The Winter Bride (A Chance Sisters Romance) (18 page)

It was a dangerous place for small boys to play in. His brother had died when he was a boy. That barrier would be easy to climb. Without thinking, she blurted out, “Did your brother fall? Is that how he died?”

“No.” He turned abruptly and walked away, disappearing around the other side of the tower.

Damaris bit her lip, silently cursing herself for her tactlessness. She gripped the rail hard and stared out at the horizon. He’d made it clear he didn’t want to talk about his brother, and it was, after all, none of her business. It wasn’t as if she were really his betrothed. Should she go after him and apologize? Or should she just let it slide?

To the south, not far from the house, lay a lake, wind-whipped and gray, lined on one side with dark pines. Nearby was a small stone chapel, and beside it, a scattering of headstones. The family cemetery. She shivered.

“Are you cold?” he asked, coming up behind her. Close behind her. She could feel the warmth of his body all down her back.

“No, I’m all right, thanks.” But she didn’t move away and neither did he.

“That’s Devon over there. And Davenham Hall is just beyond those hills.” He put a hand on her shoulder to turn her in the right direction. His voice was light, untroubled. She wasn’t deceived. She’d hit a nerve.

“London is that way.” He pointed. “And on a clearer day you can see the sea, over there.”

She squinted, trying to glimpse a line of blue on the horizon, but though the rain had stopped where they were, she could see it pouring down in gray veils farther away. The sun was beginning to set, turning the shallow sheets of silvery water to gold.

“It’s very wet, isn’t it? It isn’t even draining away in some places. We saw so many fields that were quite flooded. Your father said the crops were ruined.”

He shook his head. “I told him years ago he should have those fields drained, but will he listen? Not to me. What would I know about anything?” He clenched his fist in frustration. “His idea of farming is medieval. He despises the very idea of change and dismisses every innovation of the new science of agriculture as newfangled nonsense.”

“You’ve tried to talk to him?”

He snorted. “I’ve given up. My interest now is in the new technology surrounding steam engines and transport, not just shipping.”

Damaris knew from Flynn that Freddy was a partner in their shipping line, but she hadn’t realized he was also interested in steam. “Max also has an interest in steam power, doesn’t he?”

Freddy nodded. “That’s how I first got interested. He was mad about steam engines when we were at school together, and while he was abroad, I followed up on it. I invested in a few developments here and there and they’ve paid off handsomely. Steam power is the future.”

“You say you invested in some developments—what does that entail?” She really said it to keep him talking and to make up for her earlier tactlessness, but he took her question seriously and as he explained how investing worked she became interested herself.

Most fascinating to her was how he had been able to build quite a small inheritance from an aunt into an income that supported him. “A bare competence, but it makes me independent.”

He might dismiss it as a competence, but from everything she’d seen, he lived a comfortable, not to say luxurious existence. She’d never had enough money to invest in anything, but nor had she ever considered that money was for anything other than saving and trying to stretch.

“I’d like to learn more about investing,” she said.

“It’s not difficult,” he said. “Just risky.”

 • • • 

“W
hat have you two been up to?” Lord Breckenridge asked as they sat down to dinner. “The boy been looking after you?” It was clear from his manner that Freddy’s guess had been correct. His parents—his father, at least—seemed to approve of her. Even if she couldn’t ride and thought foxes were sweet. His mother, on the other hand, remained distant.

“Indeed he has,” Damaris said. “In fact, he was explaining to me earlier how investments work.” It was time Lord Breckenridge learned his son knew a great deal more than anyone gave him credit for.

He snorted. “Boy talks a lot of nonsense.”

“Not at all,” she said coolly. “I found him most informative.”

“Informative?” Lord Breckenridge snorted. “All my son understands about ‘investments’ he’s gleaned from his dealin’s with the cent-per-cents. Moneylenders,” he added, seeing she didn’t understand the term. “But don’t worry, m’dear, whatever fortune you bring to this marriage will be well protected—we’ll have the respective family lawyers draw up a marriage settlement for you that will keep it out of his spendthrift hands.”

