The Perfect Kiss (16 page)

“What’ll we do with this, m’lord?” He brandished what appeared to be a broken stone cupid. “Shall we fix it? Might be able to with a bit of mortar or summat.”

“I don’t care.”

Indifference was lost on the man, too. “And what about the roses, m’lord? It be a bit early to prune ’em, but they need to be shaped a bit. Will I shape ’em up?”

“I don’t care,” Dominic repeated. “Do whatever you like. Or ask Miss Greystoke.”

“Prefer not to take me orders from a woman, sir, if you don’t mind.”

Dominic gave him a cold look. “Then you’d better learn to like it, for without Miss Greystoke you would have no employment.”

He moved off, but an elderly voice called after him. “Yer mam planted them there roses, yer lordship. With her own fair hands, she did.” Dominic swung around.

Grandad Tasker had woken and was eyeing him with a cunning expression. “This was ’er special bit o’ the garden. Designed the whole thing ’erself.”

“How do you know?”

The old man let out a rusty cackle. “A’cos I was the one what ’elped ’er, a’ course. Did all the digging for this, I did. Put the stonework in an’ all. She told me what she wanted and showed me the drawings she made—quite the artist she was.”

It was true. His mother had loved to draw and paint.

“I did all the heavy work, but when it came to them roses, yer mam set every blessed one o’ them in the earth with ’er own hands. Loved this spot, she did. Came here every day and sat on that there seat.” He pointed to a broken stone seat. He added softly. “A lonely little lass, your mam. Them roses was ’er company, I reckon.”

Dominic didn’t say anything. There was a hard lump in his throat. He could picture it.

“This was a pretty place once,” the old man continued. “When yer mam ran off, yer pa destroyed it. Destroyed a lot of things. A fearsome temper, ’e ’ad. Smashed them statues and ’er seat to bits, ’e did. Slashed the roses to the ground.” He gave a toothless grin. “But ’e never managed to kill ’em. Roses might look delicate but they be powerful tough plants. Your mam’s roses came back—with a little ’elp.” He winked. “Flowered every summer since, they ’ave.”

Dominic hadn’t known about the rose arbor. His mother had always adored roses. When he was a little boy, trying desperately to bring a smile to her face, he would find her a rose from somewhere and bring it to her. Sometimes she would give him a ravishing, joyful smile, and he’d feel like a knight of old, ten feet tall. But on other occasions she’d take one look, her face would crumple and she would weep, inconsolably. He used to think it was his fault, that he’d brought the wrong sort of roses . . .

“Be grand to put yer mam’s garden back t’way she made it, eh, yer lordship?”

“Please yourself,” Dominic said finally. “I don’t care.” But his voice cracked as he said it.

Chapter Nine

What is a kiss? Why this, as some approve: The sure, sweet cement, glue, and lime of love.

ROBERT HERRICK

 
 
 
 
GRACE PICKED UP A BOX OF ASSORTED BRASS OBJECTS AND WALKED slowly down the stairs, thinking about the kiss, kisses in the linen room. She hugged the box to her, smiling. Her whole body tingled with awareness, with excitement. It felt as though her very blood was fizzing gently, like champagne. And that was just the aftermath . . .

Of course it was wrong of him to be kissing her when he was still betrothed to Melly, and it was wrong of Grace to let him—not that she’d let him, precisely . . . But deep down, it didn’t feel wrong.

Melly didn’t want him and he didn’t want Melly. He just needed a wife so he could inherit the property. As soon as he and Melly sorted out the mess—if they ever did—he would be free to choose . . . someone else.

He fascinated Grace. She purely loved the way those cold, yellow wolf’s eyes darkened to gold and lit with a purposeful gleam that both thrilled and alarmed her. There was no mercy in that gleam. It declared his intention to hunt her down. Her mouth curved at the thought. She would be no tame prey of his. She was Grace Merridew—wolf tamer!

She descended the stairs, placing her feet in the hollows made by his ancestors, and thought about his response to the idea that Wolfestone could be made nice and homey. It was a most peculiar reaction. So strong. As if he loathed the very idea of a home . . .

How could anyone think like that?

Grace had never truly had a home of her own. Dereham Court, where she’d spent the first ten years of her life, had been Grandpapa’s territory, and she’d never thought of it as home. Home was a place you felt safe in. Grace had never felt safe at Dereham Court.

