“Serve them spitted catfish heads,” he said with a growl.
“Yes, sir,” Thomas said.
The earl paused on the first landing, his hand turning white on the banister. His cold glance locked with Thomas’s bland one. He almost smiled. At least Thomas knew when to take him literally, unlike his wife’s man. That imbecile had actually served the closest thing he could find to catfish once upon a time, when the earl had been forced to host friends of Patricia’s in her absence. It was hard to say who had been more shocked, his guests or Nick, at the sight of the spitted, grilled fishheads served with the tea. Nick had actually laughed once he recovered. His wife, Patricia, had not found the episode the least bit amusing.
The earl stomped into the master suite. There was no valet there awaiting him; he did not have one. That had caused another, albeit minor, scandal, not that the earl cared. Until his wife’s death four years past he had suffered with a valet, which he found ridiculous. He was a grown man and he was capable of dressing himself. The lack of privacy bothered him as much as the inanity of it, and after the trial he had dismissed the valet immediately. He would have discharged two-thirds of the household staff as well, except that he worried about turning them out of their jobs. The earl was well aware that most agricultural laborers, when unemployed, moved to the towns, where there were jobs aplenty in the factories. He did not have the heart to consign these people, whom he knew, to such a cold, dismal fate. Born and raised on a west Texas ranch, for Nick such an existence was hell on earth.
His shirt was wet with sweat, and the earl removed it, flinging it to the floor. He had been working with the laborers building a new stone wall in one of the south meadows. He had enjoyed the task—gathering the rocks from the fields and adding them to the growing wall. Unlike some of his neighbors, whose acreage was going from corn to grass without grazing livestock, the earl was increasing the use of land on all fronts. The new meadow would be turned to hay to feed his increasing herds. He was aware that agriculture was in a precarious state—he sensed the beginning of its decline. He knew he must be careful, yet Dragmore, under his efficient policies, was thriving. Nick understood that to compete with the vastly cheaper American agriculture, he would have to increase Dragmore’s efficiency. It was a challenge, a task he threw his entire heart into, one that kept him going from dawn until dusk.
They were waiting.
The earl grimly buttoned a fresh shirt. He could not put it off. They were waiting. Not for the first time, he regretted the day he had ever married Patricia Weston.
She heard him coming.
Jane took a breath. The wait had been unbearable. And very rude too. She had seen him turn his back on their carriage as they entered the drive. He hadn’t even remained to greet them as a host should. Now they had sat in the yellow parlor for a good half hour, and there was still no noble presence. Jane had scanned her environs out of sheer boredom and the need to occupy herself. She had instantly noted that the parlor appeared to not have been used in a long time—or cleaned, for that matter. While everything was in perfect order, there was a thick coat of dust everywhere, and cobwebs hung in the corners of the ceiling above the heavy brocade drapes. The walls were covered in faded, aging, quite garish gold damask. Cherubs and nymphs and God only knew what else flew above them, painted on the ceiling amid blue sky and puffy clouds. The room was the epitome of bad taste. Matilda was unperturbed, sipping her tea and eating three crumpets in rapid succession. Jane had tasted the tea—foul stuff. She preferred coffee as her mother had. As for the pastries—she would never be able to get one down.
She stared at the door, hearing the soft footfall, and then it swung open. Her gaze locked with his.
Her heart stopped, jolted by his presence, then began to beat anew.
Before she had just gotten a glimpse of blue-black hair and broad shoulders. Now she was ensnared by frosty silver eyes without the least bit of warmth in them. His presence was vast, threatening. So dark. He filled the doorway. He was bronzed the color of teakwood. It made his pale eyes startling, even eerie, in the harsh, high planes of his face. And he was big. Taller than Timothy, and filled out, broad of shoulder, his hips small but strong. Jane saw, shocked, that he wore only a linen shirt casually tucked into his breeches, no vest, no jacket, no tie, and it wasn’t even buttoned all the way. She could see the flat plane of his chest, a sprinkling of black hair. His breeches were pale, tight doeskin, covering large, powerful thighs and stained with dirt and grass. His boots were muddy. He was obviously the one who had tracked the filth into the house.
He was uncouth. He was a barbarian. He was everything they said. He was so dark, she understood now where he had gotten his name. And he was staring back at her.
This realization, that he was staring back as rudely as she had been staring, made her blush hotly, and she abruptly dropped her gaze to her lap. But she could still feel his, cold, menacing— yet somehow hot too.
“I am Jane’s aunt by marriage,” Matilda was saying. “I trust you received our letter?”
“I did.”
“I’m so sorry if I’ve given you a jolt, but with my dear husband passing on, I just can’t keep Jane, and you—”
“I have no time for a ward.”
His words were hard and curt, and Jane gasped in surprise. Their gazes met again. Color flooded her. His cold eyes slipped from her face to her waist, but so rapidly she thought she must have imagined it. He turned back to Matilda. “I am sorry,” he said. It was a dismissal.
Matilda stood, growing red, but not intimidated. “I cannot handle her alone. I am an old woman. She is a trying handful, she is impulsive, reckless, always in mischief. I am returning to the parsonage. Without Jane.”
“How much do you want?”
Matilda grew redder. “I didn’t come for money! But we cared for her for almost four years, since she was fourteen. If you have the charity to pass something on, I can use it. But I cannot handle Jane,” Matilda cried with obvious conviction. “If you don’t take her I will toss her out onto the streets!”
Silence greeted this. Both pairs of eyes turned to Jane. Jane was too hurt by Matilda’s words to be enthused with the prospect of escaping both unwanted guardians, for if neither one wanted her, this was her chance. “It’s all right,” she bravely said, attempting a fragile smile. “I will go to London. I have friends there.”
“Friends! Bah!” Matilda spat. “That theater trash your mother was a part of!”
The earl wasn’t listening to Matilda. He was staring at Jane. She had the voice of an angel. He liked this situation less and less with every passing moment. He hadn’t expected this—beauty and innocence and those big blue eyes. And—she was a child. To send her to London alone would be to doom her to a life of prostitution. The factories if she was lucky. He cursed aloud. “Damn Patricia.”
Matilda gasped. Jane’s big eyes went bigger, like saucers. He looked at Matilda. He did not care what these two thought—he had long since ceased to care what anyone thought of him. Not since the trial had he given a damn about gossip. “Are you certain there are no other Westons?” But even as he spoke, he knew that, with his wife’s death, there was no one else on the Weston side to take the girl in. “What about her mother’s family?”
“There is no one but you and me,” Matilda said firmly. And then, angrily, she proceeded to tell him about Jane’s last escapade. The earl’s expression did not change, but he stared again at Jane. “Abigail Smith almost had a heart attack,” Matilda finished triumphantly. “How can I control the likes of her? I’m an old woman!”
He did not think the offense serious; in fact, had he not been so angry about the entire situation, he might have been momentarily amused. Grimly he said, “I am not equipped for this. I know nothing about raising a girl.”
“You have a son,” Matilda pointed out, smiling now, sensing victory. “He has a governess. Jane will fit right in. And, my lord, in your position you can find her a husband, quickly if you wish. Then Jane will be settled and everyone’s conscience will be relieved.”
Nick stared at Jane. She was seventeen, she was beautiful, she was a Weston. He knew very few details, other than that she was the old duke’s granddaughter. But these bare facts were enough. He could find her a husband easily. And his life would return to normal.
