Rebecca Hagan Lee (15 page)

But now there was Miss Fairfax, and she was different. She was a lady and anyone with half an eye could see that Master Blake was crazy about her. He had been short-tempered and eaten up with jealousy whenever anyone dared to look at her. And he had broken his cardinal rules. He had gotten drunk in front of the staff and he had brought a woman into his home. Mackie was as moral as they come, but she was no fool. She knew something was going on.

Master Blake's valet, Hudson, had shown her the bloodstained neckcloth and she had been the one to find the remains of the torn nightgown Miss Fairfax had stuffed between her mattress--a nightgown torn from behind, which bore the same reddish-brown stains as Master Blake's neckcloth.

There was a powerful attraction at work here and everyone in the house was aware of it except the two people involved.

Mackie needed advice. She needed guidance. She needed help dealing with Master Blake and the young miss, and so she decided to share everything she knew about Blake Ashford with Leah.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

--WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 1564-1616

*Chapter Eleven*

"Feeling better?" Mackie cheerfully bustled into the master bedroom, and finding the occupant awake at last, placed her tray near the bed and hurried to open the drapes.

"No!" came the muffled shout. Too late, as the painful sunlight penetrated his eyelids, causing him to whiten beneath his tan. He impatiently raked his long lean fingers through his thick, black hair and muttered through tightly clenched teeth for Mackie to close the drapes.

"I've brought your breakfast."

The aroma assailed his sensitive nostrils and his queasy stomach threatened to turn over in revolt. "Take it away and leave me alone. Where is Hudson?"

"You gave him the day off last night. In fact, you gave everyone the day off. I thought I should check on you." She placed a plump hand against his forehead. "You feel positively clammy and you look a bit greenish despite that nasty black eye."

Blake slapped her hand away, irritably attempting to bury his aching head beneath the comfortable dark covers. "I don't need your cosseting, Mackie, and I certainly don't need that!"

He pointed a disparaging hand at the offending breakfast tray.

"But Master Blake, a man needs a nourishing breakfast to start the morning." Mackie removed the cover from the tray and the odor of bacon and kidneys filled the room.

Blake clamped a hand over his mouth and rolled to his stomach in a vain effort to escape from the smell. "Leave the juice and the coffee, then get out." He mumbled between clenched teeth.

She set a small glass of orange juice and a small pot of coffee and a cup and saucer on the bedside table. "But..."

"Leave, Mackie ..." He stopped in mid-sentence to gain control of his roiling insides. "Now, please, and take that horrible smell with you."

"I still think you need a hearty breakfast," Mackie insisted.

Blake turned his head and pinned his housekeeper with a baleful glare. "I don't need anything except peace and quiet and a few more hours of uninterrupted sleep. Go on, now, and take that tray." Blake was trying to be patient with Mackie but it was next to impossible when he felt as if the Ascot races were being run right through the center of his head and that smell... if he survived this episode, he never wanted to see, smell, or taste another kidney as long as he lived.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Mackie sounded genuinely concerned. "You still look a little peaked."

"I'm fine. Now, go." He had reached the end of his patience and it was all Blake could do not to roar, at his housekeeper. Only experience with the sort of damage shouting could do to his pickled brain kept Blake's tone of voice low and even.

Mackie hovered near the door. "I'll go if you're sure you're all right."

Blake waved a hand to shoo her out the door and Mackie took the offending tray and left the room seconds before Blake's quivering insides rebelled at the abuse they had taken.

Mackie stood outside the bedroom door listening as the violent retching began. She was torn between shame for deliberately causing Blake discomfort and pride at the subtle punishment she had inflicted on the unsuspecting man.

She smiled to herself and whistled as she descended the stairs. Master Blake would think twice about staying up to all hours and drinking like that again.

She paused at the foot of the stairs long enough to wonder how Leah was managing Miss Cristina, then whistled her way into the kitchen where she fed the old tomcat his customary breakfast of bacon and kidney.

"I don't understand how you can be so disloyal to me. I don't understand how you can like him or how you can take his side when you know he's keeping me a prisoner in this house." Cristina sat on the side of the massive bed, looking down at her lap and toying a loose thread on the pleats of her nightgown.

