My Lady's Trust

“Have you had a dish sent up to Mrs. Martin yet?” he asked casually.

“Cook will take care of that. Must see that she gets her nourishment. Thin as a wraith anyway—can’t have her going into a decline.”

“Indeed not. What an invaluable member of the community! Has she resided here all her life?”

“No, the last few years only. Her late aunt, Mrs. Hastings—a most genteel lady, God rest her soul—owned the cottage first. Mrs. Hastings helped her husband, a botanist he was, in his studies of herbal plants, and became something of an expert herself.” The squire paused to take a bite of kidney pie and waved a finger at Beau. “So you see, my lord, ’tis no crone of a medicine woman who had the teaching of Mrs. Martin, but the wife of an Oxford don! Anyways, once the folk hereabouts learned of Mrs. Hastings’s skill, they took to consulting her. And when Mrs. Martin contracted a puerile fever, her family sent her to her aunt. Nearly died, Mrs. Martin did, and took the better part of a year to recover.”

“I’m sure her neighbors are most grateful she did.”

“God’s truth, that!” The squire motioned the footman to pour him another cup. “Given the, ah, weakness of the local sawbones, there’s a number of folk who’d be in bad frame indeed, were it not for Mrs. Martin.”

“My own brother included.”

The squire nodded. “Glad to know you realize that!”

“Her husband was a military man, you said. In what regiment?”

The squire stopped buttering his toast and looked up. “Can’t say as I know. Does it matter?”

Back off, Beau. “Not really. I’m trying to ascertain how I might best reimburse her for the time and skill she’s expended for my family. She would not accept payment in coin, I expect, but I should like to offer some gesture of appreciation. Is she perchance a reader?”

The squire chuckled. “My, yes! Quite a little bluestocking. Why, when she was laid up recuperating from her illness, I swear she must have read every musty tome in my library twice through. Not that I grudged her the loan of them, of course. Nay, I was glad to see them off the shelf for better reason than to make way for Hattie’s feather duster.” The squire put down his fork, suddenly serious. “Mustn’t think she’s one of them annoying, opinionated females who are always trying to tell a body what to do. Not a bit of it! Our Mrs. Martin’s quiet and deferential, a real lady.”

“So she has shown herself, under the most trying circumstances,” Beau agreed, noting the squire’s slight stress on the possessive “our.” “The rest of her family is not from this county?”

“No. Now that I think on it, I’m not sure where her parents live—nor her husband’s people.” The squire shrugged. “Never seemed important. She’s quality, as one can tell by looking at her, and that’s all that matters.”

“Of course.” Beau paused, choosing his words with care. “It does seem to me somewhat—odd, though, that she should be living alone, without any relations to accompany her. I must confess I was shocked when I went to fetch her and found not a single servant. I cannot help but think she stands in need of better protection.”

“Protection?” The squire stiffened and threw him a suspicious glance. “She’s well protected now, sir. I’d have a servant at the cottage full-time, if that’s what you’re hinting, but she’ll not hear of it. And my grooms have standing orders to keep a close eye on the place.”

Beau returned a bland smile. “That’s not the same as having her safe within one’s household. Perhaps I should speak to my sister—”

“No need for that!” the squire interrupted, his glance turning frostier. “She’d not stir from Merriville—likes to feel useful, she tells me. In any event, I’ve plans for her eventual protection—quite legitimate plans! No need to disturb your lady sister—Mrs. Martin will be well cared for, I assure you.” Pushing his chair back, the squire rose. “I’ll just go check on that breakfast plate.”

Giving Beau another sharp look, the squire paced out.

Beau savored the rich scent of his tea and smiled. So, as he’d suspected, the squire had “legitimate” plans in regard to Mrs. Martin. But though a match of such unequal age would not be unusual, often resulting in affection on both sides, he was certain the lady did not in any way reciprocate the squire’s tender regard.

Thanks be to God.

To his eye, Mrs. Martin’s reaction to the squire’s gallantry indicated disinterest cloaked in polite avoidance rather than coquetry. Nor, given the care she took to mask her beauty, did it appear she sought to attract any of the eligible gentlemen hereabouts.

Twofold thanks to heaven.

Why a vulnerable lady in such a precarious financial position would not wish to ensnare the affections of a potential suitor puzzled him. Solving that mystery was the key, he suspected, to unfettering the attraction between himself and Mrs. Martin.

Fortunately, uncovering people’s emotions and intent was a skill he’d perfected when still a lad, fascinated by puzzles of all sorts. While mastering chess, he’d discovered to his amusement that he could often learn as much about his adversary’s strategy from watching the reactions of face and body as by following the play. A sudden widening of the eyes, a quick indrawn breath, the alerting of the body and tensing of shoulders might indicate an opportunity discovered, or a check about to be set. Intrigued, Beau began to actively track such reactions. By the time he left Eton for Oxford he was able to pick up much more subtle signs.

Which allowed him to enjoy a quite profitable career at cards while at university. In addition, his ability to sense out which of two boxers would triumph, which jockey would bring home the winning horse, or which of two gentlemen would win a bet had led friends—and opponents—to wait on his choices and seldom wager against him.

And later led him to the secret career he now pursued, assisting Lord Riverton, an older Oxford classmate and now a cabinet member, in rooting out governmental corruption.

