A Man Of Many Talents (18 page)

The words slipped out, as if wrung from her by some unseen power, and for one horrible moment Abigail thought he might refuse her. She saw the surprise upon his handsome features. What if he should laugh in her face? Deny her? Argue that she had rebuked him for untoward behavior? Suddenly Abigail was assailed by a multitude of worries and fears. But they melted away as he slowly lifted his hands to cup her face.

Although his weren’t the smooth hands she expected of the idle rich, she welcomed their roughness. There was strength in them, Abigail knew it, yet his thumbs stroked her cheeks in the gentlest of caresses. She watched, enthralled,
as he bent nearer and nearer…
Then her head tipped back, her lashes drifted closed, and he kissed her.

His lips were so soft, so welcome that Abigail made a small sound of joyful greeting, and she leaned into him, sliding her hands up his waistcoat, feeling the breadth and heat of him before she locked her arms around his neck. His mouth moved over hers, tasting, exploring, and when she felt the sweet, insistent pressure of his tongue, she welcomed it as well, reveling in the warm invasion.

Abigail heard herself moan blissfully, but she didn’t care. Instead of withdrawing in horror, she kissed him back, clinging to him shamelessly, and to her utter delight, he., too, made a low sound of pleasure as he pulled her into his arms.

The press of his body made her breathless and giddy. Her head swam, her blood pounded, and her spirit sang, for surely this was all she had ever dreamed. Now she was truly alive in every sense and glad of it.

Abigail whimpered when his mouth left hers, but it was only to rain kisses along her cheek and against her neck, in hidden places behind her ear and in her hair. She murmured her approval and then was shocked to realize he was removing her hairpins and tossing them away, releasing the heavy mass down her back. She gulped, both jolted and elated by his action, then watched wide-eyed as he drew back to study her, running his fingers through the thick strands and arranging them around her face. When he did so, the look in his eyes was so fierce and hungry that Abigail nearly quailed before it.

But something inside her rose to meet that hunger, and she lifted up on her toes, took his face in her hands, and kissed him, holding him steady, entwining her tongue with his. He groaned, the sound rumbling up from his chest through his throat and into her veins as he pushed her back against the wall. He seemed anything but scholarly now as he took her mouth with near violence, his hands roaming over her body with shocking familiarity. And Abigail welcomed his touch, forgetting all concerns about dedication and study, remembering only that this was Christian, Lord Moreland, the only man who could ever move her in this way.

Nothing else mattered except the feel of his hard body against hers, the taste of his mouth upon her own, and the desperate, driving need to know him better—in every way. Abigail seized her chance in the shadowy passage, running her fingers through his silky hair, gilded golden by the lantern light, pressing her lips against the heated skin of his throat, and moving her palms over his shoulders and chest. Somehow she ended up tugging at his coat, and he shrugged it off so that she could feel the strength of his arms through the pale linen of his shirt before he seized her again.

Wishing that one of her own garments might be so easily discarded, Abigail rued her usual companion’s clothing, dark and ugly, long of sleeve and high of neck to hide her from the world and its denizens. The material, which had suited her well before, now seemed too heavy, too thick, a barrier between her needy flesh and Christian’s caress.

Christian.
She whispered his name, and to her surprise, he answered her in kind. The sound of his voice, deep and low, murmuring
Abigail
against her hair, nearly made her swoon. Her head fell back even as he pushed her higher against the rough plaster, his lower body, hard and pulsing, finding a niche between her thighs.

At her gasp, he lifted his head, and she peered through a fringe of lashes at his dark
gaze, intent upon her. “You… You make me… I’ve never…
” he whispered brokenly, in a manner wholly unlike his usual glib self. “Oh, hell,” he swore, and then he seized her again. He moved, and the world upended. Literally.

One moment Abigail was pressed up to the wall, the next she was dropping through space, Christian with her. The man possessed amazing reflexes, for in the span of that instant, he turned her to take the brunt of the fall himself. Abigail felt him land with a thud, his arms round her, and then they rolled, coming to a stop in sweet-smelling grass. Her head spinning, she thought at first that she was imagining another’s voice, crying out, but then she heard it again, and she knew she wasn’t dreaming—or alone.

