The Beautiful One (7 page)

Of course, Lizzie proposed more than once that she and Anna walk out to the cottages and surprise him with a visit, but Anna discouraged her firmly, telling her that would likely make him angry. Since Lizzie desperately didn't want to anger him, she instead tried quizzing the servants discreetly about his movements. But his servants were touchingly protective of him, and continually managed to avoid providing answers.

Lizzie had thus risen extremely early several days in a row, in the hopes of catching him somehow before he left. But as she moaned to Anna later, if he was actually still in residence at Stillwell, he must be possessed of a magical cloak of invisibility, because she hadn't seen him in the flesh since the owl incident.

Anna suggested that Lizzie was being a bit dramatic and that the viscount was simply busy and had access to some private staircase. Lizzie must be patient and not expect to see him frequently, Anna advised, while privately seething as she watched the light begin to fade from the girl's countenance. Anna knew he spent most of his time at the cottages, and was in fact fairly certain that he was the dark-haired person she'd glimpsed working on the roof of one of them; she could see the tops of the cottages from her bedchamber window.

The viscount was, however, apparently not uncaring about his niece's presence on the estate. The day after the owl incident, Anna and Lizzie had entered the old schoolroom to find a handsome new atlas awaiting them, and with it a stack of new schoolbooks. And Dart had informed them that his lordship had arranged for a pony for Miss Tarryton, should she wish to ride.

Lizzie had been in raptures over Lord Grandville's thoughtfulness, eager as she was for any proof that he remembered she was there, any sign that buried under his gruff demeanor was the man her father had loved. She longed to thank him in person for what he'd provided, but of course that hadn't been possible.

By the afternoon of their fifth day at Stillwell, Anna found herself entirely distracted with impotent fury at Lord Grandville. She'd seen that he was capable of tenderness, and he did care about Lizzie—why couldn't he spend just a little time with her?

She understood that his spirits were depressed by his wife's death. But as the only person currently being clear-sighted about Lizzie's future, she couldn't allow him to remain detached.

Five days down, a little over three weeks to go, Will thought as he stood watching his overseer demonstrate drainage ditches in the west fields. Except for that early-morning encounter with Anna, he'd managed to avoid his guests. Anna had pressed him about Lizzie, but she couldn't understand that he had nothing to offer his niece, and their presence was driving him to find ever more ways to stay out of his house.

If only he could forget about Anna and her funny embraces and impertinent ways. He'd been struggling all day—struggling since the moment he'd met her on the road in the rain—not to think about her, but it was no use, and the thinking would progress to
savoring
and finally turn into
imagining
, and there was no end, damn it all, to the imagining.

His overseer was certainly pleased to see his master in the fields, though. For weeks Mr. Temple had been urging him to come see the progress on the ditches, which Temple believed might benefit many areas on the estate. Will trusted the man implicitly and didn't feel the need to check his work, but now that he was here he had to admit that maybe he'd been shifting too many details of the estate's management onto Temple's shoulders.

All around, his tenants were at work in the soil, hoeing and weeding. Stillwell had fine tenants, whose families had worked the land with care for generations, and watching them now, he felt a sharp stab of regret that there wouldn't be enough cottages for them all. Maybe Norris could see to the construction of some others for those who wouldn't benefit from the ones Will was finishing.

Except the cottages had to be done just so, and he didn't see how he could cede the supervision of their construction to someone else. He certainly couldn't envision overseeing a new round of building himself.

His attention was drawn to two mothers who knelt nearby, chatting and laughing as they made a game of showing their young children how to pull weeds. The children's earnest, ineffective efforts stirred a deep pang in him. Shut away in his routine, he'd forgotten about children.

Ginger had wanted babies. Exuberant, optimistic Ginger, who'd always lived in the moment.

How could so much love and goodness have been destroyed? He'd never understood until the day she died how helpless he was against what life could throw at him, and he hated that.

He looked away from his tenants. Now he remembered why he didn't come out to the fields.

“So, what do you think, my lord?” Mr. Temple said as Will turned toward him.

“Fine, Temple. Do as you see fit.” And with that, he made for his horse.

He spent the rest of the afternoon in a grim mood, sanding smooth one of the cottages' doors.

Early that evening, he let himself in the servants' entrance in the back of Stillwell. Dart, with his customary omniscience, was waiting in the hallway leading to the family apartments.