“Spendthrift?” Surprised at the accusation, she glanced at Freddy, who gave a tiny shake of the head as if to say “don’t worry about it.”

His father leaned across and patted her hand. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, m’gel.”

“I won’t,” she said crisply, moving her hand away. “I have complete faith in Freddy’s abilities and would happily entrust every penny I own to him.”

His father chuckled. “Which is why, m’dear, we don’t allow ladies to dabble in matters they don’t understand.”

Damaris gritted her teeth. Her father had squandered most of Mama’s fortune on bribes and expensive gifts to curry favor with the warlord, and by the time Damaris was twelve there was almost nothing left. Once their income had dribbled to a small, regular charitable donation from England, Papa lost interest and left the entire financial management of the mission to her.

It had been Damaris’s responsibility to make their income stretch and feed them all. She did all the marketing, bargaining furiously to get the best prices, and all the worrying about how to make ends meet and keep everyone fed. Such things were beneath Papa’s notice.

Afterward, when they were alone, she tackled Freddy about his silence. “Why do you let him speak of you like that? You’re not a spendthrift. You’re not a fool—far from it—and I don’t care what your father says, you do understand investments. You might act the frivolous rattle in society but I know from Mr. Flynn that you have responsibilities in the firm that you carry out reliably and well. And he said once he has great respect for your business acumen, so why—”

“Good heavens, don’t spread that around, I beg you! It will quite ruin the reputation I’ve spent years building.”

He said it lightly, as if it were all a joke, but there was enough truth in it for her to ask, “Why not? And don’t hand me any flummery about your society reputation—I’m talking about your parents and what they think of you. They show you no respect, and worse than that—”

“They have their reasons.” He looked away, his expression momentarily bleak.

“What reasons?”

“They need not bother you. Your reason for being here is, as you have pointed out several times, merely for the purposes of playacting. You don’t need to get involved.”

It was a definite warning-off.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I mean it for your own good.” His finger stroked the curve of her ear.

She pulled back. “What are you doing?”

“Just tidying a lock of hair that came loose. Why? Do you mind?”

“No, it just felt . . . odd.” Her hair wasn’t coming loose at all, she was sure. He was trying to distract her from their discussion.

“Odd, disgusting? Or my-but-that-Freddy-is-a-charmer odd?”

She fought a smile. “I don’t think there is such an odd.”

“Of course there is. My grandfather invented it. I take after him. He was a famous rake.”

She tilted her head to glance at him. “And are you a famous rake?”

“Not yet, but I’m working on it,” he said earnestly.

She laughed. She was beginning to recognize a pattern: Every time the subject got too serious or uncomfortable, he flirted his way out of it. It was clear he didn’t want to discuss his parents’ attitude to him, so she’d let the subject drop. For the moment.

“Where the wound had been given, there must the cure be found, if anywhere.”

—
JANE AUSTEN,
EMMA

R
ain was sleeting down next morning, and after breakfast Damaris excused herself, saying she wanted to write some letters. Freddy took himself gratefully off to spend the morning in the stables. His grays had arrived and, besides, the unalloyed delight of his parents’ company was getting on his nerves. What he really wanted was to go for a good hard ride, but when he went to saddle up a horse, his father’s head groom said, “In this weather, Mr. Freddy?”

Collins had put Freddy on his first pony as a child, and he was right; it would be foolhardy to take a horse out in such atrocious weather. Damn. Freddy seized a currycomb and went to work on one of his grays. Some of the newer stable lads raised their brows at seeing the son of the house doing such lowly work, but Collins just nodded wisely and waved the others back to work. He understood Freddy’s demons.

As a boy Freddy had worked off many a head of steam in the stables under Collins’s benevolent—and critical—eye. Son of the house or not, Collins held Freddy to the same standard as anyone else employed to work with the prime cattle under his care, even if the horses belonged to Freddy.

