The Temptation of Your Touch (21 page)

“I checked the post while I was in the village today. This was waiting for you.” Crossing to him, she dutifully held out the missive.

Laying aside the book, he sat up and eagerly took the square of folded vellum from her hand. But it was apparently not the piece of correspondence he had been hoping for. He made a sound beneath his breath that sounded suspiciously like a
harrumph
before sliding his thumb beneath the wax seal. As he unfolded the vellum and began to read the letter, his face went pale beneath his tan.

“What is it?” Anne asked, her heart stuttering with alarm. The last letter that had arrived at Cadgwyck Manor had delivered
him
to her doorstep.

As he slowly lifted his head, his expression dazed, she drew closer to him without realizing it. The letter slipped through his long, aristocratic fingers and floated to the floor. “It’s my brother.”

Anne felt a pang of dread in her own heart at his words. “Is it ill tidings? Has something terrible happened to him?”

“No. Something terrible has happened to me.” Dravenwood raised his stricken eyes to her face. “He’s coming here. With his family.”

Chapter Nineteen

A
NNE FOUGHT TO SWALLOW
back her own dismay. The last thing she needed was more meddlesome Burkes running around the manor, snapping out orders and poking their handsome aristocratic noses into matters that were none of their concern. “I suppose we can make ready some more rooms,” she said reluctantly.

The earl shot to his feet, forcing her to take a stumbling step backward. Raking a hand through his unruly hair, he began to pace back and forth across the room like a caged tiger. “You don’t understand. We have to write him back immediately. We have to stop them.”

“And just how do you propose to do that?”

“I don’t care how we do it. We’ll tell them the manor isn’t fit for habitation. We’ll tell them there’s a daft butler. And a surly footman. And a ghost. And an incontinent dog!”

Anne took advantage of his frenzied pacing to rescue the letter from the floor. As she scanned the remainder of it, she almost wished she had left it there. Hoping to soften the blow, she gently said, “I’m afraid it’s too late for that, my lord. As we learned when we received word that you were scheduled to arrive at the manor, the post is notoriously slow in getting to Cadgwyck. According to this letter, your brother and his family left Dryden Hall nearly a week ago. They’re scheduled to arrive here in less than two days.”

Dravenwood groaned. “Two days?” He abruptly changed direction, forcing her to quickly nudge the ottoman out of his path before he fell over it. “Damn him,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Damn them both.”

“I take it you don’t welcome their arrival?” she ventured cautiously.

“Of course I do,” he drawled with scathing sarcasm. “The same way I would welcome taking afternoon tea with Attila the Hun. Or a recurrence of the Black Plague.” He began to mutter again, more to himself than to her. “It’s just like him, isn’t it? Believing he can come here and somehow charm his way back into my good graces.” Dravenwood stopped in his tracks, as if struck by a new thought. “He may very well be coming here to kill me.”

“Have you done something that warrants killing?”

He gave her a sharp look. “You don’t look as if that would surprise you very much.”

Anne kept her face carefully blank. “What would you have me do, my lord?”

Rubbing the back of his neck, he sighed. “Your job, I suppose. Make ready their chambers,” he ordered, his dismay hardening into grim resignation. “As much as I’d like to, we can’t very well turn them away. I wouldn’t give him that much satisfaction.” His face brightened. “Perhaps if we feed them some of that slop you feed me, they won’t linger very long. But whatever you do”—he gave her such a threatening look she took an involuntary step backward—“do
not
give them any of your bread.”

A
NNE HESITATED OUTSIDE THE
closed study door. She had been dreading this moment all day, but there was no longer any way to put it off. She dried her damp palms on her apron before giving the door a gentle rap.

“Enter.”

Obeying the clipped command, she eased open the door and slipped into the room. Lord Dravenwood was seated behind the massive cherrywood
desk. The ledgers containing the household accounts, both past and present, were no longer scattered haphazardly across the desk but had been organized into neat stacks. One of them lay open on the leather blotter. As she watched, he dipped his pen into a bottle of ink, turned the page, and began to make a fresh notation.

