What a Lady Demands (3 page)

Rowan Battencliffe. A former schoolmate of both her brother and Lindenhurst. The third member of their triumvirate. As boys and, later, young men, they had formed a solid friendship. Then. But after her brother left for India, she’d heard rumors of a rift between Lindenhurst and Battencliffe, vague tales that hinted at a dark scandal, but nothing firm. Nothing beyond speculation.

But then, Cecelia had her own reasons for avoiding the
ton’s
overactive tongues. She preferred not to give them a reason to discuss her doings.

Her gaze ran down the far left column. The page was a ledger, all right, but the entries had nothing to do with Lindenhurst’s accounts. Name after name followed in line, each with an amount of money beside it. The page looked for all the world like a roster of creditors, and if that was the case, Battencliffe’s debts were deep, indeed. In fact, the man likely couldn’t maintain solvency much longer, and certainly not if several creditors asked for payment at once. Not even the king possessed that sort of blunt.

Why should Lindenhurst have such a list in his possession, most especially when his own name did not figure on it? Unless it was elsewhere. A cursory glance at another page revealed little. Only what looked to be a catalog of Battencliffe’s assets, or at least those that remained to him.

“And what are you doing here?” The crack of Lindenhurst’s voice shattered the oppressive silence. “Do you not have duties? You may give your report at the usual time. Did Mrs. Carstairs not tell you? I seem to recall hiring you for a specific purpose that had nothing to do with rifling through my personal papers.”

She hadn’t even heard the door swing open, but there Lindenhurst loomed on the threshold. His eyes snapped green fire, an unnatural light. One she ought to fear.

A wave of heat ran up the back of her neck. Caught, but she ought to be used to being caught by now, and she was well practiced at handling herself in such a situation. The trick was to brazen it out, to attack. She had every right to be here. She had to believe that, and she had to make Lindenhurst believe it.

“Perhaps I was looking for a clue as to why you’ve shut your son up in his chamber.” Despite the glare he turned on her, she dropped the page in her hand and came around the corner of his desk. Advancing like Jeremy’s soldiers. “It isn’t right. A child his age. He needs air and light. He needs to run.”

Lindenhurst advanced as well, dragging his left leg in a slow shuffle of a gait. It could have been comical. It was anything but when he held such coiled tension in check. “Nothing in here is any of your affair.”

She would not let him cow her. Perhaps the other governesses had made that mistake, but she would not. “And what of your son? You have made his welfare my business.”

Something indefinable flashed across his expression, the merest hint of emotion gone in the next instant. “My reasons do not concern you. I hired you to do a particular job, and I expect you to do it. The boy will learn. If you cannot accomplish that, I will find someone who can.”

“Then you will allow me to use what means I see fit.” A proper governess might have asked permission, but she was hardly a proper governess. She was going to lay out her terms for him to accept.

“You will keep the boy out of my way.” He shambled forward another step, and his hampered gait called forth memories of a time when he was hale and strong. When he could run and sit a horse, fence and box. How he must resent no longer being able to engage in any of those activities.

But that was no reason to punish a child, especially when the punishment involved the placement of similar restrictions. “I can do that, but I require the use of your grounds if I’m to give him proper lessons.”

Another shuffling step, but she remained in place. “And why should you need that when none of the others did? They used the nursery. As it should be.”

Never in her life had she had occasion to stand so close to him. His presence enveloped her in an overwhelming heat. Her breath quickened, and each desperate puff drew in his scent, keen and crisp like pine on a cold winter day. But the notion did nothing to cool her; there was earth to him, too, deep and heavy and arousing. That note called to something within her as nothing about any other man ever had.

Drat, and wasn’t that dangerous?

Yet, she could not bring herself to retreat. Her entire being willed her into closer proximity. Closer and closer and closer. But the last thing she could afford was this distraction. “All your other governesses failed, did they not? Besides, if he is to learn to run the estate, he ought to be familiar with it.”

He reared back, considering her from the top of his nose. If the man had any talent, it lay in his ability to project utter disdain when he wished. He turned its full force on her now, but rather than quail, a buoyant feeling swelled inside her. It rather felt like victory.

