LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Three

      Sir Warren still hadn’t made an appearance by the time the butler removed the tea service. Mrs Stevens said he was busy at work and couldn’t be disturbed. More than likely he was avoiding Marianne and her damaged reputation like every other gentleman of quality. The same couldn’t be said of the large portrait of him hanging over the fireplace. It was of Sir Warren at his desk, an open book balanced on his knee, the pen in his hand poised over what must be his next great creation. Mr Smith used to devour Sir Warren’s novels of medieval knights and ladies. Once, during a snow storm, when the family had been stuck inside for three days, he’d read a novel aloud. Marianne had only half-listened. Historical novels were not to her taste.

      It wasn’t the open book balanced on his knee or the manuscript which kept bringing her back to the portrait. It was Sir Warren’s posture, the subtle way his body turned, his attention focused on the distance instead of the viewer. His brow shaded his green eyes, stealing their light. The haunted expression hinted at some threat just beyond the frame, something only he could see, like whatever it was that had troubled him at Lady Cartwright’s. It undermined the confidence in his firm grip on the book and reminded her of his pained expression when he’d written out the laudanum recipe after helping Lady Ellington, before he’d darted away from her.

      Irritation more than the warm autumn day made her tug at her high collar.

      ‘How we must be boring you with all our talk of Italian landscapes,’ Mrs Stevens apologised from across the round tea table.

      Marianne jerked her attention to Mrs Stevens’s kind round eyes, her son’s eyes, and shook her head. ‘No, not at all.’

      ‘Liar,’ Mrs Stevens teased. ‘When I was young I used to hate sitting with old ladies and listening to them talk. Lady Ellington tells me you play the pianoforte. We have a lovely Érard in the music room. The man who sold us the house said it was once in the Palace of Versailles, but I’m not sure I believe him.’

      ‘A French-made Érard!’ Excitement filled Marianne more than when the carriage had approached the house, before it had become obvious Sir Warren had no intention of joining them. ‘I used to play one at the Protestant School in France. Do you play?’

      ‘Oh, heavens, no.’ She laid a thin hand on her chest. ‘I hate to think of a fine instrument going to waste. If you’d like to try it, you may. It’s just down the hall in the music room. Third door on the left.’

      ‘May I?’ Marianne asked Lady Ellington, as eager to see the instrument as to escape the staring portrait.

      Lady Ellington slid a sly glance at Mrs Stevens whose eyebrow arched a touch. ‘I don’t see why not.’

      Marianne threw her companion a questioning look, wondering what she was up to. Lady Ellington ignored it in favour of adjusting the clasp on her diamond bracelet. The ladies must be eager to discuss something more salacious than Italian landscapes out of her hearing. Whatever it was, Lady Ellington would tell her about it later. Her companion didn’t see the need to shield her from reality, not after Marianne had learned so much at Madame de Badeau’s.

      Marianne rose and shook out the skirt of her dress. ‘Then I’d be delighted to play.’

      ‘Wonderful.’ Mrs Stevens beamed as Marianne made for the hallway. ‘Leave the door open so we may hear your beautiful playing.’

      Marianne stepped into the long main hall running the length of the front of the house. The faint dragging of a saw across wood and the thud of hammers carried down from somewhere upstairs. She headed left, past the large marble fireplace situated across from the main door, a medieval relic left over from the house’s days as a priory. Mrs Stevens had told them something of the house’s history over tea. Old swords and helmets dotted the panelled walls, creating a more menacing than welcoming effect in the low-ceilinged entrance hall with its thick exposed beams.

      She followed the neat line of black-marble diamonds inlaid in the slightly uneven floor, counting the solidly spaced doors with their rounded tops and thick iron handles.

      When she reached the third door on the left, she slid one of the wide panels aside, stopping as Sir Warren’s eyes snapped up from his desk to hers. The troubled eyes from the portrait. They widened with shock before crinkling with annoyance, then embarrassment. In front for him were books arranged in an elaborate set of triangles and balanced against one another like a house of cards.

      ‘You should have knocked.’ Sir Warren jumped to his feet and rounded the desk. The large red dog sitting beside him raised its hindquarters in a stretch before trotting past his owner and up to Marianne. ‘I was working.’

      ‘Yes, it’s quite a labour.’ She leaned to one side to peer around his solid chest at his creation, ignoring the flutter in her stomach at this unexpected meeting and the cutting realisation he had been avoiding her. ‘Is it a castle or a barn? I can’t tell.’

      ‘It’s a castle.’ Amusement replaced the flush of anger. ‘I’ll have you know, half of all writing is procrastination.’

      ‘Then it appears you’re making great progress.’ Marianne tapped the dog lightly on the head with her fingers, then waved him away. He obliged, wandering over to the hearth rug and settling down on the spiral weave.

      ‘If only I were.’ He dismantled his castle and stacked the books in two neat piles. Then he faced her, leaning back against the desk and admiring her with more amusement than censure. His coat was missing and the wide sleeves of his shirt were flecked with small dots of ink. Dull black boots that wouldn’t pass muster in London covered his calves and feet, and around his neck his cravat sat loose and crooked. ‘Rather bold for a young lady to be wandering alone in a gentleman’s house.’

      ‘It isn’t the first time I’ve been bold in the presence of a gentleman.’ She approached him, determined to appear confident and collected and reveal nothing of the thrill racing through her at his unguarded humour. It would end soon when he decided it was best to not be alone with her and bolt off to see to some other matter in another part of the house.

      ‘Nor do I suspect it will be the last.’ Not a speck of derision marred his smile as he stroked his strong jaw. The play of his fingers along his chiselled chin, his sure stance and the curious way he regarded her proved as captivating as the time she’d watched the workers in the Falconbridge Manor fields in the evening, their shirts discarded as they’d swung their scythes. She could picture him among them, the gold sun across his back, his thick arms swinging the blade, the honey skin glistening in the low light. Marianne adjusted her collar, stunned by her suddenly lurid imagination. This wasn’t the way she normally regarded men. It was dangerous.

      ‘I’ll have you know I wasn’t wandering, but searching for the Érard. Mrs Stevens told me it was in the music room, the third door on the left.’ She couldn’t have counted wrong. Three was not a difficult number.

      ‘The music room is the second door on the left.’ He cocked his thumb at the wall and the arched door set snug between two bookcases. ‘There’s another entrance through there, if you’d like.’

      ‘My apologies then. I’ll leave you to your work.’ And make sure it was she and not he who did the quick leave

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