Leona looked back out her window to try to see the real Deveraux home. They came upon it suddenly when the curtain wall was turning back upon itself. Leona felt her breath ease in her chest. She smiled. The face Castle Marin showed the world was that of an imposing fortification, but the reality was so different as to be farcical. It made the pretensions she previously considered weak by comparison.
The house, built against the curtain wall, was a rectangular gray stone building with circular towers at the corners. Theexterior was not ornate. In contrast to one’s first impression of a romantic medieval pile, its restrained appearance could only have been deliberate. Perhaps the house’s simplicity was a way to tell visitors to look at the keep and other more important visual aspects of the estate.
Nonetheless, it was a welcoming house. Light streamed out of the ground-floor windows, promising warmth and shelter from the approaching storm. The carriage drew close to the broad stone steps that led up to the entrance, and one liveried servant hustled to let down the steps and hand his charges out, while another ran up the steps to appraise the inhabitants of their arrival.
The coach creaked and swayed in the heavy wind, the coachman and the groom at the horses’ heads nervously holding the restive and pawing animals while on guard against the chance that a stray tumbling branch or scrap of paper might spook the horses.
Leona shivered as she stepped down and aside to wait for Maria. Lightning cracked the black sky, and thunder rumbled across the countryside. The wind wrapped her skirts about her ankles, threatening to trip her, and fretfully slapped her bonnet ribbons against her cheeks.
The large carved oak door to the manor opened, spilling a stream of light down the steps to Leona’s feet. In the open doorway stood a tall black silhouette with legs planted apart and arms akimbo, hands on his lean hips. Leona had no trouble identifying the black form. It was Deveraux. She shivered again, though on this occasion not from the cold. She straightened and took Maria’s arm to walk with unhurried dignity up the stone steps just as the first mad rush of rain fell.
Quickly Leona ducked her head down, abandoning dignity, as she propelled Maria up the stairs before her. The silhouetted figure stepped back before their headlong dash for shelter.
Leona laughed as she reached the warmth and dryness of the entrance hall. She was soaked in that brief distance from carriage to house, and a glance in an ornately carved pier-glass mounted between columns informed her that her often refurbished bonnet could never be refurbished again. She flipped back green and gold feathers hanging limply over the brim and turned with undisguised interest to survey her surroundings.
Once more, she was surprised, for the house's plain exterior gave no hint of the lavish elegance waiting inside. The entrance hall was done in red-veined Italian marble. Columns set six feet from the wall rose three stories to a domed roof, which would flood the entrance hall with sunlight on a clear day.
Wide-eyed, she turned around again, this time to confront Nigel Deveraux leaning against the closed door, his arms crossed over his chest. He was dressed in a dark mulberry jacket that strangely suited his complexion. Still, Leona was surprised to see him in a colored jacket. After meeting him at Rose Cottage, she had formed the impression that he only wore black. Her eyes traveled to his face, and her smile faltered at the sight of his rigidly set jaw and half-veiled eyes. Black was the color more suited to his expression, she decided dismally. Nevertheless, no matter his mood, she was not going to allow him to ride roughshod over her! She straightened and tipped her head up, her jaw unconsciously thrusting forward.
Deveraux noted her challenging chin, and his eyes narrowed farther. This woman needed to learn a few sharp lessons, he decided. A curious excitement churned in his loins at the prospect. He almost smiled. “You’re late,” he growled instead, languidly straightening and walking toward her.
“Late? I don’t see how. It cannot be much past four, can it?”
“You were to arrive yesterday.”
“Oh. Are you upset because your people were forced to put up at the Golden Goose last night? My apologies, but there was much too much to do to come haring off on such short notice.”
“You should have left the minute you received that confounded package! You made a promise, Miss Leonard.”
Leona winced at the knife thrust to her conscience. That blasted promise was a treacherous subject best avoided. “If you’d written first,” she said through strained patience and clenched teeth, “I would have told you when we could leave. And there was no reason for you to send a carriage. We were quite prepared to post down, weren’t we, Maria? But, if it would mend fences, I will pay for your peoples’ lodging.”
“Damn it, woman, that is not the point, and well you know it!”
“Nigel!” A tiny woman with gray-streaked black hair and eyes nearly as blue as Deveraux’s walked briskly into the hall from one of the rooms off to the left."ImbecileI BetelThey are here to live, not to die of pneumonia!Les pauvres!They are drenched to the skin. They must have hot baths and a brandy—for the medicinal purposes, mademoiselle,” she assured Leona on a quick breath.
The scent of roses clung to the woman. “My son,” she confided to them. “He is too much in the army with men, men, men. The only women—bah, nothing. You must be Mademoiselle Leonard,non?Ah—my dear granddaughter has told me much of you, and you, too, Mademoiselle Sprockett. So, Nigel, what do you stand there for? Ring for Madame Henry. She shall take care of you with hot baths and scents and soaps. I have tried to get the secret for her family’s scent, but she is a stubborn one. Ooh, so stubborn, you know?”
“You are well matched,” drawled her son.
“Bah, what do you know? You don’t even introduce us or see to their comforts. What have I done wrong?” she pleaded, her eyes to heaven and her hands clasped before her.
“Married Father?” he suggested with teasing lightness. It was an aspect of Deveraux Leona did not expect.
Lady Deveraux glared at him.
He laughed and, surprisingly obedient, crossed to a narrow alcove to ring a bell pull connected to the servants’ domain in the nether regions of the house.
“Ma petite,I am Lady Veronique Deveraux, the Dowager Countess of Nevin, and, to my embarrassment, that mannerless oaf’s mother. I cannot tell you how I have longed for the day I speak to you and Miss Sprockett of my gratitude, but alas, I see it is not to be now. Madame Henry is coming, so we must wait. When you are warm and comfortable, we three shall have a comfortable coze,ne c’est pas?I am glad you are here!” She hugged Leona, kissing either cheek and then did the same to Maria.
Unused to physical demonstrations, Leona stumbled backward, surprise written large on her face. She turned her head to see Deveraux noting her reaction and laughing at it. Leona’s lips pursed as she pointedly turned her back on him to greet the housekeeper and follow her upstairs. She did not look back as she followed Mrs. Henry’s stately tread up the sweeping marble staircase, but she felt his eyes boring into her spine the entire way.
“Nigel,mon fils,why are you so rude to Mademoiselle Leonard?” demanded Lady Nevin as he took her arm to lead her back into the Chinese drawing room.
“Why are you so French when you are angry, Maman?” he countered.
She raised one black brow and gave her son a quelling, haughty look.
He laughed. “You do that so well. No one would know you were not born and bred to be a countess.”
