before a bead of sweat rolled down her spine.

“Tell me about this one.” She pointed to a small picture on the wall.

For a few seconds, Jordan seemed not to have heard. The middle finger of his left hand tapped against the front of his thigh while his eyes continued to flit back and forth, seeing something Naomi could not.

Suddenly, he stilled. Jordan looked down at Naomi. The furrow between his brows deepened, as though he was puzzled by her presence on his arm.

Blood pooled in Naomi’s cheeks under his scrutiny; her heart gave a lopsided thump.

Abruptly, Jordan’s features cleared, the lines smoothed away. “Which do you mean?” he asked.

She again indicated a small square painting on the near end of the wall, framed in heavy, dark wood. When she strolled to stand just in front of it, the image clarified into an assortment of buildings that, at first, Naomi took to be a village. A massive, stone church dominated the center of the scene, surrounded by smaller buildings. A river was glimpsed in the background. The structure spanning its width sparked a flash of recognition: It was the infirmary she’d seen the day she, Clara, and Kate visited the ruins on the estate grounds.

“Lintern Abbey,” she said, delighted. She leaned closer to the painting and made out the figures of several Cistercean monks standing in the shadow of the church. The black scapulars over their white habits gave them a spectral appearance of white heads and arms huddled against the cold stones.

Naomi recognized the perspective; it was the same scene she’d taken in while standing on the stone steps set into the hillside. It awed her to think that hundreds of years earlier, an artist had stood in the same spot to capture his subject. She turned her inquisitive eyes on Jordan. “Do you know from when this dates?”

“Hmm?” He scowled at the painting as if to spot some obvious answer to her question. “No, I don’t.”

“It must be very old,” she reasoned.

“I suppose it could be.” The expression on Jordan’s face communicated that he neither knew nor cared about the painting’s history.

Naomi looked at him askance, but he didn’t notice that, either. Pursing her lips, she moved on to the family portraits, her hands clasped behind her back.

The face in one of the paintings captured her attention. The gentleman had to be a direct ancestor of Jordan’s — the family resemblance was too strong to allow otherwise. The artist had captured a man who exuded authority. Everything about his upright posture proclaimed it, from the firm set of his mouth to the strong lines of his shoulders. The man had the Atherton blue eyes, which stared out of the gilded frame with a hint of amusement, suggested by the slight creasing at the corners. The gentleman’s costume of a century or more ago — a long, curled wig and satin clothes adorned with lace and other fripperies — detracted nothing from his essential masculinity.

“Who is this?” Naomi breathed. “Was he a Viscount Freese, as well?”

“I don’t know.”

When she turned toward his bored drawl, Jordan was standing by a window overlooking the back garden. He’d not so much as glanced at the portrait.

Naomi made an annoyed sound and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Jordan Atherton, what is wrong with you?”

He turned, clearly startled by her use of his full name — not to mention the testy tone with which she had said it. “I beg your pardon?”

She gestured toward the long wall of paintings. “Why did you begin a tour here, in this room, if you can’t tell me anything about the pieces?”

There was something of a lost boy about his expression. Suddenly, Naomi wished she could scoop him into her arms and tell him everything would be all right. “House tours often begin in galleries,” he said with a shrug. “It seemed as good a place as any.”

“You seem to know so little about your home, your history.”

Jordan scoffed. “What is there to know? These people lived, they died, they gave me a name and a family heap.” He pointed to the far end of the line of portraits. “Those are my grandparents there,” he said, as if that morsel of information made up for his general ignorance.

“And you don’t know anything about the painting of the abbey?”

His lips tightened. “No, I don’t. I imagine there’s a book lying about somewhere which will tell you everything you want to know.”

She quirked a brow. “You imagine? You don’t know that for certain, either, do you?”

He stared at her impassively.

Naomi shook her head, saddened by Jordan’s lack of interest in Lintern Abbey and its previous inhabitants. Already, she thought it one of the finest estates she’d ever seen, nestled as it was in the wild Yorkshire hills, surrounded by natural beauty — both raw and tamed. She thought of the abbey, which lay in ruins, still secluded as the cloistered monks had intended. It held ancient secrets — centuries of history. How could Jordan not be awed?

“You don’t know what you have,” she said quietly.

“I know what I have,” he insisted, his voice flat. Despite his words, a shadow of doubt flitted across his face, pinching his brows together.

“No, you don’t,” she said with a soft chuckle. “What’s happened to you, Jordan? You used to be the kind of person who noticed things. You noticed other people, and you cared.” She swallowed hard. “Even about a young girl caught spying on her brother and his friend.”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose and breathed a laugh. “A girl with a long braid and big eyes and an uncanny aptitude for sneaking away from her governess. I remember that young lady. I wonder whatever became of her?”

