“So, you see?” she said, slanting her gaze and her smile on him. “I am competent.”
“Aye, I see,” he said, smiling back.
A sound came from the door. They both looked up to see someone filling the doorway. It was the hairy beast from outside. He had to be Lord Rothbury. Up close, he was even more frightening. His long dark hair was almost as untamable as hers. It looked like it might be knotted into his beard. It made sense that Avice would leave when he returned. She was terrified of him, poor girl. And Julianna also realized that not only had little Elias begun this behavior after Avice left, but also when his father, the monster, returned.
With the babe in her arms, she rose up from the floor. Whoever this man-beast was, he was going to have to do something about how he looked—for his son’s sake. He was terrifying.
She smiled and opened her mouth to introduce herself, but he turned from the doorway and disappeared down the hall.
Chapter Three
Nicholas almost ranRauf down in his urgency to get away from what and whom he’d just seen—Julianna Feathers holding his son.
No! It was the lighting! The shadows in the room! It was not her!
“Rauf! Dammit, what is that woman doing in Elias’ chamber?”
“She’s the new governess.”
Nicholas gripped Rauf’s jacket and pulled him close. “You will send her away this instant!”
“Why, Nicky?” he asked, pulling his ax free. “D’ye know her? Is she dangerous?”
Nicholas brought his hands to his head. He wanted to yank out every strand of his hair. What the hell was she doing here? What did she want? Had she changed her mind about him now that he was an earl? “No. She is not dangerous.” She was deadly! His gaze fell to Rauf’s weapon. “Do not put a hand to her, but get her out of Lismoor.”
“Now?” Rauf asked, hand to chest. “If she’s not dangerous—”
“Rauf.”
“She managed to get the lad to finally—”
“Now.”
Rauf looked into his gray eyes. If he had any thoughts of challenging Nicholas, those thoughts were driven back by the warning in his lord’s flinty gaze.
“Ye are worse than yer brother,” he thought he heard Rauf murmur on his way down the hall.
Nicholas didn’t wait to see her being escorted out of his son’s room. He hurried away on long strides, down the hall to his solar.
What was she doing here?Julianna.His heart felt as if it were going to cease or ignite and burst into flames. Either way meant the end of him.
It was Julianna with Elias in her arms, looking up at him with wide, dark, frightened eyes and deep red tresses falling over one side of her face and over one shoulder. She was here! His hands shook as he reached for the door to his solar. What did she want? Was he strong enough to resist her, or would he succumb to her maddening beauty and natural grace? No! He swore to himself as he entered his solar. He wouldn’t see her, speak to her. There was too much at risk. He had come back to Rothbury for his son. Not her. His gaze hardened. It had taken him years to fully get over her, and when he finally did, she came back? No! He would never give her another chance to hurt him.
“Why will he not see me?” he heard her demand.
He knew her voice better than his own. He felt it rushing over him like rain on a blistering day. The sound of her was refreshing, laced with the cool undercurrents of fearless determination. She was after something. What was it?
He leaned against the doorframe and peered out into the hall through a slit in the doorway.
“Perhaps your lord should think about cutting off all that hair so that he does not frighten his poor child!”
So, his son’s hysteria was his fault? Of course she would think so.
“I thought he wanted to find a governess. What have I done that is so terrible?” she argued.
She was angry. Nicholas couldn’t see her but he knew her expressions and exactly how she looked right now. Was he to believe she had come here for work? Was she unwed? Penniless? Hadn’t she wed her “man of means”?
He thought about pulling open the door—perhaps even tearing it from its hinges—and storming up to her. He wanted to tell her that he did want a governess, but not her.
