The Old Maids' Club 02 - Pariah (12 page)

For the slightest moment, she allowed herself to think about what it might take to convince him to come work at the Cottage at Round Hill, but dashed it away as the silly idea it was.

After only a few moments, Bethanne was scurrying up the lane to the dower house. She came to a stop in front of the door and was just about to reach up her hand to knock when it was ripped open before her.

Lord Roman came barreling through it with no shirt and his pants half undone. He was drenched in sweat and had the look of a madman in his eyes…and he was heading straight for her.

What devil had hold of him now? Roman had darted out of the house, so desperate for the cold, crisp air and the peace it could give his addled mind that he’d fumbled with the flap of his trousers, even as he’d struggled with the bolts on the doors.

The near suffocation from the weight of his nightmares had been more than enough. He didn’t need the added torment he always felt in the presence of Miss Shelton.

Yet there she was, an aberration in the near-dawn light, staring up at him with those huge, fear-filled green eyes. She’d seen him when he was still half-mad from the insanity of it all, and it showed all over her face. Not to mention in the way she trembled.

Damnation, he wished for just one day, he could cease being the monster he’d become. Then, perhaps, he could get to know her. Then, perhaps, he could allay her fears.

But no man could be what he was not.

Roman took a moment to collect himself, making an effort to remove the wildness that must be haunting his eyes. And then he came to his senses.

“Miss Shelton? It’s not yet dawn. Is there a problem with your aunt?” He let the door slam closed behind him, sorting out the flap of his pants as he hurried to stand before her.

She didn’t answer though, just stood there watching his frenzied movements. Her breathing went from rapid due to her exertion to sharp, short intakes, as though she’d been startled out of her wits. As he could bloody well imagine she had been.

“Is Lady Rosaline all right? Or the boy? Who is hurt?”

Miss Shelton shook her head, backing away from him.

“For God’s sake, why are you on my doorstep at this hour? What is wrong?”

“My—my aunt’s brooch,” she finally stuttered, stumbling in her haste to back away from him again.

The brooch? Roman blinked at her, sure he’d heard her incorrectly, or at least missed something important in what she’d mumbled.

“I’ve come to collect my aunt’s brooch from you,” she said more firmly. “Joyce said Aunt Rosaline was wearing it last night when you joined us for supper, but it is missing now. I believe she gave it to you.”

He hadn’t lost his mind. She truly had come, as an unmarried lady, to knock on a gentleman’s door, in the snow, well before dawn, in order to reclaim a blasted piece of jewelry. No, it was Miss Shelton who was mad, not Roman.

“It couldn’t wait until daylight?” he demanded, his voice coming out almost as a bark. “Surely you didn’t think I would be so callous as to keep it.”

“It couldn’t—”

“And you had no more sense than to come yourself at this hour? You couldn’t be bothered to send a servant, or heaven forbid, ask Lord Devonport to call upon me and handle this task for you?” The infuriating, headstrong, vexingly beautiful woman was going to drive him mad, in more ways than he could count.

“I did not wish to wake anyone—”

“You didn’t want to wake anyone, yet you had no qualms about waking me, is that it?” Christ above, what had come over him? He never berated a woman. He absolutely never interrupted one, unless it was a dire emergency.

She’d taken the last grain of his sanity, and likely had her cook bake it into a pastry sometime in the last few days.

“If you’d allow me to speak…” she said quietly, yet with a heft to her tone he hadn’t assumed her capable of.

Roman forced himself to remain quiet and nodded. Somehow, some way, he would control his temper and let the pixie say what she needed to say.
Then
he would let her know how very foolish she had been. Not sooner.

She crossed her arms over her chest and shuddered—definitely much more than just a simple shiver. At least she’d had the sense to don her redingote before venturing halfway across town, but still, she’d catch her death from the chill. Taking her inside wouldn’t be proper, but then again…what about Miss Shelton
was
proper?

He doubted anyone would see them, anyway. No one but possibly a Hassop House groom would be about, and none of them would dare take exception.

Before she could start talking, he took her arm and guided her inside, then closed the door. He sat her in an armchair near the hearth, tossed a blanket in her direction, and then built up the fire behind the grate, all the while ignoring her indignant expression.

When he was satisfied that she would soon begin to warm, he sat across from her. “Go ahead. I’m prepared to listen now.”

She snapped her jaw closed, and a flood of delightful pink raced to her cheeks. “Would you…well.” With a wave in his general direction, she passed her gaze briefly to his bare chest before she snapped it back up to his face again. “Please?”

She was blushing like a virgin over a bit of bare chest. Not the typical reaction one would expect from a supposed brazen woman, the unmarried mother of a child.

Roman brushed the thought aside, stood, and retrieved his coat from where it was draped over another chair just inside the door. He put it on and lifted a brow in her direction. “Better?”

She nodded, so he resumed his seat.

Miss Shelton fidgeted with the edges of the blanket she’d wrapped around her, in a manner that reminded him of Lady Rosaline with her quill. It was slightly unnerving, and yet fascinating. He watched her slim fingers dancing over the cloth, as though they knew some other purpose. Never before had he watched Miss Shelton’s nervous movements. He’d always been more drawn to her aunt.

“I assume she gave you the brooch?” she asked tentatively.

