Christmas at Mulberry Hall

‘But first—’ the man harshly overrode her protest ‘—I must dispute your claim of being mistress of this house. I have it on good authority that Lord Gideon Grayson is not, nor has he ever been, in possession of a wife!’

‘You have …? Then you have been sadly misinformed, sir,’ Amelia blustered as she faced him down defiantly.

‘I have?’

He spoke mildly. Too mildly for Amelia’s comfort. ‘You have,’ she insisted firmly. ‘Lord Grayson and I were married in the church here in the village but six months ago,’ Amelia assured him haughtily. ‘A quiet ceremony, attended only by family and close friends,’ she added hastily—just on the off-chance this man did actually have ‘good authority’ with which to consult on the matter.

Not just a liar but a bare-faced one at that, Gray allowed exasperatedly, as the lies continued to trip so smoothly off this woman’s little pink tongue.

But, considering he was Lord Gideon Grayson—Gray to those close friends this woman talked of so knowledgeably, the same close friends, no doubt, with whom, when he was in Town he gambled and womanised—Gray knew exactly where he had been six months ago.

And it had certainly not been anywhere near Bedfordshire or this village, and certainly not in a church marrying this impudent chit of a woman …!

Chapter Two (#u29298bb8-44e4-562e-b946-a1649698767a)

All of which posed an interesting question—who the devil was she?

As far as Gray was aware, apart from his household servants—of which there had so far been neither sight nor sound—there were only two people currently in residence at the estate he had inherited on his brother’s death two and a half years ago: his young ward, Amelia, and her companion—a Miss Dorothy Little.

Although that name aptly suited the petite young woman standing before him, Gray considered her behaviour in confronting a man with a pistol in the middle of the night, whilst wearing nothing more than her nightclothes, to be reckless. Considering that Gray had ‘taken liberties’, as she called it, it had been reckless in the extreme!

As for this woman’s outrageous claim of being his wife …

Gray’s mouth tightened grimly. ‘I propose, madam, that we see to the lighting of a candle and begin this conversation anew.’

Amelia was completely nonplussed by the suggestion. This man should have turned tail and run the moment she’d confronted him with a loaded pistol. He certainly should not have mocked her or taken her in his arms, only to then remain completely undaunted by her warning concerning her husband’s prowess with a pistol and the threat of having the dogs loosed upon him.

The way he had spoken to her just now, and his proposal of lighting a candle before they recommenced their conversation, did not give Amelia the impression that he had been, or indeed was, any of those things!

She searched his face, her eyesight having adjusted slightly to the bathe of moonlight shining in through the windowed cupola high above them, and was able to see now that the man was possibly aged thirty, maybe a little younger, with dark hair that curled about a hard and roguishly handsome face. His light eyes were narrowed—the moonlight was still not sufficient for Amelia to see their exact colour—and glittering down at her.

The covering of the many-caped greatcoat he wore—the reason, no doubt, why he’d given every appearance of being an avenging angel towering over Amelia a few minutes ago—revealed only that he wore snowy-white linen at his throat, a dark tailored superfine, and pale pantaloons above black Hessians.

He looked, in fact, more like an arrogantly confident man of fashion than the burglar Amelia had initially assumed him to be. ‘Who are you, sir?’ She eyed him warily.

‘Should that not have been the first question you asked rather than the last?’ he said tautly.

Amelia allowed that, in view of this man’s unmistakable air of confidence and wealth, perhaps it should. However …‘Before or after you had broken into Steadley Manor in the middle of the night?’

‘I arrived in the middle of the night, madam, because it has taken me all day, travelling in the cold and the snow, in which to get here,’ he informed her harshly.

That dark and wondrously curling hair did look a trifle damp …

‘And I did not break in,’ the man continued disgustedly. ‘The lock on the front door was already broken, and for some inexplicable reason has not been mended!’

The reason for that was not inexplicable at all; the lock on the front door had remained broken because there was no one left at Steadley Manor, nor the money, to see to its repair. ‘That is beside the point—’

‘No, madam, that is precisely the point.’ Gray was fast coming to the state of losing his temper. Something he rarely, if ever, did. As the eligible Lord Gideon Grayson, a man spoilt and fêted by the ton, both for his wealth and his unmarried status, he found there were very few occasions upon which his will was thwarted. Something that this reckless companion of his young ward must be made aware of. ‘I require a candle be lit immediately, if you please,’ he repeated grimly.

