Amanda Scott (12 page)

“I do know your books now,” she said, “for ’tis noted that they are written by the author of
Cymbeline Sheridan
.”

“Aye, so now you must agree that I know what I’m talking about when I tell you young ladies don’t want to be reading about a heroine past her prime. They want a young woman, innocent in the ways of the world, to be saved by a properly virtuous hero from an utterly wicked villain. They want ghosts and gypsies, princes and dukes, gloomy castles, dark woods, snow-white horses, and magic potions. Damme, if they don’t!”

“But none of those are real,” Nell protested. “I must tell you, sir, that I have been reading a most amusing tale lent to me by Aunt Flavia, called
Emma
, about ordinary people doing ordinary things. The author, a Miss Austen, writes about the sort of people she sees each day, doing things they really do, and her skill is such that she makes the reader laugh at their foibles right along with her.”

“Yes, yes, I know the muck you mean,” he said impatiently, “though she’s been dead now nigh onto two years, so I expect you think I ought to speak kindly. But I can tell you, her work won’t last. Think about it! Pokes fun at persons of rank, she does, the very ones most likely to pay out good coin for the books. Oh, folks read them, but their interest will pass, and you’ll do well to remember, miss, that my books—nearly all of them about lovely young heroines marching innocently from one peril to the next—are vastly more successful than hers. Why, if she made even a third as much money in all her life as I’ve made on
Cymbeline Sheridan
alone, I shall own myself astonished!”

“Well,” Nell said, stirred by his arrogant tone to argue the point, “I think her story more interesting than this, sir.” She tapped the stack of paper in her lap, adding frankly, “Aside from disbelieving the existence of such absurdities as magic potions and dark, gloomy castles, I tell you to your head that in this day and age, any girl who sits waiting for a virtuous prince on a white horse to ride to her rescue will most likely end her days as a decaying spinster.”

“And how old are you, Miss Bradbourne?”

There was a silence before Nell said grimly, “Old enough to know when someone is attempting to divert me from my point, sir, but such a tactic will not serve. You have hired me—at a very good wage, I might add—to help you get this story written.”

“But not to write it,” he snapped, his face turning an alarming shade of red as he struggled to sit up straight in the bed. “I agreed to attempt this idiotic plan, but I shall end it instantly if you mean to insinuate your own simpleminded ideas into
my
story, miss.”

Appalled as much by the way she had allowed herself to speak to him as by a reaction that could not in any way benefit his health, Nell ruthlessly stifled indignation to say, “You are quite right to remind me that I have no experience in such matters, sir, and that it is not my business to be telling you what I think. I must apologize and hope you can forgive me.”

“Poppycock!” His blue eyes blazed. “You don’t fool me! No woman with a head of hair like yours ever spoke mealy-mouthed inanities with any sincerity whatever, and that’s plain fact. If you’ve got something to say, say it, but don’t prattle rubbishing apologies to me. I won’t believe a word of ’em!”

“But I do apologize, and most sincerely, for causing you distress, sir.” She glanced at Borland to see that he was poised on the edge of his chair, and forced a calmer note into her voice when she added, “I often speak before I think, which is a sad fault in me and one I have frequently struggled to overcome.”

“’Tis something, I suppose, that you don’t declare yourself proud to speak your mind,” he said, and she was glad to see the manservant settle back again. “Can’t abide folks who call it a virtue whenever they speak what comes into their heads. Never met one yet who appreciated that same virtue in anyone else. Daresay I never will, human nature being what it is. I’ll wager that if you were to speak the truth to me now, you’d say you don’t think this work is near as good as
Cymbeline Sheridan
.”

“No, sir,” Nell said quietly. When he did not reply, when it seemed, in fact, that he had lapsed into a silence of despair, she roused herself to add, “Since you have written many wonderful books, sir—so wonderful that his highness, the Regent, wants you to dedicate this one to him—I cannot believe you would thank me if I were to continue merely to write down what you tell me, when I know that you are not happy with the result. Nevertheless, I have no right to speak my mind if you dislike it, and certainly I never meant to say as much as I did.”

