Unbuttoning Miss Hardwick (3 page)

She rubbed a hand against her brow. She was awash in conflicting new feelings and desires—and suddenly unceasingly aware of an older one.

Bracing herself, she glanced over at her employer.

She couldn’t ignore the truth any longer, any more than she could ignore the jolt of longing and resignation she felt every time she looked at the marquess. When had it begun? Irrelevant, she supposed. Some time in the months since her stepfather’s death she’d allowed grief to inevitably loosen its hold on her heart. She’d grown comfortable with Lord Marland, had begun to esteem his dedication and reserved humour just as she’d always admired his broad shoulders and incredible strength. Yearning had escaped the realm of fantasy and daydream while want had awoken and swirled up and out of her, tiny tendrils, reaching for the marquess, seeking to bind him to her.

She ducked her head, worried that he might catch a hint of her shifting feelings, but another quick glance showed him still occupied and oblivious. Straightening, she stared at him outright for several long moments.

Still nothing. Lord Marland’s barriers worked both ways, she realised. They, together with her mannish attire and severe coiffure, had succeeded in making her invisible. To Lord Marland she was Hardwick, more function than flesh and blood. He no more noticed her breath catching or her heart pounding than he would suffer such afflictions himself—which was to say, not at all.

Today they sat together in the workroom, she at her desk, while he—an artist’s vision of a warrior tamed—bent over a rusty cavalry sword, painstakingly cleaning the pierced guard.

‘You won’t find Skanda’s Spear in any reference books,’ Lord Marland chided her.

‘Then how do you know of it?’ she asked carefully. His attention still hadn’t wavered from his task, so she eased her spectacles off and allowed her gaze to roam over him.

Though he sat still and focused, the marquess loomed large in the enclosed space. From corner to corner, the air pulsed with the energy of leashed strength, of capable male. He had, as usual, lost his coat some time earlier in the day. Beneath the linen of his shirt, muscles bunched and flexed as he worked. The old, scuffed cavalry boots, his favourite and hers, were planted wide on either side of his chair as he worked. His hair—good heavens, the fantasies that she’d built around that hair—had begun to pull loose from his queue. One long strand hung before his eyes as he leaned in close to his work.

He sat back suddenly and grinned at her. She whipped her gaze back to her desk and pushed her spectacles back onto her nose.

‘Whispers,’ he answered. ‘The Spear of Skanda has been but a myth, a legend spoke of in whispers trickled down through the ages.’ His eyes flashed in the candlelit room, nearly as dark as the elaborate black embroidery on his waistcoat. ‘Lately the trickle has become a river. People are talking about it once more. I’ve heard more than one report saying that the Spear has been brought to England by an unknowing nabob.’

She looked up again, and cocked her head at him. ‘What doesn’t he know?’

‘The extreme value of what he holds, it is to be hoped,’ he answered sardonically. ‘And if he’s unaware of just what he has, then it’s unlikely he’s aware of the curse.’

Chloe groaned. ‘It’s cursed, too?’ Heart thumping, she returned his grin. ‘Bad enough you charge me with finding a will-o’-the-wisp weapon that may or may not exist, but must it be cursed as well?’

The marquess’s expression grew suddenly stern and unexpectedly intent. ‘I want that spear, Hardwick.’ He slapped down the oiled cloth he’d been using with a muffled thump. ‘If it has indeed surfaced, then I must have it. No other weapon could be a more perfect centrepiece for my collection.’

Mesmerised, Chloe stared. Since the day he’d agreed to let her stay on, Lord Marland’s manner had been cool, unflappable and frustratingly distant. As passionate as she knew him to be about his weapons collection and the elaborate wing they were constructing to showcase it, she’d seen evidence of it only in his unending dedication to the project. He’d never given her so much as a glimpse of what lay behind his obsession or how he truly felt about it and she had learned not to ask. This sudden flash of emotion set her to blinking. She felt as if she’d caught wind of something far more rare than Skanda’s alleged spear.

‘You’ve amassed a network of sources that puts even your father’s to shame. Use it. Track it down,’ he ordered, retreating into bland politeness once more. He gestured towards the papers on her desk. ‘I know you’ll find it. You’ve never failed me yet.’

He turned back to his weapon, running slow fingers over the length of the curved blade. A shiver of longing skittered up Chloe’s spine, tightening her nipples and setting her insides to sizzling. She suffered a vision of those big hands touching her with such precision.

