The Perfect Kiss (22 page)

“No,” Melly said, surprised. “Why, do I look it?”

“It’s just that you’re not eating.”

“Oh, that.” Melly avoided her eyes. “I’m just not hungry tonight, that’s all.”

Grace frowned. Sir John’s loss of appetite was bad enough. She hoped Melly was not falling prey to the same illness. But apart from refusing food, she looked in good health—glowing health actually.

It was the worry, Grace decided. Melly’s father was not making any visible progress—in fact he was fading away to a shadow of his former self. Of course Melly was getting increasingly worried. They all were.

 
 
“GRACE.” THE WHISPER CAME OUT OF THE DARK. “ARE YOU awake?”

“Yes,” Grace responded. “What is it, Melly?”

“Oh, nothing. I just wondered if you were asleep yet.” There was a long silence, then Melly whispered, “You like Lord D’Acre, don’t you?”

How was she to answer that? Grace thought. Like was entirely the wrong word. There were times when she could happily throttle him. And times when she ached for him. “He—he’s an interesting man.”

“I saw you when you came in this afternoon. Your face was glowing.”

“Too much sun,” Grace muttered.

“No, Grace. He came up the drive just moments after you. You’d been with him, hadn’t you?”

Been with him?
Grace pressed a hand over her mouth. What did Melly mean by that? “I ran into him down at the lake,” she said in what she hoped was a careless tone.

“I saw your face. And I saw the way you two looked at each other through dinner. You’re in love, aren’t you, Grace.” It wasn’t a question. Melly was one of her oldest friends. The two of them had whispered of love for years.

Grace sighed. “Oh, God, Melly. I don’t know. All I know is that I’ve never felt like this. I never imagined . . .”

There was another long silence, then Melly said, “I’ll talk to Papa. I’ll make it right for you, Grace. I promise.”

“AH, HERE YOU ARE. I THOUGHT YOU USUALLY DID YOUR GRAMMAR study in the library.” Dominic strolled out onto the terrace where Greystoke was curled up in a chair, basking in the morning sun, a book in her lap. Her feet were tucked under her and her shoes lay askew on the stone flags of the terrace.

She looked up and smiled at him and, as always, he felt a catch in his chest.

“I know, but it was such a lovely morning, I thought I’d sit out here for a little while. Only I can’t seem to concentrate. The sun is making me sleepy,” she confessed. She closed the book and sat up in a more decorous manner, slipping her feet to the floor and fluffing her skirt out over them to hide the fact that she was barefoot. “I might try again later in the day.”

“You’re still determined on traveling to Egypt?” He watched her feeling surreptitiously for her shoes.

“Yes, indeed.” She was determined to be sensible.

He strolled over and knelt down in front of her. “It seems an awful lot of bother to swot over an Arabic grammar book, just to look at the pyramids.”

“What are you doing?” she squeaked as he reached under her skirts.

“Fetching your slippers for you.” He located the errant slipper and wrapped his hand around her bare foot. Without taking his eyes off hers he took her toes into his mouth. She gasped with shock, then found herself melting at the incredible sensation. He sucked them gently at first, just playing with them, and then gradually the sucking became hard and rhythmic, and he watched the look of arousal steal over her face, softening her features.

The sound of gardeners arguing nearby recalled her to her surroundings and he felt her try to pull back. He kissed the sole of her instep, making her foot curl, and slipped the shoe on.

“I can’t believe you did that!” She fussily tucked her skirt around her feet.

He grinned at her actions. “Out of sight is not out of mind, Greystoke. I know what’s under your skirts, remember? And your toes taste as delicious as the rest of you.”

She looked aroused, flustered, and trying hard to look disapproving. “What did you come out here for?”

Casually he dropped a small leather-bound book on the table beside her. “I found it the other day in the library and thought of you. Might be more interesting than a grammar book to read.”

She opened it. “It’s in Arabic,” she exclaimed. “It looks like poetry . . . It is poetry!” She read some and her face lit with pleasure. “And beautiful poetry, too.” She glanced up at him, her face glowing. “Did you read any of it?”

He shook his head. “That sort of nonsense is of no interest to me,” he lied. “It’s yours now, to keep.”

Her smile dazzled him. “Thank you, I’ll treasure it always,” she told him softly. She hugged the book to her bosom briefly and then returned to examining it. “Oh, look, there’s an inscription here in the front—the back as we think it. The ink is faded, but perfectly legible:
‘To my dove, my heart, my beloved, ever yours, Faisal.’
” She sighed dreamily. “How romantic. I wonder who Faisal was. And who his beloved dove was? And how did it get here, to Wolfestone?”

