Rebecca Hagan Lee (14 page)

"You can't soothe your conscience that easily," Cristina stated. "I don't want your thirty pieces of silver. I want the necklace."

"That's your misfortune."

"You gave me it to me."

"Gave, Miss Fairfax?" Blake raised one eyebrow. "Minutes ago you were accusing me of sending it as payment. Payment for services to be rendered, I believe."

"I rendered the service," Cristina informed him. "I spent the night with you."

"Did you?"

"You know I did. At Marlborough House. You owe me the necklace."

"We shared a bed, Miss Fairfax, nothing more."

"Well?" Cristina demanded, as if that were proof of intimacy.

"Allowing you to share my bed while you're in a drunken stupor does not constitute payment for services rendered. Any self-respecting mistress knows that." Blake threw the insult at her as an afterthought to see what she'd do next. "If you want the necklace, Miss Fairfax, you'll have to earn it."

Cristina sucked in a breath, then released it in fury. "You don't have enough money to buy me."

Blake looked her right in the eyes. "I thought I already had."

He waited.

She looked as if she wanted to slap him, then thought better of it.

Reaching across the top of his desk, she touched the small silver pot.

She wanted to throw it. Blake could see it in the depths of her green eyes.

She wanted to bounce it off his chest. But she didn't. She looked him in the eye, then carefully and with great dignity settled it back into place on his desk and walked out the door.

Brilliant strategy, Lawrence, he berated himself. To push her into a corner like that. Now if she ever did come to him, he'd never know if it was because she wanted him or the damned necklace.

Christ, what a tangle! Blake cursed the necklace. He cursed Patricia Fairfax and Rudolf. And he cursed Meredith for her duplicity. But most of all, Blake cursed himself for always wanting what he could not have.

Blake was sitting in his favorite chair beside the fireplace in his study deliberately polishing off a bottle of brandy when his Aunt Delia entered the room and announced in a voice loud enough to wake the dead, "Perryman says that Miss Fairfax's maid has arrived and that she's asking to see you or Miss Fairfax, or both."

"Tell him to show her to Miss Fairfax's room." Blake rose from his chair as his aunt entered the room. Although his aunt was hard of hearing, he tried very hard not to shout at her. He'd noticed that she seemed to understand what was said around her much better when she could look the speaker in the face, so he placed his snifter of brandy on the mantel and walked over to stand in front of her. He didn't like shoving the task of seeing Cristina's maid properly settled into the household off on his butler, his housekeeper, or his aunt without having first welcomed her himself, but he was in no condition to acknowledge her arrival. Not while he was still fuming over her young mistress's erroneous assumptions about him. Not while he was trying very hard to drink his thoughts of Cristina away.

"What did you do to the gel?" Aunt Delia asked.

"Why?" A vision of Cristina hanging from the upstairs window on a rope of slashed bedding flashed through his mind.

"Miss Fairfax isn't opening her door," Aunt Delia informed him.

He blanched. "I'd better send someone around back to check her window."

Delia narrowed her gaze in suspicion. "And why would you need to do that?"

"To see if she's still in her room," he answered automatically.

"She's there. She's threatening to brain anyone who tries to open the door, but she's still there."

"Good." The note of relief in his voice was unmistakable. He exhaled the breath he'd been holding. "She's upset with me, but she's forsaken the bed sheets."

Delia stared at her nephew as if he'd lost his mind. "Blake, dear boy, she's threatening to bash us over the head."

"With what?" Blake asked, more out of idle curiosity than out of any real concern.

"With a vase. She said to tell you it was Chinese porcelain, probably early Ming." Aunt Delia paused. "If it's the vase in the carved niche by her dressing table, I suspect it's a few decades older than Ming. But I'm not an expert. And Chinese porcelain is rather difficult to date at times because each generation of artisans tended to copy patterns of the previous generation. But the glazing and firing techniques did improve. Still, I suppose the only real way to be certain about the date is to locate the household manifest and see when it was purchased or to allow Cristina to break it. The sand used in Ming porcelain is very, very fine...."

Blake held up his hand. His aunt was an amateur antiquarian and prided herself on her patronage of the London Museum of History. "Aunt Delia, please tell Miss Fairfax her maid is here and that if she breaks the vase, it'll go on her account for services owed."