Abruptly the marquess flourished the sword he’d been working on, slashing bites out of the air with practised ease. ‘This is interesting,’ he said, caressing the pommel. ‘A hodge-podge of a piece, with the lion’s head and the fancy basket guard. A cavalry sword, I’d guess, but the blade…’ He ran careful fingers along the curved edge. ‘It is unmistakably from an earlier weapon. Repaired after battle, perhaps?’ He stared at the thing, musing. ‘Scots made, in all likelihood. Not fit for display, but excellent for practice.’ A slow smile spread across his face. ‘It puts me in mind of the first old blade that I ever found.’

Chloe’s heart leapt, though she was careful to keep her expression neutral and her gaze fixed on her next book selection. She had no idea what might have brought on this unusually candid mood, but she had no wish to inadvertently put an end to it. ‘Is that how you began your collection?’ she asked casually.

‘Have I never told you the tale?’ A wry grin put a lie to the innocent question.

‘Not that I recall,’ she replied, turning a page and keeping her tone absent. All of her insides were aflutter at the idea of Lord Marland sharing such an important piece of his past.

‘Ah.’ For several long moments he said no more. The workroom filled with a companionable silence, broken only by the distant clatter of workmen and the rasp of the polishing stone over his tarnished blade.

‘I was young—perhaps twelve years at most,’ he said eventually. ‘I was exploring the eastern boundaries of my father’s land. Near the shore there are long stretches of rocky ledges that eventually expand into cliffs.’

Chloe glanced up. ‘Yes, I’m familiar with the area.’

The marquess looked surprised. ‘Are you?’

She shrugged. ‘I enjoy the seaside.’

He stared at her a moment.

Inexplicably, his startled expression began to irritate her. ‘It may come as a shock, my lord, but I do continue to exist once I step out of this workroom and beyond the new wing.’

‘Yes, of course.’

She raised her chin. ‘I find the sea to be soothing. Ever changing and yet constant at the same time—it comforts me. I go whenever I can, especially in the months since my father passed.’

Lord Marland blinked.

What was she doing? She was breaking their code, the unwritten rules that had allowed them to exist in harmony these many months. But there truly was something different about her today. Her inner landscape was shifting and the words would not stop bubbling out. ‘Some day I hope to have a home of my own, near the sea.’

A flash of bleakness darkened his expression, just for an instant. Chloe winced. She’d gone too far.

Charged silence stretched between them. Breathless, she waited.

He’d turned back to his work. ‘I found a cache, built of stone,’ he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, but he’d lost the open, contemplative tone that he’d started with. ‘It contained a musty old sporran, a disintegrating bit of plaid and a heavy, gorgeous broadsword, corroded by the sea air.’ A sigh escaped him. ‘I could barely lift the thing, but I thought it the most marvellous thing I had ever beheld.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Chloe caught a small flutter of movement. Silently cursing the ill-timed interruption, she turned her head towards the door. She expected to find yet another workman with a question or problem—but to her surprise, she discovered a strange woman standing there.

Chloe stiffened. In an automatically defensive gesture, she reached to tug her coat straight.

The woman caught her eye and smiled. ‘You would have thought it was a sultan’s treasure that he had found—’ she spoke as if she had been included in the conversation all along ‘—instead of a pile of mouldy discards.’

The sword clattered to the table and Lord Marland was up and bounding to the door before Chloe could blink an eye.

‘Mairead, you minx!’ He lifted the woman off her feet in an exuberant embrace. ‘I was expecting you this morning.’

‘The roads were muddy from yesterday’s rain. It slowed us a bit.’ She returned his hug with enthusiasm.

Chloe stood, feeling extraneous. Lord Marland’s sister, of course. She had the look of her brother and the same appealing vitality. The square family jaw was softened in her case, while the strikingly high cheekbones were not. Lighter hair and a mouth more lush than wide combined to make her a strikingly beautiful woman.

The excited babble of happy greetings continued. Chloe spared a moment to wonder if the housekeeper had been apprised of this visit. She certainly had heard nothing of it.

‘You came through the wing,’ Lord Marland said eagerly. ‘What do you think?’

‘It is magnificent,’ his sister declared. ‘As striking and elegant as you could possibly have managed.’

‘And it doesn’t match a stick of the rest of the house.’ The grin he flashed at her held a definite boyish quality. ‘Father would have despised it, would he not have?’

