Lady Caraway's Cloak, page 6
Serena shook her head grimly, for how was she to lie when the books were neatly inscribed in her own hand, perfectly balanced and ascribing nothing whatsoever to the fictional bailiff? Oh why, oh why had she made him up? It was an unforgivable thing to have done. She was mortified, but more so because the Earl of Caraway was looking singularly unamused, all hint of his previous charming demeanor vanished as the morning dew on a sultry afternoon.
She stiffened her back in response, her color heightened in anger—though whether at herself or at him she had no idea—and murmured tightly that naturally since he had now bothered to return, control of the estates would devolve entirely to him.
“Good! For I intend to reinstate Mr. Addington—you can have no notion, Lady Serena, how invaluable he has been to me throughout these months—and I intend, too, that he be paid adequately for the sound advice he has rendered me, not to mention active work!”
“Good Lord, you can naturally have no understanding of such matters, but apart from his incisive mind and ready wit, he has advised me almost entirely on the suitable crop rotations for these parts, not to mention other farming innovations like the introduction of these sheep. Scoff not! It is these sheep, Lady Serena, that will supply you with wool for the winter and the tenants with work spinning and weaving. I am practically self-sufficient, thanks to Mr. Addington’s achievements! I cannot impress upon you enough how much I value his services!”
“You have made your point, my lord.” Serena’s tone was dry, but her eyes were traitorously wet, for while she could not help but be desperately pleased at the high esteem in which my lord held the fictional Mr. Addington, it did not help her situation one whit. As a matter of fact, it made it all the more precarious and desperate.
Lord Robin, slightly ashamed at making Serena tremble so, spoke in softer tones. He quashed the sudden impulse to put his arms about her and soothe away the tears that moistened her lashes ever so slightly, for he was not a hard-hearted fellow. Truly, he was aware of his own shortcomings, one of which was a temper swift to ignite, but equally swift to diminish into ashy embers.
He could kiss her, of course; her lips were suitably parted and it would be no small thing to close the gap between them, but he thought not. He was, after all, still very angry, though he understood that she may have erred in ignorance rather than out of spite. Besides, though she offered a tempting prospect, it would not do to arouse any expectations. She was not, like the absent Gabriel Addington, a servant to be trifled with at a whim, but rather, the daughter and sister of an English earl. Robin therefore exercised outstanding restraint, considering it was more in his style to steal a kiss than not, and merely offered her back her own kerchief.
“I am not going to cry, my lord!”
“Excellent, for I loathe and despise watering pots, which is frankly why I wanted your Mr. Addington in the first place. It was to escape the hysterics of the dowager countess, if you rightly recall.”
“Indeed. I am sorry I am not able to help you. “
“It is a truce then, for I forgive you. Now tell me, little Miss Stubborn, what onward direction were you given for Mr. Addington, for I cannot believe he left without so much as a backward glance.”
Serena nearly confessed, for he was looking at her keenly, and she wondered which would be more mortifying—to tell him who she was, after all his high praise—or to maintain the stupid fiction. All in all, the fiction won, for what possible explanation could she have for her outrageous behavior?
Now he might merely think her hen-witted—if she told him the truth, he would think her unconscionably forward. Not an easy choice—she wondered, really, why his good opinion mattered so much. Then she swallowed hard.
“My lord, there was none, I tell you. Best forget all about him. Doubtless he will send in his bill in due course.” And he would, thought Serena grimly. She would demand payment simply to put an end to the matter, and then she would never, ever again deal in half-truths and lies so long as she lived.
“You expect me to believe that?” Robin’s tolerance was tested just that little bit more with this unexpected defiance in the face of all his calm explanations.
“He cannot have vanished into thin air. You must, my dear lady, have kept his onward address! You told me only a moment ago you agreed to furnish him with references and not cast him off without a character.”
“I said no such thing! Merely that he was not cast off without a character, as you put it. He was provided with perfectly good references, if you must know.”
“Lady Serena, I do not wish to belabor the point, but he must have left an address in case mail was forwarded to him in error ... oh, in case of a hundred instances I can think of!”
Serena squirmed under his gaze. She wished they could regain their easy camaraderie. Oh, why had she not escaped to London sooner?
“If he did, I cannot think what I have done with it.” The lie stuck in Serena’s throat, but truly, she could not think of any excuse likely to fob off the earl in such a penetrating mood.
“Then think, Lady Serena, before I shake you.”
His tone was dangerously low, his head—very handsome, as she noted even as she swallowed—much closer to hers than was strictly comfortable.
“You threaten me.”
“Be pleased I only threaten a shaking, Lady Serena.”
“You are insufferable.”
“So I have been told. Now think! Do you or do you not have an onward direction? It really is very important to me.”
“I tell you, I do not.”
What else could she possibly say? It was the truth, after all. Which was how, quite naturally, the Honorable Lady Serena came to be shaken—but not with all of Robin’s strength—and how he, as a perfectly natural consequence, came to be slapped in the shocking manner witnessed by Miss Waring in the garden.