“I say! What the devil?”

The voice, exceedingly loud, was impossible to ignore, and Abigail slowly opened her eyes to the sight of a pair of men’s feet. Men’s bare feet. Ugly, bare, men’s feet. Surely they weren’t Christian’s? Gulping in surprise, she followed the line of the toes, past a thick ankle to a pair of hairy, bandy legs and, thankfully, the hem of some sort of banyon.

“Abigail? Lord Moreland? By love!” Glancing just a bit higher, Abigail realized the bare feet, bandy legs, and banyon all belonged to her cousin, the elderly colonel, who
was standing before them clutching his robe in one hand and some sort of cudgel in the other.

Having identified them, the colonel apparently no longer saw the need for the makeshift weapon, so when he lowered it, Abigail took the opportunity to sit up. After attempting to smooth her disordered skirts, she lifted a hand to her head, only to recall that her hair was loose down her back, her pins gone. Her face flamed, and her only consolation was that the colonel’s was just as red.

“I say! I was just about to have a bath when I heard the most peculiar noises emanating from the hill here. Rather alarming, I must say.” He looked a bit sheepish as he put the cudgel, a rather hefty branch, to one side.

A bath? Abigail glanced about her and realized that they were in some sort of valley that apparently housed the Hall’s plunge bath. She vaguely remembered the solicitor pointing out the spot when giving her a tour of her property, but she had dismissed it, having no desire to trudge outside to cleanse herself. A small tub in her room suited her much better, thank you.

And well she had been proved in her decision, for now the colonel stood before them looking utterly ridiculous and indecently unclothed. As Abigail saw the folly that housed the bath nearby, she could only be thankful that they had not come upon the man ensconced in it! Of course, their own precipitous arrival had to look extremely odd to her cousin, and she tried to find some kind of suitable explanation.

It eluded her, however, and she simply stared blankly at the old gentleman while Lord Moreland rose to his feet, dusted himself off, and reached for her hand. With his help, Abigail managed to stand, but her legs were shaky, and she was far too aware of the warmth of his touch.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded swiftly, unable to meet his gaze.

“Nothing broken?”

Just my pride, Abigail thought, as she abruptly became
aware of the ramifications of the situation. She shook her head glumly.

“Very good,” he murmured, before turning to address her cousin. “I beg your pardon, Colonel! We had no intention of interrupting you, or indeed, coming outside at all, but we seem to have stumbled across a hidden passage in the Hall.”

“Really?” Completely disregarding his state of undress, the colonel was all curiosity, shuffling past her to peer into the blackness that they had but recently vacated.

“I say! I had no idea!” the old fellow marveled, though he evinced no interest in actually stepping into the opening.

“I suspect it is an old priest’s escape route,” Lord Moreland said. He swung round as if to study the area in which they now found themselves. “I would imagine it was already here, buried in that hill, when the plunge bath was built and was simply incorporated into the design. Perhaps for the purpose of midnight trysts,” he added, flashing a grin that made Abigail recoil.

Although seemingly amused by her reaction, Lord Moreland sobered as he turned back to the colonel. “However, if you don’t mind, I would prefer to keep the discovery of the passage among just the three of us.”

The colonel gave him a bewildered look.

“Part of my research and all that,” Lord Moreland explained, with an air of confidentiality.

“Oh! Of course!” the colonel said.

“Besides, the other cousins might worry, or take it upon themselves to have a look,” Lord Moreland said. “And I would hate to see anyone hurt or trapped. Why, we barely made it out ourselves.”

“I can see that!” the colonel said with a glance at their disheveled state. Although he seemed quite happy to accept that excuse, he was eyeing her hair a bit quizzically, and Abigail had no idea how to account for the loss of her pins— unless she claimed Sir Boundefort had plucked them out.

“
The place is quite narrow and low and frightfully confining,” Lord Moreland said, surprising her with the lie.

“Miss Parkinson’s hair was caught on a nail, and I, uh, lost my coat, as well.”

The explanation sounded feeble even to Abigail’s ears, but the colonel seemed to swallow the falsehoods with equanimity. “Dreadful business!” he muttered. “Ought to have the place shut up or blocked off!”

