The Wicked and Wonderful Miss Merlin (9 page)

‘I do not think he will,’ Samantha said.  ‘He was very set on taking you home – but it might have been much worse, dearest.  I thought at one time he meant to forbid you to wed – and it is no use in saying you would run away for now that he knows you are capable of such behaviour he would prevent you.’

‘Then I must try to please him,’ Eleanor said.  ‘I cannot bear the thought of parting from Toby when he is ill but I must.’

‘He is not so very ill now, my love,’ Samantha said.  ‘Last evening I do not think he had one dizzy turn.’

‘No, perhaps not,’ Eleanor smiled.  ‘You have been so very patient, dearest Samantha – and I think Robert was far more cross with you than with us.’

‘Yes, he blames me for the whole, and in a way he is correct.  I should have sent word when I discovered you at the inn.  I ought to have written when he left for London.  I might have saved him time and anxiety.’

‘Do you think he was truly worried about me?’

‘Yes, of course.  You might have chosen a rogue.  Had Toby not been an honourable gentleman you might have been ruined – and even as it was, you might have suffered a loss of reputation had the accident occurred near a busy inn that had more clients from your own class.’

‘Yes, I think we were lucky to get away with it.  I did see one gentleman leaving.  I was at the top of the stairs and he turned and looked at me, but Joan was with me and he did not seem to notice for he went off without another glance.’

‘How fortunate that Joan was with you the whole time.  No one can say that you were alone with Toby for days and nights on end – for no one else can know that you spent some time alone in his bedchamber, can they?’

‘No, of course not,’ Eleanor said but looked away.  It was possible that some ladies who had stopped for lunch might have heard her asking the landlord for a tray to take up to her cousin – but they could not have known her or the name of her cousin, could they?  Dismissing the anxious thought, she looked at Samantha.  ‘Shall we go down?  We do not want to keep my brother waiting.’

Samantha looked at the house as she descended from the chaise.  She had not really known what to expect but the colonnade of Portland stone columns and the classic lines of what she thought was a very stylish house were really rather attractive.  The stone of the walls was a creamy buff and the roof slanting down was clad with bluish-grey tiles; there were many long windows on the ground floor, which must have cost a fortune in window tax at one time – and the formal gardens out front were immaculate.

Eleanor had gone straight in, as if wanting to get away from her brother, whose company had been a little difficult for her throughout the journey.  Samantha took her time, looking at the house with interest.  She thought parts of it looked quite old – the east wing was definitely older than this main frontage.  The house had obviously been improved in the last half century, made more stylish and modern.  She would be very interested to see the inside.

As she walked into the hall, she saw that it rose to a considerable height with what appeared to be a lantern tower of glass.  Some of the glass was coloured and the sun shining through it sent rays of dancing colour over the tiled floor.  Impressive, but a little too magnificent, she thought.

However the warmth of the butler’s greeting for Eleanor and her could not be faulted.  They were shown into a very pretty parlour at the back of the house while some refreshments were brought and their rooms prepared.

Clearly, Lord Brough had not been sure that he would be bringing his sister and a friend home to stay.  Eleanor’s room was of course always ready, but a maid and one of the footmen were sent scurrying to prepare the best guestroom.

Hearing the order given, Samantha glanced at Lord Brough, one eyebrow arched, her eyes quizzing him.  Was he actually giving her the best guestroom, as if she were an honoured friend rather than the woman he blamed for his frustration of the past few days?

‘Annie will look after you,’ he said, nodding briefly as a young maid  entered and stood ready to conduct her upstairs after they had been served refreshments in a pretty but too formal parlour.  We have no housekeeper here, Miss Merlin.  It has been a gentleman’s residence too long and it is probably time that I employed such a person, though we have managed well enough until now.’

‘It matters little to me,’ Samantha replied, though it was not quite true.  The housekeeper was quite often a friendly, gossipy woman who knew everything about everyone and would put a guest at her ease.  If Eleanor had been brought up with only the maids, footmen and butler she would not have had a motherly influence to help ease her through the pangs of leaving childhood behind. She thought it helped to explain the girl’s loneliness when she came to the school.  Eleanor had lost her mother, her nanny and was hungry for female companionship.  ‘I am sure we shall all be perfectly comfortable together.’

Walking up the stairs, Samantha was conscious that her host stood at the bottom watching her, as if to catch her should she stumble and fall.  Now why should he do that?  She smiled over her foolish fancy and resisted the temptation to look back, even when she reached the top.

‘How long will you be staying, miss?’ the maid asked as she paused in front of the bedroom door.  ‘It is unusual for us to have female guests.  His lordship only ever brings gentlemen home.’

Poor Eleanor, thought Samantha but merely nodded.  ‘I believe his lordship has been away in the army for some years?’

‘Since he was a young man and fell out with his father,’ Annie said and then blushed.  ‘I shouldn’t have said that, should I – but it’s the truth.  The old man…well he was a bit of a tarter.  Mrs Brown was Cook here then and she said he used to beat his son and never hardly spoke a word to his daughter.  They’re better off without him if you ask me.’

Samantha hadn’t asked her but forbore to say so since she was learning some very interesting things.

‘Why did they quarrel, do you know?’

‘Something to do with a young woman I’ve heard folk say, though I don’t know for sure, miss.  I wasn’t working here then.  I only came after his lordship returned from the war – but Mrs Brown is my Granny’s best friend and we have a cup of tea in the kitchen for old time’s’ sake now and then. She likes to talk about the old days, but some things she won’t say even if I ask.’

             
Samantha was quite sorry when her room was reached.  However, it was such a pretty room, the colours of greens, blues and white very much to her taste and she gave a cry of pleasure.

