A Dangerous Man (6 page)

“And that is?”

“Lord Perth.”

“I see,” Mercy said, looking from Acton to the Duchess in a pretty study of consternation. “Well, I must admit I feel quite inordinately pleased with myself for managing as much as I have in keeping your hierarchy straight. Wouldn’t you just accept my competence in remembering the
important
titles and forgive me my ineptitude with the
little
ones?” She fluttered again.

He felt a constriction in his throat but managed to hold off laughing. The impossible hoyden. It would never do to encourage her.

Acton, however, showed no such restraint. He laughed heartily. Mercy, looking as though having someone laugh at her was the most delightful experience in the world, smiled at Acton, sharing his humor. Even the Duchess gave an unladylike snort. “You are a naughty gel to tease Perth so. He doesn’t understand your American sense of the absurd,” she chided.

“I hope Miss Coltrane will allow me to remedy that oversight,” Hart said, shooting Mercy a telling glance.

“Acton,” the Dowager Duchess said, her gaze fixed beyond her son’s shoulder, “Mr. and Mrs. Wrexhall have arrived. With Miss Moreland.” She directed their attention to the doorway.

Sure enough, his eldest sister, Beryl, and her husband, Henley Wrexhall, had arrived. They looked enough alike to be mistaken for siblings. Both were of medium height with slender, spare builds. Both of them had brunette hair and dark eyes and their similarly sharp features revealed quick intelligence. Though Henley, Hart noted, looked distracted and his gaze slipped from side to side as he nodded a greeting to those he passed.

Behind them, a vision of petite femininity, Annabelle appeared, the hem of her lacy gown barely moving as she approached. Hart felt a familiar swell of pride. She was like a tiny, pretty little rosebud. Her hair was a shade popularly referred to as strawberry-blond. When she was a toddler, he’d teased her by telling her it was pink.

Perfect, ladylike Annabelle. She played the piano with something near talent, she was fluent in three languages, and she was—if the written reports from her governesses and instructors were to be believed—exceptional at mathematics. She would make a fine duchess.

True to her inherently decorous nature, Annabelle did not rush forward in unseemly haste. She moved slowly, with measured steps, an expression of cordial recognition on her serene countenance.

“Hart,” she said. “It is wonderful to see you
again.” Trust Annabelle not to make any untoward comment about his scratched face.

“Hart, whatever has happened to your cheek?” Beryl demanded as soon as she was within speaking range.

Henley, stopping behind his wife, puckered his brow and cleared his throat. “That looks painful. What happened?”

“Riding accident,” Mercy Coltrane offered from his side.

No manners. None at all.

Beryl and Annabelle turned inquiring gazes on the American interloper and Hart found himself once more studying her. She looked stridently exotic in her bright pink dress, bold and vivacious. The contrast between her and his sweet-faced, pastel-clad sisters was acute. He hoped Acton noted it.

The Duke stepped forward, bowing in his most formal manner. “Miss Henley, Mrs. Wrexhall, Mr. Wrexhall, how very delighted we are that you have arrived. I trust your trip was uneventful?”

“Yes, it was fine,” Beryl said. Annabelle smiled shyly.

“May I present Miss Mercy Coltrane?” Acton asked. “She is doing us the honor of being our guest while her friend and chaperone, Lady Timmons, recuperates from an unfortunate accident.”

The women murmured “Pleased to make your acquaintance” at each other and Henley claimed his “charm” at having been introduced.

“We haven’t seen you in far too long, Hart,”
Beryl said, turning back to him. “When will you come home?”

“Bentwood is your home now, Beryl. Yours and Henley’s. I am only a guest there.”

“Nonsense,” Henley said staunchly, a moody shadow crossing his narrow features. “Bentwood has belonged to the earls of Perth for generations. We only hold it in trust for the day you bring your own bride there, Hart. Beryl and I would do quite well in town. Quite well.”

