From Waif To Gentleman's Wife

‘I … no.’ she admitted.

No wonder she looked fragile enough to shatter, walking all that way on no sustenance. Studying her suddenly down-turned face, Ned would bet that wasn’t the first meal she’d missed on her travels. ‘See if Mrs Winston can heat up some of the stew from dinner,’ he told Myles.

She looked up at him then, eyes huge in her drawn face, her lips pressed firmly together.

Lush, plump lips he’d like to kiss, he realised irritably as she cleared her throat.

‘You’ve been very kind. I don’t know how I can thank you—’

Ned lifted a hand, silencing her while he absolutely forbade himself to think of the many and delectable ways she might show her appreciation. ‘We’ll speak of it in the morning, after you’re warm, dry and rested. Ah, here is Mrs Winston.’ He looked over at the housekeeper. ‘We’ve an unexpected visitor, as you see.’

‘Aye, sir,’ the housekeeper said, giving Mrs Merrill a hard scrutiny before, reluctantly, she curtsied.

Mrs Merrill sat up abruptly and swung her feet back to the floor. Ned felt the loss of her curves against his body with an inward sigh of regret as she rose to return the housekeeper’s curtsy.

Ned stood up as well. ‘Mrs Winston will fit you out with some dry things and see that you’re nourished before you retire. I shall see you at breakfast. Goodnight, Mrs Merrill.’

She offered him a nod from that pointed little chin, then dropped a curtsy graceful enough to please a patroness at Almack’s. If she was a fancy woman, she’d been well trained.

‘Goodnight, Mr Greaves. Mrs Winston, I’m indebted for your kindness.’

Thoughtfully he watched her follow the housekeeper—who must be thinking who knows what to be charged with caring for a half-drowned woman arriving unannounced in the middle of the night. What catastrophe had befallen her that she’d come here alone, on foot, probably penniless? he wondered.

As Anders’s sister, she’d been a lady born, if not a highly ranked one. No gentlewoman of good reputation would travel as she had.

Maybe she was Anders’s doxy, his lustful imagination suggested hopefully.

Perhaps, he returned, though she had that indefinable look of quality about her bearing and carriage.

Since, as he’d told her, there was nothing more to be done tonight, he might as well go to bed. Absently he walked around the room, snuffing out the remaining candles.

Somehow, knowing the delectable Mrs Merrill dozed somewhere under his roof, he didn’t think he was going to get much sleep.

After tossing restlessly, Ned rose the next morning with a feeling of expectation swelling his chest. Considering the mountain of work awaiting him on the dilapidated farms at Blenhem, as he surfaced to consciousness he was wondering why such a sense of excitement exhilarated him when he remembered—Mrs Merrill. This morning he would hear her story and sort out what was to be done with her.

After dressing with care—for he ought to garb himself as a gentleman when there was a lady present—he inspected himself in the glass. Even Harrison couldn’t find fault with his appearance this morning.

Ah, Ned Greaves, what a handsome bloke you are, he thought with a chuckle. Not rich like Hal nor sporting as fancy as title as Nicky, but a fine figure of a man. Maybe fine enough to entice his unexpected guest into his bed if she should prove to be less than a lady.

He hastened to the small salon where Myles brought his breakfast. He’d just taken his first sip of coffee when the door opened and, in a soft rustle of skirts, Mrs Merrill walked in.

He rose, intending to greet her, and the words died on his tongue.

Those great dark eyes under expressive arched brows were green, he realised—the deep green of the velvety moss beside a woodland brook that invited one to sit and listen to its throaty chatter. And her hair! Hidden last night by the bonnet, haloed now by the morning sun, it was an intricate arrangement of auburn braids that glowed bright as a copper penny.

Though the soft green morning gown had a modest neckline, the scrap of ribbon under the high waist nonetheless managed to emphasise her breasts. For a petite lady, the top of whose head would scarcely touch his chin, they were deliciously full.

His hands curled into fists, itching with the desire to cup them.