He bowed and handed Will a folded piece of paper with an apologetic look. Will was aware that his faithful servants felt he ought to be protected from troubling things like importunate relations, and he knew he ought not to let them shield him, but it was easier that way.

“Miss Black was most insistent, my lord,” Dart said, “that this was of an urgent nature requiring your immediate attention.”

Will cursed quietly under his breath and took the note.

Dear Lord Grandville,

As you may know, your ward, Miss Elizabeth Tarryton, or Lizzie, as she prefers to be called, is now in residence at Stillwell Hall. For your information, she can be found in the schoolroom in the morning, in the garden in the afternoon if the weather is fine, and in the evening in your dining room. As her uncle and her guardian, surely you will not wish to miss the opportunity to spend time in her company.

Yours,

The Governess

Saucepot! He was doing his best to ride out their presence here and determine some appropriate situation for his niece. But Anna Black clearly was not one to accept circumstances quietly, and considering all the bold things she'd done since arriving, he didn't trust her not to escalate her efforts.

He imagined her taking Lizzie around to meet all his neighbors, or sending out invitations to a dinner under his name, forcing his hand somehow. She was clearly accustomed to doing as she deemed necessary, and she was making a crusade out of his niece and her future.

It was almost as though there were something personal in Lizzie's situation that compelled her. He wondered what such a thing might be.

He crumpled the paper and addressed the waiting Dart.

“Bring Miss Black to the library at once.”

Dart didn't blink an eye at the idea that his master was going to receive the governess in the dusty garments in which he'd been laboring all day.

“Very good, my lord.”

Will was staring unseeingly at a bookshelf full of Greek philosophy when a knock sounded on the library door several minutes later. He told himself he was absolutely not looking forward to seeing her and to the release of arguing with her, but he knew that to be a lie.

“Come in,” he said in his best lord-and-master voice. He turned around. “Ah, the governess,” he said as she moved into the room. “And owl savior.”

She lifted a single eyebrow at him, and he caught a smile starting to form on his lips and let it die away.

He took a seat behind the large old walnut desk that had been used by generations of viscounts. He was determined that the tree-climbing Anna Black would understand a few things about her position at Stillwell.

She was wearing the abysmal blue gown, which looked to have once been periwinkle but was now only faintly blue. And why did it have to hang off her so unattractively when he knew very well now how feminine was the slim body underneath?

“Yes, my lord?”

“Where is my ward?”

“I believe she is sewing. She did not require my company.”

She folded her hands in front of her colorless skirts, doubtless unaware that the movement brought forward some of the loose fabric around her torso, delineating the graceful curve of her waist on one side. Her curly, glossy black hair was pulled into its usual messy knot on the back of her head; her customary look seemed to be that of someone who had little interest in her appearance.

And yet, she had those beautiful sherry eyes, and those black, assertive eyebrows, a pert nose, and that saucy pink mouth. She was invitingly lovely, like an exquisite wildflower growing at the edge of a rarely used path.

“And how do you plan to occupy your time together over the next month, Anna Black, barring any more calamities among the fauna of Stillwell?”

Did her lips twitch? “I thought we might study French and geography, and sketch in the garden when the weather is fine. Unless my lord wishes to propose some other course of study?”

He ignored her and took up the letter opener sitting on his desk and tapped it against the desktop. “What were you doing just now?”

She regarded him steadily as a few moments passed. “I wasn't aware that what I might be doing in my free time would be of any concern to you. My lord.”

He abandoned the letter opener and took his time lighting two of the candles on his desk against the fading light. He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. She continued to stand before him in ostensible meekness.

“Don't be impertinent, Anna. Though I am persuaded that is your customary mode of expression. You are living in my home and are in my employ, and your activities are certainly of interest to me.”

“Miss Black, if you please, and I was reading.”

“As I am paying you, and quite handsomely, I believe I shall feel free to call you Anna.”

She opened her mouth, doubtless to argue with him, but then seemed to think better of it and said nothing. He was almost disappointed.

“And what were you reading, Anna? I suppose you helped yourself to a book from my library.”

“I brought my own book.”

“A novel of gothic horror, eh? The innocent young lady meets the beast of the manor?”

She tipped her head in answering mockery. And why had he said that, damnation? He was flirting with her.

“A book of natural history.”

A singular choice for a young woman, but why should he be surprised, given her interest in birds? He frowned, realizing that probing her reading choices was making him want to know more about her when he needed to keep this impersonal.