“Bentwood needs an overseer. I travel far too much to see it properly managed,” he said. It was an old conversation and he was disconcerted that Henley’s words still had the power to awake a small, hopeless longing.

He dare not live in England again, no matter how he longed for Bentwood. There were too many opportunities for his past to be discovered here. Too many people came and went between England and America these days. Witness Mercy Coltrane.

He still did not know exactly what to do about her. If she was very good, and very wise, and kept up her pretense of not knowing him, perhaps he wouldn’t have to do anything at all.

Polite conversation sprang up about him and he bent his head dutifully so that he would appear to be attending Annabelle’s soft dialogue. He couldn’t concentrate. He was too aware of Mercy.

He would not turn. He didn’t need to. He could smell her, a fragrance he’d learned in one brief conversation and that he intuitively knew he
would never forget. A sharp woodsy scent. No pleasant florals for Mercy Coltrane.

A footman approached and whispered something to the Duchess. She nodded and dismissed the servant before saying, “Acton, you must inform our guest that the orchestra is ready to play. I will not be attending. I have the beginning of the headache.”

Annabelle and Beryl expressed immediate concern and asked if they might do something to relieve their hostess. Mercy silently regarded the Duchess.

The Dowager waved down the sisters’ solicitude. “Thank you, but you can best serve me by not calling attention to my absence. Take our guests into the conservatory, Acton.”

“Of course, Mother,” Acton said, holding his arm out for Annabelle. With a glance at Hart for approval—which he gave with a slight nod—Annabelle laid the tips of her fingers on Acton’s arm and was led off. Henley cleared his throat again—a nervous habit Hart did not remember from past acquaintance—and after darting a quick glance at him made a lavish court bow to his wife. She linked her hand through his arm and they, too, departed.

That left him standing with Mercy among the flux of people heading for the conservatory.

He turned toward her, giving her a predatory smile. “It would appear, Miss Coltrane, that you have been left in my care.”

Chapter 5

“Y
ou’d best stick to the unapproachable guise,” Mercy said, gratified by the bemusement her words surprised on Hart’s face.

“Miss Coltrane?”

“The threatening mien is not nearly so effective as that Olympian detachment.” It wasn’t much of an indication of his thoughts, but there was a definite tightening of his features. With a bit of patience, Mercy thought, she would have him shouting at her within the week. And she wanted to make him shout.

She wanted to break down that icy facade and make him feel something: anger, worry, amusement. If she could touch the well-hidden humanity in the man, perhaps then he might help her find Will.

But not
, she thought,
yet
. This indifferent man would know nothing of desperation. He would know nothing of how it felt to lose one’s family. He
would know nothing of promises made to dying mothers or healing a breach that one was responsible for.

He was regarding her dispassionately, and it was obvious only his impeccable manners kept him from abandoning her while the last of the party departed the room.
Wouldn’t want to raise comment by leaving a lady standing alone and unattended, would we?
she thought.

“I’m not going to the musicale, Mr. Perth. So you needn’t stand here wondering who you can foist me on.”

“If you cannot find the wherewithal to call me
Lord
Perth, perhaps a simple Perth might not be beyond your abilities.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps … Perth.”

Not a shred of emotion. “If you are not attending the entertainment that your host has gone through the trouble to arrange, where are you going? To practice your lariat skills on Acton’s tame deer?”

She laughed, startling him into a fleeting glance of bafflement.
What? No one ever laughed at his quips?
“Now, how did you know I was an absolute magician with a lariat? But, no. I am going to the kitchen.”

“If you require some refreshment, all you have to do is ask your maid to fetch it.”

“I don’t have a maid. I make use of one of the Dowager’s tweenies when necessary. Never could understand why someone would want another person hovering about for the sole purpose of picking
up the odd thread trailed in. Seems demeaning. And I wouldn’t want to demean Brenna. She’s a darling girl. Loads of hair. She’s promised to help me arrange my own. Isn’t that sweet? I mean, this woman has hair”—she paused, trying to find some way to describe the magnificence of Brenna’s tresses—
“abundant
hair. She wears rats atop her head.”

