My Lady's Trust

Impatient to inspect the treasure, she selected a volume and carefully smoothed open the manuscript. Just a few pages, she promised herself, and she would slip back to her room.

Within moments she was completely entranced. Eyes avidly scanning the verses, she drifted across the parquet floor, shouldered open the library door—and stepped smack into the tall, solid body of the Earl of Beaulieu.

Chapter Four

Beau was striding briskly down the hall, invigorated by his dawn ride, when a figure popped out the library door and slammed into him. The slight form rebounded backward, a book spinning from her hands.

Swiftly recovering his balance, he grabbed the maid’s shoulders to keep her from falling. His automatic irritation over the girl’s inattention evaporated instantly as first his fingers, then his brain registered the identity of the lady in his grip.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Martin! Are you all right?” Delighted with this excuse to touch her, he let his hands linger longer than absolutely necessary to steady her, reveling in the rose scent of her perfume.

As soon as she regained her footing, she pulled away. “Fine, thank you, my lord. And ’tis I who must apologize, for not watching where I was walking.”

With regret he let her go. “Are you sure you’re uninjured? I’m a rather large obstacle to collide with.”

“Quite all right.”

“Let me restore your book to you.” As she murmured some inarticulate protest, he bent to scoop up the volume.

And froze for another instant when he read the title. The first volume of Homer’s Illiad. In Greek.

Slowly he straightened. “You are reading this book?”

Something like consternation flickered in her eyes as she looked up at him. She opened her lips, then hesitated, as if she found it difficult to frame an answer to that simple question. “Y-yes, my lord,” she admitted finally, and held out her hands for the volume.

He returned it. “You must be quite a scholar.”

For a moment she was silent. “My father was,” she said at last.

He waited, but when she didn’t elaborate, he continued, “And you, also, to be reading it in Greek. As I asserted earlier, not at all an ordinary lady.”

“But a tired one, so if you will excuse me—”

“Another moment, please, Mrs. Martin.” He couldn’t let her go, not yet, not when the only communication they’d shared for days previous or were likely, given her nursing schedule, to have in the days ahead were terse directives uttered in the sickroom. “You are looking pale. I fear you’ve been too long cooped up in the house. Do you ride?”

She shot him a glance before quickly lowering her gaze. “N-no, my lord.”

“You must stroll in the garden this afternoon, then. The day promises to be fair and warm. No excuses, now! I shall call for you myself after your rest to ensure it. We can’t have you endangering your own health.”

Again, that darting glance of alarm. “That…that is exceedingly kind, my lord, but I wouldn’t dream of inconveniencing you.”

How could he ever disarm the wary caution so evident in those glances if she persisted in avoiding him? Determined not to let her wriggle away, he continued, “Walking with a lovely lady an ‘inconvenience?’ Nonsense! ’Twould be my pleasure.”

“Your offer is most kind, but I—I really should return and tend my garden. Weeds grow alarmingly in a week, and I must restock my supplies.”

“I should be delighted to drive you there. Perhaps you can explain something of your treatments. Dr. Mac-Donovan tells me Kit is likely to have a weakness in his lungs for some time, and may have continuing need of them.”

“Possibly, but I could not allow you to abandon your work for so tedious an errand.”

“I have no pressing business at the moment,” Beau replied, dismissing without a qualm the two satchels of dispatches his secretary had sent from London by courier just last evening. “What time should you like to go?”

She tightened her grip on the book and inhaled sharply. His concentration faltered as he watched her dart the tip of her tongue over the pouting plumpness of her lower lip. A unexpected bolt of lust exploded deep in his gut, recalling in sharp focus that vision of her in the garden that lingered always at the edges of his consciousness—arched white throat and pebbled breasts and wild tresses calling for his touch.

Heart hammering, he wrenched his thoughts back to the present. Mrs. Martin stood a handspan away, gaze lowered, cheeks pinking, her breathing as erratic as his own. She felt it, too, this primal beat pulsing between them in the deserted hallway. And as surely as he knew his own name he knew eventually she must succumb to it. To him. Already he could sense in her the fluttering anxiety between acceptance and flight.

“N-no, really, I…To be frank, my lord, I should be most uncomfortable to receive such marked attention from one so far above my station.”

She was trembling. He could feel the delicious vibrations thrum through him. How long and hard would she fight their attraction?

He did not wish to push her—too much—but he’d eagerly meet her, could she but persuade herself to advance a part of the way.

Would she? Caution said ’twas too early to rush his fences, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.

“Your service to my brother makes us equals, Mrs. Martin. But given your obvious reluctance to bear me company, I fear I must have alarmed or offended you in some way. If so, I most sincerely apologize. I stand already so deeply in your debt, surely you know I would never do anything to injure you.”

She looked up then, as he’d hoped. For a fraught moment she studied him, her puzzled, questing gaze meeting his while he stayed silent, scarcely able to breathe, knowing the whole matter might be decided here and now.

Slowly she nodded. “Yes, I do know it.”

Elation filled him, urged him to press the advantage. “What time shall I bring the gig ’round, then?”

Energy seemed to drain from her and she sighed, as if too weary to withstand his persistence any longer. “Four of the clock?”

“I shall be there.” He reached toward her cheek. She stood her ground, permitting the slight glancing touch of his fingers. “Sleep, Mrs. Martin. Until four, then.”

She nodded again and, holding the volume to her chest like a shield, turned and walked swiftly to the stairs.

Beau stood staring after her, waiting for his heartbeat to slow. He’d been attracted to her from the first, but this…compulsion—he couldn’t think what in truth to call it—to claim the fair Mrs. Martin far exceeded anything he’d anticipated or previously experienced.

He shook his head, still amazed by it. Until a few days ago he’d believed that his current mistress, a lovely dancer as skilled as she was avaricious, had been more than meeting his physical needs.

Mrs. Martin roused in him a similarly intense response that was at the same time entirely different. Oh, he wanted her as he’d seen her in the garden—warm, eager, ardent—but he wanted just as fiercely to discover the story behind those skilled hands, the quiet voice that soothed his delirious brother’s agitation, to penetrate within the lowered head and engage the questing mind that read Homer.

He laughed out loud. Greek, no less! How could he have thought her intellect dull, even for a moment?

Maybe it was the shock of Kit’s close brush with death that heightened all his senses to so keen an edge. Normally he was the most analytical of men—the successful performance of his job depended upon it—but the power of whatever arced between them this morning defied analysis. This was alchemy, elemental substances bonding through some force buried deep within their respective natures, a force not to analyze, but to experience.

He intended to do so. Once Kit was out of danger, he wanted to experience every thrilling facet the unprecedented power of this mutual attraction promised.

That decided, he switched directions and headed for the breakfast room. The more he knew of Mrs. Martin, the more tools he’d possess to lure her to him—and turn his molten imaginings into reality.

Time to prime the voluble squire’s conversational pump.

He was pleased to find Squire Everett already at breakfast. “Come in, come in, my lord. Fine morning for a ride, eh?”

“A wonderful morning indeed.”

“M’sister won’t be down this morning—female palpitations or some such, so don’t stand on ceremony. Please, fill your plate. Marsden will pour your tea.”