"Blake Ashford!" Aunt Delia was outraged by the suggestion. "You wouldn't!"

"No, Aunt Delia, I wouldn't." Blake stood up and followed his aunt as far as the bottom of the grand staircase, then fondly patted her cheek. "But she doesn't know that."

"Her maid is waiting in the front hall."

Blake nodded. "Aunt Delia?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Would you be sure to tell Miss Fairfax that cook is holding dinner for her? This household will not eat until she appears for dinner." He made the announcement loud enough for Cristina to hear.

He didn't have to wait long before the sound of her voice drifted down from upstairs. "Lady Wethering, you may tell Lord Lawrence that I will be more than happy to dine with the rest of his household as long as he dines elsewhere."

"Now, dear..." Aunt Delia's words were lost as Perryman, the butler, ushered Leah into Blake's study.

Mackie followed close on their heels. "Thank goodness you've come. I simply don't know how to handle the young miss." Mackie shrugged her shoulders in an eloquent gesture.

"Mrs. MacKenzie, I forbid you to take the Miss Fairfax's supper to her,"

Blake interrupted loudly. "If she wants to eat, she can come downstairs and eat with me."

"But Master Blake ..." Mackie stared at her employer and nodded her head in the direction of his study.

"Mackie." Blake stressed the housekeeper's pet name to let her know he meant business. He couldn't allow his softhearted housekeeper to circumvent his order. If Cristina continued to act like a naughty child, he would treat her as such.

He turned to Leah. "You must be from Fairhall."

"Yes. Your Lordship sent for me. I'm Leah and I brought some of my young lady's clothes," Leah explained, not quite sure how far into the bottle his lordship was.

"Your young lady?" Blake muttered suggestively. "She may be a lady, but right now she's not acting like one. Have you any idea the amount of trouble that young woman has caused me?"

Leah grasped the situation immediately. There was a power struggle going on in this house and both of the participants were determined to win. "I have a good idea, Your Lordship. You see, I've known Miss Fairfax from the day she was born and I know she can be a handful. She's given me many a gray hair in my head from worryin'," Leah told him, "but she can also be the sweetest, most lovin' girl in the world."

Blake leaned closer to Leah. "I haven't had the privilege of seeing much of her nicer side. Apparently we bring out the worst in each other."

If he hadn't seemed so earnest, Leah was sure she would have burst out laughing.

"Why do you suppose that is?" he asked.

Leah turned to Blake and flashed him one of her rare smiles. "Well, if I were to really think about it, I would think it might be because you tend to be a wee bit overbearin'." Then seeing his shocked expression, she hastened to add, "Don't get me wrong. I think that's a fine quality in a man. A man should rule his household, but Miss Fairfax hasn't been around many men and she don't understand that. She's real sensitive, with a firm sense of right and wrong and it just goes against her grain for someone to try to force her to do somethin'. She reads a lot of books and she likes to make her own decisions.

Of course, it's hard for a young lady in her position to accept that she's not going to be allowed to think for herself once she's introduced into society.

It was all right for her to have all those ideas about emancipation when she was younger, but now that she's of marriageable age, she's got to learn to put those things aside. And the man who gets Miss Cristina must handle her with a gentle hand. She has a terrible temper."

Blake smiled, showing one tiny dimple. He was well aware of Miss Fairfax's temper, having been on the receiving end of it once or twice. So she couldn't stand to be dominated. That was the problem. What had happened to his nimble brain? What had happened to his keen perception about people? He should have realized it before. That was one of things that had attracted him to her to begin with; the fact that she was no milksop miss. She was different and because she was different, she resented his having control over her. Blake could understand that. He often felt the same way about things beyond his control. Pleased with his revelation, Blake was prepared to be magnanimous. He glanced up at Mackie. "Wait, Mackie."

"Yes?"

"Ask my aunt to inform Miss Fairfax she can dine alone in her room if she wishes. For tonight."

Leah successfully hid her smile. "I think that's very generous of Your Lordship," she told him, and knowing Cristina's temper, very wise of him as well.

