It was a two-day journey and they arrived at the Cummingses’ sprawling residence a scant mile outside of Doncaster just as the sun settled over the allee of lime trees. A three-story red brick structure, the Cummings family seat had begun life as a fortified house. But in the ensuing centuries
two wings and a central tower had been added, so that it now appeared an ungainly sprawl, vast, to be sure, but without a smidgen of grace.
Five days, Olivia told herself as the housekeeper ushered them upstairs to the adjoining chambers she and her mother would occupy. She had but five days to endure. Then it was on to Byrde Manor and the exhilaration of the Scottish countryside. She could hardly wait.
The casual summer supper had already been served to the other guests, so Olivia and her mother were served a tray in their rooms while a maid unpacked for them. Olivia would have preferred to turn in early with
Emma,
the new novel she’d brought with her, for she’d much enjoyed the author’s previous books. But her mother was not of a mind to miss any opportunity. According to the maid, Lord Holdsworth was already in residence, along with several other of the Cummingses’ guests.
“You never know whom you may meet,” Augusta told Olivia as she donned a pair of gold earbobs with aqua stones that perfectly matched her eyes. “A horsewoman such as yourself should be quite at home here.” She dabbed oil of roses behind her ears. “You’ve had more than your share of marriage offers. By rights you should be wed with one child in your arms and another on the way.”
“Since when do you long to become a grandmother?”
Augusta ignored that. “Let us go down, shall we? The butler said they would be gathered in the rear drawing room by now.”
The first thing Olivia noticed when they entered the Cummingses’ drawing room was that there were no other female guests. Penny Cummings made the introductions, fluttering her hands and her eyelashes in the affected manner she sometimes displayed. Mr. Cummings was half asleep in his chair, but he managed a creditable greeting. The other three gentlemen rose at the entrance of two attractive women to their party. Mr. Clive Garret was up from Devon for the races and the Honorable Mr. Harry Harrington had come up from Bury St. Ed-monds in Suffolk, here to replenish his own stables.
As for Lord Holdsworth, he was as charming as ever. But it was plain to Olivia that he was presently more interested in horses than he was in marriage. After greeting Augusta with no more intimacy than he greeted Olivia, he turned back to his host.
“Are you familiar with the bloodlines of the horses Hawke is planning to run?”
Mr. Cummings held up his glass for a servant to refill. “I only know the one. A tall Scottish animal, I’m told. Sired by that big black stallion of his, out of the same mare as begot Chieftain. Remember Chieftain? Now there was a horse. ’Bout five years ago. Took Ascot, as I recall.”
“I hear he’s also got a filly that can run,” Mr. Harrington put in.
“So when is Hawke to arrive?” Holdsworth asked. “I’m eager to meet him and see his stock.”
“Should’ve been here by now,” Mr. Cummings replied. “Don’t know what could be holding him up.”
“Whom are they speaking of?” Augusta asked Penny.
“Neville Hawke. He’s the last of our party.”
“Hawke. That name sounds familiar,” Augusta said.
Penny’s hands fluttered again. “Perhaps you’ve heard of his exploits. He’s a war hero, they say. Now he breeds racing stock—with some success, it would seem. I’ve yet to meet him myself, but the men all speak highly of him.” She turned to her husband. “Mr. Cummings, is he bringing his wife?”
He gave a shrug. “Don’t know as he has one.”
Penny slanted a look at Olivia and leaned nearer. “Did you hear that?” she murmured. “Perhaps this will prove a worthwhile visit for both you and your mother.”
Olivia only gave her a noncommittal smile.
Fortunately their party did not go on too late. The next morning would be an early one for the gentlemen as most of the racing animals had arrived in Doncaster, and they all wished to observe the training runs. Much money would be bet on the main race, as well as on the several lesser races and side matches that always popped up. Everyone expected their wagers to come out to the good, and so they all meant
to watch and listen and augment their hunches with the best tips to be had.
So it was early to bed. Yet weary as her body was from their journey, Olivia’s mind was not quite ready for sleep. She’d dozed off and on during their journey, and now her mind spun. But it was not the races and the society of Doncaster that had her in such a state, though she adored horses and prided herself on her firm seat in the saddle. It was thoughts of Byrde Manor. Riding a prescribed track on a very fast horse was all well and good. But a long ramble on a spirited animal through the stunning Cheviot Hills was much more to her liking.
When finally she fell asleep, it was to dream of crisp morning air and exhilarating countryside, of hawthorns and towering sycamores, and the haunting cries of terns and red kites and cormorants.
But sleep did not last long. Olivia awoke before dawn to the muted sound of horses’ hooves and masculine voices. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. Even with all the racing excitement, she wouldn’t have expected the men to be leaving quite this early.
