Mr. Trelawney's Proposal

‘How many staff remain?’ Luke asked the sombrely dressed elderly man standing stiff and quiet behind him, as he idly surveyed the weed-strewn gravel driveway. The chippings were piled high at the perimeter of the circular carriage sweep, testament to how long it had been since it was tended or raked. Numerous coach wheels were quite visibly imprinted in the dusty grit.

Both dark hands were raised, bracing against the framework of the large casement window he stood by. He gazed out, far into the wooded distance, his mind still deep in that quiet sanctuary with a girl with turquoise eyes.

‘Eight,’ came the terse response from behind.

Luke’s eyes narrowed, his jaw setting as he recognised the barely concealed insolence in the elderly butler’s tone. He swung away from the large square-paned window and faced him across the mellow yew desk.

Edward Miles must have been seventy if he was a day, and in a way Luke could understand his belligerence. What he could not comprehend was the man’s stupidity. Had he any sense at all, he would take great pains to appear pleasant and obliging. His livelihood was now at great risk. For an aged butler of three score years and ten, employment was scarce. Employment without a reference would be impossible, as would keeping a roof over his sparsely covered head in his twilight years.

Luke knew he was tired, he knew he was thirsty but mostly, he knew, today he had been frustrated and that irritated him. Meeting the first woman in an age who had tried to rid herself of his presence at the earliest opportunity was quite a novelty and one he now realised he could have done without. Rejection came hard. And the more he dwelt on it, the more he knew it was ridiculous to allow it to matter. He forced himself to concentrate on Edward Miles. A rheumy-eyed gaze challenged him unwaveringly.

‘Is there some brandy about this place?’ Luke demanded testily, determining to leave matters for an hour or so whilst Ross and he refreshed themselves. They had been travelling solidly for almost two days with barely an overnight stop.

A slow, satisfied shake of the head met this request.

‘Some wine of some sort?’ Luke persisted, his patience with the butler’s aloof attitude nearly at an end.

‘Judith might have made some lemonade,’ the old man advised dolefully. ‘I can ascertain, if you wish.’

Luke stared at him, wondering if he was being deliberately facetious. But Edward Miles returned his black-eyed stare phlegmatically.

‘Fine,’ Luke agreed, knowing it wasn’t fine at all, and wondering how he was going to break the news to Ross. And where the hell was Ross? Since they had arrived in the village of Westbrook an hour ago he had been off exploring. Luke allowed himself a rueful smile; at times his twenty-five-year-old brother was a fitting playmate for his young nephew of five. Thinking of that little lad brought Tristan to mind. His brother Tristan had his own wife and family to look after and couldn’t be left to cope alone for too long, sensible and dependable as he was. He needed to deal speedily with this matter and set on the road home to Cornwall

‘I’ll meet with the staff in the main hallway in an hour. Assemble them there at three o’clock…and bring some sort of refreshment to this study, if you please,’ Luke dictated steadily to Miles. The elderly man gave a creaky, insolent bow and quit the wood-panelled study with Luke close on his heels.

Miles ambled slowly towards the kitchens on stiff joints. He slid a recalcitrant glower up at Luke’s handsome face as he passed him with one long, easy pace.

Luke descended the stone steps and strode around the side of the house towards the outbuildings, hoping that Ross’s lengthy absence didn’t mean he’d found a distracting servant girl to seduce. The notion made the throbbing in his own loins increase, and he cursed as he pushed open the barn door and walked in. He wished to God he’d never seen her. If they’d stayed on the main track instead of seeking shelter from the sun in those woods, he damned well never would have. Since the moment she had spun, dripping, to face him in that pond, he had been uncomfortably aware of the impact she’d had on him.

‘Mr Trelawney!’ Rebecca breathed out the name in utter astonishment as she shielded her eyes from the dusty sunlight streaming in through the open barn door.