“I have a stipulation. You may take the boy out as long as you keep him out of my sight. And don’t take him anywhere near the pond.”

To be on the safe side, Cecelia waited until the following morning to take Jeremy on a tour of the grounds. He tripped in ungainly strides down the first of the sloping terraces that swept past the stables, like a boy who wished to outrun any forthcoming restriction. Perhaps he couldn’t believe his fortune. What a relief for him to escape that oppressive house.

The bright sunlight eased Cecelia’s mood, as well. The grounds in late August spread before her, lush with the abundant rain on this part of the coast, the green of the manicured lawns punctuated here and there with the reds, oranges, purples, and yellows of summer flowers. Hedges of rhododendron edged each level with an uproar of pink. As with the nursery décor, Cecelia suspected the late Lady Lindenhurst had taken a hand here, and the groundskeepers merely kept up the gardens out of habit.

At the step where the first terrace dropped to the next, Jeremy stumbled. His feet slipped onto the gravel path that wound back toward the stables.

“Careful there,” she said.

“I’m all right.” True to form, he didn’t even turn to look at her, but this time she couldn’t blame him. If he’d spent the entire summer and longer cooped up in that nursery, it was no wonder he wouldn’t turn his attention to anything besides the open land about him.

“Where would you like to go first? The stables?” From her younger days, she remembered the fresh scent of hay and the well-kept box stalls housing velvet-nosed mares and even-tempered geldings. If she’d stopped to think, she’d have stopped by the kitchens to collect a carrot or two that Jeremy could offer the beasts. “We might look at the horses.”

Like a man recently sprung from prison, Jeremy drew in a breath, his gaze fixed on a stand of trees at the far end of the lawn. Cecelia followed the line of his sight. The forbidden pond lay beyond those oaks, perhaps a quarter mile from where they stood. A tangle of undergrowth marked the entrance to the path that twisted through the copse.

He took a few steps onto the lawn. “I can see them any old time.”

She narrowed her eyes at the place where she recalled the path. The rest of the grounds seemed in excellent repair. The rhododendron was precisely trimmed, the grass cut to the requisite half inch in height. Not a single flower strayed from its appointed spot, and not so much as the smallest weed marred the arrangements. And yet, the path lay choked with brambles, like the hedge of thorns in the Sleeping Beauty tale. As if that pond was forbidden to more than just Jeremy. As if Lindenhurst had decided to deny its very existence.

Drat. She should have asked him yesterday why the pond was off-limits, but she’d accepted his dictate as a condition of having won a small concession. She hadn’t counted on her confounded curiosity.

Nor, for that matter, had she counted on Jeremy’s. Naturally, a small boy might single out such a location as the most attractive place to explore. The better to get dirty.

She could hardly blame him.

“I don’t think we’d better venture too far,” she said, and not only to discourage him from venturing toward the forbidden.

Something was off about his gait. Indoors, the walls, furniture, and railings had all given him handy spots to catch his balance. She hadn’t really taken note, but she couldn’t help it now. As he trotted across the grass, his feet tangled with each other. Once again, he tripped, and this time he sprawled on his stomach.

Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she strode after him. “Are you hurt?”

He picked himself up and sent her a glower worthy of his father. “No.”

She knelt, bringing herself to his level so she could see straight into his eyes. If he was lying, she didn’t expect he could put it past her. Not when she was such an old hand at telling untruths. But his gaze was clear, if hard. His lower lip poked out, and he carried his shoulders as stiff and square as any soldier at attention, only instead of offering unquestioning obedience, he personified defiance. He wasn’t challenging her to believe him. He was challenging her not to march him straight back to the nursery where he’d be safe.

Safe. And was that the reason Lindenhurst kept Jeremy confined to the house? To keep him from harming himself?

She brushed at his bare knees, but he jerked out of reach, wavering with the movement. The green stains left by the grass remained stubbornly in place.

“Perhaps you ought to hold my hand,” she suggested carefully.

He tucked both hands beneath his arms and glared a challenge at her. “No.”

“All right, then, but let’s just walk for now.”