Blake blossomed under her praise. He seemed to have made everyone around him angry lately, and he was very pleased to have someone agree with him for a change.

"Come, Leah, we'll talk over dinner." He took Cristina's maid by the arm and led her into the dining room and pulled out the chair beside his at the long, mahogany dining table.

Leah was surprised by his breach of etiquette. She was a servant and servants didn't sit at the same table as their employers. She blushed. "Your Lordship, I can't sit with you."

"Why not? I like you. I want you to keep me company. I live in a world of formality. I work in a branch of the government chockful of rules and regulations and etiquette, so I'm not much on formality at home. I prefer to relax a bit and relax the rules governing the household. You haven't eaten this evening, have you?"

Leah shook her head.

"Then my aunt and I would be very pleased to have you join us for dinner."

He flashed her a smile and the dimple in his cheek gave him a boyish appearance. "Besides, I hate sitting at one end of the table while my aunt sits at the other end. And as my aunt is rather hard of hearing, the seating arrangement makes for rather difficult conversation. But Perryman and Mackie insist that this formality preserves the order of the household, that my eating in the kitchen would make my employees uncomfortable. So ..."

"I'm truly honored by your generous offer, Your Lordship. I've been a servant all my life and not one of my employers has ever asked me to sit down and eat with him, but it's like your housekeeper said--some rules about the household shouldn't be broken. Besides"--she leaned closer to him--"I'm afraid I'd be too uncomfortable havin' fellow staff members waitin' on me. I know you'll understand if I say that like you, I prefer the kitchen."

Blake nodded and graciously allowed Leah to make her exit without further embarrassment. He sighed. Despite his initial reluctance to invite her to stay at Lawrence House and chaperon Cristina, Blake discovered he enjoyed Aunt Delia's company. Enjoyed having her in the house, and she enjoyed being there.

But meal times were awkward with the two of them sitting at opposite ends of the table. She couldn't hear and because neither one of them wanted to shout across the vast expanse of the mahogany dining table, they were destined to eat in lonely silence once again.

The big house was quiet except for the sounds of the two women who sat in the kitchen. The master of the house had long since retired to his room to bathe and to nurse his wounds with a full bottle of brandy and Cristina hadn't made a sound in hours. It was the perfect time for the two women to get acquainted--to share a pot of strong, sweet tea and a bit of household gossip.

"I'm not one to gossip about what goes on in the family to strangers, mind you, but seeing as how you're going to be here a while and seeing as how you're part of Miss Cristina's household, I think you ought to know some of our family history, so to speak," Mackie stated firmly, lest Leah think she indulged in common gossip.

"Please, Mistress MacKenzie, you don't need to give me any explanations.

I've been in service to the gentry since I was thirteen years old and none of their goin's on surprises me at this stage of my life." Leah didn't want the kindly woman to think she regularly indulged in common gossip.

"I insist." Mackie silenced any further token protests and began to explain. It was so nice to have someone to talk to. Someone who had not been involved with the family and who knew nothing of the life Lord and Lady Lawrence had lived before her fatal accident. Mackie sensed the other woman's concern for Lord Lawrence and was glad of it. It was wonderful to be able to share her worries with another woman. Master Blake had been a source of concern for a very long time and Mackie felt she needed a fresh opinion to help her help him. And it was important to Mackie that Leah understand about him because she hadn't met him at his best. She wanted Leah to understand that Master Blake didn't make a habit of overindulging in brandy. He wasn't the worse for drink very often and when he was there was always a reason. And usually that reason had something to do with the memories of his late wife. A man needed a woman of his own. And that was something Master Blake had never had. Mackie wasn't blind. She knew Blake had sexual appetites just like any other man and those appetites didn't go away now that he was widowed. Nor had they gone away just because he had been unfortunate enough or unwise enough to marry a woman who would never be faithful to him. As far as she knew, Master Blake had never turned to his wife for companionship or solace. He sought his pleasure elsewhere. But he had always been very discreet. He rarely returned to Lawrence House after a night with a woman, preferring to stay at his club until the effects of the night wore off. He didn't think his employees should see him in a drunken state and he never brought a woman into his home. It was his private place. His sanctuary.