LITMIR.BIZ

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hide the brave snowdrops flowering in the sheltered hollows. She almost heard the words as if Virginia put them straight in her heart.

      Don’t mourn me, Chloe; after sixteen years without my love we’ll never be apart again.

      If she took that last piece of advice she could glory in the morning and forget the future until the funeral was over and the will read. Impatient of the last damp strand of hair, she wound it into the heavy knot she usually confined it to, but left out some of the pins that would have screwed it back from her face and made it possible to wear the all-enveloping housekeeper’s bonnet she’d bought herself behind Virginia’s back.

      Today she’d restricted herself to the frivolous piece of lawn and lace her late mistress had reluctantly allowed became a companion and let herself be the girl who shared Virginia’s lonelier years again. She recalled her employer saying she wanted bright faces about her, not a death’s head got up to fright babies when Verity took one look at her mama in her first all-enveloping cap and burst into tears.

      Mrs Winterley would send her a hard-eyed glare for being a housekeeper got up as a lady today, but Chloe owed Virginia one last glimpse of the light-hearted girl she would have had her be, if she could spoil her and Verity as she wanted. There would be little enough cause to be anyone but her mature and sensible self once she took a post in another household.

      She tiptoed down the secondary staircase the architect ordered for less important visitors lodged in her corridor of this grand house and wondered who she was being quiet for. Lord Farenze was up and being his usual lordly self, Miss Eve Winterley was downstairs and Verity had begged to be allowed an early morning ride with the grooms, before anyone else was awake to forbid it on this solemn day.

      ‘Mr Filkin says horses need exercise whatever the day brings and I might as well help with the ponies as lie a-bed fretting,’ she reported when she came in to ask if she could go and change into her habit.

      ‘Be sure to come back by the nursery stairs though, love. I doubt his lordship’s stepmama would approve of you careering about the countryside today.’

      ‘She’s an old misery and his lordship won’t listen to her,’ Verity claimed confidently and Chloe wondered how Luke Winterley had made such a favourable impression on her daughter in such a short time.

      She felt beleaguered; the indoor staff adored him; the stable boys and grooms were always full of tales about his horsemanship and now Verity appeared very ready to admire him as well. He sounded as if he’d been reckless and outrageously lucky to live through most of the incidents she’d heard related and she frowned and wondered what manner of man he’d be now if he hadn’t made such a disastrous early marriage. A happy one, she decided gloomily.

      She snatched up the old cloak she kept in the flower room and stepped out into the winter sunshine to escape the house and her duties for a few precious moments. How unworthy of her to find the idea of Lord Farenze happily wed and content with his wife depressing, rather than wishing him better luck next time.

      ‘Dratted man,’ she muttered under her breath as she marched towards the Winter Garden. ‘Why does he have to disturb me so deeply?’ she asked the statue of some god among the frost-rimed box and the few brave winter flowers hiding their heads under frozen leaves this morning. ‘For years he pretends I don’t exist, now he’s back and I’m wasting time dreaming about him all over again.’

      The statue stared into the parkland as if silently slumbering winter trees made more sense than she did and Chloe suppressed a childish urge to kick him.

      ‘Men!’ she informed it, glad nobody could hear her. ‘You vex women with your ridiculous arguments, pretend logic and stupid longings, then you swat us aside like annoying insects and walk away. How the devil does the contrary great idiot expect me to carry on as if nothing happened now? Does he think we can act as if he never saw me sitting in that bed staring at him like a besotted schoolgirl or came to rescue me from my nightmares? Oh, I’m sorry, you’re a man, aren’t you? Or at least you would be if you were real. Then you’d huff and puff like the rest of them and drive us all mad before you stamped off to roam about the country shooting innocent animals or riding your poor horses into the ground until you felt better.’

      ‘He might do, if he wasn’t made of stone,’ Luke Winterley’s deep voice said from far too close for comfort and Chloe refused to turn round and blush at being caught talking to a piece of stone. ‘Otherwise you would probably be quite right, of course.’

      ‘You should still be asleep,’ she told him crossly.

      ‘Lucky I’m not then, for this would be the oddest dream I’ve ever had,’ he told her with a lazy grin.

      She wanted to walk into his arms and kiss him good morning so badly she had to swing away and march down the nearest path away from him to stop herself doing exactly that.

      ‘What are you doing?’ he asked, following and putting out a hand to prevent her walking straight into a sacking-shrouded potted plant the gardeners had wrapped up for winter.

      ‘I’m counting to a hundred,’ she told him between clenched teeth.

      ‘Isn’t it supposed to be ten?’

      ‘With you ten is never enough.’

      ‘Oh dear, that bad, am I?’

      ‘Worse,’ she bit out.

      She would not turn round at the warm rumble of his laughter; refused to feel warmed and soothed into good humour because she’d amused him at this saddest of times. Half of her might want to be in his arms so badly she could almost feel his warmth and strength wrapping her up again; more than half if she was honest, but dishonesty was safer.

      ‘Leave me be, my lord.’

      ‘No, you spend far too much time alone already,’ he said impatiently, as if it was her fault her role in his household demanded a certain aloofness of her.

      ‘And you shut yourself up in that northern fortress of yours years ago and did your best to pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist, so you have no room to talk.’

      ‘We’re lone souls with much in common then, but I didn’t walk away from the danger we posed each other then in order to take advantage of you today.’

      ‘I’m sure you’re a man of infinite honour, my lord.’

      ‘No, but I fight my demons as best I can; something you should consider before you provoke me again, madam.’

      ‘I provoke you?’

      ‘Yes, you should have the sense to realise you’re always in acute danger when I’m about, Mrs Wheaton, yet you seem determined to court it.’

      ‘You’re the one with a large house, acres of garden and an entire estate to avoid me in. I don’t see how you can berate me for taking a brief walk within hailing distance of the house? In your shoes I could use my freedom to simply walk away.’

      ‘Marching about in front of the windows of a room you know I always work in when I’m at Farenze Lodge is not disturbing me then? Did I not give you fair warning this could happen if you teased me instead of avoiding me like the plague?,’ he rasped and tugged her into his arms as if she’d driven him to it.

      ‘Let me go, you barbarian,’ she snapped, but he lowered his head and met her eyes with a storm of fury and need in his that mirrored the argument raging between her heart and head and making her feel recklessly susceptible to his nearness.

      ‘Stop me,’ he demanded gruffly, so close she felt a warm whisper on her skin.

       Chapter Eight

      Chloe knew Lord Farenze would leave her alone if she breathed no or flinched away. Yet she couldn’t say it, or take that step back. His mouth on hers was gentle as a plea and she waited for him to remember he was kissing the housekeeper and retreat in horror. She

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