There was a moment’s silence as Serena—sensible, responsible Serena—recovered both from the novel sensation of a man’s hands upon her shoulders—and from the stinging she felt through her gloves. In a flash, she knew which had been worse. Her slap, undoubtedly; for the shaking, though outrageous and mortifying and seriously annoying, had nevertheless also been oddly pleasurable, a matter she would ponder later in the privacy of her chamber. The slap, however, had been a very real response and really far too harsh for the crime. Or so she thought, scrupulously just even in the most trying of circumstances.
“I’m so sorry. My abominable temper! I did not intend you to sting quite so much.”
My lord’s eyebrows rose a fraction. Then, rather against his will, a sudden rueful smile lit his forbidding eyes. “How much was it meant to sting? I am merely curious, you understand.”
“Only a little. Not enough for your cheek to be streaked. I am afraid I do not know my own strength. It was very bad of me.”
“Indeed, but then, you were provoked.”
“But naturally! I would not dream of doing such a thing were I not. You were trifling with me.”
“I have hardly begun to trifle with you but we shall discuss that when my shirt is not damp and my cheek not so abominably abused.”
Serena could not think what he might mean. That odd smile remained, so he hardly looked menacing, but she wondered, all the same.
“I have said I was sorry.”
“No, it is I who am sorry. No matter what the provocation, I had no right to treat you thus. I have a damnable temper and am far too used to giving orders.”
“We are both at fault then. I am sorry about Mr. Addington. If I had his direction I would give it to you at once.”
“That is all I can ask, I suppose, though I do not hide that his absence is a severe disappointment to me. At all events, I shall further make my inquiries in London. He is bound to have registered with an agency. Cry truce, for the moment?”
“We seem to be doing that rather too often, my lord. I had not expected to brangle with you so.”
“Had you expected to be docile?”
“Oh, perfectly! You can have no notion. Your smooth running of the estate is a testament to your excellent good sense. I thought we would be in perfect accord.” And that, since Robin had been palpably taking every scrap of Serena’s wisdom for nigh on a year, was the truth.
Chapter Six
Lord Robin, confronted with the prospect of entering through the backstairs or through his own front entrance, opted for the more conventional route.
Serena, desperate to preserve their tenuous amity, and unable—she thought—to endure the sight of him warming his shirt in the kitchens—convinced him that the dowager’s tantrums would be as nothing to her own if he did not assume his rightful place immediately.
Robin, tired of the farcical position in which he had been placed, and anxious to sample the fine wines he was certain were laid down for him in the cellars—put up an opposition that was merely feeble and allowed himself to be outsmarted by the magnificent creature he had so unexpectedly stumbled upon.
Clearly, Mr. Addington had failed him, for apart from a couple of glancing references to Lady Serena’s sojourn at his estate, the man had exercised none of his quick wit and incisive mind in describing her. Her presence, therefore, was something of a shock to him, for though he had been prepared for meeting the delightful Miss Julia and her less-than-delightful mama, he had not expected to meet anyone as witty, beautiful—and frankly, elegant, as Lady Serena. In short, he had not expected to have his feelings so suddenly—and brutally—involved.
If he had, certainly he would have spent the night in London—even at Strawberry Hill for all its faults—rather than make a fool of himself outside his very own castle. Yes, he had been a fool—a fool not to kiss her and a fool to shake her as he had. Now, despite the quaint truce between them she surely, held him in disgust. Or if not disgust, precisely, then certainly not awe or trust. He was a perfect fool, really.
Two minutes later, he was confirmed in this opinion, for the dowager was indeed succumbing to a fit of the hysterics. The butler, never before confronted with so much excitement in having the unprecedented task of announcing the prodigal earl, did so in loud, stentorian tones that could have been heard across a ballroom, never mind a small breakfast chamber.
Lady Caraway shot the earl a poisonous glance of fury, then called at once for her vinaigrette before simply swooning in her seat. Poor Miss Waring—seated at the furthest end from the table in the hopes of avoiding her mama’s wrath—could do nothing save apologize in a fluster and upturn her chair in her haste to be of assistance.
The earl, cursing his fate and rather wishing he had remained either on The Albatross—or better yet, at his comfortable estate across the seas—gallantly came to the rescue and plucked the moaning dowager from the tablecloth as if she were no more than a mere featherweight, which anyone with the slightest brain could see she was not.
He seated her upon the squabs of the nearby window seat then drew the curtains, whether against the glare of the sun or the gilded wallpaper that lined the room from ceiling to floor one could not quite discern.
Julia, making frantic signals to her aunt, could nevertheless not manage to catch her eye. She was practically dying of curiosity, having witnessed the whole fantastic scene outside and wondering intensely at its outcome. But Lady Serena, for once, seemed oblivious to her plight, insisting, instead, on dishing out large quantities of deboned estate duck onto Robin’s plate.
But he found himself entirely without appetite and with no recourse to any port whatsoever, the redoubtable butler having made off with the decanter in his excitement.
It was left to Serena to ring for the housekeeper and ask her to prepare my lord’s chambers. From the manner in which that female paid heed to Serena’s instructions, Robin inferred that it was she who had long since had the running and management of the house. This was a fact he found puzzling, given Mr. Addington’s serious omission with respect to mentioning her in those most enlightening of all missives.
