Secrets of Surrender (6 page)

She noticed him taking it all in. She removed her cloak and turned away to untie her bonnet. “My brother Timothy suffered financial reversals. Severe ones. You may have heard about it last spring.”

“Yes, I am aware of that.” Financial reversals, hell. The scoundrel dared not return to England. “How did this property survive unsold?”

“Lord Hayden made sure that my sister and I would not be put out. He protected us and this holding. That is what I meant that night when I spoke of his generosity. He covered all my brother’s debts. Of course, I can never repay him.”

Actually, Lord Hayden had not covered all of the debts, much as he had tried to. At least one person had refused to be made whole by other than Longworth himself. Nor had that restitution satisfied everyone who accepted it.

She led him into the drawing room. Three wooden chairs remained there, and one small table and a worn carpet. The windows had been stripped of their silks and left with only a thin, white translucent draping.

“Please sit, Mr. Bradwell. Allow me to arrange some refreshment for you.”

She was gone before he could decline. He did not sit, but instead paced the room, taking its measurements by foot and eye. He examined the sills and ceiling, then moved to the dining room and did the same.

He examined the library, then wandered to the back of the house. Slight sounds drew him to the kitchen.

Miss Longworth stood at a worktable near a window. The afternoon sun glistened off her blond hair and bathed her profile in a glaring light that permitted no hiding of imperfections. Even from the doorway he could trace the delicate line of that profile and count the long, golden lashes that hovered above the lovely curve of her porcelain cheek.

She is not for the likes of you, boy.
That was what he had thought that night he admired her in the theater. The warning had been repeated often during the last few days, while Easterbrook’s mad scheme cast its lures in his head.

She was beautiful and elegant and proud. She was from a family that had been among the best in this county for five generations. Definitely not for him.

She carefully sliced a pie, or what remained of one. Beyond the window he could see fruit trees growing. She had picked the apples herself and made this pie herself. He glanced over the meager stores on the kitchen shelving. That pie was probably intended to last her for a week.

Two glasses of cider waited on the table. She slid the pie pieces onto two plates.

“Allow me to help you,” he said.

She twirled on her feet like a dancer at the sound of his voice. He ignored her blush and lifted the glasses and walked back to the chairs in the drawing room.

“I see that you do for yourself,” he said after a few bites of the pie. It was almost inedible. It tasted like she had scrimped on both sugar and salt.

“My father left debts, so we lived modestly here afterward. Only when my brother bought a partnership in a London bank did our situation improve. For a while, that is.”

“That would be your older brother, Benjamin? The one who died in Greece?”

Her expression fell at his mention of that old grief, so much that he regretted bringing it up. Her lids lowered in a poignant acknowledgment of his reference.

She nibbled a bit of her pie. “Due to those earlier years of scrimping, I have long experience with doing for myself. I do not mind. It is good to be occupied.”

“I would have expected Lord Hayden to ensure that you did not live alone in an empty house.”

“I have refused his generosity for myself. I cannot for my younger sister. She lives with them now. Alexia says that I am too proud, but it is not pride that makes me refuse. Her husband is paying dearly for matters not of his doing. I am grateful, but I feel guilty enough without taking an allowance too.”

She blushed on the word guilty. He did not know if she referred to her recent sins or those of her brother Timothy. If the latter, the guilt was misplaced.

She was just one more of Timothy Longworth’s many victims. No doubt the bastard had counted on that allowance from Lord Hayden keeping his sisters in modest style at least. If so, one Longworth had misjudged another one’s sense of fair play.

“The pie is very good,” he said after finishing the last mouthful.

“You are just being kind.” The flattery pleased her, though.

“Not at all. I eat a lot of fruit pies and know a good one. I even eat them for breakfast some days because I enjoy them so much. Do you have an apple tree in your garden?”

“Yes. Would you like to see it? We might take a walk. I’ll show you the garden and the property if you like.”

“I am always interested in such things.”

It was not until they were out in that garden that she spoke again. He had paced well into it so he could see the back of the house from a good perspective.

“I notice that you do not indulge your interest in buildings and land with a casual eye, Mr. Bradwell.”

“That is because I do not have a casual interest, but rather a professional one.”

“Are you an estate agent?”

“On occasion. I build houses, and I am stealing ideas from yours.”

“You are an architect, then?”

“On occasion.”

He turned his attention from the house just in time to see her working it out. Her mouth pursed and her lids lowered a fraction.