Rising, she peered down from her window into the rear courtyard, but it was empty. Restless, she stared around her, then listened at the door between her room and her mother’s. In the heavily curtained bed her mother slept on, her breathing slow and regular. Augusta believed in her beauty sleep, and it certainly seemed to work. She should try to do the same, Olivia told herself. But she knew she would not be able to doze off again.
Somewhere in the house a clock tolled the hour. Five o’clock. She stretched her arms high, then sighed. She was up, so she might as well dress herself. Perhaps she would take a turn in the little park she’d spied on the east side of the house. She hadn’t been up before dawn since they’d gone down to London. Awaiting the sunrise would be a pleasant diversion.
She dressed in the dark in a simple muslin gown, pale green with cream-colored ruching at the neckline. A quick brush through her hair and hurried ablutions at the washstand completed
her toilette. Then she slipped on her walking shoes and a light shawl, and at the last moment also snatched up her journal. Perhaps she’d enter her observations about Lord Holdsworth and the other two gentlemen she’d met last night.
Locating the stairs was easy, locating a door to the outdoors far less so. The sprawling house was even more confusing from within than from without. When she spied a light through a door standing partially ajar, she headed straight for it. Someone was up and about, probably a servant. Perhaps they would direct her.
The door, painted pretentiously enough in faux marble, opened on silent hinges to reveal a spacious library, and Olivia’s eyes widened in delight. On a huge center table a host of books sprawled, mostly volumes on horses and racing, she saw. An empty tumbler sat beside a brace of candles that cast an amber glow across walls lined to the ceiling with leather-bound tomes. The window drapery was thrown open to the darkness beyond, but the room was empty. It must be as she’d supposed. The men had left for Doncaster after reviewing their research on the racehorses.
She moved farther into the room, forgetting about her walk. She’d not expected to discover such a large library here. In truth, she’d half-expected Penny Cummings to be illiterate. That was unkind, she scolded herself. And uncalled for.
She scanned the titles, trailing her fingers along the shelves.
A Journey to the Islands of Scotland,
by Samuel Johnson.
Account of Corsica,
by James Boswell. Voltaire’s
Treatise on Religious Tolerance.
All serious, practical tomes. A High Street bookseller would be impressed with the choices.
“But no poetry,” she mused aloud. She set her journal on a side table. “Hmm. Debrett’s
Peerage of England, Scotland and Ireland.
No drama or plays either.”
“Is there no drama among the peerage?”.
Olivia whirled around at those startling words. From the sheltering embrace of a deep upholstered chair turned toward the window, a man leaned over the arm, staring at her. “It seems,” he continued, “that the peerage is all about drama. Drama and little else.”
For a moment Olivia remained too shocked to speak, for she’d believed herself to be alone. Nor did she recognize the man from the guests she’d previously met. His face was shadowed by the night as well as by the dark tint of his unshaven cheeks and jaw, as if he’d been sleeping in that chair before the window.
She swallowed hard and cleared her throat. Before she could find her voice, however, his eyes ran slowly over her, head to toe and everywhere in-between. It was out-and-out scrutiny, a bold perusal the like she’d never before suffered, and it unsettled her to the core. Then he spoke in a voice that was dark and low, and vibrating with warmth.
“If there was no poetry in this library before, there most certainly is now.”
NEVILLE could hardly believe his eyes, nor his immense good fortune. If this was a dream, it was a damn sight better than the visions that usually beset him. She was an angel, shining in the lamplight, with the most sumptuous auburn hair spilling around her shoulders. Her eyes glittered wide and amber-green; her lashes swept over them, a dark brown velvet. Her skin was pale and lustrous, and would be soft to the touch. Dressed in a simply adorned gown of flowing muslin, she clutched a flimsy shawl to her chest as she stared back at him.
Neville swallowed hard. She was the picture of grace and beauty, yet with a hint of wildness about her, like a startled doe, lovely yet tensed to bolt. But he did not want her to bolt. He wanted her to stay if only so he could continue staring at her.
He ran his eyes over her, admiring everything he saw and wanting to see more. The full breasts beneath the snug bodice, the long legs beneath the fluid gown. Was she a servant? Though she did not wear a uniform, she must be one of the staff, for who else would be up before dawn? A slow smile lifted one side of his mouth. Had he known Cummings kept such a lovely household staff, he would have arranged to arrive sooner in the evening and not wasted this long, torturous night in solitude.
He had planned deliberately to arrive late, for he’d been unready for the company of society folk. He needed to do business with Cummings and his friends, and so he’d had to come. But he’d timed his arrival for past midnight. By the time he’d settled the horses and dismissed his grooms, everyone
else had been asleep, leaving him only a few hours to wait out the night. The library had suited his purpose, providing him with east-facing windows. And now it had provided him with this pretty young maid or governess or whoever she was.
