Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Casebook of Barnaby Adair) (6 page)

Aside from all else, idleness in one such as he invariably led to trouble.

His mind never ceased thinking, weighing, speculating: What if he did this, or that? What would be the outcome? Where would lie the gain? And would it be as much as he predicted? It was a persistent activity he’d long ago learned to live with; indeed, for him, such constant mental activity was the norm.

And, as one farsighted old lady had warned him long ago, therein lay the danger. His mind was all too adept at forming schemes for financial gain but, sadly, without due consideration of the law, much less morality. If such schemes remained inside his head, no harm was caused, but, once formed, the temptation to let the schemes out into the world, to give them a chance to play out to see if they worked . . . that was the lure, the constant, insistent temptation he had learned through hard experience he had to hold against.

Keeping his mind busy with legitimate, even desirable, moneymaking ventures was, for him, more necessity than choice.

Halting on the narrow pavement outside the tobacconist’s shop, copies of yesterday’s news sheets tucked under his arm, Thomas pulled out his fob-watch. It was well after twelve o’clock. The impulse to ride straight back to the manor was surprisingly strong, but by the time he reached there, Mrs. Sheridan and the children would almost certainly have finished their luncheon, and his arrival, hungry and wanting to be fed, would put his housekeeper out.

Tucking his watch back in his waistcoat pocket, Thomas straightened, tightened his grip on his cane, and made his way across the street to the Angel Hotel, and its purportedly excellent dining room.

T
he following day, Rose was tidying the kitchen after they’d had their morning tea when, through the window over the sink, she saw Glendower walking around the outside of the house.

He wasn’t simply strolling; he held a notebook in one hand and was halting every now and then, eyes narrowing, to study the house itself.

Curious, she watched him. After one such instance of close scrutiny, he pulled a pencil from the pocket of his jacket, raised the notebook, and scribbled something.

He was wearing breeches and riding boots, a plain linen shirt, a neat but simply knotted cravat, with a hacking jacket over all; she had assumed he’d intended to go riding again, but no. As she watched, the light breeze ruffled his hair; the bright gold strands amid the light brown were what had caught her eye and drawn her to the window.

Standing before the sink, cloth in hand, she vacillated. She wanted to know what he was doing, what he was planning; in her role as the children’s protector, she needed to know of anything that might pose a potential threat, that might bring the risk of exposure into their orbit. Against that, she was honest enough to admit, at least to herself, that her curiosity about Glendower was equally fed by a more unsettling, even disturbing, impulse.

She’d never felt attracted to any gentleman before; mildly curious, perhaps, but not drawn like this.

Drawn to venture closer, to discover whether the sensual thrill she felt at his touch was still there.

She knew it was, would be; every time his fingers inadvertently brushed hers, she felt that addictive thrill to her marrow.

But she didn’t know if he felt anything at all, and she couldn’t fault his behavior, not in the slightest degree; he’d made no move that even by the wildest stretch of anyone’s imagination could be construed as inappropriate, much less as any definite advance.

He’d given her no reason to believe he wanted her, desired her, that he was any threat to her at all.

Was it wrong of her to want to . . . test him?

Was it perverse of her to want to learn more of him, the man, and so risk all the benefits his presence had brought them? Not just to her, but to the children, too?

Last night, after dinner when the children had gone upstairs, he’d spoken to her about Homer and had offered to find suitable books from his library to help satisfy Homer’s burgeoning need for knowledge—a need she, herself, could not sate. Glendower had cast the act as a very little thing, something he could easily and painlessly do, but it had already made a difference to Homer and, therefore, to her. The look on Homer’s face when, after breakfast this morning, Glendower had taken him into the library, piled his arms with leather-bound tomes, then dispatched him to the dining room, there to sit and read at the big table Glendower no longer used, had been beyond revealing.

Homer had been in alt.

She had been beyond grateful, beyond relieved, but when she’d taken Glendower’s morning tea tray to him in the library and had tried to offer her thanks, he’d dismissed his part as insignificant, nothing worthy of further consideration.

He’d made no attempt to capitalize on her gratitude, not in any way. . . .

Rose shifted to keep him in sight as he moved further along the back of the house. Again he stopped, stared, then made a note in his book. She frowned. “What the devil is he doing?”

Tossing the cloth on the bench, she smoothed her hands down her skirts, then passed her palms over her hair, confirming that her chignon was still neat. Then, grabbing her shawl from the back of her chair, she headed for the back door.

Sunshine greeted her as she emerged onto the step, but the light breeze was still cool. Spring was only gradually stealing in and hadn’t yet properly arrived. Swinging her shawl about her shoulders, she stepped down to the narrow paved path that led to the stables, but she immediately left the path for the coarse grass and lengthened her stride in pursuit of her quarry, now nearing the far corner of the house.

He glanced at her as she neared, but then went back to writing his latest note.

Halting a few feet away, she faced the house and studied the façade, trying to see what had caught his attention.

As if reading her mind, he murmured, still scribbling, “The guttering. It needs clearing. If you look closely, there’s grass growing up there.”

Raising a hand, she shaded her eyes, looked, and saw that he was right. She glanced at him. “Is that what you’re listing?”

He nodded. Shutting the book, he looked at the house again. “All the little things that need doing.”

Closing his hand about the silver head of the cane he’d left resting against his thigh, he continued his slow progress around the house, examining each window, each piece of spouting, and all else of a structural nature.

Rose trailed after him.