He shrugged. “No idea. I have to go. Meeting with Jake Tasker.” Before she realized his intent, he bent and kissed her swiftly on her soft, unwary mouth. “Enjoy the poems.”

“YOU WERE SURPRISED YESTERDAY WHEN YOU DISCOVERED I WAS Lord D’Acre’s betrothed,” Melly said to Mr. Netterton. Her father was sleeping so she’d ordered a pot of tea to be brought to them in the drawing room.

“Me? I suppose I was—I mean I didn’t expect a conveni—” He broke off and cleared his throat. “Yes, a bit surprised.”

“You were going to say something like you didn’t expect his convenient bride to be someone like me, weren’t you?” she said with dignity. “You must think me very odd.”

“No,” said Mr. Netterton, sipping his tea mistrustfully. “I was wondering why my friend Dominic, who I always thought was a clever chap, could be such a fool—”

Melly bit her lip. She must learn to become inured to such careless insult.

“—As to waste someone like you in a white marriage,” he finished.

Melly closed her eyes in embarrassment that he even knew the conditions of the agreement. Her biggest humiliation: that Lord D’Acre didn’t even want her as a brood mare.

And then his words penetrated.

Melly blinked and looked at Mr. Netterton in surprise. “You think it would be a waste?” she whispered.

“I’d say I do,” he said and reached for a biscuit. “Any red-blooded man would agree with me. Dominic’s a fool.”

Chapter Thirteen

And listen why; for I will tell you now
What never yet was heard in tale or song.

JOHN MILTON

 
 
 
 
DOMINIC WALKED TO HIS MEETING WITH JAKE TASKER WITH A SMILE and a jaunty step. The look on her face when he’d sucked on her toes . . . He grinned. He was going to introduce her to a whole world of new pleasures.

But when he spoke to Tasker the smile dropped from his face. “Tour the estate? Good God, no! That can wait till Abdul gets here.”

“No, m’lord,” Tasker insisted. “You must learn the estate and its people. And they must meet you.”

“Abdul is the one who’ll deal with that sort of thing. The tenants can meet him. I just want to be kept informed.”

But Tasker was made of sterner stuff. “Like your pa was kept informed by Mr. Eades?” It was a low blow.

Dominic compressed his lips. “The books will tell me all I need to know. It was through my examination of the books we discovered what Eades was up to.”

Tasker snorted. “Us folk here could tell he was bent from the first. By the time you found he’d been fiddling, a deal o’ damage was done and honest folks ruined.”

Dominic was irritated by such blunt, plain speaking, not the least because he knew the blasted fellow was right. He made one last effort. “Abdul, on the other hand, is a man I’ve known for ten years and is completely trustworthy. He can get to know everyone.”

Tasker looked skeptical. “Aye, p’raps folk will take to some furriner, I dunno, but they’ll not take kindly to him unless they’ve met their lord first. ’Tis a matter of respect, m’lord. You respect them and they’ll respect your man. But they’ll not have a bar of him unless they hear it from you.”

“You don’t know Abdul! I’ve never seen him fail.”

“And Abdul ain’t never worked wi’ no Shropshiremen, either,” Jake said simply. “Stubborn as pigs, we be, and set in our ways.” He said it with pride. “Six hundred years we been here, and six hundred years Wolfes have been tellin’ us what to do. That’s the way it’s always been, and no clever furriner will change that. If you want the estate back on its feet, m’lord, ye need to get them all behind ye. And that means ye must meet ’em, every man jack of ’em, an’ listen to what they’ve got to say.”

Dominic sighed and sent for horses to be saddled. Dammit, he’d never wanted to come here, let alone get . . . involved. This would be a superficial visit only. He would meet all the most important people, give them a nod and listen to a few opinions and that would be the end of it. Then he’d hand them over to Abdul and forget about them all.

To his surprise the first place they stopped at was a run-down hovel on the edge of the woods. Tasker dismounted and reluctantly Dominic followed suit. “Why are we stopping here.”

“Thought it only right, seeing as it’s on the way.”

Stubborn as pigs was right, Dominic thought. Tasker had a clear idea of what he wanted Dominic to see and he wasn’t going to bend to suit his lord or to curry favor during his trial period. Dominic might be irritated at having to do what he would prefer not to, but he was also pleased—he’d judged the man aright.

