A Warriner To Protect Her

She had to make him understand. ‘The Earl of Bainbridge and my uncle will find a way to silence me if they have any inkling I am alive. I know of their nefarious plan, remember? They will be in fear for their own lives now. Don’t you see? Desperate men like that will resort to desperate measures. Travelling anywhere, even in the dead of night, will put my life in danger.’ The toll of the last few days had made her body weak. Her knees threatened to buckle so Letty locked them to stand proudly in front of this domineering man who thought he knew best. ‘You have witnessed already the lengths they are prepared to go to. Not only will my life be in danger, yours will be too.’

‘Then that settles it. You will remain here for the entire month,’ Jack decreed.

An entire month! Here? ‘Once I am fully recovered I will seek sanctuary with the local authorities of my own accord. I will not be held responsible for putting you and your brothers at risk.’

‘I do not hold the authorities in Nottingham in particularly high esteem. Once they know you have been here, with the Warriner family, I doubt they will act with the necessary diligence your circumstances demand. I believe I am quite capable of protecting you and my brothers against any threat for a month, Miss Dunston.’ Letty went to interrupt and he stayed her with his hand. ‘It is settled. My decision has been made. Until I can return you to London and alert the proper authorities there as to what danger you are in, you are now my responsibility and will abide by my rules.’

‘But you are four men, Mr Warriner! Four men and I am a woman alone.’ Letty had intended to sound reasonable, but the words came out in a screech. She had only thought to stay here for a few days, not several weeks. If she were ever to be discovered here her good reputation would be in tatters.

‘Yet you are safer here than you would be out there!’

A very valid point. She remembered the huge gates and walls. The isolation. Nobody knew she was there. The idea had merit, but she had to be in control. ‘Only on the condition that I recompense you for your services.’ Surely her money would give her the upper hand against this domineering man she hardly knew?

Jack’s thunderous expression said it all. ‘Out of the question.’

Letty shook her head stubbornly, a movement which brought about a wave of dizziness so intense she had to grab the doorframe for support. ‘I will not be in your debt, sir. You have already done so much and I can well afford it.’

The three seated Warriners all stared at their feet in silence. Clearly she had said the wrong thing again, because Jack was looming over her now.

‘I do not require money for doing a good deed, madam. As the master of this house, it is my responsibility to keep you safe, and after what you have told me, I honestly believe the best way to do that is to hide you here. You will not return back to London until I deem it safe to do so. It is decided.’

It took a great deal of pride not to burst into frustrated tears at his dictatorial tone. ‘Decided? Am I to have no say in my own future?’ Such a concept was beyond ridiculous. Letty always got what she wanted. He stared back, his steely blue glare unmoved. ‘I am not a child or a chattel, Mr Warriner. I am perfectly capable of looking after myself. You have no authority over me!’

As parting shots went, she was quite proud of it. His intense blue eyes narrowed as he digested her words and Letty decided now would be the opportune moment to make a well-timed exit. The walls of the room had begun to sway and tilt quite ferociously as she turned smartly to storm back upstairs. Letty took two steps forward, then the floor began to list too. Her grand gesture of defiant independence collapsed the moment her knees did and she found herself crumpling woozily to the floor. Most irritatingly, it was Jack’s strong, capable arms that caught her. He lifted her into them as if she weighed practically nothing, with a distinctly paternalistic, put-upon expression on his face.

‘Joe?’

‘She’s still weak from her ordeal—she shouldn’t be out of bed. No wonder she swooned.’

Jack did not even bother responding to his brother, he merely turned with Letty still in his arms and began to walk briskly towards the staircase. It was disconcerting being held so close by him—yet bizarrely not in a bad way. She felt safe, protected and stupidly impressed by his strength and undeniably manly physique. And he smelled positively sinful. Some sort of spicy, fresh, male smell which Letty wanted to inhale deeply while she burrowed her face into his neck. His overbearing, single-minded, irritating neck. ‘You can put me down. I can manage.’ There would be absolutely no burrowing. Not while he was being so...domineering and non-compliant.

His irritatingly beautiful, blue eyes flicked to hers for a second. ‘We can’t have you swooning now, Letty. Can we?’ The very idea of it seemed to amuse him, which of course, seriously rankled.

‘I am not a woman known for swooning, Mr Warriner. Anybody who knows me will tell you that.’ Not that there was anyone left alive who truly knew her. Her parents had. Everybody else saw what they wanted to see and Letty found it easier to hide behind that convenient façade than allow anyone to see she was lonely and unhappy. ‘Had I not been forced to wander in a freezing forest for hours in the rain, after being bound, gagged and abducted, it would not have happened today.’

He stared ahead, apparently bored. The dark stubble on his chin tempted her fingers to touch it, so she clasped them ineffectually across her middle as he started up the stairs.

‘Are you too proud to let me pay for your services?’

Silence.