Given the strength of his need to disarm the wariness of Mrs. Martin, he gave thanks both for his skill and the invaluable contacts he’d accumulated over the years.

The news of Kit’s accident had pulled Beau from a house party, where the number of congenial friends present had sweetened the business of observing a high-ranking government official suspected of embezzlement. His agents were at work amassing invoices and shipping figures—hence the satchels arriving daily by courier. The accumulating evidence, observation and instinct all told him the suspect he’d been watching was indeed the architect of the scheme.

Though he’d put all thought of miscreants aside while Kit’s life hung in the balance, once he was assured his brother was truly out of danger and Ellie arrived to oversee Kit’s care, duty compelled him to return to London and finish his assignment. Still, he could spare a few more days to recover from the shock of nearly losing a sibling—and to figure out how best to win the trust of the cautious Mrs. Martin. For when he returned to check on his convalescing brother, he intended for her to welcome him back with all the fire he knew she possessed.

As he drained his cup and took the stairs to Kit’s room, Beau considered various explanations for Mrs. Martin’s atypical behavior. Perhaps the lady avoided gentlemen and garbed herself in gowns that camouflaged her beauty because her heart still belonged to her late husband. If she didn’t avoid men out of heartache, she might do so from distaste, though he’d not noticed in her interactions with Mac, the squire, or his brother anything to indicate a dislike for men in general. Or perhaps she brooded over some disappointment in love.

The powerful physical connection that flared between them did not support any of those theories. Besides, he sensed in her not aversion, disdain, or the despair of lingering grief, but…a wary watchfulness.

The hallmark of someone with secrets to hide.

He stopped dead, arrested by the conclusion. He might be wrong—occasionally he was—but he didn’t think so.

He continued his analysis, excitement accelerating the pace. Mrs. Martin apparently moved easily among—indeed, was sought out by—the community in and around Merriville, so she didn’t avoid all society.

Mrs. Martin the widowed healer met society, he amended. Mrs. Martin the woman hid behind shapeless gowns and voluminous caps. What could a lovely lady of gentle birth feel so obliged to conceal that she tried to make her person virtually invisible?

Beau couldn’t imagine. But with urgency thrumming in his blood and the goad of an imminent departure, he intended to bend every effort to find out.

Chapter Five

Her palms damp with nervousness on the wicker basket she carried, at precisely four o’clock Laura Martin walked into the entrance hallway to meet the Earl of Beaulieu.

Despite her exhaustion this morning, she’d lain awake wondering if there might have been some way she could have avoided this excursion. Before falling into a leaden sleep, she’d concluded there was none, save a blunt refusal that would have been as ungracious, given the concern the earl expressed about her well-being, as it was insulting.

She’d blundered badly again, being caught with that volume of Homer. No chance now of Lord Beaulieu believing her to be dull-witted. But a scholarly lady could still be a recluse of little social skill—indeed, before her marriage had she not been just such a girl? As long as she kept conversation to minimum and behaved with an awkwardness that, given the state of her nerves, she would not have to feign, the outing might pass off well enough.

But as she stepped out under the entry archway to await the approaching gig, Laura couldn’t help but feel a surge of gladness. The afternoon was as fair as the earl had promised, gilded with the special light that only occurs in late autumn when balmy breezes, teasing reminders of the summer just past, seduce the mind into forgetting the cold threat of winter to come. The sun-warmed herbs in her garden would greet her with a bouquet of piquant scents, the beds of mums and asters with a painter’s palette of russets, oranges, golds, lavenders and pinks.

After having been trapped indoors for nearly a week, she simply would not let the exasperating, unnerving seesaw of reaction the earl seemed always to evoke in her spoil her enjoyment of this perfect afternoon.

Given the paucity of her experience with men, it had taken her time to realize, with some chagrin, that at least part of the uneasy mix was an entirely carnal attraction. Once long ago, when young Lord Andrew Harper took her walking in her mother’s garden, she’d experienced the same quivery awareness and agitation. Acutely conscious of the muscled masculine form beneath Lord Andrew’s tight-fitting coat and buff breeches, she’d both longed for and been terrified that he might kiss her.

He hadn’t, though he’d looked into her eyes with the same searing intensity as the earl. Soon after that walk, her father informed her he’d accepted the distinguished and much older Lord Charleton’s offer for her hand, putting an end to titillating interludes in the garden.

Could the earl desire her, too? A flattering thought, though ludicrous. If the Earl of Beaulieu did find his brother’s dowdy nurse attractive, it would only be because gentlemen, as she knew well, were not particularly discriminating in their passions. Any minimally satisfactory female would do until a more appealing prospect happened along, and there were surely few prospects in Merriville.

She was still smiling at the notion of the Lord Beaulieu ogling the village baker’s buxom daughter when the earl pulled up in the gig.

Sunlight glistened in the burnished ebony of his dark hair and warmed the brown eyes to amber flame. Apollo cast in bronze, she thought, as a now-familiar slash of awareness stabbed her belly and quivered down her legs. She didn’t realize she was standing motionless, simply staring at him, until the earl addressed her.

“Should I call someone to assist you up? I’m afraid the horse is so fresh, I cannot leave him.”

“No, I can manage,” she replied, cheeks warming. The cat looking at the king, pathetic as the old nursery rhyme.