‘This is lovely.’  She crossed to the window.  ‘What a beautiful view.’

Through the window there was a panoramic view across some charming cottage gardens with flowers, roses and herb beds to a distant vista of a lake with trees in the background.

It’s the best in the house, miss.  They say it was intended for…the old lord was to marry again, I’ve been told, but then he took ill and died.  It was refurbished special for the bride but she never came here.’

‘How sad,’ Samantha said.  ‘He must have cared for her to furnish it with so much style.’

‘Yes, miss,’ Annie said.  ‘Well, I’ll leave you to settle in then…unless there’s something more I can do, miss?’

‘I can manage now, thank you.’

She went away, a little reluctantly it seemed.  Samantha smiled, because she had learned more from Annie’s talkative tongue than from Eleanor in the all the time she’d known her.

She wondered if there was some mystery about the bride who had never seen the room that had been so thoughtfully prepared for her, but then dismissed the thought as improbable.  It was just a rather sad story and one that she did not think she would have heard from Eleanor or her brother.

In his own room, Robert wondered why he had asked that Samantha Merlin should be given that particular room.  It was the most recently refurbished room in the house and therefore their best guestroom, but it had never been intended as such.  Indeed, it had been intended for a bride – but the wedding had never taken place.

Robert cursed as the painful memory reared its head.  He did not wish to think of Marianne, the cause of the rift between himself and his father.  Lord Brough had never particularly loved his children, or his wife for that matter.  When Robert thought of the way his mother had been treated at times he was angry; she had been forced to accept a man fifteen years her senior, a man who had wanted her until she had given him two children, and thereafter, taken a string of mistresses.

Marianne had been his last mistress and, when Lord Brough had decided he was ready to marry again, he had announced that he would marry her.  Unable to accept that his father would put a woman who had caused his mother pain in the last years of her life, Robert had lost his temper and told him that he would never set foot in the house while that woman lived here.  He had been told that his presence was not required in no uncertain terms and left with the breach between them unhealed.  Marianne’s subsequent death had been a shock and left Robert feeling guilty somehow.

He had never been able to explain to his father that one of the reasons he had objected to the marriage was that Marianne had offered her services to him just a few days previously.  She was, she’d told him, laughing, tired of being an old man’s pet and wanted a young and virile lover.  Revolted and disgusted, he had not spared her his thoughts and so unfavourable were they that she had been furious, lurching at him suddenly and trying to mark his face.  Robert had prevented her, leaving her to spit and vent her fury by throwing a heavy object at the door that closed after him.  He could not be certain, of course, but he believed that she had teased his father into a proposal of marriage to spite him.

None of which explained why he had given Samantha that room, especially as it was part of the master suite, which he had had refurbished for himself after he came home.  It was the only suite of rooms in the house suitable for the lord and his wife to share and connected through a dressing room, an elegant parlour and another dressing room.  Designed to be a sumptuous but private apartment for the lord and lady of the house, it took up most of the upper floor in the west wing.

Robert still had the room he’d occupied as a boy and he could of course have removed to his old chamber, but as yet he had made no decision concerning his sleeping arrangements while Samantha Merlin was in the house.  The door between the private parlour and his dressing room would remain locked, naturally.  Her modesty would not be at risk from him!

The room Samantha was occupying had been refurbished to a high standard and never yet used.  When Robert married, which in time he must, his bride would choose colours and furnishings to her taste.  A waste perhaps when some of the other rooms needed attention, but a bride could not be expected to use a room decorated for another woman.

Glancing in the oval dressing mirror, Robert brushed his hair back; it had been cut in a style that was short, practical and, when he ran his fingers through it looked windswept as it was meant to be – a fashion set by the London dandies and all the rage.  Noticing a grey hair at his temple, he pinched it between his fingers and pulled it out.

Now why had he done that?  Robert grimaced at his image.  He was nine and twenty, his thirtieth birthday in a few days time.  Did he look older?  War took its toll.  He had seen men age overnight after a battle, and there were memories that would haunt him all his life.  If he took a wife she must be a woman of some experience, for a young debutante would not suit him.  He feared he was too serious for a very young lady.

It occurred to him then that Samantha Merlin might be exactly what he needed in a wife…now where had that thought come from?

Robert shook his head.  Now he was being ridiculous.  He could not deny that he desired her to the degree that every time he saw her his mind filled with erotic pictures.  It was natural enough that a red-blooded male should feel passion for a beautiful woman, which she undoubtedly was, and with her hair down very sensual…but marriage?  Nonsense!  He could not understand himself for he was never like this. In the past he had considered his affairs before approaching the lady of his choice and he had always been in complete control of his emotions.

Damn it, lust was well enough – but to be thinking of marriage to a woman who was irresponsible and…once again the picture of Samantha lying in his arms and reaching up to pull his head down to hers flashed into his mind, distracting his thoughts.

He must be bewitched.  There was no other way to explain the way his body and mind were behaving.

Annoyed with himself for giving into his imagination, Robert set his mind on other things.  He had business to discuss with his agents and if that failed he would take a swim in the lake, which was always freezing cold even in the middle of summer.

Samantha looked out of her bedroom window.  In the distance the lake shimmered in the early morning sunshine.  It was going to be a beautiful day.  She had asked for her breakfast to be brought up early, because after the painful experience at dinner the previous evening she had not wanted to sit down with Lord Brough too early in the day.  He had sat tight-lipped throughout the meal despite all her efforts to make pleasant conversation.  Eleanor had begun well enough but grown quieter as the evening progressed and ate hardly anything.  By the time they left Robert to his port the girl had been almost in tears.