He gave her an appreciative smile. “No ode to beauty has yet been written which does credit to the beauty I see before me now,” he murmured, meaning every word. When she blushed in response his grin increased. He must be more drunk than he thought, he told himself, though he’d not delved very deeply into the bottle of brandy he’d found on a tray on a bow-fronted commode. He must be drunk or else damned lucky that such a delectable little baggage was up and about so early in the day.
“Tell me, what is your name?” he asked as he rose to his feet. He did not sway, and his head hardly spun—a good sign. For if he was not drunk enough to be having visions, then she must be real. And now that he thought of it, there could be but one reason a woman who looked like her would be tiptoeing about in a great hall like this at such an unlikely hour. It was too early even for servants to begin their daily tasks. But nighttime tasks …
He eyed her flushed cheeks and rosebud lips, and drew the only conclusion he could. Was it Cummings’s bed she’d graced tonight, he wondered, or perhaps one of his other guests’?
His eyes ran over her again, and despite the effects of the brandy he felt the unfamiliar rise of desire. He hadn’t been with a woman in weeks. He hadn’t truly wanted one in months. But for some reason he wanted this one. There was a good hour yet until dawn. He would as happily spend it in bed with an eager young woman as with a bottle of whisky.
“Come, my little midnight muse. ’Tis plain it is not house cleaning you’ve been up to this night. So linger a while with me and inspire the poet in my soul,” he coaxed, giving her a beckoning smile. “God knows I am in dire need of inspiration.”
At his smile she frowned and clutched her white fringed
shawl tighter around her shoulders. “I fear you mistake me for someone else.” He shook his head. “That’s not likely. Tell me,” he repeated. “What is your name?”
Her eyes narrowed and he felt the full weight of her stare as she made a thorough canvass of his person. He straightened to his full height. Did she like what she saw? The front of his waistcoat was unfastened, and he was dirty with road dust and in sore need of a shave. But perhaps she would not mind. Some women liked their men rough around the edges.
“Your nighttime secrets are safe with me,” he reassured her. “So come now. You need not be tongue-tied. A comely maid such as you has surely received her share of compliments.”
“A few,” she ventured in a voice as warm as a purr, despite her wariness. No giggles or sharp dialect from this one. Better and better.
He approached her slowly, holding her gaze with his own. “Eyes the color of autumn,” he murmured. “Green and gold.”
“The correct term is ‘hazel.’”
He smiled at her curt reply, and felt the building of desire. “But hazel is not nearly poetic enough to describe them. And I believe you require poetry.” He’d spout Shakespeare or Marlowe or Blake. Whoever it took to lure her to his bed.
As if she sensed the direction of his thoughts, she averted those striking eyes, sheltering them beneath the sweep of her velvet lashes. “I believe I had better depart now.”
But Neville did not want her to go. When she turned he followed, and when she reached for the door, he held it closed with one hand flat against the panel.
She jerked around to face him, anger flashing in her eyes. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“You haven’t told me your name,” he answered, leaning his weight against the door and deliberately blocking her departure.
“Nor am I likely to,” she retorted, her husky voice vibrating with temper.
“Your eyes go green when you are riled,” he said, smiling down into their mesmerizing depths. Then to his own surprise,
he caught her by the chin and leaned forward until their faces were but inches apart. “Who are you, my lovely midnight maiden? And what must I do to coax you to share a glass of brandy with me?”
“A glass of brandy? ’Tis plain you’ve had too many glasses already.” She batted his hand away, then ducked under his arm and backed toward the center of the room, past the chair where he’d been sitting. “Let me leave, else I shall scream down the house,” she vowed.
He was behaving badly, Neville knew. Accosting his host’s domestic staff was not his normal style. Then again, he’d not been a guest in anyone’s home in so many years, who was to say what was normal for him anymore? Still, the fact that his numb emotions had reacted so immediately to this young woman was reason enough for him to continue his pursuit of her.
“There’s no cause to do that, for I mean you no harm. Just your name,” he said as she came up against the wall. “But I am remiss. Allow me to introduce myself. I am—”
“A rude and vulgar boor,” she snapped. Then she reached for the latch on the adjacent French door, and before he could stop her, she fled into the night.
Olivia could scarcely believe the dilemma in which she found herself ensnared. Accosted in the library by some drunken lout. She paused to catch her breath behind a gnarled and twisted apple tree at the bottom of the narrow verandah. Her heart pounded still, though now with fury more than fear. Thank God he had decided not to pursue her. She wasn’t sure what she would have done then.
She peered around the tree trunk toward the house. Botheration! He was still there, silhouetted in the open doorway by the well-lit library, his widespread arms braced on the door frame. Olivia’s heart sped up once more. He was a big man, she saw, tall with wide shoulders and a reckless, dangerous air about him. Who was he?
