Teresa Medeiros (8 page)

Lucy smothered a smile at a vision of the ancient coachman charging to her rescue.

“Very well,” her father said. “You may begin your duties tomorrow. Smythe can provide you with a written copy of Luanda’s schedule. I’ve simplified it for
her convenience. She is expected to rise promptly at oh six hundred and attend breakfast at oh eight hundred. She spends from oh nine hundred to eleven hundred hours in the library transcribing my memoirs.”

“A fascinating endeavor, I’m sure.”

Lucy frowned. Had that been a hint of sarcasm in Mr. Claremont’s expressive voice? If it had, her father remained blissfully oblivious to it.

“Quite so. From eleven hundred thirty to thirteen hundred, she partakes of luncheon and is free to prepare for any social calls she is obligated to make that afternoon.”

Was it Mr. Claremont’s eyes or his spectacles that were beginning to glaze over? Lucy wondered.

“Barring any calls,” her father droned on, “she takes tea at fifteen hundred and may dabble in her watercolors from sixteen hundred to seventeen hundred. She then dresses for dinner, which is served promptly at nineteen hundred hours. I am frequently absent in the evenings, advising the Admiralty Court on strategies and such, but if I happen to be entertaining, Lucy is expected to act as hostess for a late supper at precisely twenty two hundred. Of course, all of her activities are interspersed with the social obligations appropriate to a girl of her age and position such as afternoon teas, balls, routs, theater parties, et cetera, et cetera.” The Admiral relaxed enough to smile at his captive audience. “I have found that a productive life is a happy life. Don’t you agree?”

“Indubitably.” Claremont’s smile lacked its former verve.

The brass skeleton clock on the mantel chimed the hour. Lucy rose, bobbing a flawless curtsy. “May I be dismissed, Father? It’s time to dress for dinner.”

The Admiral checked his chronometer, then nodded his permission. Before Lucy could escape, Claremont
stood, stepping neatly into her path. She was forced to tilt her head back to meet his gaze or risk being thought as rude as he was. His warm fingers curled around hers, bringing her tightly fisted hand not to his lips, but to his heart. She could only glare at him, too shocked by his familiarity to jerk back her hand as she should have.

“Have no fear, Miss Snow,” he drawled, his voice laced with mockery. “I promise to hold your life as dear as I hold my own.”

Answer correspondence—0700

Organize calling cards by rank and alphabet—1230

Gerard Claremont glared down at the schedule in his hand. It had come slithering beneath the gatehouse door earlier that evening, outlined with military precision in the butler’s neat script. It seemed his bombastic employer had omitted several colorful and thrilling tasks from his verbal itinerary of his daughter’s life, such as reviewing the daily papers for mentions of him and polishing the brass buttons on his uniforms. Gerard was surprised the man hadn’t allotted her specific minutes in which to make use of the chamber pot.

“A productive life is a happy life,” he mimicked savagely, crushing the elegant sheet of vellum and tossing it into the fire he had lit to burn off the chill of the autumn night.

He watched with satisfaction as it shriveled to ash. There had been little of happiness in the girl’s shadowed eyes.

Absently rubbing his clean-shaven jaw, he paced the gatehouse. Decorated with the same spartan practicality as the main house, the long, narrow room was an excellent one for pacing. There were no overstuffed ottomans to stumble over, no porcelain figurines to
bump with his elbows. There was only a wooden bedstead, overlaid with a weary feather tick and a worn but serviceable quilt, a tall wardrobe, a round table, a bedside stand, and four nicked and scarred Hepple-white chairs doubtlessly cast from the family dining room after overstaying their welcome. The grumbling coachman Gerard had inadvertently ousted hadn’t left so much as a trace of his own thirty-year occupancy.

The rough-planked floor creaked beneath Gerard’s angry footsteps. It seemed that all of his hard-won plans had been laid for naught. He had expected his position to entail guarding a pompous military hero far past his prime. How was he to accomplish what he’d come for when forced to play nursemaid to some imperious young miss whose every thought and feeling was regimented by her father? The Admiral had claimed to be protecting his daughter from Doom, but Gerard suspected he was protecting himself from what Doom might reveal to her should she once again fall into his hands.

He’d been able to learn that Lucy was the only female Lucien Snow tolerated in his domain. Even his household staff had been culled from retired seaman who had served under him and were willing to award him the adulation and unquestioning obedience he considered his due. Just as his daughter had proved herself only too willing to do.

As his contempt raged higher, the walls of the gatehouse seemed to shrink around him. The high-raftered lodgings were spacious, even luxurious, compared to most of his former dwellings, but Gerard’s sense of confinement mounted until the flames of the fire wavered before his eyes, cloaked by a billowing blackness that threatened to smother him.

Flinging open the door, he escaped into the moonlight, drinking in hungry gulps of crisp night air redolent
with the tang of autumn. He flexed his shaking fingers as if to assure himself they were no longer skeletal ruins. Despising himself for his weakness, he drew a cheroot from his pocket and lit it, hoping its savory smoke would steady both his hands and his nerves.

