A Most Unseemly Summer

‘Yes.’

‘Then you’ve changed your mind about staying.’

‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘Don’t ask me why. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

‘You changed your mind to please me?’

Her mouth tightened. ‘No. It pleases me.’

‘Then I’m sorry to disappoint you. I must reject your decision.’

‘What?’ She frowned, looking at him fully for the first time. ‘You’re in no position to reject it. I’ve already made it.’ His eyes, she saw, were grey and still laughing.

‘Then you can unmake it, my lady. You’ll stay here and complete the task Lord Deventer set for you.’

Rather than continue a futile argument, Felice’s response was to get up and leave him, but her body’s slight message was deciphered even as it formed, and her ankle was caught again and held firmly.

‘Ah, no!’ he said. ‘I’m aware of your aptitude for bringing discussions to an abrupt conclusion but really, you have to give them a chance to develop occasionally, don’t you think so? Now, what d’ye think your stepfather will say when you tell him you haven’t even seen the place yet?’

Riled by his insistence and by his continued hold on her ankle, she flared like a fuse. ‘And what d’ye think he’ll say, Sir Leon, when I tell him of the disgraceful way I’ve been received? Which I will!’

This did not have the effect she hoped for, no sign of contrition crossing his face. ‘About mistaking you for one of his mistresses, you mean? That jest will keep him entertained for a month, my lady, as well you know. And if he’d intended to send a message to warn me of your arrival…’

‘To warn you? Thank you!’

‘…he would have done. Clearly he had no intention of doing so.’

‘Why ever not, pray?’

‘Because he knew damn well he’d have to look for another surveyor if he had. He knows my views about mixing work and women.’

Felice bent to clutch at her leg and yank it bodily out of his grasp, swinging her legs down on to the long grass. ‘Then there will be three of us pleased, sir. There is nothing more to discuss, is there?’

‘Correction. There’ll be two of us pleased. You’ll stay here with me.’

She sat, rigidly angry, with her hands clutching at the cool stone wall on each side of her. ‘Sir Leon, I am usually quite good at understanding arguments, but when they are as obscure as yours I’m afraid I need some help. Explain to me, if you will. If you are so disturbed about having women near you, why have you suddenly decided that I must stay? I can only conclude that you must need to please Lord Deventer very much indeed to sacrifice your principles so easily. Do you need his approval so much, then?’

He allowed himself a smile before he replied, revealing white even teeth. ‘Certainly I do. He pays me, you see, and the sooner this place is lived in, the sooner I can move on to others. I’m in demand, hereabouts.’

‘Not by me!’ she muttered under her breath. ‘Barbarian!’

‘Still sore?’ He lowered his tone to match hers, catching the drift of her mind.

It was a mistake she regretted instantly, having no wish to discuss those terrible events, neither with him nor with anyone. Forgetting her shoes, she was quicker this time, managing to reach the centre of the overgrown quadrangle before her wrist was caught and she was brought to a halt. She shook off his grip and whirled to face him in a frenzy of rage.

‘Don’t touch me!’ she snarled, her eyes blazing like coals. ‘Don’t ever lay a finger on me again, sir, or I swear I’ll…I’ll kill you! And don’t think to dictate to me where and when I go. You are not my guardian.’ She turned her back on him deliberately, but had no idea how to get out of the quadrangle without climbing shoeless over the low wall. Her heart thudded in an onslaught of anger. She hesitated, feeling the sharp tangle of weeds on her sore feet. There was an uncanny silence behind her.

‘You’ll need these to get out of here, my lady.’ His voice came from where they had been sitting.

She knew he referred to her shoes but still she hesitated, wondering if it was worth risking more pain to her feet. The cloister walkways were littered with rubble.

‘Come on,’ he said, gently. ‘We’re going to have to talk if we’re to work together.’

‘We are not going to work together,’ she snapped. ‘I want nothing to do with this place. I’m going home.’

‘You’ll need your shoes, then.’

She turned and saw that he was sitting on the wall again with one leg on either side, holding up her shoes as bait. ‘Throw them,’ she said.

‘Come and collect them.’

She looked away, then approached, eyeing his hands. She reached the wall just as he dropped them over on to the paved side, beyond her reach. ‘Don’t play games with me, Sir Leon. I’m not a child,’ she snapped.

‘Believe it or not, I had noticed that, but I’m determined you shall conclude this discussion in the proper manner, my lady, whether you like the idea or not. Now, please be seated. I am not at all disturbed by the idea of having women near me, as you see. Actually, it’s something I’m learning to get the hang of.’

She knew he was being ridiculous. Any man who could move a woman so quickly and with such mastery was obviously no woman-hater. ‘You have a long way to go,’ she said, coldly. ‘About twenty years should be enough.’

The smile returned. ‘That’s better. We’re talking again. Now, my lady, I shall show you round the New House and we can discuss what’s to be done in the best chambers on the upper floors. The lower one…’

‘Sir Leon, you are under a misapprehension. I have already told you…’

‘That you are not staying. Yes, I heard you, but I have decided that you are. If Deventer has entrusted you with the organisation of his household here at Wheatley, and to furnish his rooms, then he must think highly of your abilities. Surely you’re not going to throw away the chance to enhance your credit with him and disappoint your mother, too? They would expect some kind of explanation from you. Do you have one available?’

‘Yes, sir. As it happens, I do. I intend to tell them that you are impossible to work with and that our intense dislike of each other is mutual. Indeed, I cannot help feeling that my stepfather guessed how matters would stand before he sent me here, so I shall have no compunction about giving him chapter and verse.’

‘Chapter and verse?’

‘You are detestable!’ she whispered, looking away.

‘And you, as you have reminded me, are a woman, and therefore you will hardly be deceived by my very adequate reasons.’

‘Not in the slightest. Nor would a child believe them.’

‘Then how would it be if I were to inform your parents of what happened last night?’ he said, quietly.

She had not been looking until now, but the real intention behind his appalling question needed to be seen in his eyes. He could not be serious. But his expression told her differently. He was very serious.

‘Oh, yes,’ she whispered, her eyes narrowing against his steady gaze. ‘Oh, yes, you would, wouldn’t you? And if I told them you were talking nonsense?’

‘Whose word would your stepfather take, d’ye think? Whose story would he prefer to believe, yours or mine? I could go into a fair amount of detail, if need be.’

She launched herself at him like a wildcat, her fingers curved like claws ready to rake at his cool grey eyes, his handsome insolent face, at anything to ruffle his intolerable superiority and to snatch back the memories he should never have been allowed to hold.

Her hands were caught and held well out of harm’s way and, if she had hoped to knock him backwards against the stone column, she now found that it was she who was made to sit with one at her back while her arms were slowly and easily twisted behind her.

His arms encircled her, his face close to hers, and once again she was his captive and infuriated by his restraint. ‘And don’t let’s bother about talk of killing me if I should lay a finger on you because I intend to, lady, one way or another. You threw me a careless challenge earlier. Remember?’

Mutely, she glared at a point beyond his shoulder.