“You are one of those men who take estates and divide them up, aren’t you? As they have been doing in Middlesex so much.”

He could tell that she found the notion distasteful. Many did. “People who own land often want to develop it. There would be no Mayfair without men like me, decades ago. No London squares.” He knew all the objections. He answered the ones that he suspected formed in her head. “I assure you that when I design the houses for those small estates, you would never know they had not been there for generations. As I said, I am stealing ideas from yours and to that purpose.”

“Can they require that? Do the people who lease or sell their land get to demand that the new homes do not ruin the countryside?”

“Since there is never enough land to satisfy the demand, they can require whatever they choose.”

Without further comment, she strolled down the garden. He followed her along a path that revealed squared sections of worked ground, indicating that vegetables and flowers grew here in summer.

“How well do you know land, Mr. Bradwell? Can you only assess its value to your building, or are you familiar with agricultural matters?”

“I know a bit about the latter.”

“Then I will ask your advice about something.”

They passed out a rear garden gate and she led him across a field of grass and weeds. It had probably been a pasture in better times. A place for her family’s horses to graze.

She strode up a rise in the land until they reached the crest of a hill. A handsome prospect waited there, giving a view of the rolling countryside. The roofs of farmhouses dotted the closest acreage. Her tenants, no doubt. He sized up the holding very quickly. In the far distance he could make out the buildings of Oxford, maybe twenty miles away.

“Have you ever thought of selling it?” he asked.

“It is not mine to sell. A man like you has written to inquire about that, however. Perhaps you know him. Mr. Harrison.”

“I know him. The proximity of this property to Oxford would appeal to him.”

“He spoke of a handsome offer, but there was no point in encouraging him. This is our family home, and it belongs to my brother, not to me. It will never be sold if I have a say.”

They walked down the hill and entered a field of perhaps five acres. The remnants of a harvest littered its dark furrows.

“This is part of one of the farms,” she explained. “The tenant is leaving. He told me two months ago.”

Not because of the scandal, then. If she depended on the rents, losing a tenant would be disheartening.

“Another will take his place.”

“Perhaps not.” She toed at the dirt beneath her half-boot. “He said his harvest had been poor and that it has been getting worse every year. He said the soil has gotten weak. If that is true, there may not be another. Even if there is, the rent cannot be the same.”

He crouched and filled his hand with the soil. “In your memory, has this field ever lain fallow?”

“I do not recall that it has ever been left unworked.” She bent over his shoulder to see what he was doing. Since he was not really doing anything, he was aware of her hovering face and body. Too aware.

He dug his fingers down further, bringing up earth. He scooped a good amount of it into his hat. Jordan would not be amused. “I know a man in town who conducts experiments to see if soil is worn out. I will bring him this soil and find out if the problem is in the land itself. If not, perhaps your tenant was just a bad farmer.”

He stood. She had moved close to watch, and on his rising her body was no more than six inches from his. She startled as if he had suddenly appeared out of thin air.

Her femininity flowed to him and around him, conjuring up memories of that crude embrace the night of the auction. The hat filled with dirt, even the landscape itself, ceased to exist while he looked down on her lovely face. Details from those stolen dreams entered his head.

She gazed back with a wariness that made her appear very young. She did not seem afraid or insulted, just curious. And expectant, as if she assumed he would step back to a more proper distance.

His inclinations were to do the opposite. Her eyes were incredibly expressive. He wondered if she knew how much they revealed. The sorrow that she carried today showed in them, and her worry about this land, and the loneliness that she now endured. There was something else too. A frankness. An acknowledgment of the intimacy forged between them on a night that had permitted no dissembling.

She turned her head, blushing, to break their connected gaze. He reached out and ran two fingers down the side of her unbearably soft cheek until he cupped her chin. He turned her face back to his.

Her pride dissolved while they looked at each other. They were back in the moonlight on the lane at Norbury’s house, only now it was day and the bright sun revealed her reactions more clearly. Caution. Surprise. Confusion. They mesmerized him as much as her beauty did, and only fed the pulse pounding through him and into the hand’s length of space that separated them.

He barely touched her, but he felt her subtle tremble anyway.

She is not for the likes of you, boy.

Undoubtedly true. He kissed her anyway.

It was a very brief kiss, although he wanted much more. So much that he did not trust himself. The softness of her lips, their pliable, accepting warmth, reminded him of his first kiss many years ago.

She flushed. She stepped away awkwardly, seeking some distance.

She leveled a direct gaze at him and this time there was no confusion. It was almost sad, just how knowing her eyes were.