For the life of him, he could not think why the bailiff had been so reticent in writing of Serena, but he meant to find out, if it was the last thing he did.
Serena, wishing to coax just that sort of thought from his head, offered to show him the grounds of Castle Caraway—which had undergone extensive alterations since he had last visited—and also the layout of the first floor, though naturally not the chambers on the third floor.
“I am relieved to see that it is only the breakfast chamber that has been redone in gold.”
Serena’s eyes twinkled in quick appreciation. “Yes, and it is a marvel that you returned when you did, for her ladyship has entirely finished redecorating the dower house and wishes to wreak the same sort of transformation upon the castle.”
“Then it is not a moment too soon that I have made my reentry into civilized life. Tell me, do the portraits of your family still hang in the library?”
“No, they were removed to the picture gallery when my brother was still alive. He said he hated staring at the crusty faces of his ancestors when he was trying to read a simple book. Would you like to see them? Some are very fine. The last, I think, was done by Gainsborough.”
“A very fine artist. I should like that, indeed.”
“Come, then, it is not so very far, though we shall have to go around that colonnade, I think. Two of the rooms have been shut up for repairs.”
“Ah, yes, the repairs.” He had the estimates for these in his pockets, but he did not mention as much to Serena, who was at last catching her niece’s eye and trying to convey some message or other rather unsuccessfully. All that happened was that Miss Waring began to giggle nervously at the sight of Serena’s arched brows, and Serena herself gave up signaling in the blackest of despairs. Oh, it was impossible, simply impossible!
What she was trying to convey to Julia was that she must stay, under all circumstances, and act as chaperon. But naturally, Julia, agog for intrigue, thought she meant the precise opposite.
This simple comedy of errors resulted in Julia slipping away on the flimsiest of excuses, leaving Serena tongue-tied, staring at the forbidding face of the second earl and his multitudinous progeny.
At which point Robin—for he was Robin Red-Ribbon after all, and not much used to being a fusty old peer of the realm—seized his evident opportunity and kissed her just precisely as he wished, in front of at least four of his noble predecessors. He did not, to his surprise, earn himself another of Serena’s notorious slaps. Instead, to his amazement—and complete undoing—he found the lady unusually compliant in the circumstances. Not only compliant but also a little complicit, for it was her hand, not his, that stole gently round his neck. Naturally it was then but a small step for him to reposition himself so that his own hand found a more amenable spot—right round the neat stitching about her trim, elegantly clad waist. It was a salutory and most satisfactory experience. Robin, much inclined to prolong the matter, promptly did so.
Serena, her head lost to all reason, found her body most distressingly pliant, and she knew that even if she wanted to run away, she could not, for her legs were like trifle and her heart was beating louder than the ormolu clock upon the shelf. She was brought to her senses not by her own maidenly shock, but by a deep, throaty chuckle at her side. Robin, finished, for the moment, with his exploratory pursuits—very satisfactory if not at all appropriate—could hardly contain his sudden mirth.
“What is so funny, my lord?”
“You are, my lady! And no, before you slap me simply as a matter of form, I must tell you that my intentions are strictly honorable. How honorable are yours, I wonder?”
But Serena was not in the mood to be quizzical, for her heart was beating faster than it ever had in her life before, and all she could think of was that if Lord Robin discovered he was kissing his bailiff he could not be best pleased.
She was feeling very guilty indeed, and it was easier to pin her guilt on her previous crime than to dwell upon her current one—a most unmaidenly desire to carry on kissing. That was precisely what the honorable Lady Serena wanted most in the world, though she could not fathom why at all. Or she could—given his fine stature, teasing eyes, wide smile, and sensuous lips—but she found it easier by far not to admit as much to herself. She was, after all, both sensible and maidenly. There was no doubt about it—the whole of Caraway knew it—she knew it; she cast the knowledge about her like a cloak, protecting her from all the whims and fancies and wiles and paroxysms of the gentler sex.
Lady Caraway’s cloak, it had once been called by a half-laughing, half-serious suitor who had just suffered a gentle but firm rebuff. Lord Robin had just seriously tugged at the cloak, and the thought was both exhilarating and frightening, for it challenged all she believed about herself and her own inner desires and logic.
“I endeavor always to be honorable, my lord, which is why I have arranged almost immediately to leave for London. You cannot imagine that it would be suitable for me to remain at Caraway while you are in residence.”
“Poppycock! This is your home and has been since you were born. If anyone is the intruder, it is I.”
“In theory I must agree, for I am bluestocking enough to question why estates must default to the male heir.”
Robin looked amused. “You would prefer to be mistress of this estate?”
“Why should I not when it is I who knows it best?”
“There is more to an estate than finding the best picnic spots and hiding places.”
“Indeed. And if you are suggesting that that is where my knowledge begins and ends I hold you at strong fault, sir.”
“I stand corrected. Perhaps you will help me with my crop rotations, then. I am sowing rye in the northern field ...”
“You mock me, my lord. And it is not rye you are sowing, but barley.”