She had never before seen him look quite so composed. One would have sworn he’d been dressed and groomed by the most competent valet in London. His jaw was freshly shaven, his silver-and-gray-striped waistcoat buttoned beneath his coat, his snowy-white cravat neatly tied. His hair was the only thing that had resisted taming, its sooty ends still curling in open rebellion around his starched collar. Anne sensed that this was her first glimpse of the real Maximillian Burke, the cool and contained man who had ruled his own private empire for years from behind a desk much like this one.

When the tip of his pen continued to scratch its way across the page, she cleared her throat awkwardly. “I’m sorry to disturb you, my lord, but Dickon has spotted a private conveyance crossing the moor. I believe it can only be your brother.”

He glanced up, giving her a look so mildly pleasant it made her stomach curdle with alarm. She would have much preferred one of his ferocious scowls. “And just what would you have me do about it?”

“Aren’t you going to come greet them?” she asked tentatively.

“I shall leave that to you.” He returned his attention to the ledger, dipping his pen in the inkwell once more. “As I recall, you rose to the task with admirable aplomb the night I arrived at Cadgwyck Manor.”

“But, my lord, he’s your
brother
.” As both her bewilderment and her dismay deepened, Anne sought comfort by tracing the familiar shape of the locket beneath her bodice. “If you haven’t seen each other for a time, I thought you might want to—”

“I don’t pay you to think, Mrs. Spencer,” Dravenwood said without looking up.

Anne stiffened as if he had slapped her. “No, my lord,” she replied, her tone edged with frost. “I don’t suppose you do.”

Refusing to give him the satisfaction of asking if she could be dismissed, she turned on her heel and started for the door.

“Mrs. Spencer?”

She turned back, eyeing him warily.

“Once they arrive, my brother will doubtlessly want to see me. You may send him in after he and his family have dined.
Alone
.”

“As you wish, my lord.”

Anne left him there with his ledgers, forcing herself to gently draw the door shut behind her when
all she wanted to do was slam it hard enough to rattle both the door frame and him.

A
NNE STOOD UNDER THE
portico at the top of the crumbling stairs, watching the coach jolt its way up the rutted drive. This was a private coach, not a rented conveyance, with a handsome team of six matched grays, four liveried outriders, and a scarlet-and-gold ducal crest emblazoned on its shiny lacquered door. For the first time, she stopped to wonder why her employer—the current Earl of Dravenwood and future Duke of Dryden—hadn’t arrived in such regal splendor.

Dickon waited beside the drive in his own ragged livery, but no wig, playing the roles of both footman and groom. The afternoon wasn’t exactly fair, but nor was it as damp and chill as recent days had been. The balmy wind threatened to tease a few stray tendrils of hair from Anne’s chignon.

As the coach rolled to a halt, Dickon shot her an uncertain look over his shoulder. She made a subtle shooing motion. He hurried over to the coach to whisk open the door.

Anne had no idea what to expect, but the man who descended from the coach was as fair as their master was dark. He was the same height as Dravenwood and had equally broad shoulders, but
he was slightly leaner. His caramel-colored hair was straight and cropped close to his head.

His boots had barely hit the ground when he was forced to spin around and catch a flaxen-haired toddler before she went tumbling out of the coach headfirst like an exuberant puppy.

“Whoa, there, Charlotte!” he called out, a dazzling grin splitting his sun-bronzed face. “You do love to keep Papa’s reflexes honed, don’t you, sweetheart?”

Holding the squirming little girl in the crook of his arm, he offered a hand to his wife. Tucking her gloved hand in his, a woman emerged from the coach, all but the graceful curve of one cheek hidden beneath the shadow of her beribboned hat brim.

Dickon directed the coachman and outriders toward the tumbledown stables as the trio started up the broad stone stairs. The adorable moppet tucked a thumb in her little pink rosebud of a mouth and laid her head on her father’s breast, suddenly overcome with shyness. She had been dressed with all the care of one of the dolls in the tower, but a smudge of dirt darkened the knee of one ivory stocking, and sugary biscuit crumbs were scattered across the bib of her pinafore.