When he stopped to check the paint on a windowsill, she said, “There’s a local handyman we—the Gattings and I—have used over the years. He’s reasonable and reliable. If you wish, once you have your list, I could get him in.”

To her surprise, Glendower shook his head. “No.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “I’ll do the work myself.”

Rose blinked. She thought of how high the guttering was, thought of how stiffly he moved . . . wondered why a gentleman might wish to do such work himself. . . .

He halted again, this time to assess the sturdiness of a piece of latticework anchored to the side of the house.

Rose halted a few feet away. Her gaze on his face, she bit her lip, wondering how to phrase the question that had leapt to her mind.

Stepping back from the lattice, balancing his cane against his leg, he drew out his notebook and pencil.

She watched him open the book and saw his lips curve, distinctly wryly. “No,” he said, his gaze on the page and the words he was writing, “I have plenty of money.” He paused, then, as if sensing that more explanation was required, added, “I need the exercise or my muscles will atrophy—grow weak again. I need to keep using them, in lots of different ways.”

She was intrigued, yet . . . “There’s exercise, and then there’s hard work.”

He chuckled and put away his notebook. “Indeed.” He sounded genuinely amused, not offended in the least by what another employer might have viewed as a temerity.

Reassured, Rose continued to keep pace with him as he walked further, rounding the next corner to examine the front of the house. She waited, hoping . . .

Halting to squint up at the front façade, he said, “The monastery was a Benedictine house—it was the done thing for everyone, including any laity within the walls, to contribute to the house’s maintenance and repair, each according to their talents.” He glanced briefly at her, long enough for her to glimpse the self-deprecation in his eyes. “When I first arrived there, I had no useful talents, not in that sense. But there were many brothers who did, and they consented to teach me. Subsequently, I discovered that I had an unexpected aptitude for . . . I suppose one could say crafting and repairing things. Working with my hands to make physical things work.”

They strolled on, and, after a moment, he continued, “I know it’s not a customary occupation for a gentleman, but I derive great satisfaction from it—from putting things right and making them work.”

Thomas heard the words, his first attempt at explaining to anyone his liking for such activities, and realized the connection, the essential similarity between his habitual occupation through the morning—investing and managing funds to create money to put things right—and what had come to be his preferred means of filling his afternoons. Two sides of the same coin, one largely cerebral, the other solidly physical.

Halting ten yards away from the house, in line with the front door, he turned to consider his housekeeper. “So,” he concluded, meeting her soft brown eyes, “I’ll do the necessary repairs myself.”

She held his gaze for a moment, then inclined her head. Halting, too, she glanced at the house. “Do you have any thoughts as to the order in which you’ll tackle the tasks?”

He shifted to face the house; they were standing close, only a foot between them. “The repainting should wait until the weather improves, so at the moment that goes to the bottom of the list.”

Busy studying the façade, she hadn’t seen him move. As she, too, swung to squarely face the house, her shoulder brushed his.

Sparks flared. That’s what it felt like. He could all but sense their mutual attraction crackling in the air.

His muscles, more susceptible than most men’s through habitually being tensed, trembled. He gripped the head of his cane tightly, his knuckles paling as he fought the impulse to react, as he ruthlessly quashed the instinctive urge to pursue that attraction. To pursue her.

No good could come of that.

From the rigidity that had gripped her, from the fact that she’d stopped breathing, he knew she was engaged in a similar battle, that she, too, felt the power of that flaring connection.

Then, surreptitiously, she drew in a shallow, somewhat shaky breath, and shifted so that her shoulder no longer touched his. “Well, then.” Her voice was slightly breathless; she raised her chin a notch higher and with greater determination stated, “I’ll leave you to it.”

Inclining her head, without meeting his eyes, she turned and walked slowly back around the house.

He watched her go and had to wonder if, despite both their best efforts, this was one battle that might prove a lost cause.

After several moments of thinking further along those lines, he returned his gaze to the house.

If she could deny what was growing between them, could continue to suppress her reaction to him, then, clearly, he could, and should, and would do the same.

A
t the end of the first week after the return of Mr. Thomas Glendower to Breage Manor, Rose slipped into her chair at the dinner table and listened to the conversation already raging between Glendower—Thomas, as both the children had taken to calling him—and Homer regarding the correct way to interpret someone’s theory about the moon orbiting the earth.

Pippin was busy eating, but between mouthfuls she was also listening, although Rose would have wagered it was the animation displayed by both Homer and Thomas—Glendower—that was holding Pippin’s interest.

Rose looked down at her soup plate, took her first mouthful, then looked again down the table.

There he sat, large as life—her employer, a male who, regardless of his injuries, his obvious infirmities, regardless of his disfiguring scars, still managed to seize and hold her attention and interest like some emotional lodestone—and yet she felt . . . settled. Calm, assured, even serene, her instincts convinced beyond question that the situation was . . . good.

His presence in their household felt . . . simply right.

He’d proved to be a creature of habit and had settled into a daily routine. After breakfasting with them—and he’d yet to be late down, and most often beat the children downstairs—he would shut himself in his library and work through the morning. She usually found him still there, analyzing figures and reading news sheets, when she took him his morning tea. Eventually emerging, he’d taken in recent days to spending half an hour or so with Homer in the dining room, from which both would appear when she rang the bell for luncheon.

After helping her clear the table, he would go outside, either to ride or to work on whichever of the small projects about the house was next on his list. While such actions demonstrated a certain arrogance in that he clearly did not care what others thought of him, for her part she considered his stance commendable, and one she supported without reservation.