Chapter Three

They stared at each other in stunned silence for a moment before Luke removed his hand from the planked door and it swung shut, obliterating most of the light. He approached Rebecca slowly, cautiously, sure she must be a tormenting figment of his lustful imagination. Sun streaking in through windows set high in the barn wall behind him burnished her honey hair with golden tints and made her squint those beautiful eyes. She stepped back, re-positioning herself close to stacked hay bales, so she had an unimpeded view of him.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, but with an ingenuous, welcoming smile. It was impossible for her to hide her pleasure at seeing him again. She had believed him to be long gone from the neighbourhood. ‘Oh, no! Did Williams catch you trespassing after all?’ she softly exclaimed. ‘Where is your brother?’ The tumbling queries didn’t halt his slow, purposeful pursuit. She backed off instinctively, angling away from him, still attempting to keep the fierce sunbeams from impairing her vision.

‘Are you in trouble…with Lord Ramsden?’ His continuing silence started to unnerve her a little so she offered breathlessly, ‘I could speak to him for you…tell him how you assisted…’ Warmth suffused her cheeks. She hadn’t intended reminding him or herself of the sight she had presented when he had hauled her out of the pond. Her tongue tip came out to moisten her dry lips. The closer he came, the taller and broader he appeared. She felt infinitely small and fragile…and vulnerable. She attempted to peer past him and the piled hay to the exit. Why wouldn’t he talk to her? Why wouldn’t he say something…anything? Just hello would suffice.

Making to slide past his obstructing body, so near hers now, she announced nervously, ‘I’m sure I could persuade him. I’ll go and look for him.’

A muscular arm shot out to brace itself against the rough brick wall, blocking her intended flight to the door. ‘You’ve found him,’ he said softly. ‘How are you going to persuade me?’

Rebecca placed a tentative hand on his linen-clad arm, feeling rock-like sinewed muscle flex at her feeble attempt to move him. She looked up into his dark intense features, struck again by how unbelievably handsome he was.

‘That’s not funny,’ she mildly rebuked him, managing a small, sweet smile even though she didn’t understand his sense of humour. ‘Robin Ramsden can be very…understanding. I’ve found him so,’ she falteringly explained, as she carefully removed her hand from his lawn shirt-sleeve and unobtrusively retreated, giving herself room to detour to the exit.

Luke watched her back off, his black-pupilled eyes heavy-lidded as they discreetly surveyed her from head to foot. Dried off, wearing a plain cotton dress, she was as beautiful and desirable as she’d been with her clothes plastered to her slender curves and damp tendrils of honey hair clinging to her delicate face. Perhaps not quite so erotic…

His tormenting reminiscence tailed off. Her turquoise eyes were watchful, a blend of caution and courage again coalescing in their glossy depths. He recognised it from their last encounter. Then it had been enough to make him reluctantly leave. She was intending to go this time. He had frightened her again. He could tell from the way her eyes slid furtively past him that she was within a hair’s-breadth of making a dash for the door.

He didn’t want that. If she ran he would stop her and if he touched her that way…No woman yet had caused him to lose self-control, he wryly reminded himself. Nevertheless, he dropped his arm and walked away a yard or so but still casually blocking any escape route.

‘Are you often to be found in Lord Ramsden’s barn, Rebecca?’ he asked mildly, with a charming, boyish smile. His calculated ploy worked. Rebecca visibly relaxed.

‘Only when I’m looking for John,’ she said, returning his smile and feeling unaccountably pleased he had remembered her name.

‘John?’ he echoed with deceptive softness, as his smile thinned and he became furiously certain he had just interrupted a lovers’ tryst. She didn’t look in the least chagrined at having been thus discovered. Perhaps he should have let her try to escape after all, he thought cynically. If she’d been abandoned by some spineless rustic swain, he was sure he would prove a more than satisfactory substitute.

‘Lord Ramsden’s carpenter…well, he is an apprentice, really,’ Rebecca pleasantly interrupted his savage supposition. ‘But he’s quite capable of repairing my roof.’ She gazed about then as though she might spy the lad lurking somewhere. ‘He’s usually to be found in here, sleeping away hot afternoons…when he thinks he can get away with it.’

Silence between them lengthened and Rebecca became uneasily aware of dark eyes fixed unwaveringly on her. ‘For it is about to rain, you know,’ she said distractedly. ‘Gregory Turner…oh, he and his wife help me at the Summer House…well, Gregory is quite sure that rain is finally due. He’s rarely proved wrong. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if…’

She trailed off, aware that Luke had approached her again while she had been nervously chatting. He now rested against a hay bale within a foot of her, a disturbing sleepiness in his velvet-brown eyes. ‘…it rains tonight,’ she breathlessly finished, her aquamarine eyes wide and entrapped by his.