A dog barked in the distance, the sound both mournful and oddly comforting. Withdrawing into the shadows of the brick wall that surrounded the modest estate, he tilted his head back to study the stars. The familiar constellations danced like flecks of crystal before his restless eyes. They’d steered him many places in the past—some exotic, some dangerous, some breathtakingly beautiful, but he’d never dreamed they’d bring him to a place such as this.

His gaze lifted reluctantly to the second-story window that belonged to the Admiral’s daughter. It was the only room on the front of the yellow-bricked manor hung with curtains—lace and damask confections drawn back to reveal the lamplit panes of the sash window. He’d requested residence in the gatehouse to escape the prying eyes of the other servants. He ought to be plotting how to turn this bitter twist of fate to his advantage, not glaring up at Lucy Snow’s window, haunted by a pair of enormous gray eyes and a lush mouth set incongruously in a pinched little face.

He remembered the cool feel of her hand in his, the cultured bite of her voice, the stormy spark of defiance in her eyes whenever she turned them on him.

He had held his breath in anticipation, waiting for that spark to ignite beneath the flame of her father’s bullying. But it had remained banked as she sprang up like a well-trained terrier to stand before the Admiral. She had dutifully described her impending death at the hands of Captain Doom as if she were reciting her multiplication tables. He could almost see her jotting it onto her schedule:
0800—Resist torture. 0830—Throw
self overboard. 0900—Be eaten by sharks
. No sacrifice too great for the noble Admiral and His Majesty’s Royal Navy!

Acrid smoke burned Gerard’s throat. His pleasure spoiled, he snuffed out the cheroot and hurled it into the darkness, quenching it as ruthlessly as Lucien Snow quenched all traces of his daughter’s spirit whenever she was in his exalted presence.

Gerard exhaled sharply as a figure appeared in the window, silhouetted against the lamplight. He scowled. The girl was as slight as a wraith, yet the gentle curves outlined beneath the fabric of her demure nightdress were unmistakably those of a woman. Her pale hair, caught in two long plaits, gleamed like braided silver in the moonlight.

She was angled toward the gatehouse and he wondered if she might be searching the night for him. Impossible though it was, he would have almost sworn their gazes met and mingled through the darkness before she reached up and snatched the drapes shut, her outrage a palpable thing.

Gerard might have been amused had he not been so consumed by his thwarted plans. While he could afford no distractions, he also couldn’t allow himself to forget that the Admiral’s daughter wasn’t dry tinder, but a damp fuse on a keg of gunpowder—slow burning, unpredictable, and dangerous.

A
T PRECISELY 0600 THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Smythe came tapping at the gatehouse door. Believing there was little need to guard Miss Snow’s precious life while she dressed and coiffed herself, Gerard dragged the quilt over his head and ignored the butler’s polite queries as to his state of wakefulness until he finally went away. Gerard crawled out of bed after nine o’clock, his head pounding from too little sleep and too many misgivings.

After giving himself a meticulous shave, polishing his spectacles, and breakfasting on a stale torte, he reported to the great house for duty only to discover that instead of exploring Ionia as he’d hoped to do, he was to accompany Miss Snow on some trivial errand.

From what he could gather from the frantic menservants, their negligent young mistress had misplaced a valuable resource—the recently published memoirs of Admiral Lord Howell. As penance, she was to be sent to Lord Howell’s country estate to secure another copy. Her father had determined she could make the
most efficient use of her time by letting the visit double as a social call to Lord Howell’s daughter Sylvie.

Gerard was waiting in the entrance hall, tapping his hat impatiently against his thigh, when Lucy came tripping down the stairs in a pair of delicate sandals. The white muslin of her simply cut dress was gathered in tiny pleats beneath her breasts and complimented by a pastel pink stole. Her straw bonnet sported matching satin ribbons. She painted such a portrait of girlish charm that Gerard could not help smiling.

Until he saw her eyes. Her gaze was a blast of early winter that might have withered a lesser man. Taking a wary step out of her path, he donned his hat and swept a mocking hand toward the front door.

Without missing a step, she slapped a brass spyglass into his palm. “Perhaps in the future, Mr. Claremont, you’d care to use this for your nocturnal spying.”

If a footman hadn’t scampered to open the door, Gerard was convinced she would have walked right through it.

Watching her pert rump twitch beneath the clinging muslin, he muttered “And a good morning to you, too, Miss Snow,” before plunking the spyglass down on a pier table and following.

The morning dazzled Gerard’s eyes as they waited for the carriage to be brought around from the stables. Sunlight poured down like manna from a heavenly vault of azure blue, blistering the crowns of the maples to fiery peach. Gerard breathed deeply, savoring the crisp fragrance of autumn. Not even being forced to dance attendance on the Admiral’s brat could spoil his ravenous appetite for fresh air and sunshine.

A mischievous breeze wafted off the river to sift the treetops, sending leaves cascading down in showers of crimson and gold. Gardeners were scattered across the
grounds, their rakes poised to capture the daring interlopers before they marred the pristine carpet of the lawn. Gerard fought a wicked urge to kick his way through their captive piles, scattering them to freedom. Instead, he threw back his arms and stretched, exulting in the flex of his restless muscles.