Thunder and Roses (10 page)

“Good God, I’d forgotten that.” He opened the bottle and poured her a glass of wine. “What do Methodists do to amuse themselves?”

“Pray and sing,” she said promptly.

“I shall have to broaden your repertoire.” He handed her one of the glasses. “Shall we drink to a mutually satisfactory conclusion to our association?”

“Very well.” She lifted her glass.
 
“Three months from now, may the mine be safer and the village of Penreith healthier, wealthier, and happier. In addition, I hope that you will have seen the spiritual light and become a sober and godly man, and that I will be home again, reputation and career intact.”

He clinked the rim of his glass against hers, his black eyes gleaming. “My definition of `mutually satisfactory` differs in several details.”

“Which are?”

He grinned. “I’d better not say. You’d empty the rest of your wine over my head.”

With mild wonder, Clare realized that she was bantering with a man. And not only was she carrying on a teasing conversation with suggestive undertones—she was enjoying it.

Her sense of being sophisticated and in control vanished when she made the mistake of glancing into Nicholas’s face. He was studying her with a mesmerizing intensity that was as palpable as a touch. As she looked into his dark eyes, she felt trapped, unable to look away. Her blood swirled with unaccustomed heat, rushing to each spot touched by his slowly moving gaze. First her lips tingled, then her throat pulsed, almost as if he were caressing them with his fingertips.

When his gaze drifted to her breasts, her nipples tightened with yearning sensitivity. Merciful heaven, if he could affect her like this when he was a yard away, what would happen when he finally touched her?

Before she could become completely unnerved, she was saved by the soft gong of a dinner bell. Nicholas turned his head, freeing her from the spell of his gaze. “Shall we see what the cook is capable of? I haven’t had a real meal since returning to Aberdare, so I have no idea how
skillful
he is. In fact, I don’t know if the cook is a him or a her.”

“I talked to Williams earlier, and he said that one of the two maids, Gladys, has been pressed into service as temporary cook,” Clare said, hoping that she sounded composed. “You don’t need a mock mistress—you need a housekeeper to order your household.”

“Can’t you be both?”

Once again he put his hand in the small of her back, gently possessive. She flinched, for

her gown and shift were thinner than the garments she had worn earlier, and the effect was almost as intimate as if he had put his palm on her bare flesh.

He noticed, of course. “And here I thought that you were becoming more at ease with me,” he said softly. “You needn’t be fearful, Clare.”

She scowled up at him. “If I had any sense at all, I’d be terrified. You’re twice my size and probably four times my strength, and I’m entirely at your mercy. The fact that I am voluntarily under your roof means that you could do anything short of murder and most people would say that it was only what I deserved for my shameless conduct.”

His face darkened. “Let me repeat: I have no interest in unwilling women. In spite of my worldly rank and greater physical strength, you hold the ultimate power between us, for you have the right to say no. For example …” He raised his hand and brushed her cheek with the back of his knuckles.

The slow movement burned across her skin, seductive and alarming. Clare felt suddenly vulnerable, as if his touch was stripping away her common sense and exposing
unadmitted
longings.

He murmured, “Shall I continue?”

With all her heart, she wanted to say yes. Instead she snapped, “No!”

His hand fell instantly. “See how easy it is to stop me.”

He thought that she had done that easily? Apparently he wasn’t all-knowing. Nerves in shreds, she said, “Why don’t you take your kiss for the day and get it over with? I’ll enjoy dinner more if I don’t feel like a mouse being stalked by a cat.”

He smiled lazily. “My turn to say no. Anticipation is part of the pleasure of lovemaking. Since I can only be sure of one kiss, I wish to delay it as long as possible.” He guided her into the dining room. “So fear not—I promise not to leap across the table before you’ve fortified yourself with food.”

He must know that her real fear was not that he wouldn’t stop, but that she would be incapable of saying no. The thought strengthened her resolve. Yes, he was powerful and infinitely more experienced than she, but that didn’t mean that she had to lose their contest. It was up to her to be stronger.

That goal in mind, she encouraged him to talk about his travels rather than more personal subjects. To her surprise, he had traveled extensively on the Continent. After he mentioned a visit to Paris, she asked, “How did you manage to see so much of Europe when Napoleon has closed the Continent to Britons?”

“By traveling with my disreputable kinfolk. Even Napoleon’s armies can’t stop Gypsies from going where they will. When I joined a kumpania, I became just another Romany horse trader. No one ever guessed that I was British.” Giving up on his over-salted leek soup, he poured wine for each of them.

She pushed away her own soup bowl with relief; it was amazingly bad. “If you’d any taste for spying, traveling as a Gypsy would have been a perfect disguise.”

Nicholas broke out coughing. When she looked at him in surprise, he managed to say, “Swallowed the wrong way.”

Clare cocked her head to one side. “Was that coincidence, or a guilty reaction because you actually were involved in intelligence gathering?”

“You are definitely too clever for comfort.” He sipped his wine, expression thoughtful. “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you that an old friend of mine is active in intelligence work, and I sometimes passed on information that I thought might interest him. Occasionally I acted as a courier as well, if it fit into my own plans. I was never a serious spy, though. That would have been too much like work.”