“You told me that you had no expectations of that kind.”

“I told you that I had no illusions regarding your favors because of that night. You are a beautiful woman, and I would not be a man if I did not notice.”

Her resurrected poise visibly wobbled. “Under my current circumstances, being noticed in that way carries some insult now. I will always wonder if my admirer is wondering if I am what that scandal says I am.”

“I am the one man in England who will not wonder, because he knows everything. But to spare
you
from wondering whether I wonder, and from feeling any insult, I will try to be indifferent to your beauty. I doubt that I will succeed.”

She laughed at his wordplay, or maybe at herself. She turned toward her house. She gestured to his hat while she began walking. “It is so kind of you to help me, again. I fear your hat will be ruined.”

“The hat is of no account.”

Bearing his dirt, he fell into step beside her. She strode back to her house with purpose. Her expression grew a little vexed due to whatever she contemplated.

Once in her garden she paused under the branches of the apple tree. He guessed that she was hesitant to let him back in the house now. She was not an innocent, and she had seen and sensed what was in him back there in the field.

“What is your given name, Mr. Bradwell? If a man has stolen a kiss, I think that I should know.”

He had stolen nothing, and she knew it. “Kyle.”

“Kyle. I like that name. Lord Norbury said that you were from the pits of Durham. What did he mean?”

“He meant that I was born into a collier’s family in a mining village up north.”

“And now you are an architect on occasion, and an estate agent on occasion, and you have a professional interest in buildings and land. It is an unusual history.”

“I received the attention of a benefactor, and was educated. He sent me to France to study engineering and architecture.”

“France! Your history is even more unusual than I thought. I trust this benefactor is pleased with his investment in you. The evidence is that the education was quite complete.”

She glanced over him, taking in the results of those years of improvement. She meant her assessment as a flattery, so he accepted it in that spirit.

“I like to think that he is pleased. His good opinion is important to me.”

Her smile changed. She offered it now in reassurance, which made it patronizing. The warmth in her eyes dazzled him so he did not care very much about that. She had been subdued today. The smile brought some vitality back to her.

“I will go now, Miss Longworth. Thank you for the pie, and for the tour of your property.” He held up his hat. “I will let you know what I learn about the soil on your farms.”

He found his way to the garden’s side gate. One of its hinges was broken so he had to kick it aside to get through. He walked around to his horse and calculated how to carry the hat full of dirt while he sat in the saddle.

He did not want to lose that soil. It was his excuse to see Miss Longworth again.

CHAPTER
FIVE

Y
ou do not need to wait. I am not going to do anything now. By week’s end, perhaps I can find time.”

Jean Pierre spoke distractedly, dismissing Kyle with a shooing gesture. His attention remained on the array of tubes and beakers that formed a city of glass on a long table between them.

He crouched down and peered at a contraption distilling liquid. The bulbous vessel magnified Kyle’s view of Jean Pierre’s fine-boned, heavy-lidded face, distorting the French countenance that so easily made fools out of sensible women.

Miss Longworth’s soil, now in a small wooden box, rested on Jean Pierre’s worktable in this cluttered, garret study, waiting to be analyzed when the young chemist deigned to give it his time.

Kyle knew the various matters that might delay that experiment. Jean Pierre Lacroix had been taught his science by some of France’s great minds, and he dropped their names freely. Those references brought him enough employment in London to support his research and his sins.

Kyle walked around the table and sat on a chair where he would get in Jean Pierre’s way.

“I do not want to wait for week’s end. You will forget about it entirely by then. The flower whom you currently cultivate is sure to get plucked in a day or so, and there will be no experiments for a fortnight.”

Jean Pierre tisked his tongue in exasperation. He stretched past Kyle to reach a dish holding some green grains of metal. Kyle shifted enough to interfere.

“
Mon dieu,
you are the nuisance. Go away.”

Kyle gestured to the wooden box. “The soil. Now.”

“The soil, the soil—what do you care about soil? You do not till dirt. You move it to build.”

“It is for a friend of mine. A lady.”

“A
lady.
This is not a word you English use lightly. This is the soil of that woman who showed no discretion when we gamed last week, no? She drinks hard spirits,
mon ami,
and that is most unpleasant. And if she bores you with her worries about
soil
—” He shrugged.

Kyle knew that shrug. Ever since he met Jean Pierre when they were students in Paris, that casual movement had meant this Frenchman had much more to say but assumed he would be wasting his breath.