A slow hand moved unthreateningly to her face, cupping her fragile jaw. She remained entranced as a dark thumb traced the curve of her lower lip with featherlight softness. Either he wasn’t as tall as she had at first thought or…He was bending to kiss her, she realised wildly as his face neared hers. Their eyes were still inextricably merged and when the leisurely descent of his narrow mouth brought their faces within inches of touching, Rebecca breathed out, ‘What are you doing here?’ She watched him frown and slowly, frustratedly, close his eyes as she shattered the spell he’d been casting.

‘Were you discovered by Williams trespassing?’ she asked, reverting to her initial line of questioning, stepping away again.

‘No,’ was the extent of his terse response and she sensed his irritation. He threw his head back and gazed up at the fanlight windows set high in the barn wall. He sighed, knowing explanations were long overdue. But then, so was easing the tantalising ache in his loins she had provoked hours before, and was now innocently boosting. Tumbling her in a sultry barn in the middle of the afternoon…it was hardly the time or place.

Besides, he knew he wasn’t going to be that lucky. He almost laughed at his arrogance. Getting close enough for a kiss was proving one hell of a job. What was it he had mourned earlier today? The lack of necessary charm and seduction in his life? He had an unshakeable notion that he was about to dredge up every skill he had ever mastered in those areas. He gazed back at her, momentarily undecided, then said softly, ‘Come.’

Approaching the barn door, he stretched out a hand behind him, beckoning for her to follow. She did so, ducking under his arm to gain the dry heat of the afternoon as he held the door open for her.

‘Miss Rebecca!’ Rebecca twisted about and then hurried the few paces towards Edward Miles as he hobbled across parched grass towards the barn.

‘Miles,’ she greeted him, for no one who knew him well ever used his given name. Miles was always just Miles. She gave the elderly man an affectionate peck on the cheek, as always, aware of his pleasure at seeing her. His faint watery eyes peered past her to the tall, dark man who impassively watched the scene.

‘So you’ve met the new master, Miss Rebecca,’ Miles bitterly muttered.

Rebecca’s welcoming smile faded. She frowned her bemusement. ‘What do you mean?’

Miles glared purposefully past her. She turned then to watch as Luke Trelawney approached them, aware, oddly for the first time, of overwhelming authority and power in his manner and bearing. Her mind raced back to his puzzling statement in the barn when she had offered to seek out Lord Ramsden. ‘You’ve found him…’ he had said and she had believed him to be joking; had wondered at his odd sense of humour. Her eyes sought Miles quickly, pleading for immediate explanations before Luke reached them. But the butler’s attention was with his employer.

‘The servants are assembled in the hall as you wished, my lord,’ he informed with a certain disrespectful emphasis on the title which didn’t pass unnoticed either by Luke or Rebecca.

Mingling horror, disbelief and recrimination strained and whitened Rebecca’s face. She whispered, ‘Why didn’t you…?’

‘I did,’ Luke reminded her curtly. ‘You weren’t listening.’

‘In the woods…you could have told me hours ago in the woods. You let me make a fool of myself. Where is Robin Ramsden? You let me warn you needlessly earlier today…about prosecution…about the gamekeeper…’ The disjointed accusations and queries jumbled together in her distress.

‘As I recall,’ he mentioned silkily, ‘you seemed to lose all interest in who I was. You were more concerned with ridding yourself of my presence at the earliest opportunity.’ He caught proprietorially at her arm as he made for the oaken entrance to Ramsden Manor, intending to take her with him. Rebecca immediately shook him off, her feverish mind foraging for information.

‘Where is Robin Ramsden?’ she demanded shakily of her new landlord.

He returned her stare impassively. ‘Well, come inside the house and I’ll tell you,’ he coolly answered. ‘The staff are assembled.’ He cursed inwardly as he realised he had made it sound as though he classed her amongst them. But Rebecca deliberately shunned him, turning to Miles. As Luke alone walked ahead, a solitary thick tear trickled from the corner of one turquoise eye.