And since then Grace had either lived with Great-Uncle Oswald and Aunt Gussie, or with one of her married sisters, or else she’d been at school. And while she’d felt safe and happy in all those places, they weren’t hers, not really.

After she’d been to Egypt and seen the pyramids and the Sphinx, she planned to make a home, one that was her very own, that she would arrange entirely to her own liking.

She bit her lip. That’s what she’d been doing here, she realized. Playing house, as she had when she was a little girl. He had a right to be annoyed. It wasn’t her house to play with.

But it was a house built for dreaming, with its fantastical combination of styles, with its fairy-tale turret, its arched Gothic windows, its carved oak paneling and its gargoyle . . .

She glanced up and saw the gargoyle looking down at her, with his wise expression. He was one of the first things she’d had cleaned. He was dust and cobweb free and had been given a coat of oil, which had soaked into the ancient, thirsty wood.

She smiled up at him, suddenly surer of herself. “I don’t care if he wants this place to be a home or not—you do, don’t you, Mr. Gargoyle? And the house does.” She nodded. “For you, then, we’ll make this place as nice as human hands can make it. Then it will truly be a place made for dreaming . . .”

 
 
DOMINIC TOOK THE SHORTCUT THROUGH THE WOODS, HEADING FOR the Ludlow road. He was enjoying the shade; the open road would be dusty and hot, he knew.

He was in a reverie when a dog shot across the path in front of him. A white dog with liver-colored speckles. Sheba.

He’d left her back at Wolfestone, in the charge of young Billy Finn, who was supposed to be giving her a bath.

Dominic frowned. What the devil was Sheba doing out? Who knows what mischief she might do—killing chickens or chasing sheep. A dog was not supposed to run free in farming country.

He came to the place where he’d seen her cross. A faint, narrow track wound through the trees. He called her a couple of times. Nothing. He whistled. Nothing. He walked his horse a short way down the track. A couple of moments later the trees thinned and he saw the edge of the lake, and a boy and his dog. The dog was covered in mud.

“What the devil are you doing—”

Billy Finn turned, blanched dramatically, dropped what he was holding, and bolted. Sheba began to follow the boy but a word from Dominic stopped her.

“Stop, Billy! Wait—” Dominic began but the boy had fled. The child looked to be in fear of his life. Movement beside the lake caught Dominic’s eye and he went to see what the boy had dropped.

A fish. A line and hook lay beside a clump of reeds.

He looked at the fish and then at the path the boy had taken. The look on the child’s face had shocked him. Stark fear.

He pulled his watch out and flipped it open. Plenty of time to investigate this little mystery and still get to Ludlow. He picked up the fish and the line, whistled to Sheba, and remounted. “Fetch Billy,” he told her, and pointed the way the boy had run. Tail waving like a plume, Sheba trotted confidently down the path. Dominic followed on horseback.

It wasn’t long before he came to a tumbledown shack set in a clearing. Sheba bounded joyfully ahead—she’d clearly been here before. Dominic surveyed the building thoughtfully as he dismounted and tied his horse to a tree. He had seen it marked on an estate map as a ruin. But this ruin was inhabited. A thin coil of smoke rose from the chimney and lines of washing were strung between the trees.

He knocked on the door. A worn-looking woman opened it, a toddler clinging to her skirts. Several more young children peered at him, ranging from perhaps eight years old down to four or five.

“Is Billy Finn here?” he asked her.

Her eyes widened. “Billy?” she repeated warily. Her eyes flickered sideways and she thrust the toddler back into the cottage. “No, Billy’s not here.” She was lying, Dominic was sure.

“He ran down this way.”

She shook her head and shrugged. Dominic looked at her more closely. Billy had this woman’s eyes.

“You’re his mother,” he said with flat certainty.

She chewed her lip uncomfortably, then nodded, a tense look on her face.

“He dropped this,” Dominic said and produced the fish.

It had a dramatic effect. The woman moaned, and looked as if she was about to faint. She rallied, clutched the door frame tightly and said, “No, no, no, that fish doesn’t belong to my Billy. He never touched it, I promise ye, sir. He wouldn’t. He’s up at the castle, now. The lord, he gave him work.” The woman was gabbling.

“I am Lord D’Acre,” Dominic told her and she moaned again. Her face was parchment pale under its tan.

“Oh, please, m’lord, don’t take him. He’s a good boy, my Billy. Oh, please, please, don’t take him . . .” To Dominic’s horror she threw herself on the ground before him, clutching his feet and weeping. “Please m’lord, have mercy, I beg ye. Don’t take my Billy.”