Their eyes met, and Naomi’s breath left her in a hot
whoosh.
All vestiges of disinterest fell away as Jordan took three long strides to close the distance between them. Her heart fluttered wildly at his sudden closeness. She drank in the clean smells of heather and wood that attested to his morning hunt.

“What do you see, Naomi?” He spoke urgently, imploring, his gaze searching her face. “Tell me what you see when you look about my place. For the life of me, all I’ve ever seen — all I’ve ever felt — is dreary
sameness
, day after day and year after year. How could it not drive you mad?” He grasped her upper arms and shook her lightly, as though to jar something loose. “Since I notice nothing, you must notice for me. What do you see that I don’t?”

Jordan’s fingers clasped her tightly, and Naomi’s blood quickened in response.

For a moment, she couldn’t recall the topic of conversation. She couldn’t think of anything but the marvelous warmth of his strong hands on her arms, of the answering heat sliding into her lower belly.

Unthinkingly, her hand drifted to his face. Her fingertips traced the scar on his cheek. It was tougher than the flesh surrounding it and interrupted the growth of facial hair along his jaw. Fascinated with the unique topography of his features, her fingers splayed wide, cupping the side of his face. His hands slid down her sides and came to rest on her waist. As he squeezed his eyes shut, a fringe of dark lashes came together like a fan snapping closed.

What had caused this change in Jordan? Oh, he still possessed keen powers of observation. She’d seen him employ them in ballrooms, snatching details overlooked by others to compliment ladies or entertain his friends. But it was all superficial. The kind, young officer she’d developed a girlhood
tendre
for was gone, replaced by this distant man. Maybe, if she treated him like a friend, as Clara wished, she could find out what had happened.

Naomi dropped her hand and gently turned out of his grasp; Jordan made no move to restrain her. She tightened her shawl around her shoulders, struggling to regain control of her thrumming heartbeat. “I see a wonderful home,” she said, finally answering his request. “Come look again at this one.” She took his hand and led him toward the abbey painting.

A smile of tolerant amusement played at the corners of his mouth as he allowed her to steer him.

“See the brothers in their robes?” Naomi pointed out the shadowy monks she’d spotted earlier. “And the intricate architectural details?” Her fingers danced lightly over the canvas, indicating the soaring Gothic arches of the church and the hints of carving around the infirmary door. “This was painted by a first-hand observer, Jordan — probably one of the monastery’s residents.”

“And?”

“And,”
she replied, “we know that Catholic lands — including, presumably, Lintern Abbey — were seized during the dissolution of the monasteries. So, this painting was produced, at the latest, in the sixteenth century.” A wondering smile lit her face as she turned excited eyes on him. “It’s at least three hundred years old, Jordan. This painting survived the seizure of the abbey, the confiscation of its valuables, the dismantling of the buildings … Isn’t that amazing?”

He looked at the painting again. “I never considered that, but it is a little bit amazing,” he said, nodding thoughtfully.

Jordan’s hand curled around her elbow as he guided her down the row of artwork again, this time pausing to discuss each with her. When Naomi pointed out the pug dog peeking out from under the hem of a very dignified lady’s skirt, Jordan laughed and clapped his hands once, delighted with the discovery.

He touched the small of her back lightly. “Perhaps
you
should give
me
a tour,” he teased. “It seems you could teach me a few things.”

“I’m sure that’s not the case,” she demurred. “Maybe you could start the tour over. This time, show me the parts of your home you enjoy.”

His hand exerted a small pressure on her back, turning her to face him.

Naomi’s breath stuttered in her throat. It had only been a few days ago that Jordan was a handsome man she admired from a safe distance. Now he touched her comfortably, more frequently than his escort necessitated.

Her eyes swept over a sturdy shoulder and neck — their firm lines softened by the hopelessly rumpled cravat — to his face. The smile he gave her now was unlike any Naomi had ever seen on Jordan’s face. She was well acquainted with the devastatingly charming, flirtatious smile that caused women to suffer heart palpitations, but this was something else entirely. The curve of his lips was secondary to the
feeling
of a smile that exuded from every part of him. As though he was really seeing her.

Naomi could only stare while her bones turned soft, melting at his touch. His gaze flicked to her lips, and she shivered with anticipation, wondering if he would kiss her again.

Jordan’s smile faltered. “Are you cold?” He tugged her shawl back up over her shoulders. “There,” he said. “So, I’m to show you something I enjoy?”

A wry twitch of his lips sent another jolt of awareness though Naomi. “If it isn’t any trouble — ” she started.

From another room came the muffled sound of a clock striking the hour, pulling Naomi out of the magic of their stolen hour. The day’s obligations awaited. “Another time,” she told him regretfully. “I must go.”