“Yes, of course, but in the meantime I think I shall try to close it myself,” Lord Moreland said. Ducking inside, he returned, thankfully wearing his coat, and proceeded to push the stone face into place with apparent ease. But then he did everything with ease, didn’t he? Abigail reflected.

Turning back toward them, he flashed a smile. “Now, we must be off, so as to close the other end of the passage and to allow you to continue your ablutions.”

The colonel, reminded of his state of undress, turned redfaced and pulled his banyon tighter around his body. “Yes, of course. Most unseemly.”

Abigail was glad to escape any further scrutiny from her cousin, but when she felt the light touch of Lord Moreland’s hand at her back, she drew in a ragged breath. Suddenly she wasn’t that eager to leave the area and her relative, no matter what he might think of her. The colonel’s company now seemed eminently preferable to being alone with Lord Moreland, considering what had gone on between them. Swallowing a groan of dismay, Abigail looked back with longing to where her cousin stood awkwardly by one of the pillars.

If the old fellow hadn’t been half naked, she would have rejoined him in an instant.

13

C
hristian headed toward
the nearest entrance to Sibel Hall, aware that he must close the opening to the passage before someone else stumbled upon it. However, his thoughts kept darting from the hiding place to what had happened there, and he felt a n
ew rush of heat and want and…
wonder. What else could he call it when the Governess who so often looked upon him with disappro
val, the woman who had once spurn
ed his advances, whispered his name in the darkness and became a lilac-scented creature of desire?

His heart thudding anew, Christian glanced at the woman beside him, half convinced he had imagined the whole thing, but her hair, tumbling down her back in glorious disarray, told a different tale. He grinned, pleased with his handiwork, then shook his head. He couldn’t believe how his previously dismal luck had turned, how the formerly standoffish Miss Parkinson had changed, or how incredibly passionate their encounter had been.

He was still hot. Just a whiff of lilac was enough to tighten his breeches, and he groaned as he shortened his stride. Beside him, Abigail wore a more circumspect expression, at odds with her rather wild coiffure, and he wondered how the devil he was going to prevent the Governess from reappearing. It was this woman, the one who had whispered his given name in the darkness, he wanted. Abigail.

What had caused her transformation? Christian wondered. All he could think was that his spectacles must be working, though he found the realization rather jarring. Holding the door open for her, he leaned forward to draw in a deep breath of her delectable scent. To hell with the passage. His immediate inclination was to haul her upstairs to his bed or at least somewhere where they could continue what they had begun.

But would a scholar do that? Christian frowned and forced his steps toward the open panel even as he wondered what course to take in this extraordinary s
ituation. A scholar would do…
what? Christian tried desperately to remember all he knew of studious types, but he could recall only how dreadfully boring they were.

“I, uh, really must repair my, uh, myself.” The sound of Abigail’s voice, low and breathless, brought Christian from his musings, and he glanced over to see her looking rather stricken as she tried to put her hair into some kind of coil.

“Here,” Christian heard himself saying as he pulled the lone hairpin from his pocket and held it out to her.

She smiled rather nervously, and he knew a fierce urge to keep h
er with him, perhaps forever…
only because once out of his sight, she might change back into the distant creature of scorn and rules and rigidity.

“Thank you, though I don’t think one will be much help,” she said. At least she took the pin, anchoring the heavy weight of her hair precariously at her neck, where it hung half unbound.

Christian swallowed hard, fighting the need to spread the silken strands across her breasts and rub his palms over their
softness. He sucked in a harsh breath. He wanted to rub her all over. Hell, he wanted to
lick
her all over, tasting every inch of the delicious bo
dy hidden beneath her dowdy gar
ments. Opening his mouth to say as much, Christian paused. A scholar would never say such a thing, he realized, and he grimaced, suddenly finding his new persona constricting. Far too constricting, as he gave a surreptitious tug at his breeches.

Having secured her hair, Abigail turned to go, and Christian frantically sought some way to stop her. Besides tossing her over his shoulder. “Wait,” he said, hurriedly shutting the passage entrance. “Did I close the way to the minstrel’s gallery, too?” he asked, uncertain. His mind was in a muddle, a lust-crazed delirium.