As Lord Dravenwood’s brother reached the top of the stairs, Anne pasted a dutiful smile on her lips just as she had done on the night her new master had arrived. “I’m Mrs. Spencer, the housekeeper of
this establishment. Welcome to Cadgwyck Manor, my lord.”

The man’s brow furrowed in a mock scowl that was an impeccable imitation of his brother’s real one. “
Mr. Burke
or
sir
will do, Mrs. Spencer. Didn’t Max warn you?” He leaned down, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m one of those ill-mannered commoners he so disdains.”

Anne had to bite back a genuine smile. The man’s lazy grin and the mischievous sparkle dancing in his amber eyes were nearly irresistible. Those eyes crinkled when he smiled, as if he had spent much of his life squinting into the bright sun.

A rich ripple of laughter escaped his wife. “Don’t let my husband fool you, Mrs. Spencer. There’s nothing common about Ashton Burke. He’s as unconventional as they come.”

As Mrs. Burke tipped back her head to reveal one of the most beautiful faces Anne had ever seen, Anne felt a curious twinge in the region of her heart. She had never felt so plain or so envied another woman her potions and powders and curling tongs.

The icy edges of the woman’s Nordic blondness were softened by the irresistible warmth of her smile. Her green eyes were tilted upward at their outer corners like the eyes of some exotic cat.

She surprised Anne by taking her hand. “Thank you so very much for your hospitality, Mrs. Spencer.
It was rather impulsive of us to come here. I do hope we haven’t put your staff to any extra trouble.”

“None whatsoever,” Anne lied. She’d had the maids working nearly around the clock ever since she had learned of their impending visit. Even a grumbling Pippa had pitched in. For some unfathomable reason, Anne didn’t want Dravenwood’s brother to find him living in a pigsty.

Mr. Burke looked around, his expression going from playful to cautious. “So where is that devoted brother of mine?”

Anne had been dreading the question. “I’m afraid Lord Dravenwood is otherwise occupied at the moment.”

Burke exchanged a knowing glance with his wife. “That’s just about what I would have expected of dear old Max. So how does he occupy his time these days? Counting his gold? Conducting mock battles with his tin soldiers as he used to do with me when we were lads?” Burke wagged his eyebrows at Anne. “Flogging the peasants?”

Anne had even more difficulty hiding her smile this time. “I can assure you Cadgwyck Manor has no shortage of pursuits to keep your brother’s attentions engaged. Now, if you’ll allow me to show you to your rooms . . .”

She turned only to run smack-dab into the door.
Bloody hell,
she thought. Hodges must have locked
it behind her as soon as she exited the house. She reached to her waist for her ring of keys only to discover she must have left them on the kitchen table.

Casting an apologetic look over her shoulder at their guests, she called out cheerfully, “Hodges! I seem to have accidentally locked the door. Would you mind unlocking it?” When her gracious request met with only silence, she leaned closer to the door and hissed, “
Hodges!
Open the door this minute!”

After a muffled “Very good, ma’am,” the door swung open to admit them.

Hodges stood there, beaming at them like a demented cherub, his hair nearly as wild as his eyes. Praying their guests wouldn’t notice his odd demeanor, or would at least be too polite to comment upon it, Anne ushered them through the entrance hall.

As she led them up the stairs and past Angelica’s portrait, she stole a glance at Mr. Burke, curious to see if his reaction would mirror his brother’s and that of every other man who had ever laid eyes on it.

Strangely enough, Mrs. Burke noticed the portrait first. “Oh my! What an enchanting creature she is!”

Her husband cast the portrait a brief, disinterested glance before slipping an arm around his wife’s waist and murmuring something in her ear. She laughed aloud and smacked him playfully on the
arm. Apparently, the earl’s brother only had eyes for his wife, a realization that left Anne with a strangely wistful ache in her heart.