Roman nodded. “She said it was something I’d forgotten. That she’d been meaning to return it to me. I forgot about it over the course of supper. When I discovered it upon returning home, I intended to bring it back to her today.”

“I assumed as much,” she said on a sigh. “My aunt doesn’t remember giving you her brooch, sir.” The words came out harshly, as though they were a struggle to speak aloud. She worried her lower lip between her teeth, and then a pink tongue came out for just a moment. “She woke in the night, screaming and convinced that there—that there was a soldier in her dressing room. When we finally convinced her that the soldier was no longer there, she discovered that her brooch was missing. It’s… She thinks the soldier stole it from her, and she will not rest until she has it back.”

This woman was the most unselfish person he’d ever encountered. She was more concerned with her aunt’s wellbeing than her own reputation. “And that is why you’re here at this hour of the morning, then.”

“Yes. If we don’t calm her soon, no one will be able to rest.”

He couldn’t help but wonder how long it had been since Miss Shelton had rested. Really, truly rested.

He didn’t ask her, however, and she kept talking. “I left her with Mrs. Temple and Joyce. They’ll be able to keep her calm better than I can. And I didn’t want to…”

“You didn’t want to wake your guests,” he finished for her.

“No.” She turned away. “They’d traveled all day, you know. For several days, actually.”

“And you are not one to ever ask someone to do anything for you.”

Her eyes shot up to him, flashing green fire. “I’m not one to ever ask someone to do something that I’m perfectly capable of doing myself.”

He had the sense that she would obstinately cling to the idea that there was a difference between the two for as long as her fingers could maintain a grip. Now was not the time to disabuse her of that notion.

“Did anyone see you coming here? Does anyone but your servants know?”

The flash in her eyes dimmed slightly and she visibly took a breath. “A groom in the stables assisted me with my carriage, and the Hassop House butler directed me out here.”

“Milner told you to come here?” The butler had seemed to have a decent head on his shoulders. Why on earth would the man suggest something of the sort?

“He told me this is where you could be found, sir.”

An immensely minor distinction. She seemed to be rather fond of those.

“And I believe a few of the maids saw me as well, though they aren’t aware that I’ve come to the dower house to speak with you.”

He stood and inclined his head to Miss Shelton. “Allow me a few minutes to better prepare myself, and I’ll escort you back to your cottage.”

“Oh, that’s not at all necessary. Just return my aunt’s brooch and I’ll be on my way.”

Bloody stubborn woman. She was too independent for her own good.

He didn’t counter her. Instead, he gave her a small smile. “I’ll be back in a trice.” And then he went into his chamber, shut and locked the door, and dressed himself properly.

One way or another, he’d show her that she needed to accept some assistance, at least sometimes.

When Roman returned to Hassop House that evening, after spending essentially the entire day at Round Hill with Miss Shelton and her household, he walked into a veritable hornet’s nest.

“Thank goodness you’ve finally returned, my lord,” Milner declared. He waved a hand toward the main dining room, where a parade of footmen, grooms, and maids were seated, waiting, as though expecting a sentence to the gallows or something else equally unlikely. “What do you wish us to do with these miscreants?”

Precisely what he needed to take his mind from the deucedly perplexing Miss Shelton and her big, green eyes. Not that he had even the slightest of inklings as to why the servants Milner had indicated might be miscreants.

“Why don’t you begin by telling me their offenses?” Roman said to the butler as they entered the dining room. He took a seat at the head of the table, staring down its great length at the combination of guilt-filled and outraged expressions borne by the servants. Mrs. Pitt, the housekeeper, stood sentinel over them with a few other servants at her side.

The ones who would admit to their wrongdoing and then act with contrition were far more likely to earn his favor, whatever the nature of their infraction. Those who feigned innocence…

Well, perhaps he was getting ahead of himself. Likely a ramification of so many years in the military. When Milner did not immediately launch into an explanation, Roman leveled him with the very stare he’d always used with the men serving beneath him, the one liable to render lesser men to quaking in their Hessians or, it had been jokingly reported, wishing they’d stayed home on their mothers’ leading strings.

“Well,” the butler said with a hitch, pausing to clear his throat—twice—before starting again. “It seems this lot has been planning to abandon Hassop House.”

“To abandon it?” Roman deliberately kept his tone low and cool.

Milner shuffled from foot to foot, averting his gaze. “Yes, my lord. They seem to think you’ve fallen in with the wrong sort.”

“
The wrong sort
.” Roman said the words slowly, letting them slither over his tongue so he’d feel the full weight of them. He narrowed his eyes on the gathered servants. “Am I to understand you do not approve of my visits to Lady Rosaline Shelton’s cottage?”

“The cottage itself is fine, sir,” called out the very groom who’d readied Roman’s mount this morning, as well as Miss Shelton’s. “And it’s a right shame how Lady Rosaline’s mind has fled.”

“Indeed,” a young maid said with a sharp nod of her head. “No one has any reason to fault Lady Rosaline.”

“I see. And so the problem is…?”

Let these rotters say it. He’d take no part in it. A seething rage built within his chest, roiling and rumbling, threatening to rise to the surface and explode.

They remained silent. Roman locked his eyes on them, one at a time. Most of them stared down at their laps during his perusal. A few daringly looked back at him, yet said nothing. One of them would break. Sooner, rather than later. He was as certain of that fact as he was certain his right hand belonged to him.