“I accept your offer,” he said gravely, and made no protest when I took his hand and started to lead him down the drive to the gatehouse, our temporary new home.
Lady Sybilla was being assisted into a camping chair by the redoubtable Adams. Both women were dressed, their matching white hair tidy as ever, their faces equally dour.
Alden stopped in front of Lady Sybilla, his fingers tightening on mine as he obviously tried to think of something to say.
Lady Sybilla wasn’t about to wait around for that, however. “Young man,” she said dispassionately, her gaze running over first him, then me, before turning back to the house. “Bestwood Hall has been destroyed.”
“Yes,” Alden said, his shoulders slumping. “I’m sorry. I was in the hospital when it started.”
She was silent for a moment, then made atching noise. “It always was an abomination. That gatehouse is much more desirable.”
Both Alden and I gawked at her, outright, full-fledged, gob-stopped gawked.
“The hell?” I asked, finally able to speak. “What on earth are you saying? You loved Bestwood Hall!”
“Whatever gave you that idea?” she asked with a sniff.
“You did! In the many times that you refused to leave because you told Alden that it was your late husband’s beloved home.”
She gave a ladylike shrug. “It never was very comfortable to live in. Drafty, very drafty, and inconvenient in the layout. Many is the time I told Adams the whole thing should be pulled down and rebuilt, is that not so, Adams?”
“It is, your ladyship.” Adams’s pinched face grew even more pinchy, a thing I didn’t think was possible. “I’ve always told her ladyship that whoever laid out the house should be hung by his toes, and so I say now. It was a sprawling confusion of a house, and we are much happier at the gatehouse.”
“No,” I told them both, pointing a finger at Lady Sybilla, who opened her eyes wide at both my words and action. “No, you cannot simply do an about-face now. I refuse to let you. You made Alden’s life a nightmare for the last two weeks, and now you’re trying to pretend you wanted to leave all along, and I’m not going to let that pass. Here’s Alden all torn up—his house is destroyed, along with the last few bits of your furniture that were too heavy for us to move—and I know he’s the sort of man who feels responsible for that, despite the fact that he tried for weeks to get you out of there, and had to resort to threats of physically removing you before you finally did.”
“You make no point with that statement,” Lady Sybilla said, dismissing me altogether. “Young man, I willwish to speak to you at your earliest convenience about the rent due to me for the people you have housed in my domicile.”
I did a little more gawking at the apparent balls she had in charging rent for Fenice and Lisa. “The nerve—,” I started to say, but shut up when Alden answered her.
“There is no rent owed to you,” he said firmly. I wanted to applaud him. “The gatehouse is still mine—you only have tenancy in it for your life. If I wish to house guests in it, I will naturally consult you, but in this instance, I consider the situation an emergency, and as such, I will proceed without consulting you.”
Lady Sybilla didn’t like that, but didn’t get a chance to say more, because Alden started forward, taking me with him.
“I still can’t believe this place is called a lodge,” I said five minutes later when we arrived at the gatehouse. It was a red stone building, sitting back off the drive, but near enough that in centuries past, a gatekeeper would dash out and open the gates whenever a carriage (or, later, motorcar) wished to arrive or depart. “This has a tower! A square tower, stuck right there on one end. And gables! Lots of gables. Not to mention the fact that I personally saw four bedrooms when we were moving Lady Sybilla’s stuff in.”
“There are six bedrooms, actually.”
“Six bedrooms is not a lodge. Not even remotely.” I stared up at the pointed gables, and counted the windows. “Lodges are supposed to be small, primitive buildings that men go to in order to get away from their women, drink a lot of booze, and go out and shoot innocent animals.Thisis a freaking mansion.”
“Not quite, although I was told it was used as a dowerhouse for many decades.” Alden’s shoulders were definitely slumped as he escorted me into the house and up a lovely oak staircase that split into two arches midway up. We took the right arch, and proceeded down a hallway, with Alden opening doors as he came to them. At last he found a room that wasn’t occupied. He lay down on top of the naked mattress, and covered his eyes with his forearm. “Christ, what a day. And it’s only just started.”
I sat next to him on the bed, one hand on his chest. “It’s been awful, hasn’t it? I meant what I said, you know.”
He moved his arm to look at me. “That you love me? I should hope so.”
“Not that, you toad.” I pinched his side. “I meant that I would do whatever you needed done. To help. Is there someone I can call for you? Insurance agent? Banker?”
“No, but I appreciate the offer.” He rubbed his face, and I thought seriously about molesting him, but decided he might not be in the mood.
“I’ll go find us some sheets and blankets,” I said, getting slowly to my feet. Now that the adrenaline rush of the hospital and the fire was wearing off, I felt like I was a hundred years old and my feet were made of cement. It took me only five minutes to find the linen closet and gather up the necessary items, but when I returned, Alden was sound asleep on the bare mattress.
I stood next to him with my arms full of pillows and sheets, and looked down on his face, at that lovely square chin, and the cheek indents that weren’t quite dimples, and the long, long eyelashes.
“You’re mine,” I told Alden, and covered him up with a soft blanket. “Whether you want it or not. But I’dprefer you want it, which means you need to get down to the business of falling madly in love with me, so we can live together happily, and I won’t have to go back to the U.S. a sad and morbidly depressed person.”
“All right,” Alden mumbled, and rolled over onto his stomach.
I laid a blanket down next to him, and curled myself into it, deciding that although I had about two hours before I was due to start my teaching duties, I couldn’t face the public—assuming the firemen let them into the garden—without a little sleep.