“I, uh, don’t remember,” she answered, in her Abigail voice. Low, soft, and so sensual it made Christian feel as though her hands were running over his body. If only they were. Gooseflesh rose as
he imagined himself naked and…

She eyed him uncertainly, and Christian shook his head. “Let’s make sure. Walk with me,” he said, inclining his head. He was afraid to touch her, afraid to scare her away, afraid, for once in his life, to take what he wanted. Should he say something about what had happened between them? Should he apologize? Hell, no! Not when he was aching to do it all over again.

What would a scholar do? Christian wondered rather desperately. For perhaps the first time in his confident existence, he was at a loss, so they moved along in silence that seemed to grow more uncomfortable by the moment. Although he had no idea how some studious type might behave, Christian was fairly certain this was not the way to hold any woman’s interest. When they finally reached the great hall, he poked his head into the unlocked room and saw that he had indeed pushed the cabinet back into place, where it hid the opening behind it.

When he returned to the great hall, Abigail lifted her brows in question, and he nodded while trying to think of
something—anything—to keep her with him. Should he drag her back into the darkness? Simply reach for her? But when he took a step forward, she took a step back, suddenly wary.

“I, uh, really should go,” she whispered.

“No!” Christian tried to put some order to his careening thoughts. How to stay her? Words of admiration? Words of love? Words of poetry? Christian balked. He wasn’t really a scholar-—or even a ghost router.

“That’s it,” he muttered to himself. Then he flashed a grin at Abigail, who eyed him uncertainly. “Before you go,” he said, intimating
that he would let her leave…
someday, “I wanted to remind you not to mention our little discovery to anyone else, including your relatives. And while we’re on the subject, I’d like to ask you a bit about them, as well.” Before she could refuse, Christian continued, assuming his most thoughtful expression. “Just how well do you know these cousins of yours? What can you tell me about them?”

Although she sounded surprised, Abigail answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “I had never met them, as I can recall, before my arrival here, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about them at all.”

Christian frowned. Not the answer he cared to hear. “They all lived here until the death of the previous owner, Mr. Bascomb Averill, your uncle?”

“Great-uncle,” Abigail amended. “And they weren’t all living here. I think the colonel has made Sibel Hall his home for some time, but Emery was just visiting, down from school, and as I understand it, Mercia simply came for the funeral.”

“And stayed on?” Christian prompted.

“Yes, well, you can hardly blame them,” Abigail said, though her expression seemed to belie her words. Christian had to struggle against an urge to kiss her practical yet luscious mouth.

“I know you are eager to sell the house, but should you succeed, what will become of them?”

“They each were left a small stipend in the will.”

“But they won’t be staying on here?” Christian prompted.

Abigail shook her head. “None of them has that kind of money, I’m certain. Nor have they evinced any interest in purchasing the house, no matter how attached they are to it.”

Christian paused, then strode across the tiles as he spoke. “So each of the three has either visited here before or even lived here and has some attachment to the place. And yet you are the one who now owns it.”

Abigail stiffened. “I was as surprised as anyone by the inheritance.”

“Obviously, your great-uncle had some good taste,” Christian said, flashing Abigail a grin that seemed to catch her by surprise—and put her back at ease. “Yet his choice would seem to cause some resentment among the other relatives, wouldn’t it?”

Abigail paused, as though to choose her words carefully. “I suspect they were as surprised as I was by the contents of the will, though I don’t think anyone could claim to have held Bascomb’s affections. However, if they are resentful of me, I have never seen any sign of it.”

“Still, it’s not a good situation,” Christian murmured, half to himself. “You are the one who will benefit from the sale of the house, yet someone is preventing you from doing so.”

“Someone or something,” Abigail amended.

“Perhaps,” Christian acknowledged, though he didn’t believe for one moment that anything otherworldly was responsible for Sibel Hall’s haunting.

As if reading his thoughts, Abigail looked at him quizzically. “But if it truly is not Sir Boundefort, then what could someone hope to gain by such nonsense?”

“I’m not sure, but I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.” Christian turned to her sharply. “If anything should happen to you, who would inherit?”