Clearly it was time to become the confident Violet Dunston. Whenever she met a brick wall, and Jack Warriner was definitely a big, thick, brick wall, Violet’s charm had never failed to quietly knock it down. Men, especially, were particularly responsive in her experience. She could not spend a month being dictated to by this stubborn man. She would run mad.

Letty unclasped her hands and rested one palm gently over his heart, moistened her lips to give them some gloss and peeked up at him through her lashes in the manner which she knew all men found utterly delightful. ‘Perhaps I could fund your brother’s medical studies, Jack?’ For good measure she blinked a little erratically so he could see just how long and lovely those lashes were and how very upset she was by his insistence on being in charge. ‘Surely you would allow me the pleasure of doing that one, small thing out of gratitude.’ Something which would keep this infuriatingly dictatorial male in check.

He glanced down at her face and she was certain she felt his heartbeat speed up beneath her fingers, but when his jaw hardened and those dark eyebrows came together in a forbidding line, she realised she might have seriously misjudged the situation.

‘You might have my brothers falling all over themselves to do your bidding, Letty, and I am sure you are quite used to getting your own way in practically everything with your fêted beauty and piles of money, but your pouting and flirting will not sway me. You can stay here for as long as I am prepared to be your keeper—and once I decide it is safe to take you back to London, then you will go. In the interim, you will do as you are told, Miss Dunston, because I am master of this house and you would do well to remember it. No amount of pretty eyelash fluttering is going to change my mind.’

Chapter Seven (#u103cb96e-b780-5940-aa18-165caf4eab51)

Twenty-eight days remaining, give or take a few hours...

Letty stared at the trunk full of outdated ladies’ dresses with a sinking heart. The heavy brocades and stiff skirts would take hours and hours to turn into anything vaguely presentable, even with her talent with a needle. She had dispatched Jacob up to the attic to find her something to wear, other than Jack’s shirts, and this was the best he could come up with. With amazing forethought for a man unused to having women in his house, the youngest Warriner had also brought his mother’s old sewing basket down too. Now that she was more herself again, altering these clothes would give her something to do while Joe had confined her to yet another day of bed rest, which frankly she did not need.

‘Thank you, Jacob. I am sure I can make use of these. I have not been allocated a maid yet. Now that I am feeling better, could one be arranged?’

‘A maid? Of your own?’

‘Yes—somebody who is handy with a needle and good with arranging hair. And could you ask your cook to vary the menu a little bit? Whilst the roast meat is always very nice, I find the lack of sauces and the boiled vegetables a little bland.’

Jacob’s face began to split into a wide grin. ‘I have no authority regarding the distribution of staff, Letty, or the menu choices. You should probably ask Jack. He organises all of those things.’ His eyes were twinkling mischievously. ‘However, perhaps he might be more open to such requests if they came from you. You are our guest, after all.’ He looked like he was about to burst out laughing. ‘Aside from that, is there anything else you require?’

‘Some tea would be nice, Jacob. In about half an hour? And I don’t suppose you could bring some cake with it?’

He playfully tugged his forelock. ‘I shall see what I can do, Letty.’

Left alone, the silence of her lonely room began to feel oppressive. Letty was already way beyond bored with staying in bed, certain that it was Jack who was insisting she rest rather than have her under his feet. For the sake of peace, she would comply today, but wild elephants would not keep her in this bedchamber tomorrow.

Her only company came in the shape of either Joe or Jacob Warriner and usually only briefly when they could be spared from other chores. They brought her tea or books or whatever else she requested—but those visits were still few and far between. Thus far, she had not had any dealings with the gruff Jamie and she had only seen fleeting glimpses of the domineering master of the house since he had unceremoniously deposited her back on his bed two days ago, after her failed attempt at getting him to bend to her will.

The fact he had seen straight through the reasons for her flirting was embarrassing. Usually men scurried around Letty to please her, even without her resorting to using her feminine wiles. When she did bestow one coy look or a faint flutter of her eyelashes, even the most hard-nosed gentleman was won over and keen to earn her good favour. She was the Tea Heiress, after all. Judgemental Jack had managed to make her feel like a fool, and what was worse was the fact that she had been the one trying to make him feel off-kilter. Instead, it had been her pulse which had ratcheted up several notches; her kilter that was off.

Being held in that man’s arms had been overwhelming enough. She had felt protected, delicate and, despite his grim demeanour, quite special. Galling when she was so determined to be independent. It almost felt like she’d taken a step back towards the old Letty, the one who wanted to marry a man to feel worthwhile. But touching Jack’s hard, warm chest had been, frankly, beyond heady. Letty had never experienced a reaction to a man quite like that one. She had wanted to curl her arms around his neck instantly and experience how splendid she imagined it would be to be draped fully against him, properly wrapped in those magnificent, ungentlemanly muscled arms. Shamelessly staring up into his fathomless, beautiful blue eyes...