Stripped down to his shirtsleeves, Freddy plied the currycomb with a will. Blasted weather. Not only was it preventing him from riding off his frustrations, it also kept him stuck in the house, and while he was enjoying Damaris’s company to an extent that was starting to worry him, his parents’ constant cuts at him were bound to distress her, no matter how gamely she tried to parry them. He was so used to it he barely noticed.

Freddy knew how to take his punishment. He should, after sixteen years.

But then, for years he’d spent only one day a year with them. Hardly enough to notice how they were aging, to know who they were now, one adult to another. They still treated him as a boy, and he, well, he did his best not to notice them at all.

But now he was seeing them through Damaris’s eyes. And it wasn’t pleasant.

He finished the first horse, then moved on to the next. It had barely taken the edge off. What he really needed was a fight. He finished the second horse and looked around for something else to do.

“Still wound tight as a spring, lad?” Collins asked quietly. “Wood to be chopped out back if you fancy it.”

He did. He’d removed his coat and waistcoat to groom the horses in his shirtsleeves, but after chopping and splitting the first dozen logs, he’d started to sweat, despite the cold, and stripped off his shirt. As the pile of neatly chopped and split wood mounted, the tension gradually eased out of him.

There was satisfaction and release in the rhythmic swing of the ax and the contained, precise violence of the action. And the growing woodpile was a visible achievement, be it ever so lowly. He could almost hear his father saying,
Chopping wood? A son of Breckenridge? Good God! Beneath your dignity, dammit, boy!

He grinned to himself and selected another log. He liked doing things that were beneath his dignity.

 • • • 

“B
oy’s late!” Lord Breckenridge paced up and down in the dining room. Luncheon was ready to be served, and Damaris and Lady Breckenridge were seated. They’d only been waiting several minutes, but Lord Breckenridge was already furious.

“Where the devil is he?”

“I think he went to the stables, my lord,” Horwood murmured. “Would you like me to send someone to enquire?”

“No, don’t worry, I’ll go.” Damaris sprang up and hurried toward the door, glad to escape the awkwardly stilted conversation.

“To the stables? It’s not suitable for a l—” Lady Breckenridge began, but Damaris affected not to hear her as she ran out the door. She didn’t care if the stables were an unsuitable place for a lady, it was better than having to make polite conversation with Freddy’s parents, when all they wanted to do was criticize him.

She hurried to one of the back entrances and carefully crossed the cobbled courtyard, keeping her pretty kid slippers out of the puddles. The stables building was large and she halted just inside to let her eyes adjust to the relative gloom.

“Miss?” A young stable boy approached her. “Something you wanted, miss?”

“Mr. Monkton-Coombes?”

“He’s out yonder, chopping wood.” The boy pointed.

Damaris could hear the rhythmic chunk! . . . chunk! of an ax. Freddy was chopping wood? Intrigued, she followed the sound. She paused in an open doorway, and stilled.

Freddy was indeed chopping wood, dressed in nothing but his breeches and boots. His chest and arms were bare. And what a chest and arms. Not slender and wiry, like the men she’d seen in China, not tattooed and brawny, like the sailors on the ship that had brought her home, or meaty, like their captain, but lean and clean and hard muscled and . . . beautiful.

Her mouth dried. She drank in the sculpted planes of his chest, the hard-roped strength of his arms, the fluid movement of his whole body as he swung the ax. She didn’t move—couldn’t move, for staring at him. Hungrily.

Unaware of her presence he kept chopping. Swing, thunk! Swing, thunk! He could have been a marble statue of some glorious Greek god, except for the smooth flow of the muscles under his skin, like steel under oiled silk. Swing, thunk!

She felt hollow inside. A deep ripple shuddered through her body.