Leah's face was impassive as she bore the brunt of her young mistress's anger. "I'm not bein' disloyal to you or takin' his side against you, missy, but I don't agree that he's keepin' you here with him just for spite. I think he has other reasons. I think he's doin' what he thinks is best for you. After all, your mother did run off and leave you without a guardian or a chaperon.

What's got you so upset? Are you sure you told me everythin'?" Leah asked, knowing full well that Cristina had left something out.

"Of course I told you everything," Cristina replied softly, pulling at the string, avoiding Leah's knowing gaze. "What else is there to tell except that Lord Lawrence is keeping me here against my will? I've asked to leave and he refuses. I don't think that's what's best for me. And I think that whether you know it or not, you're taking his side and you're being disloyal to me in doing so."

"Well, I don't think I'm bein' disloyal to you at all and you can forget using that haughty tone of voice with me, 'cause it won't do you a bit of good. It might fool other folks, but it don't fool me. I may be a servant, but I happen to know how much my opinion means to you."

"It doesn't mean anything this time. I can't believe you think he's a good man when he's cruel and arrogant and overbearing. Why, he--" Her voice trailed off.

"He what?" Leah prompted, stiffening in her chair, preparing herself for Cristina's revelation.

"He took advantage of me. He kissed me against my will."

Leah almost smiled. "Are you sure it was against your will?"

"Of course, I'm sure," Cristina answered, continuing to pull at the loose thread on her nightgown. "Why do you persist in defending him?" Frustrated, she gave the thread a vicious yank and unraveled three delicately stitched pleats.

"Because nobody has ever taken advantage of you unless you allowed it,"

Leah told her. "Nobody except your mother, and Lord Lawrence didn't have anythin' to do with that sorry trick."

"How do you know he didn't?"

"He ain't that kind of man."

"How do you know what kind of man he is? You only just met him. You only arrived last night."

"Maybe so," Leah agreed. "But I've lived a long life and I've worked for the gentry a long time and last night was the first time a gentleman ever invited me to dine with him."

"You used to have breakfast with my father all the time," Cristina reminded her.

"In the kitchen," Leah pointed out. "I always ate breakfast with your father in the kitchen. Lord Lawrence is the only gentleman I've ever known who invited me to sit down beside him at the table in the dinin' room. And that tells me a lot about the kind of man he is," Leah concluded.

"It tells me you've been taken in by his charm just like everyone else in this house," Cristina replied.

"Includin' yourself?"

Cristina didn't answer.

"You don't have to worry about it," Leah told her. "He is a charmin' man. A nice man. And I just know he wouldn't be taken in by a schemin' woman like your mother."

Cristina abandoned her haughty pretense, got up from the bed, and knelt before Leah's chair, placing her head in the older woman's lap as she had done when she was a child. "Leah, the night at Marlborough House was awful. I didn't know what to do except try to escape, and then Lord Lawrence showed up.

He helped me, and yet I woke up in his bed. I'm so confused. A part of me wants to believe he's the kind of man you believe him to be. But another part of me is afraid. What if I'm wrong about him? What if I believe in him and find out he has the same morals as my mother or her friends and lovers?"

"Did anything happen while you were in Lord Lawrence's bed?" Leah asked.

"He says it didn't. He says all he did was rescue me, that I was too sotted for anything else."

Leah raised an eyebrow at that.

Cristina blushed. "I do remember drinking a bottle of wine."

"On top of the laudanum I gave you?"

Cristina nodded.

"Lord Lawrence was right. You were sotted and probably sleeping like a baby. But that wouldn't have stopped any of your mother's friends from taking advantage of you. The fact that Lord Lawrence didn't is proof of his character. It's all over now," Leah soothed. "The best thing you can do is to forget about what happened at Marlborough House. You're safe here, away from Claude and your mother now, and a man like Lord Lawrence ain't gonna let anythin' bad happen to you from now on."

"I'm not so sure," Cristina murmured as she leaned back on her knees so she could look Leah in the eyes.

"Why not?" Leah demanded.