“You’re a damned impertinent young woman,” he muttered. “I don’t want to see your face again today.” He sounded tired. As he turned his face to the wall, he added curtly, “Get her out of here, Borland.”

Rising with dignity to her feet, Nell said, “I am perfectly capable of removing myself, sir. Is it your intention to give notice that my services are no longer required?”

There was no answer.

She glanced at Borland, whose eyes rolled up toward the ceiling as though he hoped to gain assistance from above. When his glance met hers again, she smiled ruefully, and he got to his feet, shaking his head. He made no move to approach the bed.

Placing her notebook in the satchel she used to carry her things, she shook her skirt out with her free hand and turned to leave the room, moving with care so that the figure in the bed should not know how much his reaction had discomposed her. But once she was safely on the other side of the door, she expelled a long breath and let her body sag against the wall, closing her eyes and wishing she could as easily shut out the lingering echoes of her hasty tongue and his angry response. She stood like that for a long moment before straightening, then turned toward the stair and walked straight into Manningford.

His strong hands grasped her upper arms to steady her, and his breath stirred the curls beneath her flimsy lace cap when he said quietly, “A bad day, Nell?”

She felt warmth flooding her cheeks at the thought of the picture she must present to him. Straightening quickly and attempting without success to step away from him, she forced her gaze to meet his, realizing that he must have been in the study with the door open, and crossed the carpet on silent feet, for she had heard nothing to warn her of his approach.

She had no wish to speak to him there, lest their voices be overheard to the further distress of Sir Mortimer, in the room behind her; yet she found it impossible to move away from him as long as he continued to hold her, and he seemed not to realize that she wished to move. The warmth of his hands on her arms was disconcerting, his nearness more so. It was not, of course, the first time she had stood so near a gentleman, or been so near to him, for she had been seeing him every day for nearly three weeks without becoming shy in his presence, so why his nearness now should disorder her senses was a mystery. Nonetheless, she could neither seem to find her tongue, nor the strength to disengage herself from his embrace.

“Perhaps we should step into the study,” he said.

“No!” Glancing at the door behind her, she looked back at him in mute appeal, grateful beyond measure when he took her meaning swiftly, stood aside, and let her precede him to the stairway. By the time they had reached the floor below, Nell had regained her customary composure and was able to accompany him into the library without another distressing thought.

The room had become a favorite retreat for her. Its windows, draped in peach-colored velvet a shade darker than the white-molding-trimmed walls and several shades lighter than the carpet, looked out over the crescent and the magnificent panorama beyond. A Chippendale bureau bookcase that filled the wall opposite the fireplace, and a pair of secretary bookcases that flanked its white-marble mantle, were loaded with books of the sort she most enjoyed reading, books that Manningford had told her from the first day she might take away to read if she liked. She had spent a number of hours here while Sir Mortimer napped, which he did at least once a day, for now that there were servants in the house again, there was always a cheerful fire to welcome her, and no one disturbed her unless she rang the bell.

The chamber was not only comfortably furnished but elegant as well, although it was a rather decayed elegance, for Nell would have staked her best gown on the likelihood that it had not been refurbished in a decade. Noting that Manningford had very prudently left the door ajar, she moved to one of a pair of wing chairs facing the fireplace and took a seat there, looking into the fire and letting her body relax.

“What happened?” he asked. “I collect that he is in one of his twittier moods today.”

She looked at him ruefully. “It was entirely my fault, sir. I spoke out of turn, and he became angry with me. I am sure it can have done him no good.”

“Well, if we are to fret every time he loses his temper, we shall all of us soon be fit for Bedlam. I’ll wager he’s lost it at least once a week these past twenty years and more, for he has never been noted for his even temper.”

That drew a smile from her. “No,” she said, “but the doctor insists that he must not be distressed, and I …”

“You distressed him,” Manningford said flatly. “What did you say?”

“All that I ought not to have said, I fear. I had the temerity to criticize his writing. You ought to have told me that he wrote
Cymbeline Sheridan
, sir. I had no idea!”