‘But—’

‘If you please, madam!’

‘I am sure there is no need to shout—’

‘And I assure you I have not even begun to shout.’ Gray glowered down at her darkly. ‘The candle, madam!’

Deciding that it would perhaps be imprudent on her part to incite this man’s displeasure any further, Amelia turned obediently to where she kept an unlit candle in readiness on the table that fitted so neatly into the niche at the top of the stairs, her hand shaking slightly as she struck the tinder and lit the taper before holding it over the wick. She drew in a deep, steadying breath before lifting the candle in its holder and turning back to face the man whose forceful arrogance was rapidly giving her the impression that he might just have a perfect right to have entered Steadley Manor so confidently in the dead of night after all …

One look at that handsome but harshly hewn face, dominated by piercing grey eyes, and Amelia knew he did indeed have that right. No one more so, in fact, when his likeness to Lord Peregrine Grayson, the previous owner of the Steadley estate and Amelia’s own deceased stepfather, was so blatantly obvious.

‘Lord Gideon Grayson …?’ Amelia prompted with a sinking heart, even as she made an elegant curtsey. Something not easily achieved in one’s nightgown and robe!

‘Ma’am,’ he confirmed with a terse bow.

Oh, dear! Amelia inwardly cringed as she realised—acknowledged—that she had not, as she had assumed, fired her pistol at a burglar, but at the man who had inherited the title and Steadley Manor on his older brother’s death some two and a half years previously!

Those grey eyes continued to glower down at her. ‘Not your husband, after all …?’

Amelia felt the colour burn her cheeks. ‘I only said that because I thought it would—well, that a husband would be more of a deterrent.’

‘A deterrent to my taking further “liberties”, no doubt?’ he drawled.

‘Yes!’

‘Hmm.’ Lord Grayson scowled darkly. ‘Now that we have dispensed with the formalities, perhaps you would care to tell me why there appear to be no grooms in my stables and no servants in my house?’

Amelia was more than happy to have the conversation directed elsewhere other than her impetuous claim of being married to this man! ‘There are but two servants left on the whole of the estate, My Lord,’ she informed him ruefully. ‘Mrs Burdock, the cook, has been here for so many years now that she has assured me she is too old to find new employment. And Ned the gardener refuses to be parted from his prize roses.’ Her tone softened with affection as she spoke of the elderly gardener.

Gray eyed the young woman disapprovingly, more than ever convinced, now that he could see her clearly, that she could not be a suitable companion for his ward.

Her hair was indeed the rich, deep colour of gold, and fell in gloriously thick waves over and down her shoulders and spine above the thin white robe that was all she wore over her nightgown. The eyes that looked up at him so curiously were the deep blue of the Mediterranean Sea on a clear summer’s day, her complexion as white and unblemished as alabaster, and her lips a full bow, as red and inviting as the ripest of berries.

The robe—a flimsy and totally inappropriate garment for a paid companion to wear!—was draped over her nightgown, but not fastened, and revealed the full and deliciously tempting swell of those pert and creamy breasts that had been pressed against Gray’s own chest only minutes ago.

Circumstances being what they were, Gray had not as yet had the pleasure of meeting his young ward, but he could see at a glance that the woman standing before him was too seductively beautiful to be the paid companion of any young and no doubt impressionable girl.

In fact, after having enjoyed the lush curves of her body being pressed intimately against his, Gray believed her to be far more suited to being the paid ‘companion’ of any male member of the ton who might be on the hunt for a new mistress!

Considering that Gray’s older brother Perry had been married but a few months before he died, and by all accounts happily so, Gray could not help but wonder what his brother could have been about, hiring someone so young and so seductively feminine as companion to the young stepdaughter he had acquired upon his short but sweet marriage.

Gray’s mouth thinned as he looked down at the woman from between narrowed lids. ‘You have forgotten to list yourself in that number.’

Those blue eyes widened, before a frown of consternation appeared between those fine eyes. ‘Oh. Yes. I am here, too, of course.’

Gray nodded tersely. ‘Of course.’

Amelia worried her bottom lip between her teeth as she pondered how best to extract herself from this disastrous situation. Especially as the man in front of her did not look like a man capable of losing even one ounce of that arrogant pride that fitted him as perfectly as his impeccably tailored clothing!