He bent, still unaware of her presence, and tossed some chunks of split wood aside. Who knew male shoulders could be so beautiful? The line of his spine, the way his back tapered from those superb broad shoulders to the narrow hips and firm masculine buttocks . . .

A faint sheen of sweat polished his skin. She wondered what it would taste like, and shivered, but not with cold. She should not stare, should not wonder about such things as tasting a man’s skin; it was wrong, and shameful, but she could not help herself.

A tide of damp heat flowed through her. Papa whispered in her mind,
Lust. Original sin.

Still she could not drag her eyes off Freddy, half-naked as he chopped wood with a muscular grace and economy of movement that was almost a dance. As long as she behaved correctly, it wasn’t a sin. You couldn’t be punished for thoughts, could you?

“Miss?”

She almost jumped a foot. An elderly groom stood there, looking concerned. She blushed and stepped back.

He glanced in at Freddy and grimaced. “Sorry about that, miss. That stupid boy—he should have gone looking for Mr. Freddy himself, instead of letting you see . . .” He cleared his throat loudly, at the same time interposing himself discreetly between Damaris and Freddy, sheltering her delicate eyes from the shocking sight of all that bare masculine skin. If only he knew.

“Go on, then, lad, give Mr. Freddy his clothes,” the groom snapped to the stable boy, who edged past them and handed Freddy his waistcoat and coat.

Freddy had already pulled his shirt on. From the corner of her eye she could see him tucking his shirt into his breeches. She tried not to watch. No, tried not to be seen watching.

She chatted to the groom, bemoaned the weather and accepted his congratulations on the betrothal, and in a moment or two Freddy emerged, fully dressed. His brows were raised in a faint question.

“You’re late for luncheon,” she explained. “Your parents are waiting. I came to fetch you.”

He frowned. “You came? Why not a footman?”

“I wanted to come.” And she was so glad she had. She would treasure the memory of him chopping wood for the rest of her chaste and virtuous life.

As they left the stable area she heard the groom berating the stable boy, saying, “Next time you see a lady hereabouts, you fetch me, all right? Ladies don’t want to be seeing men without their shirts on, now, do they, you stupid boy?”

Ladies, maybe not. Damaris, definitely.

 • • • 

“B
ringin’ the stench of the stables in with you, boy?” Lord Breckenridge was in the hallway as they walked in. “Least you could have done is changed before sitting down with ladies.”

He couldn’t possibly smell his son from there, Damaris thought. She’d come in on Freddy’s arm and she could only just smell him, an enticing blend of sandalwood soap, a very faint aroma of horse that was not unpleasing and a hint of fresh male sweat that was, frankly, too pleasing for her own peace of mind.

“I didn’t have time to change,” Freddy said carelessly.

“No consideration for others,” his father muttered.

“None at all,” Freddy agreed cheerfully. He glanced at the footman waiting outside his father’s study with a covered tray. “Not joining us, Father?”

“Luncheon is a meal for ladies,” his father declared and marched off.

“Pork pie, a tankard of ale and whatever pudding is left over from last night on that tray,” Freddy murmured. “But he never eats luncheon.”

“He did yesterday. And he was ready to today, until you were late.”

“And he will tomorrow, but in his case it’s not called luncheon, but ‘a quick bite.’ He only joined us at table yesterday because it was your first day, and also because he’d heard you’d routed my mother and wanted to get to know you better by dragging you off on that tour of the estate afterward.”

“I didn’t rout her,” Damaris said, embarrassed.
Rout
sounded so rude. She’d merely stood up for herself.

He quirked a humorous eyebrow. “Not what I heard. And by now, the whole village will know.”

They entered the dining room, where a light luncheon had been laid out. “My apologies for keeping you waiting, Mother. I lost track of the time.”

“You have been neglecting your guest, Frederick,” Lady Breckenridge said as Freddy pulled out a chair to seat Damaris. “Miss Chance was left with nothing to do while you were gadding about in the stables.”

