The Regency Season Collection: Part Two. Кэрол Мортимер

made up into a morning gown, of all things, with a lawn fichu gathered almost to the neck that ought to be just what he’d been longing for last night, but was more of a disaster than the last instead. He was learning the magic of the hinted-at rather than the blatant whilst he tried to eat his breakfast now and he really hadn’t wanted to know how well a fashionably high waistline showed off her firm, high breasts and magnificent length of leg.

      Had he groaned out loud at the shattering memory of her sitting at the breakfast table, greeting him as if not quite sure he was the urbane gentlemen everyone around her seemed to think him? Wise woman, he told himself distractedly, as he met Partridge’s speculative gaze with a rueful grin. He doubted much about his ridiculous preoccupation with Miss Trethayne’s artfully designed new wardrobe had escaped the shrewd scrutiny of yet another man outside his natural orbit. There were so many of them at Dayspring he almost added himself to the list, but a terrible feeling of belonging was creeping up on him unwanted.

      A good job this man knew how to keep secrets then; Tom decided to ignore any minor crimes he’d committed in his hot youth and trust he hadn’t brought them with him from London. Partridge was the main reason the odd assortment of people living in his castle had gone unmolested for so long, so Tom could trust him where they were concerned, even if he was less certain about the man’s relationship to the free-traders and his supposed lord and master.

      ‘You’re quite certain this business has nothing to do with guinea boats or smuggling spies in and out of the country? I might wink at the Trade for the sake of my tenants and half the inhabitants of the south coast, but I won’t look the other way if they run traitors or Boney’s guineas in and out of Castle Cove.’

      ‘They wouldn’t do it now you’re here anyhow. Folk round here are more loyal than you deserve and they’d never tell the landers you don’t go in that part of the castle if you can help it.’

      ‘I’d hoped nobody would notice.’

      ‘I’ve lived a lot longer than you, my lord, and not much passes me by.’

      ‘Which would make you a good gatekeeper.’

      ‘So I’m told.’

      ‘Ah, so there is a lady in the case. I thought so somehow.’

      ‘Love gets to us all in the end, if we’re lucky enough. The real trick is to recognise it when it hits you between the eyes, my lord,’ the man said blandly.

      ‘And to know it for the passing joy it is,’ he muttered grumpily.

      ‘But then it wouldn’t be love in the first place, would it, my lord?’

      ‘No, damnation take it, it wouldn’t and it isn’t. We were talking about intruders and thieves, Partridge, not fairy stories.’

      ‘So we were, my lord. Then it’s high time we found out who’s getting into your castle and why they keep coming now you’re here and busy at long last.’

      ‘Perhaps we’d best find out what they’re looking for, then,’ Tom said, resigned to searching the part of the house he’d managed to avoid since his first day back.

      ‘Stands to reason they wouldn’t keep coming if there was enough of them to search properly in the first place.’

      ‘So it won’t take many of us to catch them.’

      ‘You want this kept quiet, milord?’

      ‘Yes, the place is all but empty and no sane felon would bother to break in.’

      ‘Aye, most everything was taken away years ago. They certainly ain’t busy picking apart state beds and all that fancy stuff you lords have built into your palaces. Folk round here are good at not seeing things, but they’d notice if the old place was being emptied bit by bit and the pickings trundled past their windows of a bright night when everyone’s at home where they ought to be for once.’

      ‘Or they’d have to get it past you,’ Tom said thinking that the most difficult part of the whole unlikely business.

      ‘True, so how many of your men can you trust, my lord?’

      ‘All of them, but they’re grooms and coachmen, not redbreasts or hedge creepers. I’d rather keep this to ourselves and plan a surprise my unexpected guests won’t be able to refuse.’

      * * *

      A couple more weeks crept by with the skies overcast and dull and sometimes a heavy shower of rain before the sun came out for a few brief moments to show how spring ought to be, in a more settled country. Polly wondered if the local smugglers were the only ones happy at the sight of dull skies as the Preventatives stayed by their fires even when the moon hid in the clouds. She stared out of the rain-soaked window one morning after breakfast and wondered why she was still here, almost a season on from Lord Mantaigne’s arrival at his castle and what should be her cue to leave.

      The boys had gone to their lessons, and Polly didn’t know what to do unless the rain let up enough for her to go outside. She didn’t know what to do most of the time even when she was out nowadays anyway.

      It was nearly June now and long past the usual time for spring cleaning, but Lord Mantaigne still wouldn’t let her hire a small army to sweep away the dust and grime of decades from the newer parts of this vast place. She didn’t know how he resisted the need to have the past purged from his castle, but somehow he still did and why it should matter to her was an even bigger mystery. Once he was free of the dust and shadows of the past, the marquis would be able to raise his family here. She could think of no better cure for the harsh memories of his childhood than a pack of well-loved and well-fed boys of his own to make him forget the deprived and resentful one he had once been himself.

      Lady Wakebourne stubbornly refused to tell her what plans were being hatched for their futures, but part of her knew they needed to go. It was time for new beginnings, and she must be banished too, she decided, still with a huff of annoyance at them both for being so secretive. Apparently several of the middling houses in Castle Magna were being refurbished, and Polly wondered if the marquis had it in mind to put them in one of them. Close to the woods and with miles of coves and dunes to explore nearby, it would be ideal for the boys, but she really didn’t want to live so close to the castle. She would have to smile and be grateful and pretend she didn’t care when Lord Mantaigne wed a suitable lady and made her the mother of the children who would run wild at the castle instead of her brothers and their friends.

      For weeks she’d been trying to come up with a plan to allow the boys to stay under Lady Wakebourne’s benign wing while she somehow found a place for herself with no carelessly irresistible marquises close by to make her feel a stranger in her own skin. In her opinion the marquis should be kept in Mayfair for the good of the female population of Dorset. It was ridiculous to feel uniquely drawn to him, to know no other man would ever touch the hidden feminine depths of her as he had done. Well, it might be ludicrous and on the edge of dangerous as well, but that didn’t mean she was going to stop feeling it because they no longer lived under the same roof.

      She had hoped it was a silly infatuation she could get over as swiftly as it came, like a spring cold or a fever, but he’d been here nearly two months now and she longed for him more ridiculously with every day that passed. It was time she began to plan a life without him, more than time. If they shared a house much longer she’d let herself fall in love with the dratted man and that would be an even bigger disaster.

      She was young and healthy as a horse; she knew more about running a large estate than a lady ought to and was capable of anything her sex allowed her to do. The fact that was such a pitifully small number of things could not stop her making plans. It hadn’t taken her long to realise she wouldn’t be a very good companion to the sort of nervous and fainting lady who usually needed one. Now Polly made up an ideal employer in her head and started her on a series of fanciful and raffish adventures that would keep them both well entertained without any need of tatting or reading sermons to snoring invalids. She was in the midst of planning her escape from the amorous attentions of her imaginary lady’s discarded lovers when Lord Mantaigne came in and found her