“I did, I will admit.” Eamon gently brushed a lock of hair from her cheek. “A beautiful maid who deserved better than drudging in someone else’s mansion. I was pleased to find you owned the mansion, but not that you were still drudging in it.”
“I do not own it,” Caro said faintly. “It is leased to the Dukes of Aylesmore, and I am allowed to live here only on Leo’s sufferance.”
“I doubt Leo will turn out his beloved mama.” Eamon dared trace her cheek. “He loves you.”
“And I love him.” Caro’s worry came flooding back. “You know that Rudyard will do his best to take Leo from me.”
“As I told you, I will not let him.”
Caro gazed at him, her mortification abating. “How can you possibly prevent it? To Rudyard, you are nobody, as am I. He is cousin to the Duke of Aylesmore, and until Leo marries and has a son, Rudyard is unfortunately the heir.”
“Exactly. Which is why we cannot entrust Leo’s care to him.”
“I am well aware of this. What is to prevent Rudyard from letting Leo fall victim to an accident? A ride gone wrong? A fall down the stairs? Leo is resilient, but Rudyard is insidious.”
“He’ll not have him, Caro,” Eamon promised in a hard voice.
This time, he didn’t apologize for using her name, but she was too distressed to notice.
“They can take my son away, though I will fight it until my dying breath. This has nothing to do with you, Mr. Stone, or the artwork. I’d give the bloody lot of these paintings to Rudyard, if he would only leave Leo alone.”
She spoke with vehemence, her anger, fear, and burgeoning desire making her beautiful. Eamon wanted to be her champion, to throw himself at her feet and declare he’d fight every dragon who ever put a claw wrong in her presence.
His friends would laugh and call him a fool, but the need to defend her was strong.
“You might be very surprised what I can do,” Eamon made himself say calmly. “I will think on it.” He had resources of many and various sorts, both within the law and outside it, and he’d draw on every single one of them to save Leo from the foul Rudyard.
“You are kind,” Caro said without much conviction. “You have been good to me and to Leo in the short time we have known you. But I must face this myself. And go to Leo. Rudyard’s visits always frighten him—for good reason.”
Eamon glanced up the staircase. “Leo vanished when Rudyard appeared, and I was too preoccupied to see where he went. Shall we begin a search?”
Caro’s rigid mouth softened into the one that had spontaneously kissed him. “He will be with his grandmother. Rudyard is not allowed into the dowager’s rooms without direct invitation. Come with me? Leo finds your presence steadying.”
Eamon wasn’t certain why this should be, but he was enormously flattered by Leo’s trust. “Of course. Shall we?”
He offered his arm. Caro’s smile deepened as she laid her hand on it, her touch no longer feverish.
Eamon led her up the long staircase, which itself was a masterwork of art, polished wood a century old rising around three sides of the echoing foyer. Eamon had noted on his first day the skillfully carved newel posts and the sleek craft of each spindle. The banister was wide enough for a man’s large hand, and nearly overwhelmed Caro’s slimmer one.
They passed the gallery and the false Diana Eamon had been studying to continue upward. Eamon had never been past the second floor, where he’d first met Caro, but now she guided him two flights higher, into the family’s sanctuary.
At the end of their long climb—Eamon reflected that any intruder to this house would need a strong pair of legs and a stout constitution—Caro led him along an echoing corridor to double doors that blocked its end. She opened these doors and ushered him inside.
Eamon entered a chamber that might have been lifted straight from Versailles. The walls were covered by moiré fabric in a soft shade of blue, framed with gilded panels. Columns with Corinthian capitals fit into each corner, and an arched marble fireplace lined with still more gilded wood breathed warmth into the room.
The furniture was from the time of Louis XV, the middle of the past century. If this was all the dowager’s father had managed to save when he’d fled France at the end of Louis XVI’s reign, what he’d left behind must have been magnificent.
Leo was indeed there, as Caro had predicted, standing on a wooden bench to peer out the window. An older woman sat straight-backed in a chair near the fire, an embroidery hoop in one hand, needle with floss in the other. She had a sharp face that spoke of a once haughty beauty, and her blue eyes held animation.
Leo swung around when he heard Eamon and Caro arrive. Leo grinned at Eamon, no fear on his face.
“I saw you throw Cousin Rudyard out,” the lad announced. “He almost fell on his—” He hesitated and shot a look at his grandmother. “Derrière.”
The dowager set down her embroidery, lifted a walking stick that leaned against her chair, and thumped the stick once on the floor. “Better than he deserved,” she said in an icy tone. “Is this Sir Benedict’s son, Caro? Bring him to me at once.”
Caro had learned two things quickly when her husband had first brought her home—one, that the dowager was always to be obeyed, and two, that she had reasons, sometimes kind ones, behind her imperious demands.
Caro sensed Eamon’s trepidation, which was normal for anyone meeting the formidable Dowager Duchess of Aylesmore for the first time.
