Shewasperfect. She was poised and charming, not to mention gorgeous. In company she knew how to take the lead when it was necessary, retreat into the background when it was not. She could talk with ease to anyone, listen with interest, smile with what looked like genuine pleasure. She never drew attention to herself yet somehow commanded it. She was elegant and graceful. She would be the perfect candidate for his countess in every imaginable way. Except one. She disliked him.
She had never made any bones about it, though she had, of course, always been polite. Courtesy under all circumstances had been bred into her very soul, it would seem. But even if they could have got past their first unfortunate couple of encounters, she would still never recover from her hostility toward him. For she had been poisoned against him by local gossip long before she even met him, despite her assurance that she believed it only when it could be proved with facts. Maria had probably supplied some of those facts, or what she had believed to be facts, courtesy of her mother. And he had done nothing to help Lady Estelle change her perception of him. Even after six years back in society as the Earl of Brandon he was still stiff and gauche and uncomfortable and inclined to hide behind the morose armor he had built around himself after he was banished.
Last night he had struck Lady Estelle Lamarr from his mental list of prospective countesses. Not that there was anyone else on the list.
And what had he done this morning? He had mistimed his departure from the house and found that a few stragglers from the lake party were still up under the portico—including Lady Estelle. It had been perfectly clear that his cousin Sid was about to take her in pursuit of the others, but he had not yet done so. Justin had offeredhisescort instead—to the summerhouse. And she had accepted.
He might have known there and then that disaster was looming. The summerhouse washisdomain, especially the upper level. It was the only place on Everleigh land where he felt fully at home and relaxed. And private. He had wanted the privacy this morning in particular because he had a very personal letter to write.
But, he had thought as they made their way there, he would not need to take her to the upper level. He had had a door and a lock installed at the top of the stairs. He could sit downstairs with her, let her see the view, relax for half an hour. So of course he had taken her up. He had even been glad about it for a while. She had liked it. She had been interested in his writing. She had asked him about his reason for leaving here twelve years ago and about his relationship with his father, and he had felt that she was genuinely interested in knowing the truth, even though he had not told her a great deal of it. And then...
Well, then he had made an ass of himself.
I wish you would marry me.
And as though that idiocy were not enough to embarrass him for the rest of his natural life even if he lived to be ninety, he had proceeded to explain his reason for asking...You are past the first blush of youth... Perhaps youhave waited for love. If so, it would seem to have eluded you until you are past the age at which you can continue to expect it. I wish you would consider me...
The memory was enough to make him break out in a cold sweat. The drizzling rain did not help.
The lake party was hurrying back to the house from the other direction, he could see. Fortunately, he had an excuse not to encounter them or have to mingle with them for a while.
“Captain,” he called. “The stables.”
And his dog, after turning to look at him as though to say,“What? Again?”nevertheless obediently changed direction. Justin followed him without a word to his companion, who held her course for the house.
Lord Brandon, I cannot think of anything whatsoever that would induce me even toconsidermarrying you.
Her rejection had been cutting in its brevity. And clear in its meaning beyond the shadow of any doubt.
So he had kissed her. Hard. On the mouth. With no finesse whatsoever.
He owed her an apology.At the very least.He had made one, in fact, but that was just before he kissed her. He owed her another. The trouble was that he did not want to get close enough to her for the next eternity or two to say anything at all. And he did not doubt she felt exactly the same way.
He settled Captain back at the stables, rubbing him down with a towel and cleaning his paws and underbelly. He fed him, though it was the wrong time to do so, and changed the water in his bowl, though what was already there had looked fresh.
His letter remained unanswered.
He was as far as ever from finding a countess. That list of his was quite blank. He did notknowanyone.
He wanted desperately to go home. Which was laughable when he considered that the home for which he yearned was half of a poky, drafty loft in a small, dilapidated old cottage with a dreary view over a stone quarry through its windows.
Through one of its windows—the tiny square one under the eaves in the loft—Ricky was perhaps gazing at this very moment, watching for Justin even though July had come and gone and Justin had not come with it. Ricky understood simple facts. What he couldnotunderstand waschangedfacts or the reasons for them. He could not understand the difference between cancellation and postponement. One always had to be very specific with what one told him, for as far as Ricky was concerned, the things one told him were then facts written in stone. If they changed, he was not only disappointed; he was also distraught and quite inconsolable.
“It’s something you need to keep in mind next time you say you are coming here, Juss,”Wes Mort had dictated to Hilda, his woman, who had written the letter for him. Wes could both read and write—Justin had taught him by candlelight through one cold winter and beyond—but he was embarrassed by the slowness with which he read and the large, childish appearance of his handwriting.
Don’t tell Ricky you are coming back in July after you have finished all your stuff in London and then write to say you can’t come then after all but will come in the autumn instead, after harvest. Ricky don’t understand things like that, Juss. You said July but you didn’t come in July and now he is mortal down in the dumps. He don’t want to eat or sleep or even wash. He drags about, driving us mental, and hedon’t smile no more. Hildy is threatening to leave me. (This is Hilda here, Justin. I am NOT threatening to go, how would my men do without me and where would I go anyhow, but poor Ricky is in a bad way.) In future when you are leaving here tell him goodbye and you will see him sometime when you can. I’m ready to pop you a good one and put another bend in your nose. Perhaps it will improve your looks. Come when you can, but make it soon or you may find Ricky looking after two lunatics here.
For four years Justin had lived in half that loft above Wes’s cottage. Ricky, Wes’s brother, lived in the other half. He was thirty years old now, a few years younger than Wes, and a big man, but he still had the mind of a four- or five-year-old. He was sweetness itself except when something frustrated him. Then he tended to mope and sulk and sigh and sometimes throw a tantrum. He had taken a liking to Justin from the start and considered himself Justin’s protector from all ills, real and imagined. Leaving him after a visit was never an easy thing to do.
Wes was a great bruiser of a man, all brawn and muscle and big heart—and sometimes big mouth. It was Wes who had broken Justin’s nose in a tavern brawl that had been more of a massacre than a fight between equals. Wes had jeered at him when he lay on the floor, blood pouring from his nose, eyes unfocused. He had spit to one side of him and commented that if Mr.La-di-da wanted to toughen up a bit so he could give a better account of himself in the future, he could come and work forhim.In a stone quarry. His mouth had fallen open in astonishment when Justin had turned up on his doorstep two days later to inform him that here he was, reporting for work. Wes had grinned at him then.
“I did a good piece of work on that face, Mr.La-di-da,” he had said. “There is not a single part of it that is not still swollen. Except maybe your eyeballs. Even your ma wouldn’t know you.”
Justin had still been marveling that he had all his teeth. “If I can last out for a whole week of working for you,” he had told Wes grimly, “you can drop theLa-di-dalabel. It is the way I talk. It is not going to change. My name is Justin. Justin Wiley.”
“Juss.” Ricky had been smiling sweetly from behind his brother’s shoulder. “Did you fall down and hurt yourself? Come in the house. Hildy has made some soup. Hildy’s soup is always the best. It will make you all better again.”
Wes was a foreman at the quarry. He had given Justin a job, and Justin had kept it for four years. For at least the first of those years he had been given all the hardest jobs, though that was merely a matter of degree. There was no easy job at the quarry.
