LITMIR.BIZ

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“you didn’t tell us!”

      Her fifteen-year-old brother Peter asked eagerly, “How long is he going to stay?”

      William, at seven the baby of the family, swallowed his pudding in haste and demanded, “Tell me about his horses!”

      Alys grinned at her charges. All three of the Spensers were staring at her, bright-eyed with curiosity. Even Attila watched avidly, though in his case the cause was hope for a handout. “I wanted to eat before I told you because I knew there would be no peace afterward. To answer your questions, I don’t know how long he is going to stay, but it looks like he’ll be here for a while. He rode down on a really magnificent black stallion. He has a carriage and some hunters coming. If the hunters are half as fine as the stallion, William will be in horse heaven.”

      William, who had his sister’s golden hair and sunny disposition, sighed rapturously. Merry, remembering Alys’s concern, asked, “He doesn’t mind having a female steward?”

      Alys hesitated, remembering that dark, sardonic face. “He minded, but he’s willing to overlook my failings in that area, at least for the moment.”

      Peter said wistfully, “I’d like to meet him. It’s hard to imagine a real out-and-outer in Dorsetshire.”

      Alys regarded him thoughtfully. Unlike his blond and pragmatic siblings, Peter had brown hair and a dreamy, scholarly nature. While his ambition was the church, he tempered that with a lively interest in the doings of the London fashionable world. Like his brother and sister, Peter was remarkably happy and stable considering that he had been orphaned so young, but now he was at an age where he needed a father’s guidance, and Alys couldn’t give him that. It would be all too easy for the boy to hero-worship a man like Strickland’s new owner.

      Hoping to reduce Davenport’s glamour, she said dampeningly, “He may be an out-and-outer in London, but he looks like any other country gentleman here.”

      Undeterred, Peter said, “He’s a member of the Four-in-Hand Club. They say he’s one of the best boxers in England, that he could have been a professional champion if he wanted to.”

      Alys sighed. Her four years as a foster parent had taught her that sometimes it was impossible to derail the direction of youthful thought. Peter was determined to be impressed.

      “Is he handsome?” That was from Merry, of course.

      Alys eyed the girl with misgivings. Though Meredith handled her young suitors with innate skill, she was no match for a man of the world like Davenport. Alys wished she could keep the two of them apart, but Strickland was too small for that. “No, he’s not especially good-looking, and he’s old enough to be your father.”

      She was uncomfortably aware that her words were less than the truth. Davenport was certainly no Adonis, but he had a sexual magnetism that would fascinate as many women as it terrified. Her foster daughter was not the sort to be easily terrified.

      Merry propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. “He’s going to be lonely in that big house by himself. We should invite him to dinner.”

      “He’ll be getting plenty of invitations once the local gentry know he’s in residence. Davenport is a considerable property owner now, and there are enough unmarried daughters in the area to ensure instant social acceptance as long as he doesn’t do anything too outrageous,” Alys said cynically. “Besides, you know perfectly well that it would be inappropriate for us to invite my employer to dinner.”

      Merry smiled mischievously. “This is not the normal steward’s household.”

      “No,” Alys admitted, “but that doesn’t mean there should be a social relationship between Davenport and us. That would be both improper and uncomfortable.”

      Ignoring her guardian as thoroughly as Peter had, Merry said dreamily, “I’ve always wondered what a rake is like.”

      “Meredith, such talk is quite unbecoming,” her guardian said with exasperation. “I don’t want Mr. Davenport pestered by any of you. Not about his horses, his sporting activities, or his social life. Do you understand?”

      She might as well have saved her breath. In a quiet neighborhood like this one, a dashing stranger was bound to be a focus of speculation and interest. The only silver lining Alys could imagine was that Davenport looked too impatient and self-absorbed to waste time corrupting the boys.

      However, Meredith was quite a different story. Her beauty attracted men like wasps to a jam pot. The local swains were respectful enough, but Davenport came from a very different world. Merry handled her local admirers so deftly that she might not realize that she was playing with fire until she was burned. Which meant that Alys was going to have to keep Davenport away from the girl, at the same time satisfying the man with her stewardship.

      It didn’t take a prophet to foresee storms on the horizon.

      Reggie spent the evening working on the estate account books, spreading them across the library table. It was nearly midnight when he closed the last. He stood and stretched, then picked up his brandy glass and wandered over to the French doors. The gardens that were unkempt by day were lovely in the pale, cool light of a waxing moon. He found the landscape eerily familiar. The old naval captain who had rented the house had made so few changes that Reggie suspected he could go to his old bedroom and find it exactly the same, with books and rocks and other childish treasures.

      However, it was a proposition that he didn’t intend to test. He was twitchy enough already. The house was welcoming but haunted, and he couldn’t turn a corner without half expecting to run into a member of his family. Presumably that feeling would pass. It had better, or he would be unable to endure living here.

      He drank deeply of the brandy. Strickland might prove unendurable anyhow. What on earth did country people do in the evenings? He would perish of boredom at this rate.

      In spite of his misgivings, he had the obscure feeling that he couldn’t go back to his old life. Mentally he had burned his bridges when he came down here. His life was hollow at the core. The only question was what would fill that space.

      Apart from brandy, that was.

      Taking a branch of candles in hand, he prowled through the ground floor. The music room opened off the drawing room, and the old pianoforte still stood there in lonely grandeur. Placing the candelabrum on the shining mahogany lid, he sat down on the bench and played an experimental chord. The liquid notes hung in the air, marred by several that were sour. He’d have to get the instrument tuned.

      His fingers were rusty, unused to musical exercise. How long had it been since he had played? Years. His mother had taught him music on this very instrument. He’d loved the lessons. She had once said that if he continued to learn and practiced hard, he would someday be a superb pianist.

      That possibility was one of many that had vanished when he left Strickland. Still, though he took no more lessons, for years he had played when he was in the vicinity of a piano and there was no one around to hear. At some point he had stopped. Three years ago? Five? Before the blackouts had started. Why had he allowed something so important to slip away?

      He lifted the lid of the piano bench and took out the piece of music on top. A sonata by Beethoven. Perhaps he had put it there himself almost three decades earlier. Once again, the sea captain had apparently changed nothing.

      Ignoring the strangeness of his situation and the off notes, he began to play the sonata. Polishing his musical skills would be one way to fill empty time. Within half an hour, his fingers were beginning to remember what his mind had half forgotten.

      When he finished, he lifted the candelabrum and continued on his midnight tour until he came to the morning room. He halted on the threshold. This sunny chamber was one of the most pleasant spots in the house. It had been his mother’s special retreat, but he had never been comfortable here. At night and devoid of his mother’s presence, the room made the hair on his nape prickle. The rest of Strickland’s ghosts were amiable, but not whatever lingered here.

      Scoffing

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