He was silent a minute. “Rats?” he asked, curiosity apparently overcoming his aversion to talking with her.

“Yes,” she answered. “They are these structures you perch like a hat on your head and then cover with your hair. Quite wondrous. She’s promised that she will help me with my own—”

“I don’t really care to hear about the tweenie’s coiffure,” he said. “The point I was attempting to make is, if you want something, ask one of the servants.”

“Oh, that would never do. I need to make a special tea.”

“How special can tea be?” he asked. “I’m sure Acton’s cook can produce an acceptable cup.”

She refused to be drawn in to an argument with him. “I’m going to the kitchen.”

“You know where the kitchen is?”

She didn’t deign to answer this question. Of course she knew where the kitchen was. She started past him, surprised when he followed.

“It’s not that large a house,” she said over her shoulder. “I won’t get lost.”

“I feel a certain obligation to my host to see
that none of his guests provokes undue comment. You shouldn’t be seen wandering about the house alone, peeking through doors.”

She shot him an indignant look. Satisfaction awoke in his blue eyes.

“Suit yourself,” she said, marching down the hallway toward the green baize door at the end. She pushed through the smoothly swinging door and immediately found herself in the kitchen.

Two young girls perched on stools were peeling vegetables. A stalwart aproned cook was hefting an enormous pan filled with plump chicken breasts into a cavernous oven while another cook stirred a copper pot. The third cook, a rotund woman cloaked in flour dust, was pounding a huge slab of dough on a scarred and pitted table, her plump upper arms jiggling with her effort.

As soon as they entered, the servants stopped their activity and stared at them in amazed silence.

“How are you, Minnie?” Mercy asked the pastry chef.

“Ah, fine. Fine, miss,” mumbled Minnie.

Behind her, Hart stopped. “Miss Coltrane requires the use of the kitchen,” he announced. “Please leave.”

“No, no. They needn’t—”

“Now,” Hart said.

The members of the kitchen staff dispersed like quail from a covey, fleeing through the various doors in the kitchen as Mercy made unheeded sounds of protest. In a matter of seconds she and Hart were alone.

“You didn’t have to disrupt their work!” She swung around angrily.

“You will not give grist to the gossip mill with your uncivilized behavior. The less people know about this bizarre insistence on brewing your own tea, the better. Do you think someone is going to try to poison you? I can assure you that I am the only one likely, or for that matter with the incentive, to do so.”

“You
really
mean you don’t want any witnesses to
your
almighty presence among those who must earn their livelihoods.”

“Miss Coltrane,” he said slowly, “you know better than anybody else in this house, the unthinkable things I’ve done to earn money—things nobody here would ever consider doing.”

Confused, she dropped her gaze. He was an enigma. It made no sense that he should be so autocratic that he resented being seen here, and at the same time remind her of his past. Each moment with him made that past seem more implausible. The lank, sun-scarred range rider was gone. He was the complete aristocrat now: remote, imperious, sophisticated.

“Besides, you aren’t really concerned about keeping them from their work, are you?” he asked.

“Of course I am. Now I will have put them off their schedule and they will be playing catch-up for the rest of the day.”

“Consider that I have given them an unexpected holiday.”

“I suppose I’ll have to,” she answered tartly,
crossing to the pantry door and swinging it open to study the contents.

Barrels lined the far end of the cramped room. Above her swung cheeses cloaked in wax, garlic braids, and colorful bundles of dried herbs. Tins of spices, jars of jewel-colored jellies, and muslin bags of dried legumes marched along the various shelves. Mercy peered at the neatly labeled ceramic jars and selected two. She plucked a wreath of dried flowers from a hook overhead, adding it to her armful of ingredients.