‘Heartily.’ She laughed. ‘That’s what makes it all the more grand.’

‘Come.’ He tugged her towards the door. ‘Let me show you all that we’ve done.’

‘Of course, Braedon, I’m eager to see it—but won’t you introduce me first?’ Lady Mairead made an elegant gesture towards Chloe.

‘What?’ The marquess turned back with a frown. ‘Oh, yes—of course!’ Without the slightest discomfort he beckoned the forgotten Chloe forwards. ‘Mairi, I’m delighted to make you acquainted with my invaluable assistant, Hardwick. Hardwick, my sister, the Countess of Ashton.’

The curiosity on the countess’s face gave way to shock. ‘Hardwick?’ She rounded on her brother. ‘Do you mean to tell me that, all of these months you’ve been writing and expounding on the many talents of your Hardwick, you forgot to mention that she is a
woman
?’

Lord Marland shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

Chloe’s face flamed. Caught between pleasure at the compliment—second-hand though it might be—and the ignobleness of having her femininity so casually dismissed, she found it impossible to do more than bob a curtsy in the countess’s direction.

Lady Ashton gave her a sympathetic glance. ‘Please…Miss Hardwick?’ At Chloe’s nod, she continued. ‘Pay no mind to my brother. He has always been the perfect embodiment of every exasperating male quality.’

Chloe could not help but silently agree.

‘I won’t bother to defend myself,’ the marquess said with a sigh, ‘since I can’t be sure just what I’ve already done to push the two of you into an unholy feminine alliance. Come, Mairi.’ He pulled his sister’s arm through his. ‘There’s so much I want to show you.’

‘Gladly, Braedon. I’ve much to share with you as well.’ She smiled at Chloe. ‘It was lovely to meet you at last, Miss Hardwick. I can scarcely wait to get to know you better.’

‘Thank you, my lady. I look forward to that as well.’

Refusing to glance at the marquess, Chloe turned back to her desk. But as the pair made to leave she was struck by a sudden thought.

‘Wait!’ She felt the flush climb over her face. ‘My lord, that first blade, the one that you found in the rocks—it would make a poignant addition to our displays. But I don’t believe that I’ve seen it. Do you know where it is?’

Lord Marland’s expression closed and his shoulders tightened. ‘Lost, I’m afraid,’ he replied.

‘Sold, you mean.’ Chloe was startled to hear the bitterness in Lady Ashton’s voice. ‘Thanks due to Connor.’

The marquess merely shook his head.

‘Sold to cover the licentious—and expensive—habits of our departed brother, Miss Hardwick.’ It was pain that put the twist in the lady’s lovely mouth, Chloe thought, along with an unexpected dose of resentment. ‘He, you understand, was the perfect embodiment of every loathsome male quality.’

‘Hardwick,’ Lord Marland broke in, his tone distant and dismissive once more, ‘put your ear to the ground and see what you find out about that spear.’ Turning away, he tugged his sister along with him. ‘Come, Mairi. Let’s get you settled in. On the way, you can tell me what you think of my marble inlay. And later, I plan to bore you with a description of each and every display that will occupy all of my wonderful nooks and crannies.’

‘I don’t know why you’ve gone to such incredible—and incredibly expensive—detail, Braedon, when you don’t intend on allowing anyone to actually see all of your hard work.’ Lady Ashton glanced back one last time as they moved towards the door. ‘Or has
your
Hardwick
convinced you to open your weapons wing for public display?’

‘Never,’ he responded firmly.

‘Why so much bother, then, if no one will see it?’

‘I will see it, dear Mairi. I will frequently walk in here and gaze with utter satisfaction on my private contribution to the Marland legacy.’

‘Ah, you intend to gloat then, do you?’

‘Each and every day.’

Their voices faded. Chloe stared after them for a long minute while her pulse settled and the sharp stab of yearning in her breast shrunk to a dull ache. Clearly her own altered feelings didn’t matter. The elaborate mask she’d been so comfortable hiding behind worked too well. Lord Marland looked at her and could see nothing but quiet, stark and efficient Hardwick.

Surely that was as it should be? The marquess had looked at her—
touched
her—with warmth and admiration for that narrow side of her. She wrapped her arms tight about her middle, as if to hold in all the formally dormant aspects of her nature that were clamouring to be let out—and clamouring to show Lord Marland an altogether different side of Chloe Hardwick.