She was intrigued by his reluctance to admit that he had served his country. Perhaps he wasn’t quite the wastrel he pretended; then again, perhaps he had simply enjoyed the adventure of spying.

Williams and Dilys entered the room together. The girl, with nervous glances at the earl, cleared away the dishes from the first course. Williams placed a platter of scorched-looking lamb in front of his master, then served half a dozen other dishes. After dismissing the butler, Nicholas carved the lamb. “If the soup is any indicator, Gladys is out of her depth in the kitchen. This joint doesn’t look too promising, either.”

When Clare tasted the leathery meat, she had to agree. Nicholas winced when he tried his.

“Something must be done about the food.”
      

Seeing his speculative glance, Clare laid down her fork and gave him a warning scowl. “Yes, I’m a good cook, but I will not have time to work in the kitchen. And don’t try to convince me that a mistress also has to cook for her lover.”

“I wasn’t thinking of wasting your valuable time in the kitchen.” He smiled mischievously. “But a mistress can do interesting things with food. Shall I describe them?”

“No!”

“Another time, perhaps.” He prodded a boiled potato with his fork. It promptly disintegrated into a shapeless white mass. “Do you know of a decent cook who is looking for a situation?”

“Not in the valley. You might be able to find someone in Swansea, but you’d probably be better off sending to London. There must be agencies that specialize in finding French chefs for aristocratic houses.”

“French chefs are usually temperamental, and most would go mad with boredom in Wales. Aren’t there any good Welsh country cooks around?”

Clare’s brows drew together. “Surely that kind of food must seem very plain to a gentleman.”

“I like country cooking as long as it’s done well.” After careful scrutiny, he pushed a sinister-looking lump to the side of his plate. “Even the penguins would sneer at this fish. Are you sure you don’t know a competent person who could start soon—preferably tomorrow?”

His aristocratic impatience made her smile. “There’s a woman in Penreith who worked at Aberdare as a kitchen maid before her marriage. She’s not a formally trained cook, but whenever I’ve eaten at her house, the food has been wonderful. And she could use the work—her husband died in the pit last year.”

Nicholas spooned a mysterious substance onto his plate. It was brown and it oozed. “What’s this? No, don’t tell me, I’d rather not know. If you can coax the widow up here tomorrow, I’ll be eternally grateful.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Clare wrinkled her nose at the cold, gray, mushy Brussels sprouts. “I have a stake in the results myself.”

After several more minutes of unenthusiastic chewing, Nicholas said, “Now that you’ve had time to reflect, have you devised a redecoration strategy?”

“Surveying the ground floor confirmed my original impression: cleaning and simplification will work wonders.” Clare tried the apple tart, which proved to be flavorless but edible. “I won’t do anything too radical—when you remarry, I’m sure your wife will have plans of her own.”

Nicholas set his wine glass on the table with a force that threatened to shatter it. “You needn’t concern yourself about that. I will never remarry.”

There was a black edge to his voice that Clare had not heard before, and his face was dark as a thundercloud. He looked like a man who had loved his wife, and who mourned her deeply.

The late Caroline,
Viscountess
Tregar
, had been the daughter of an earl, and she had brought a title and a fortune to her marriage. During her months at Aberdare she had seldom come into the village, but once Clare had seen her riding. Nicholas’s wife had been tall and graceful and gloriously blond, so lovely that to see her was to stop and stare. It was not surprising to learn that her loss still hurt Nicholas. And his grief must be compounded by guilt over his own role in his wife’s untimely death.

Again Clare wondered what had really happened on the fateful night when the old earl and Lady
Tregar
had died. It was hard to believe that Nicholas had been so crazed by lust that he had bedded his grandfather’s wife in defiance of all decency. The second countess, Emily, was only a few years older than her step-grandson, but though she had been attractive, no one would have looked at her twice if Caroline was in the room.

Unless … unless Nicholas had hated his grandfather so much that he had wanted to hurt the old man in the
cruelest
way imaginable.

The thought that Nicholas might have seduced the countess for such an ugly reason turned Clare’s stomach. A series of dreadful pictures flashed through her mind: Nicholas and his grandfather’s wife caught in
flagrante
delicto
; the old earl collapsing with a fatal heart seizure; Caroline drawn by the commotion, then rushing hysterically from the scene, only to die as she fled from the monster she had married.

If that was what had happened, Nicholas was morally responsible for the deaths of his wife and grandfather, even if he hadn’t killed them with his own hands. Yet Clare could not bring herself to believe that he had behaved so despicably. Though he might be wild, she had seen no wickedness in him.

But, she realized grimly, it was possible to believe that he had acted from impulse rather than calculated viciousness. If he had unintentionally precipitated the disaster, he would have ample cause to feel guilty.

Sickened, she pushed her plate away.

Unaware of her lurid thoughts, Nicholas said, “I agree. This is not a meal to linger over.”

For a moment Clare felt disoriented; it was impossible to reconcile her nightmare imaginings with the charming, playful man who sat opposite her. She saw quite clearly that if she was to endure three months of his company, she must put speculations about his past out of her mind. Otherwise she would go mad. Already Nicholas was frowning at her, wondering what was wrong. With effort, she managed to say calmly, “Do I withdraw and leave you to your port now?”