“Nor did I,” Manningford said. “Did he indeed write it? I am scarcely bookish, but I have certainly heard of that one.”

“Well, I should think you must have done,” she said. “A person must have been raised in a monastery not to have done so, and I collect that you went to a perfectly ordinary school.”

“I doubt the lads at Eton would appreciate your description, but I’ll not quibble over it.”

She shot him a saucy look. “My brother went to Harrow, sir, so you will not be surprised that I have long been given to look upon Eton as a vastly inferior sort of school.”

“We don’t think much of Harrow either. You said once that he and I are alike. Tell me about him.”

“Oh, you are not really so much alike as I first thought,” she said, adding quickly, “He is presently in France, in any case, and you once said that to talk of one’s family is boring, did you not?” Biting her lip, she added, “I ought never to have criticized your father, sir. It was badly done of me.”

“Nonsense,” he said, adding, “My sister and her husband are in France, too, in Paris, to be exact. If your brother is doing the fancy, ’tis likely he will encounter them there.”

“I shouldn’t think so. Nigel prefers gaming to dancing.” She didn’t add that she thought he would be apt to stay away from anyone likely to know his history, but she was aware of a certain amount of strain in her voice, and she was not surprised when she looked up at Manningford to see that his eyes had narrowed. He did not press her, however, and after a brief silence, merely suggested that she might like some refreshment.

“A pot of tea, perhaps?”

“Only if you want something yourself, sir. I ought to go home. Sir Mortimer said he will not need me again today.”

“I heard what he said,” Manningford said. “I’ll ring, shall I? I wouldn’t turn down a glass of the old man’s Madeira.”

When he had turned away to tug the bell cord, she said in a small voice, “You heard him?”

“Just the bit where he told Borland to get you out of there.” He moved to the second wing chair and stood beside it, his right hand lightly resting on the chair back as he looked down at her. “He must have been speaking more loudly than usual or directly at the wall between the two rooms. Generally, you know, one hears only a murmur of voices in the study. I think you’d better tell me the whole, don’t you? You cannot fear that I’d take you to task, after all.”

“I have told you,” she said, not thinking it necessary to assure him that she did not fear him in the least. “Oh, not the details, but the important part, that the writing is difficult for him, and that he has no respect for my opinion. There is no reason that he should have, of course. I have no skills to speak of—certainly, my scribbles are nothing great—but I have read any number of books, for there was frequently nothing else to do at home.” She smiled at him. “I don’t know why I tell you this, you know, for it has nothing to do with the problem at hand. I merely told your papa that I thought he ought to make a change or two in his story and he became out of reason cross. I cannot blame him. I must have seemed intolerably impertinent.”

One of the two footmen who had been engaged entered just then, and Manningford turned toward him and gave the order for tea and wine to be served to them, saying nothing further until the man had gone away again. Then, sitting down in the wing chair, he said gently, “How bad is it, this book of his?”

Nell hesitated, then gathered her courage and looked him straight in the eye. “If I were to tell you that I know I could write a better one, would that tell you how dreadful it is?”

He did not answer her at once, and when he did, his words were not what she had expected them to be. “Do it,” he said.

“I beg your pardon.”

“You heard me. How long would it take you to write out a fair copy of what there is so far, altering it to suit yourself?”

“Why, I cannot say. I have thought about it, you know, ever since I read over what he had done before I began to help. It is disjointed and rough, but the plot is sound and the comical bits delightfully amusing, so I found myself wanting to alter first one thing, then another. I daresay, in such a case, one always believes one’s own way is superior. Of course, I know nothing about writing for publication, so your father will undoubtedly suffer another fit if I should even attempt such a thing.”

“Then we shan’t tell him.”

“Pray, do not be absurd, sir. How can we not?”

After a moment’s thought, he said, “Does he think the work he has done so far is up to his usual standard?”

“No,” she replied. Indeed, he has said as much to me. His weakness and his inability to make his mind behave as he wants it to, both seem to distress him very much.”