Dominic stepped back. “My good woman, I have no intention of taking him anywhere!”

She lay slumped in front of him, weeping and mumbling, “Not my Billy, not my boy.”

Dominic was appalled. He glanced at the children watching their mother fearfully. “You there, come out here and help your mother,” he instructed them. They took one look at him and ran away, screaming.

Dominic ran his fingers through his hair. Were they all touched in the upper works? Was Billy the only sane one of his family?

She peered up at him through tangled hair and a desperate look came over her face. She knelt, licking her lips, and smoothing her hair. “I’ll do whatever ye want, my lord,” she told him, “only don’t take my Billy.” Good God, the woman was offering herself to him!

“I have no intention of taking the wretched boy anywhere!” Dominic snapped. “Now, for heaven’s sake, get up, woman!”

Fearfully she clambered to her feet and stood facing him, her eyes downcast and tears rolling down her cheeks. Her hands twisted her apron convulsively.

“Calm yourself!” he ordered her. She gulped and an unnatural look of calm settled over her features. The woman was still terrified.

Dominic sighed. He forced himself to say in a slow, calm voice, “Nobody is taking anyone anywhere. I have no idea what you think I’m going to do to Billy, but whatever it is, it’s wrong. Now, go inside and make yourself a cup of tea or something.”

She fearfully took a step toward the cottage. “And here, take this blasted fish,” he said and thrust it at her.

“No!” she gasped, suddenly defiant. “You’ll not plant no evidence on us!”

“Evidence?” Dominic stared. It suddenly fell into place. “You think I’m after Billy for poaching?”

“He’s not a poacher!” she flashed at him.

“Calm yourself, woman. I never said he was, and in any case he’s a child, for heaven’s sake.”

She stared at him with painful intensity. “So . . . you’re not going to have him taken up and transported?”

“Of course not!”

“You mean it, m’lord?” She read the truth in his face. Tears poured down her cheeks again and she was about to fling herself at his feet in thanks, but he managed to grab her by the arms and fend her off.

“You leave my mam alone!” A small towheaded fury hurtled from the undergrowth and butted Dominic in the stomach. Fists flailing, young Billy Finn hammered into Dominic, yelling, “It’s me you want, not my mam!”

Undernourished ten-year-olds were fairly easy to vanquish. Dominic caught the flailing fists and held the boy off so he was out of range of the kicking feet.

“Stand still,” Dominic roared. Billy stilled. All the fight drained out of him.

Dominic released the child’s fists. Billy gave his mother an anguished look, straightened, looked Dominic in the eye, and said, “It’s me ye want, not my mam. Take me, but don’t hurt Mam or the little ’uns.”

“I have no intention of hurting anyone!” Dominic said evenly. “I was merely curious as to why when I called to you, you dropped your fish and bolted like the devil was after you.”

Billy braced himself. “Aye, I took the fish from the lake. Mam never knew I did it.”

“I’m not after a confession, you young idiot!” Dominic said, exasperated. “So stop acting as if I’m about to have you dragged off in chains!”

Billy Finn gave him a sullen look of flat disbelief, an adult look far beyond his age. “The old lord had my pa taken fer a fish—and in chains, so why would you be any different?”

His mother caught his arm. “Don’t talk like that to his lordship, Billy.” She gave Dominic a fearful look. “He doesn’t mean to be insolent, m’lord.”

Dominic frowned at Billy. “Your father was imprisoned for a fish?”

“Aye. He weren’t hanged, though. Transported ’im, they did. New South Wales. Other side o’ the world.”

“For
fish
? Was he selling them?”

Billy looked indignant. “A’course not. He wouldn’t do that!”

His mother said hastily, “No, two years ago, it was, m’lord. We were—it was a bad year, and Will, he had no work and the little ’uns were hungry. My Will, he can’t stand the sound o’ wee ones weepin’ for hunger . . .”

“Will, that’s me da’s name,” Billy explained. “So Da went fishing. And Mr. Eades he caught ’im, and that’s the last we saw o’ Da.” He straightened, a child shouldering a man’s responsibility. “I take care o’ Mam and the little ’un’s now.”

And he did, too, Dominic realized. It explained why little Billy Finn seemed to be everywhere, getting underfoot, taking any job he could get. “Well, you have a proper job now, so there’s no danger of anyone going hungry.”