"He thinks I'm a liar and a thief."

Leah eyed Cristina suspiciously. "What gave 'im that idea?"

Cristina buried her face in Leah's lap and refused to answer.

"Come on, missy, out with it, and I want the truth."

Cristina hesitated for a moment longer, then spoke in a rush. "I tried to break into his desk."

"You did what?" Leah was outraged.

"He had the necklace and I wanted it back. I thought he might have put it in his study for safekeeping, so I went looking for it."

"And then what 'appened?" Leah prompted when Cristina finished speaking.

"He caught me going through his desk drawers." Cristina met Leah's gaze.

"And?"

"That's it. That's all that happened." Cristina turned away from Leah as she got to her feet and walked to the bedroom window.

"Missy, this is Leah you're talking to. Now look me in the eye and tell me what 'appened." Leah followed her young mistress to the window and placed her hand on Cristina's shoulder, urging her to turn around.

"All right," Cristina let out a deep sigh as she turned her back to the window and faced Leah. "He kissed me."

"Only once?" Leah asked.

"More than once," Cristina answered.

"And tore your nightgown in the process?"

"He didn't mean to," Cristina defended Blake. "The gown was old and fragile--one of the ones Mackie loaned me--one of the gowns that belonged to Blake's mother. He just reached out for me and the nightgown seemed to come apart in his hands." She stopped and studied the expression on Leah's face.

"How did you know about that?"

Leah chuckled at the question. "Mrs. MacKenzie told me."

"How did she know?"

"She's the 'ousekeeper."

"So?"

"So if you're tryin' to keep secrets from servants you can't stuff the remains of a torn nightgown between your mattress. One of the maids is bound to find it."

Cristina stared at Leah for a moment, registering the fact that she'd been baring her soul when the whole household probably knew. She sucked in a breath, her anger gathering steam like a boiling kettle as she headed out the door. "Oooooh!"

Leah knew where she was going and what would happen when she got there, but it was too late to stop her.

"They know!" Cristina slammed the door to Blake's bedroom so hard it shook in its frame. Blake bolted upright in the huge four-poster, the noise and the movement causing him such agony that he could barely reply and when he did, it was a mere whisper. "Who are they and what do they know?" He forced open eyelids that weighed a ton to fix his blurred vision on the magnificent spectacle standing in front of the door she had just tried to slam off its hinges. He focused on the vision and a smile that came close to being a leer transformed his frown of annoyance.

She stood there in complete disarray, clearly interrupting her toilette to barge in on him, for she was wearing a lacy corset, a thin lawn chemise, and little else. Her magnificent coppery-colored hair curled like a living thing around the curve of her rounded hips. She looked more beautiful and desirable than he had ever seen her look before, especially flushed with anger that seemed to be emanating from her satiny smooth body.

Blake raised himself up on the pillows. He leaned nonchalantly against the headboard, ignoring the insistent pounding in his temples in order to indulge his senses with a better view of the heady vision filling his room.

"Stop that grinning, damn you, they know!" She stamped her foot on the shiny oak floor, giving vent to some of the rage she felt for the smiling fool lying so unconcerned in his bed.

"Don't stamp your foot and shout at me," Blake shouted back. "This is my house and my hearing happens to be very acute!" More acute than usual.

"Well, Lord Lawrence, what are you going to do about it?"

"Do about what? Good God, Cris, I don't even know what you're talking about!" The shouting was killing him, and after being rudely awakened by Mackie, puking his guts out then bathing and managing to choke down a glass of juice and a cup of coffee before finally returning to bed, Blake was in danger of losing the small amount of control he had managed to regain. "Why don't you explain yourself?"

Cristina rolled her emerald green eyes upward to stare at the mural on the ceiling. Oh, the stupidity of the man! "Your staff, your housekeeper, Leah, and probably the whole neighborhood know about us!"

He arched one finely drawn black eyebrow, his grin deepening at the sight of her frustrated anger. "What exactly do they know? It must be fairly obvious to any of the household staff that you're a guest here and since it is my home, it would be fairly obvious for them to assume you're are my guest. What else can they know?"