“It is not the bold, foxed, gambling lady, but another.”

A merry gleam entered Jean Pierre’s eyes. He adjusted the flame below his distillation, then gave Kyle his attention.

“Another?”

“Another.”

“I feared that you did not understand your good fortune these last weeks, but eh,
c’est bon,
you are not so blind. I am like an old uncle, thinking you are too bourgeois to appreciate the opportunities in these big scandals you English make over little things.” He smiled slyly and wagged his finger. “I should have known that you are too smart to miss the
bonne chance
and—”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“This soil lady. Other ladies, and many more who are less than ladies. So many women look for you now. They want to know about this man who paid a fortune to protect a whore. All my feminine friends ask what you are like.” He sighed. “Their questions are a burden, I will tell you.”

“I have not dined on this scandal, but it sounds as if you have been well fed.”

“They hear I know you, and like flies they stick to me. True, there are some who think you were a stupid fool or a self-righteous peasant, but many others have fallen in love, as you surely know.”

Jean Pierre had assumed the role of the knight’s squire. No wonder he was so busy today. He probably had not been at this chemist’s table in days.

Jean Pierre peered at him. “You appear so blank. So…English. Do not tell me that you have squandered this scandal. Do not say that you have refused the invitations that come your way. I will throw you out and never drink wine with you again.”

Jean Pierre’s exhortations were often like this one, urging Kyle to cut a wide swath through available women while he was still young, rich, and free.

Kyle ignored the lessons. He managed that part of his life his own way. He was not a monk, but to Jean Pierre’s dismay he was not a rake, either. There had indeed been many invitations to dine of late. He simply was not interested in any dinners that might come his way because of that night, whether they were offered at a table or in a bed.

Unless Miss Longworth served the meal.

“The soil,” he said, pointing. “If you have had your pleasure due to my fame, you can deal with it at once.”

Jean Pierre rolled his eyes. He grabbed the box and slammed it down. He began collecting little vials of liquids. “Do not tell me that you are buying land now to work. Do not tell me that you have decided to become a good, dull English farmer.”

“You have a long list of things that I cannot say and cannot tell you. So long that I am left without words. I will just sit here and watch.”

“Do that.” Jean Pierre scooped little bits of soil into a series of long glass tubes. He began dripping liquids from the vials on top. “This is only a theory, you understand? A good one, though, and I think it is correct. We know what chemicals the soil must hold in order to grow plants. Now we try to see if it lacks those things.”

The last of the liquid dribbled into its tube. Jean Pierre corked each one and shook it, then set it in a rack.

“Now we wait.” He opened a cupboard, grabbed a wine bottle and two glasses, and led the way to a table at a window overlooking the Cheapside street below his chambers.

The December sky hung low and gray. A pleasant fire crackled nearby. The wrought-iron chairs were similar to those found on terraces and balconies in France. Jean Pierre had reconstructed a bit of his homeland at this window, one that always evoked Kyle’s memories of his years there.

The education at the École had been rigorous and illuminating, but other lessons had been learned in Paris as well. There had been a sexual curriculum, of course. Jean Pierre had seen to that. More interesting had been witnessing a changing view of society. Napoleon was dead, the Revolution was long over, and a king reigned again, but a generation of cries of
égalité
had altered the French perspective forever.

Not completely, of course. Even in France, when it came to marriage blood was blood. The difference was that the entire country did not accept that blood should rule every area of life.

Was that why Cottington had sent him there? The earl was no radical. More likely he had chosen France because of Norbury, who had begun to chafe back then at his father’s continuing role of benefactor.

“I am thinking of getting married.” Kyle stretched out his legs and tried to get comfortable. He was much taller than Jean Pierre, and the iron chairs, while picturesque, left something to be desired. “I have not decided whether to offer, but I am considering it.”

“The soil lady?”

“Yes.”

“Is she truly a lady?”

“Yes, but like your mam’selle Janette that first year I knew you.”

“Ah,
oui.
High birth, corrupt relatives, no money.” Jean Pierre raised his glass. “And, from the looks of those tubes over there, weak soil. Congratulations.”

“You do not approve.”

“She will remind you every day of your life that you are not good enough for her. You will empty your purse in the vain attempt to make her happy. Your own children will see you as their inferior. No, I do not approve.”

He could always count on Jean Pierre to be blunt. He knew from his experience with French that subtlety was the last thing learned in a new language, and often never achieved.

