ESSEX, ENGLAND
The chiming case clock in the hallway outside Hugh’s shabby sitting room gave Lucy an excuse as good as any to avoid staring into the clear aqua depths of Hugh’s eyes. He seemed to miss nothing and even one look could be deadly to her insides. Zeus! A night in his house, knowing he lay in his bed only a room or two away…the mere thought made her heart pound as if it were flailing its way out of her chest.
After lingering her gaze awhile in the direction of the sounds of the clock, she carefully swept her regard back toward the furnishings. Every piece of furniture in the room was covered with a large cloth, and the dust and cobwebs were everywhere, screaming neglect. She knew he’d turned his back on the excitement and draw of London life to set his family estate to rights, but heavens above, she’d had no idea the extent to which the earl’s father had let Westmont Manor fall into ruin. The settee on which she and her aunt now sat was still covered in old, tattered bed linens that themselves were laden with dust.
Even the now ripped, drab work clothes he’d donned for his work with Major MacKenzie failed to dampen the image Hugh projected to the outside world. The current expression on hisface was full of the usual forced good humor she’d come to associate with the earl. He carried a perpetual expression of guarded mirth, as if he were privy to some great ludicrous secret no one else knew.
But those eyes. She’d studied them now for many years as companion and best friend to Mina who’d grown up under the tutelage of Lucy’s Aunt Grace.
Whenever Mina’s unfeeling brothers and their friends had been home over the holidays from school, both Hugh and Julian, the Duke of Montfort, had been in constant attendance. She’d always assumed they were there because of Mina’s brothers. Apparently, she’d misjudged them. They’d both been there for Mina.
“A nightingale’s trill for your thoughts, Lucy?”
Hugh’s sudden question caught her so off guard, she nearly fell off the settee. She’d been balancing a cold cup of tea his housekeeper had provided earlier whilst teetering on the edge of the seat to avoid an avalanche of dust.
She glanced back and was caught in the web of his regard. “I was only wondering why we couldn’t just as safely return to the Abbey for the night and not inconvenience your housekeeper.”
Her aunt shot her an intense glance, which Lucy returned with a mutinous one of her own.
“She has her minions busy as we speak, ensuring the guest rooms are devoid of the cobwebs and dust of this space.” He spread his hands wide to encompass the sitting room. “I apologize for the state of the old family pile, but the former servants apparently decided that ‘out of sight’ meant out of mind. And of course, my father hadn’t been paying the poor souls, either, for some months before he died.” A sudden shadow obliterated his usual mocking smile.
“I’m sorry,” she quickly amended. “I’m sure your new army of servants will set things to right quickly.”
His cheeky grin returned. “An army? I certainly wish they were. Maybe then I could get old Wellington to put them through their paces.” He pointed to his own cup of cold tea. “Maybe he could get them to manage a hot cup of tea for my guests.”
When Lucy spied on her aunt out of the corner of her eye, she noticed she was nearly grimacing in an attempt not to notice Major MacKenzie who had moved his chair rather close to hers. The tall, muscular Scot was still in the clothing he’d worn when their attempt to blow up the bridge had nearly blasted him and the earl to kingdom come. If Lucy were truthful, she was a little jealous of the men’s access to explosives.
If only she had a bit of the gunpowder they’d used, she could finish the experiment she’d been working on back in her tiny improvised laboratory at their boarding school. She wondered…
“Lucy-.” Her aunt’s abrupt call pulled her out of her thoughts. “Why don’t you come over here and entertain Major MacKenzie? He was asking about what can be done about the garden at the front of the manor house. You’re much better at cultivating plants than I am. I believe I’ll check on Mrs. White in the kitchen. Perhaps she could use some assistance with the tea.”
It had not escapedHugh’s notice that Lucy’s aunt was in danger of exploding from trying so hard to throw her niece and the major into close proximity. He’d considered the possibility that a home and family might help his friend deal with his hearing loss in a much more appropriate manner than his current habits which included launching into fights in taverns with fellow patrons whose conversation he inevitably misunderstood.However, Hugh wasn’t sure Lucy was quite the right partner he’d had in mind for MacKenzie.