“I want to go look at those trees.” He pointed toward the oaks.

Of course he did. “I’m not sure we ought to go that way.”

“But I want to.”

And how well Cecelia understood the lure of the forbidden. “Why? What’s over there that’s so interesting?”

“I’d like to study the…the…” His brow puckered. “Blast it, what’s the word?”

“And where did you learn to speak that way?” Under other circumstances, she wouldn’t have batted an eye at his language. She’d have even used similar terms. But a proper governess ought to take him to task for such a lapse in propriety.

“Miss Barton. She was here after Miss Crump.” A sly grin stretched his cheeks. “She let herself slip when she didn’t think I was listening.”

“Just don’t let your papa catch you using such words. Or worse.”

He leaned toward her, brown eyes sparkling with mischief. “Do you know worse?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t admit to it. Now, what were you trying to say?”

“I think we should study the…I can’t think of it,” he wailed.

Just like their conversation the day before. And what had they been discussing? Right. Military strategy. “Is it a foreign name, like Salamanca?”

“No, it means…” He swept out an arm, taking in their surroundings with one broad gesture. “Well, everything.”

Military. Heaven help her, let her get this right. “Do you mean you want to study the terrain?”

“That’s it.”

“And why should you want to do that?”

“It’s what all good scouts do. They study the terrain so they can report back to their…their…”

“Superiors?”

“Yes, and then the officers can form a proper plan.” He gazed longingly on the tangle of trees and underbrush. “And that looks like a perfect spot to hide.”

Could he even walk the few hundred yards to the copse? He’d had enough difficulty navigating the series of terraces, and that ground was relatively even. Once he got into the woods, how would he manage? But she couldn’t hint at so much. He’d surely take offense, as he had when she’d offered to hold him steady with her hand. No, she’d have to find another means of dissuasion.

“What makes you think the enemy hasn’t found it first? Perhaps they’re in there, lying in wait.”

He squinted at the trees, as if he expected to spot stealthy troop movement. “In that case, we must…fl-flush. That’s it, we must flush them out.”

“And how do you propose to accomplish that?”

He stared at her, brow puckered once more. “I think we’d better see if they’re in there first.”

“How about I act as your scout and do that, shall I?” She could make it across the grounds and report back in a trice, and naturally she’d find no sign of the enemy. In fact, she could tell him they’d taken a different route entirely. One that lay closer to the house.

He grabbed for her arm, as if her life hung in the balance. “You can’t do that. They don’t let ladies in the army.”

They didn’t recruit boys his age, either, especially ones who seemed to have difficulty controlling their legs, but she wasn’t about to point that out. “All the better for me to trick them, if they’re in there. They won’t suspect a thing.” She stood and started toward the woods before he could mount another protest. “Now, you just wait for me here, and I’ll return with a report before you know it. I suppose this makes you the officer.”

She let him puff out his chest a bit over that thought while she made her way across the sloping grounds. The grass might be neatly manicured, but the earth was deceptively soft and pocked with rabbit holes. The poor child would never have made it across this stretch with his dignity intact.

And was this another reason Lindenhurst kept him inside? So the boy wouldn’t embarrass himself with his inability to remain upright for long? The poor, poor dear. And she would have to find a way to let him burn off some of his natural energy that didn’t have him falling on his face every five paces.

A pity he didn’t seem interested in horses. Perhaps if she could get him up on a pony, if his legs were strong enough to keep him in the saddle, he could move about the grounds. At some point in his life, he would have to find a way to inspect his property. As much as the boy seemed set on a military career, this land was his entire future. Best if he wasn’t obliged to spend years and decades confined to the house.

As if her thoughts had sprung to life, the steady thud of hoofbeats sounded at her back. She turned. Lindenhurst bore down on her astride an enormous chestnut gelding. His buckskin breeches clung to his thighs, the cut so close she could see the contraction of his muscles as he guided his mount. Thanks to Cecelia’s curiosity, she could conjure an image of exactly what his thighs looked like beneath his garments—sun-kissed skin dusted with dark hair over powerful sinew.

A spindly snip of a man on a swaybacked nag lagged behind Lindenhurst.