Her face looked less drawn now than it had when she arrived, and though the hospitality of Stillwell had clearly been putting roses in her cheeks and thus giving her greater energy for impudence, he felt pleased that she no longer had the look of a neglected kitten. His eyes wandered over her ugly gown. He supposed she could afford no better, and the thought made him feel guilty all over again for the way he'd treated her when she'd arrived.

“I shall provide you with several new gowns. The one you are wearing is unfit for the governess of my ward.”

“No, thank you. The gown I am wearing is adequate.”

“It looks like it was made from a slurry of dead flowers. The servants will all be wondering why Lizzie's governess is so poorly attired.”

“As I shall only be here for three more weeks, it makes little difference.” Her eyes flicked downward to his old brown waistcoat, still sprinkled with sawdust.

“And I wasn't aware that you were so very particular about attire, my lord. Your clothes are quite possibly shabbier than mine, and you can afford much better. One might ask why a viscount would choose to wear such things. But then, one might also ask why a viscount is working away on the roofs of cottages.”

He crossed his arms and gave her a withering look, but she was unaffected. He, however, felt himself grow warm as his eyes sank into hers. They were so full of light.

He stood up and turned away to look out the window behind his desk. The sun had almost set, and the smears of red and purple along the horizon reminded him of countless sunset rides he'd taken with Ginger, her elegant back straight and the ribbons on one of her fancy hats flying as she galloped laughingly from him. She'd wanted to ride Strider that last day. Strider, who was Will's horse and a more powerful mount than she was used to.

He cursed the turmoil his ward's arrival—and perhaps worse, Anna's—had brought and clasped his hands hard behind his back. He would have been ashamed for Ginger and David to know how poorly he'd welcomed Lizzie, but surely they would have seen how little he could offer her that was good?

“You made so bold as to send me a note about my ward.”

“Perhaps a guest might be forgotten in a place as large as Stillwell.”

If Ginger were still alive, doubtless they would have been close to their niece, but now it was impossible. Anna might be determined to push him to be the kind of guardian she thought Lizzie needed, but whoever that man might be, it was not he. He must keep Anna in her place, whether she wanted to accept what that was or not.

“In addition to Stillwell, Anna, I own other significant properties in England. I could, like a wizard, change your life in a moment by handing you more money than you would know what to do with, and it wouldn't impoverish me in the least.”

“My lord is a most wealthy and powerful aristocrat,” she said to his back in an unremarkable voice.

No one spoke to him the way she did! Where was her subservience, the need she should have, as a vulnerable woman, to seek his favor? Except, from the moment he'd met her, the one thing he'd have said about her was that, while many women cultivated vulnerability, she scorned it. He turned around.

“You seem to have no very high opinion of viscounts and their kind,” he said slowly as a thought dawned. “That leads me to believe that one of my peers has offended you in the past.”

She flushed, and that told him something.

“Someone has!” he said, coming around to the front of the desk near where she stood. He leaned back against its edge, half-expecting her to back away now that he was close to her, but she didn't. He supposed she felt it a point of honor not to do so. He crossed his arms. “Who was he? I would know his name.”

She made no reply.

“Well?”

She lifted her chin airily as if she were unbothered, though he was not fooled. Her color had gone higher. “Whatever may have happened to me before I arrived here is not your concern.”

Had some aristocrat interfered with her? He was furious at the thought of some man taking advantage of this unusual woman, with her athletic grace and her messy black hair and steady brown eyes. Already he himself had insulted her. He couldn't bear to think that she'd been offered any other offenses.

He remembered how she'd been that first night, with that defiant look that told of hardship endured. “
Must the volume of a woman's protests gauge her innocence
?
” she'd said.

“Anna, you are under my protection now. If some man has offended you, I would know his name.” He paused. “Did one of my peers molest you in any way?”

“No,” she said firmly. “And I don't need any protection.”

Perhaps it had been something to do with a lover's spat of some kind. He found he didn't want to consider Anna with a suitor.

It didn't surprise him that she would insist she didn't need his protection, though whether or not she wanted it, should it ever be necessary, her wishes on that score would be irrelevant.

“You're something of a mystery, Anna. Indeed,” he said, cocking his head, “I wonder very much who the devil you are.”

* * *

Anna forced herself not to betray in any way that she didn't want Lord Grandville probing her background. She couldn't afford to even think about the Marquess of Henshaw lest she grow tense or vulnerable.

“Why should you need to know anything about me, beyond the fact that I am your ward's governess?”

“What exactly were you employed in doing at Rosewood?”