Not a servant, she decided, now that distance gave her the opportunity to think. His waistcoat had been plainly adorned, but it had been a first-rate wool with a double row of carved
silver buttons. Also, he spoke too well to be a servant. There were certain valets and butlers who spoke as well as their employers, but this man was no one’s valet. Of that she was certain. Besides, there was something of the Eton clip to his speech. He must be a gentleman.
She laughed, albeit unpleasantly. No, he might have been raised a gentleman. What he’d turned out to be, however, was an ill-mannered ruffian, a man not above accosting innocent females. That he obviously thought her a housemaid excused nothing. She’d always considered men who harassed servants to be of the very lowest sort, taking advantage of their position in life.
Just then he stepped out onto the verandah, and she gasped and shrank back. Did he mean to pursue her after all?
But he only patted his pockets, then pulled out a small rolled cheroot. When he turned back to the library to light it at a candle, Olivia made her move. Stooping low and dodging from holly to box to rhododendron, she angled away from him, squinting into the darkness to avoid running headlong into a low wall or clipped shrub or poorly placed bit of garden statuary.
Her only consolation was that if she could not see, neither could he. She had almost reached the corner of the east wing and safety, when his voice disavowed her completely of that notion.
“Be careful, Hazel, lest your nighttime meanderings foster tales of a ghostly presence on these grounds.”
Olivia halted, one hand on the brick corner. Ghostly presence? She frowned, then let out a little groan. Her pastel dress! Had he been able to see her all along?
“I apologize for frightening you,” he went on, his voice as dark and warm as the late summer night. “’Twas hardly my aim to do so. If you are a kindly ghost you will allow me a second chance to prove myself. If you will not join me in what remains of this night, then please, I beg you, come again on the morrow. I’ll be here in the library until dawn.”
Olivia pressed a trembling hand to her chest. The man was going to give her heart failure. As if any respectable young
woman, servant or otherwise, would welcome such a coarse and insulting invitation. Outraged by his gall, she plunged into the darkness around the corner of the house, unmindful of the shrubbery she trampled in her haste. She would get to the bottom of this, she vowed, and the first thing she must do is determine just who he was. Then she would have quite a tale to tell about him in her journal.
She tripped to a halt. Her journal! She’d left her journal lying on the table in the library.
She spun around in a quandary, her fists knotted in frustration. She could not allow her journal and its often unflattering commentary to fall into the wrong hands, for it could be more than embarrassing. Her mother had often warned her about that possibility. But she’d always been so careful—until now. She stifled a very unladylike oath. How could she get it back before someone discovered it?
She knew at once that she could not return to the library, not while he was still there. That meant she would have to wait and retrieve it later. But what if he found it first? Olivia rubbed her temple where it had begun to throb. He would not notice it, she reassured herself. Why should he? In a room full of books one drunken lecher was not likely to notice another slim volume.
But what if he did?
Olivia gritted her teeth. If he did she would simply have to deal with the repercussions. How bad could they be?
Neville turned away from the verandah. The auburn-haired beauty was not going to return—and why should she? She’d looked like an angel, yet he’d approached her as if she were a wanton. He scrubbed his hands across his face, disgusted at his own depravity. Was he that far removed from common decency and good manners that he could behave so?
He stared at the decanter of brandy he’d set upon the mantel. It was the drink that made his behavior so reprehensible.
Then stop drinking.
He clenched his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Bloody hell,” he muttered, disgusted with himself. But then, he’d been disgusted with himself for years now. He
couldn’t blame his vile behavior on his drinking. Even drunk he knew when he was behaving abominably. Unfortunately, he’d long ago ceased to care what people thought of him, so long as he made it through the long, torturous nights. And he needed some sort of spirits to do that. Any sort.
The sad truth was that tonight’s little episode was not all that bad when compared to some of the other wretched sins of his past.
He headed for the brandy, planning to finish what he’d begun, when a slim volume lying on the center table caught his eye. It was a small book, tattered and well used, much like the other books in the library. But it was bound in cream-colored leather with gold filigree. Cream-colored leather in a library dominated by burgundies and browns and blacks. It stood out like a beacon, and it drew him as inexorably as a light drew moths.
It hadn’t been there before. He was sure of it.
He picked it up. Was it hers?
“‘Ex libris, Olivia B.’” He read the bookplate inside the cover. “Olivia,” he repeated, liking the ring of it. A classic name for a classic beauty. He thumbed through the pages, noting the curious angle of her penmanship. Probably left-handed. And definitely a busybody. He’d expected poetry, but instead every page contained a series of notations about different people.
Lord N. Known to be very generous.
Lord D. A legendary pinchpenny.
Mr. G. A lecher of the first magnitude.
He frowned, examining the pages more closely. Each page appeared to pertain to a different man. Lord this; the Honorable that. All men with not one woman mentioned.
Why would a housemaid keep such notations? Did it pertain to visitors?