“And just what are you contemplating?” Lindenhurst reined in not a foot in front of her. The horse snorted, spraying her bodice with warm saliva. “Did I not make clear that this part of the grounds was off-limits?”

She reached into her skirts for her handkerchief and dabbed ineffectually at her bosom. “No, my lord, you did not.”

A tinge of color rose in his cheeks, and his hands tightened on the reins. “I am quite certain I informed you the pond was not a place I wanted the boy to visit.”

She made a show of glancing about her. Jeremy stood a few yards up the terrace, staring at Lindenhurst with what could only be described as hunger—a soul-deep yearning that speared through her heart and released a torrent of sympathy. The father held himself aloof, but the son
wanted
Lindenhurst.

“Silly me. I thought the pond was on the other side of those trees.” Lindenhurst was going to give her the devil for her cheek, but she couldn’t help herself. “Or have you moved it since my last visit?”

He leaned down from the saddle—on his good side, she noted—his brows lowered beneath his shallow-style hat. “You were headed straight for the path, and the boy was following you,” he informed her, his tone clipped and even, as if he were back in the army reporting enemy troop movement to his superiors.

The boy. Several times now, he’d referred to Jeremy thus. And now he’d done so in front of the child. And given the way Jeremy had been staring at his papa, he was likely to feel the snub sooner rather than later. While he may refuse to pay attention to lessons, he was clever, certainly enough to notice an adult’s frosty attitude.

Not just any adult. His own father. Cecelia knew the sting of a relative’s open disapproval. Bad enough when such a thing happened to her as a grown woman and from her brother. How much crueler must the experience be for a five-year-old who idolized his father?

“Can you not refer to your son by his name?”

Lindenhurst turned to the man who accompanied him. “Boff, take the boy back to the house. I’d like to have a word with Miss Sanford. In private.”

Lind waited while his man of affairs dismounted and took the boy by the hand. Jeremy scowled and yanked his arm out of reach, and the movement caused him to stumble. Again. All the better reason to keep the boy shut away in the nursery. The better to protect him from his own lack of grace. And his inability to walk more than a few steps without falling couldn’t then be a constant reminder of Lind’s own ambulatory difficulties.

“Are you planning on answering my question?”

Ah, and there was another reminder of life’s little complications, though of a different sort. His inability to retain a proper governess had led him to face a very much put out Cecelia Sanford. She stood, her arms crossed beneath her breasts, one hip canted, no doubt so she could tap a foot under the cover of her voluminous skirts. She may be on the ground while he remained mounted, but somehow he had the feeling she was on his level—and looking him straight in the eye.

If he felt at all like acting the gentleman, he’d dismount. But he needed to maintain his authority, and his old injuries twinged like the devil himself was stretching his leg on a rack. If he had to pull the scars in swinging his leg over his horse’s rump…

“The way I decide to refer to that child is none of your affair.” To hell with what she thought. To hell with what the world thought, for that matter. His estate was his domain and if he couldn’t assert himself here, he couldn’t assert himself anywhere. “Must I once again go over my expectations?”

“No, my lord.”

At her tone, he narrowed his eyes. His experience with junior officers had taught him the subtleties of covert insubordination, enough to recognize the same when it came from his staff. Cecelia Sanford had been born to a family whose aspirations had included a decent match; someone ought to have at least taught her better manners.

God help them both if that person turned out to be him.

“But in my defense,” she went on, “I was not leading Jeremy anywhere you claimed off-limits. In fact, I was attempting to deflect his attention from that very spot.”

A gust of wind plastered the thin muslin of her morning gown to her body.

Damn it all, he did not need that image. The cheeky little chit he recalled had blossomed into a woman, all lush curves and the promise of sin. Blood flooded his groin, and he shifted in the saddle. “By leading him toward it?”

“I understand how things must have appeared, but we were playing a game of sorts. He wasn’t to follow me.” The breeze tugged at her bonnet, loosening a strand of dark hair from her coiffure. It hung in front of her eyes, taunting him to dismount and brush it off her brow. To test if the skin of her forehead was as soft and smooth as it appeared.