“On the contrary, I was busy writing letters, and perfectly content with my own company,” Damaris said. “And seeing as I have little interest in horses and Freddy loves them, we were both well content with the arrangement. Besides,” she added, paving the way for the eventual breaking of the betrothal, “I don’t think it’s healthy for couples to live in one another’s pockets, do you?” She glanced at Lord Breckenridge’s empty place.

“Horwood, you may serve the soup,” Lady Breckenridge said.

The meal was a light one, consisting of soup, bread and butter, and some cold chicken pie.

“Frederick, Miss Chance has an interest in painting.”

“Would you like a roll?” Freddy asked, passing Damaris a basket of warm bread rolls.

“Did you hear me, Frederick? Miss Chance likes paintings.”

“Yes, Mother, I heard.”

“She would enjoy seeing the family portrait gallery. You must take her there this afternoon.”

“She wouldn’t be interested.”

“Oh, that would be lovely,” said Damaris at the same time, then looked at him in dismay, realizing she’d inadvertently sided with his mother.

“Then that’s settled,” his mother said. “Oh, and by the way, Miss Chance, I had Horwood place in your room a set of watercolor paints.”

“Thank you, Lady Breckenridge, that’s very kind of you.” Damaris was stunned by the unexpected gift and felt a little guilty for her previous uncharitable thoughts.

Lady Breckenridge lifted a thin shoulder and said in a bored voice, “It’s nothing. I acquired them for the convenience of my house party guests. Since it was canceled, you may as well make use of them.”

“I’m sorry,” Damaris said to Freddy when the meal was over. “If you don’t want to show me the portrait gallery . . .”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. It’s a complete bore, in my opinion, but I suppose it’s your duty as a Breckenridge bride-to-be to view it.” He seemed a little tense.

“It can’t be that bad, surely.” She would dearly like to see a portrait of Freddy as a child.

He glanced at her and his expression lightened. “An endless litany of pompous bores and entertaining rakes. I shall expect you to play close attention and identify which were which from their portraits.” The cheerful tone was, she was sure, assumed, but she decided to play along.

“Bores or rakes? I have no other choices?”

“No. The Monkton-Coombes family breed either bores or rakes, usually but not always in alternate generations. Care to guess which group my father belongs to?”

 • • • 

T
he portrait gallery was a long, narrow room that bordered what had once been the great hall, Freddy explained. “We’ll start with the oldest ones and work our way up to the present,” he said, leading her down to the far end, where the paintings were darker and the poses a little stiffer.

“It’s so interesting. They’re so different from anything I saw in China.”

“Here’s the first lot of ancestors to have been immortalized. Sixteenth century. Bores or rakes, remember—which is which?” There were nine portraits in this section; five ladies and four gentlemen. The men all wore small goatee beards and mustaches—obviously the fashion of the time. The first portrait was of a stern-looking man wearing an impressive gold chain and a feather in his hat.

“Not a rake,” Damaris decided. There was no humor or warmth in his face, both qualities she’d come to associate with rakishness.

“Spot-on.”

The second was of a younger man, plainly dressed, wearing a corded beret and a thoughtful expression.

“I rather like the look of him,” she said. He was handsome, with a long face and a firm chin, which even his little beard failed to disguise.

“You would,” Freddy said, feigning disgust. “A rake of the first order. When he died, several women tried to throw themselves into the grave with him. Can’t imagine why—the fellow isn’t even good-looking.”

Damaris gave him a sideways glance. If he couldn’t see the resemblance between them, she wasn’t going to point it out.

Next was a stiff-looking fellow with an upstanding lace collar, a firmly buttoned gold coat and a velvet hat with an orange feather.

“He looks a little severe,” Damaris said. “But he’s quite good-looking.”

Freddy shook his head. “Righteous swine, by all accounts. Beat his wives—three of them—not all at once, of course—he was, after all, respectable. He died of the pox. Next.”