So there it was, a damned good reason to decline Easterbrook’s grand plan. The marquess might see this as a minor concern, but since he lived at the top of the heap he would not comprehend just how big an objection it could be.

“Who is this lady?” Jean Pierre’s eyes narrowed on him.

“Miss Longworth.”

“I wondered if not. It is so like you English.” He sat forward with his arms on the table. “Because of your chivalry you now feel responsible. She is beautiful and flatters you with her gratitude. So now you feel obligated to save her from the rest.”

Jean Pierre was filling in the marquess’s play quite nicely, and touching on more truths than Kyle wanted to admit.

“Let me tell you how it really was with those damsels in peril,
mon ami.
We have the old songs and
romans
still in my country, so we know the truth. The knight saved the lovely lady, who was very grateful. Then he took her into the field beside the road, stripped her, fucked her good, then got back on his horse and rode away.”

Kyle had to laugh. “That is damned close to a dream I had last night.”

“Your dreams know that you do not have to marry her if you are sympathetic and want her. She will be glad for anything now. Why would you marry such a woman, about whom your whole country talks?”

Why indeed? Mostly because he did want her, and he liked to think himself better than those vultures like Norbury. Maybe because fate had created the rare situation in which she might actually accept.

That was not to say that he had not considered the alternative. She had been seduced once, and his visit had convinced him that she could probably be seduced again. Especially by the knight.

“There would be a settlement,” he said.

“From whom? It is said that her brother fled due to his debts. Another thing that will stand between you.”

“Not from her family. Someone else has offered one.”

“Then it will not be big enough, this settlement. Good-hearted souls are never generous with their purses. They would rather say masses for you and promise a reward in heaven.”

“Actually, it is a handsome settlement.”

“
Vraiment?
Handsome even for you?”

“Even for me.”

Jean Pierre was impressed. He poured more wine. “Why did you not say so? That changes everything, of course.”

Roselyn strode up the hill past the field behind her home. She did not care about the raw, overcast day or the wind biting her face. She did not notice the dead leaves flying around her legs. In her mind she walked in sunshine and warmth through a world blooming with flowers that never die.

She pulled her cloak around her and sat on the hill. She set her back to the wind and faced the direction that allowed her to see the farthest. She slipped two letters from under her cloak. Each in its own way promised a reprieve from her relentless loneliness.

The letters had been waiting in the village for her yesterday when she walked there to buy some thread. Light had reentered her dull world upon reading them.

One came from London, from a woman she had never met. Phaedra Blair, newly married to Lord Hayden’s brother Elliot, was famously
outré
in her ideas, behavior, and appearance. Now Lady Phaedra had written to introduce herself and to declare that Roselyn’s exile was barbaric and unjust.

Not a woman to complain and not act, Lady Phaedra had also written that she owned a small house near Aldgate that Roselyn could use, should she ever want to come to London. She also made it clear that Roselyn would be received by Lord Elliot and herself, both of whom refused to accommodate the world’s hypocrisy.

The firmly penned, somewhat strident words made Rose chuckle. Lord Elliot would have a very interesting life.

The sensation of laughing almost startled her. It felt so strange. So foreign. When had she last laughed? She gazed to the horizon and tried to calculate it. Weeks, certainly. Perhaps months. She was so out of practice at being happy that her joy today made her light-headed.

She looked down at the other letter that had caused this unexpected mood.

Tim had written again. She had been stunned to see his handwriting. It was impossible for her own letter to have reached him in time for this one to be sent. As soon as she tore it open, she had realized he was not responding to her, but sending more news.

He would never see her letter because he was leaving the French city from where he wrote. However, he had read her mind and now proposed what she had broached with him. He wanted her to join him, and would write again once he had resettled in Italy.

She read his pleas. Tim did not know that he need not cajole. He had not yet learned that there was no life left for her in England.

He described travel and adventure. He promised mountains and the sea, Florence and Rome and beyond. She had not been able to sleep last night because the images excited her so much. She had been without hope for so long, but now she felt drunk on it.

She lay back in the grass and looked up at the sky. It was said that there was more sunshine on the Continent. She already felt its warmth. It incited a happiness that created an exhilarating sense of freedom.

She was glad Tim had written before her letter reached him. That meant he really wanted her with him and was not just being kind. They were both alone now, both disgraced. There would be freedom abroad, and they would form a family again.

She pushed herself up and began the walk to the house. She would examine her wardrobe this afternoon, the one that she had saved when the family left London in ruin. It would be some time before she actually went to Tim, but she could fill her days with dreams and plans at least.