One by one he catalogued her other charms: graceful curve of neck and shoulders, slender arms, narrow wrists, those delicate small hands.

Warm, dry and dressed, he found her even more alluring than he had by firelight.

‘Good morning, Mr Greaves,’ she said at last, startling him into realising he’d been evaluating her as blatantly as if she were Haymarket ware in a theatre box.

Maybe she is, a little voice murmured in his ear.

Well, probably she isn’t, he growled back. ‘To you, too, Mrs Merrill,’ he replied. ‘Please help yourself to the dishes on the sideboard. Should you like coffee?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

Ned nodded at Myles to pour and waited for her to fill a plate. She sat, taking small delicate bites as if she were savouring each mouthful … while he savoured the play of those tempting lips against her teeth and tongue. Ah, the wickedness he could imagine inciting them to!

Thanks to years of ingrained breeding, he needed but a tiny portion of his brain to carry on a polite conversation. However, her open, apparently honest answers to his slightly disjointed questions about her home, her growing up with her brother, her sojourn in India—that must be the origin of the exotic spicy scent that clung to her—and subsequent marriage slowly began to curb the ravening lust in his brain with the unhappy conviction that she most probably was exactly what she represented herself to be: Greville Anders’s sister, thus Nicky’s cousin, thus beyond the touch of his lecherous imagination.

That still did not explain how she’d ended up dripping on his doorstep at midnight.

Regardless, he’d better stop contemplating naked assignations in the moonlight and start thinking of and reacting to her as a lady, he concluded, squelching a niggle of disappointment.

He waited until they had both finished their meal, asked Myles to pour them each another cup and dismissed him. Now to discover what she’d been about.

‘So, Mrs Merrill, how did you come to arrive at Blenhem Hill last night?’

She gave him a pained smile, a slight flush colouring her fair skin. ‘Humiliating as the details are, after your hospitality to a total stranger, I suppose I owe you the truth.’

‘As you wish.’

She looked away, a troubled expression on her face. He sat silent, reining in his impatient curiosity and waiting for her to continue.

‘My husband was a soldier, as I already told you,’ she began at last. ‘About a year after our marriage in India I—fell ill. Fearing for my health, he insisted that I return to England. Later I learned that he himself had succumbed to a fever. As … as his family never reconciled themselves to our marriage and I had not the funds to voyage back to India and my father, I was pleased to accept a position as a governess. My employers, Lord and Lady Masters, spend most of the year in London or visiting the country estates of their friends, while their daughters reside at Selbourne Abbey in Hampshire.’

Hampshire—gently rolling hills, corn, cattle and sheep, he thought. ‘A lovely county,’ he interjected.

She looked up. ‘It is indeed. I was very happy there. Until … until my employers returned.’

Her flush deepened. ‘There’s no genteel way to express it. Lord Masters pursues every female within reach, whether they encourage his interest or not. I most certainly did not encourage him, but he … he kept after me anyway. Despite my continual vigilance, he managed to corner me in my chamber, where Lady Masters discovered us in a … compromising position. She expelled me from the house that very night.’

Twisting her hands together, her face averted, she continued in a low voice, ‘With little money and no references, I could think of nothing else to do but come here to Greville. Encountering delays at every turn, by the time I reached Blenhem Hill my resources were exhausted. So … I walked from Hazelwick. And now you know the whole.’

Her cheeks still rosy, she lowered her eyes and studied her hands, as if she couldn’t bear to look at him and perhaps see censure in his eyes.

If it was a performance, it was masterful. She appeared every inch a wronged and virtuous lady. Except … except for those plump, bite-me lips and those lush, fondle-me breasts.

Even if her story were true, Ned felt a stir of sympathy for Lord Masters. Here was a tasty morsel to dangle in front of a rake.

Only a bit, however, for he considered a man who preyed upon women, particularly a woman dependent upon him, to be beneath contempt.

Had Lord Masters preyed upon Mrs Merrill? Or was this gentlewoman with the body of a temptress a temptress indeed? Either way, what was he to do about her?