She blinked at him, as though astounded by the question. “Well, I have never had the need to make out a will, so I assume my next of kin, and, before you ask, I’m not sure who that would be.”

Christian swore under his breath. So far, nothing untoward had been directed at Abigail herself, simply the interested buyers, but what if whoever was behind those incidents decided to scare the lady of the house? Or worse? Christian’s dormant protective instincts rose to the fore, and he was seized by a sudden desire to take her away—from Sibel Hall, its resident ghost, and all her relatives.

But to where? He didn’t even have a home. Of course, he could take her to the family seat, but what would his grandfather say? Hell, the earl would probably welcome her with open arms. It was Christian who felt a certain uneasiness about the plan, the kind of uneasiness that came from sudden, irrevocable life change. Still, he was tempted, driven by a need to keep her safe, above all else.

He opened his mouth to make the suggestion, only to shut it again. One look at Abigail’s face told him she would never leave. The woman was nothing if not
resolute, an admirable trait…
sometimes. Christian frowned. “Do you have a firearm?”

Abigail arched a lovely brow. “Am I supposed to shoot the ghost or my relatives?” she asked, displaying the acerbic wit that Christian appreciated more fully when it wasn’t directed at himself.

He answered her sardonic look with a grim one, well aware of the role reversal. “I am serious. What if our specter, whoever or whatever it is, decides that you’re standing in his way, that you’re expendable? I don’t like the idea of you running around here, revealing yourself to some unknown assailant at every turn, without any way to defend yourself.”

“Who says I can’t defend myself?” she retorted.

Christian sighed. Wh
y was the woman so damned diffi
cult? Before he could argue, she turned toward the wall of weapons and removed one of the decorative swords from its perch. Did she think to defend herself with that? Christian
burst out laughing, though his laughter died away when she brought the point to his throat.

“You find me amusing?” she asked, her lips curled into a challenging smile that made his blood heat. The Governess as swordsman? Would she ever cease to amaze him? With a grin, Christian dragged the other foil from its place and prepared to put her in her place. Or at least show her a few tricks.

Flourishing the blade, he bowed low, both his confidence and his excitement high. Abigail chose that moment to hike her skirts so as to widen her stance, and all Christian could do was gape as the gown inched upward. Although the elegant fashions that women wore often hid a wealth of defects, that was not the case here. Abigail’s ankles were small and well turned, and the sight of her shapely calves made Christian break out in a sweat. To some degree he was aware that this glimpse of Abigail’s lower limbs was arousing him far more powerfully than the naked forms of his last three mistresses, but that awareness did not stop him from staring, transfixed, his body responding accordingly.

Only the slap of her foil against his own jarred him from his stupor. Startled, he looked at her face, finding it flushed and smiling as she lunged, easily knocking aside his nonexistent defense. He rallied even as he admired her skill, her form, her grace, but most of all the expression of triumph on her face, along with something he had never seen there before. Delight. Freedom. Exhilaration. Christian realized he was faltering again, so enamored was he of his opponent, and he struggled to deflect her surprisingly effective attacks.

Sh
e was skilled and aggressive…
and distracting. He would give her that. In the end his strength would prevail, but in the meantime he was thoroughly enjoying himself. He had never fenced with a woman before, and he found the experience thrilling. And stimulating. Already he was considering the boon he would demand when he e
ventually won this little match…

As if well aware of his lack of concentration, Abigail
lunged. Damn, but the woman kept him on his toes. And well entertained. Christian laughed in pure pleasure as she repelled a particularly well-placed attack. She was laughing as well, her face flushed a delicate rose, her hair loose about her in a dark, inviting tangle. Christian wanted to throw down his weapon for another, taking her right here on the old dais in a mess of skirts and half-undone clothing. Who was this woman, and why had he never met anyone like her before?

Christian nearly asked the question aloud. Instead, he said, “Where did you learn to fence?”

Abigail smiled. “I made my father give me lessons after y—,” she began, only to stop suddenly, as though she had said too much. Her defense faltered, but she came back even more forcefully. “I begged my parents for lessons, and my father, being unable to stand my pestering, finally gave in, although Mother was against it.”