Tasker knocked and the hovel door was opened by a woman in her fifties, neatly dressed in a worn blue gown and a clean white apron. She leaned heavily on a stick and she looked at Dominic with a steady blue gaze that he recognized. Tasker’s mother.

“Miss Beth’s boy,” she said softly. Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, m’lord, I’m so happy to meet you at last. I was your mam’s maid, and more—I was her friend.”

To his consternation she hobbled forward, reached up, and stroked his cheek softly, as if to check he was real. Dominic set his jaw. His mother used to stroke his cheek in just the same way.

Mrs. Tasker led him into the hovel. The family must all live in one room, he saw. A stone fireplace in the corner provided heat as well as being the kitchen area; there was a bench over which a blanket had been folded, two beautifully whittled chairs and a table, and that was all. Two corners were curtained off—sleeping areas, he assumed. It was small, smoky, and cramped but ferociously neat and clean. Jake set about making tea.

Mrs. Tasker made Dominic sit beside her on the bench. “She must have been so proud of you. Longed for you, she did. Wept every month when she knew there would be no baby.”

“My father needed an heir for Wolfestone,” Dominic agreed gruffly, wishing he were miles away.

“Him.” She dismissed his father with a contemptuous wave. “That wasn’t it at all, m’lord. I mean—he did want his heir, but that wasn’t the only reason why Miss Beth wept. She wanted a babe for herself, see? A lovin’ little lass, she was, and longing for a wee babe of her own. She’d visit all the young mothers on the estate and play wi’ their babes for hours.”

Dominic stared straight ahead of him, fighting for control.
A lovin’ little lass
—it conjured up such an image of his mother.

She stroked his cheek again, and uncannily, it was as if his mother was doing it. “Glad I am that she had such a bonny boy. And you looked after her, didn’t you, lad?”

Dominic forcing unwanted waves of emotion back, nodded. He had, as best he could.

Mrs. Tasker smiled. “Aye, I can see you did. You have your da’s eyes, but there’s a sweetness in you that’s all Miss Beth.”

Dominic felt something inside him, some tension, unravel.

“Did she have a happy life in the end, lad?”

He nodded and said in a voice that cracked, “Especially in the last ten years.” There was no point in telling this woman how dreadful the first eight years had been.

She nodded. “I’m glad. She got a letter to me, after she’d escaped.” She smiled at his surprise. “I was her friend. Did you think I didn’t know how it was between her and your da?” She shook her head. “I nearly went with her. That was the original plan, only it weren’t to be.” She rubbed her leg absently, as if it pained her. Tasker brought over the tea, and she looked up and gave him a loving smile. “And if I had gone with her, I wouldn’t have married Jake’s dad and had a bonny lad o’ my own, so things worked out for the best, I reckon.”

The tea was weak and tasteless, the leaves used, dried, then used again. Poor people’s tea. Dominic drank it in silence. The taste recalled his childhood.

“Fetch him out the album, son.”

Jake set down his empty cup and from a small wooden chest by the wall took out a wrapped bundle and handed it to Dominic. Bemused, and not a little apprehensive, Dominic removed the oilskin wrapping to reveal a brown pigskin folder, about twelve by sixteen inches. He glanced at Mrs. Tasker, who gave him an encouraging nod, so he opened it.

The album turned out to be paintings, fine, delicate watercolors of Wolfestone from every angle, a place he wouldn’t have recognized, with flowers spilling over the harsh angles of stone. Paintings of the rose arbor, of various people, of children playing, of a dog sprawled in sleep, painted with delicacy . . . and love.

“Your mam’s paintings,” Mrs. Tasker told him. “That’s me.” She pointed. He would never have recognized her. The girl in the painting was pretty and full of life, not tired-looking and with a face aged by pain.

“The album’s yours, lad,” she told him. “I been saving it for you, ever since I heard you’d been born. I knew after Lord D’Acre died, you’d come home to us in the end. I’m just so sorry you couldn’t bring Miss Beth home with you.” Her eyes flooded with tears and, forgetting he was a lord and she an impoverished tenant, she hugged him.

Dominic sat frozen through the hug, and when it was over, he thanked her gravely for the tea. As he said his good-byes, she stopped him. “I hope you don’t mind, m’lord, but I just have to do this, for yer mam’s sake.” She pulled his head down and kissed him on the cheek.