She was much too lively, not to mention likely to terrify the man with her erratic laboratory experiments. Once she’d become obsessed with the study of chemistry as a young woman rambling about the Montfort library with her cohort in crime, Mina, there’d been no holding her back. He shuddered when recalling the time she’d filled the Abbey with the rotted egg smell of sulfurous fumes in an experiment gone awry.
He’d been at the Abbey on holiday from school with Julian at the time of the incident and remembered the Viscount Rumsford staring at the ceiling for long minutes before calling Mrs. Phippen into his office. He’d instructed her to secure a proper tutor for young Lucy’s peculiar interest. The science tutor who’d been duly hired had included both Lucy and Mina in the classes, but Mina had promptly declared she cared not a whit for science. Instead, she continued to read all the volumes of classics she could reach in Julian’s Edgewood estate library. The two girls had been supported in all of their crack-pot endeavors by Julian’s old steward, Beesley, who’d never been able to say no to either one of the young women.
Hugh shook his head slowly and eyed MacKenzie uncomfortably pulling at his tattered cravat and practically leaning away from Lucy’s chair in an effort to distance himself from the ebullient, bubbling creature next to him who was trying to explain the secret of making English roses feel welcome in a garden. When she offered to mix her personal combination of potash and soil for him to spread around the new bushes planned for the the following fall, Hugh feared the man might actually pop a vein.
He excused himself, making apologies for the long wait for a decent refill of hot water for tea. He headed out of the sitting room toward the lower cave-like kitchens. Straightening hisshoulders, he prepared for a bout of arguments with the elderly cook he hadn’t had the heart to let go, but who seemed to feel she answered to no one, especially Hugh.
He’d no more than cleared the doorway than he was jerked to the side of the long, cavernous hall. “We have to talk, milord.” Grace Phippen demanded in a hoarse whisper close to his ear.” She pulled him with her two doors down to the dusty library. Once inside, she closed the door softly behind them. “You have to help me save Lucy from a terrible mistake,” she insisted, before plopping down on a cloth-covered settee, causing a huge cloud of dust to billow around her.
Hugh coughed and waved a frantic hand in front of his face, clearing the air. “What the devil has she done now?”
Grace Phippen hadno illusions about any sway she might have over Hugh Elliott, Earl of Westfalia. However, for the sake of Lucy’s future, not to mention the survival of their girls’ academy in London, she had to make him see sense.
After her husband had died at a young age, she’d begun her lifelong, determined path toward solvency for herself as well as her young, orphaned niece. Her long years as a low-paid teacher at the first academy where she’d been employed were difficult, but she’d saved every penny she’d made and eventually had been able to afford to bring Lucy to the school to ensure her education.
Hugh’s clear blue eyes seemed to bore a hole into her very soul when he suggested, “There’s a hard-backed chair over here by the window. It’s not very comfortable, but at least you won’t be swallowed in a cloud of dust when you sit down.” He stood, leaning against the window frame and looking out across theexpanse of the unkempt park grounds surrounding his family manor.
Grace gingerly took his advice before tucking her slippers beneath the sweeping hem of her dress. A fire had not been laid in the room’s fireplace, but no one had expected them to take over the library, either. She finally spoke. “Lucy has taken this wrong-headed idea that the only way she can help me keep the academy afloat is to marry Silas Miller, the owner of the building we rent.”
“What? He’s asked Lucy to marry him? Why?”
Grace’s eyes widened. “She’s an attractive young woman, he needs a wife, and he’s been threatening to raise our rent for the last year.” She straightened her back and gave him a proud look. “Lucy insisted she’d marry Mr. Miller to make sure we don’t lose the academy, and now I can’t talk her out of such a wrong-headed idea.”
A strange look passed across Hugh’s usually carefully controlled face. “Why would she do such a thing?” He paced to the fireplace and knelt down, stacking kindling and firewood from a nearby box. He struck a match against the bottom of one of his boots before coaxing the lot into warming flames.
