Once an Innocent (11 page)

He started to say,
It isn’t safe
, but was saved from revealing too much by a sharp knock at the door, followed immediately by the entrance of Fitzhugh Ditman with their harried butler, Weston, fast on his heels.

“My lord,” Weston cried, “I told him you were busy, but he barged past!”

“A word, Freese.” Ditman cut his eyes to Clara, then back to Jordan. The mud splatters on his boots and cloak indicated he’d not taken the time to change since his arrival. “It’s urgent.”

Jordan nodded. “If you’ll excuse us, Clara. I’ll see you at supper.”

Clara treated him to a mocking curtsy. “As you say, my lord.” Her voice was treacly sweet, but he read annoyance in her eyes. He’d not been in the house ten minutes and already, his wounded-feelings tally was up to two.

When they were alone, Jordan took in the intense lines of his friend’s posture. “What is it, Fitz?”

“I stopped at the tavern as I passed through Lintern Village,” he said. “Thought I’d get a feel for where we stood.”

Jordan frowned. “And?”

Ditman shook his head. “Bad news. Two Frenchmen were in the village yesterday, making inquiries about Lintern Abbey, wanting to know whether or not you were in residence. They’re here.”

• • •

After depositing Aunt Janine in her room, Lady Kaitlin led Naomi to the next room over. It was a very pleasant bedchamber. Ivy-patterned wallpaper and vases of late-summer blooms made the room feel like its own secluded garden. Naomi pulled aside the curtain. Her window overlooked the east garden, which featured pretty little puffs of lavender contained in a grid by a low hedge. Box cones stood at regular intervals along the walk, green sentinels at attention.

“Does the room suit, my lady?” Lady Kaitlin’s voice was timid and still hovered in the timbre of girlhood.

Naomi turned around and smiled. “It suits me well, thank you. His lordship has a lovely home. I should very much like to see more of it.”

Now, where had that sudden enthusiasm come from? Naomi frowned inwardly as she realized that it was true. The tiny portion of Lintern Abbey she had seen pleased her immensely. She could not understand Lord Freese’s dismay at his own home.

Kaitlin smiled shyly. “I should like that, as well, my lady. I didn’t grow up here, you see. This is my first visit to Lintern Abbey.”

“What do you think of it so far?”

The younger girl’s eyes lit up. “Oh, it’s
marvelous!”
she declared. “Jordan is the very best of brothers, and I knew he must have the very best of homes. We only arrived yesterday, you see, so I haven’t seen much, either. What I have seen is grand, though, just grand!”

Naomi found Kaitlin’s zeal infectious. She grinned as the girl continued her animated praise of the estate and its master.

“There are ruins nearby,” Kaitlin said, “of the abbey that used to be here. I suppose that’s why the estate is still called Lintern Abbey. It’s so very clever of Jordan to have his very own ruins. I can’t think of anything more romantic.”

Chuckling, Naomi wondered whether Kaitlin believed Jordan to have hung the moon in the sky, as well.
Probably
, she thought. She’d once been a young girl, too, who’d worshiped her older brothers.

“That
is
exceedingly clever of Lord Freese,” she agreed. “Perhaps we can explore the ruins together.”

Kaitlin nodded her eager acceptance. Naomi liked the girl already. She was bright and well comported for a child of … what? Thirteen or fourteen, Naomi supposed. Just on the cusp of womanhood. She couldn’t imagine what had sparked Jordan’s earlier fury at finding this inoffensive girl in his house. Most peculiar.

In the corridor, a pair of ladies passing by stopped. “Oh, hello,” said one. Her large figure filled most of the doorway. “You must be our late arrivals,” the woman said. “I’m Gertrude Price.”

Lady Kaitlin gestured. “This is Lady Naomi Lockwood.”

Naomi nodded. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Price.”

The woman bobbed a curtsy. “Likewise. Please call me Trudy. My friends do, and I’m sure we shall all be friends before long.” She giggled and shrugged, a blush deepening her ruddy complexion. “I do so love a house party, don’t you? Oh!” she exclaimed. “I nearly forgot Miss Elton.”

She retrieved her companion, as frail and pale as Miss Price was robust and healthy. “Lady Naomi, this is Miss Elton.”

“My lady,” breathed Miss Elton. The young woman curtsied, and for a moment, Naomi worried she would collapse with exhaustion. Then she straightened. “It’s so … diverting … I always say. To expand one’s acquaintance.” She spoke slowly, pausing every few words to draw a deep breath.

“It is indeed, Miss Elton,” Naomi replied. “I am very glad to have made yours. I hope we shall have the opportunity to speak again soon.”

Miss Price looped her arm through Miss Elton’s. It looked as though the former’s limb could snap the latter’s in two with a minimal degree of effort. “We shall leave you to settle in, my lady,” Miss Price said. “Until supper. Oh!” she exclaimed again. Naomi wondered if it wasn’t just her habit to amend her statements with such enthusiastic addendums. “You must introduce us to your gentlemen, as well. Don’t forget!” With a waggle of her fingers, Miss Price led Miss Elton on down the corridor.

“Our gentlemen?” Naomi mused out loud.

“All the ladies have come with one gentleman,” Lady Kaitlin explained. “Except for you and Lady Janine, that is.”

Naomi frowned. “Pairs? Everyone? Are there no families?”

Lady Kaitlin bit her lip and furrowed her brow. “No, my lady, I don’t believe so. There is Mr. Wood and Miss Wood, his sister. Mr. and Mrs. Richard. Lord Herrick brought his sister, Lady Griffiths. She’s a widow. Well,” she said, blushing, “you see what I mean.”

Naomi did, and it was still in her mind when she and Aunt Janine went down to supper. The guests assembled in a parlor and mingled over glasses of claret.

She detected a current of unease cutting through the conversation. “I would like to introduce you to my cousin,” said a Miss Hunt. “But Mr. Bates seems to have found some sudden business in the village.” She frowned. “Oh, well,” she said with a dismissive laugh. “Whatever it is must be quite urgent. Mr. Bates does important work for the government and is sometimes called away at a moment’s notice.”

The gentlemen surrounding them all fell silent and turned to look at Miss Hunt and then glanced at one another. Naomi was grossly uneasy, but Miss Hunt seemed oblivious to all the attention she’d attracted.

“How … unfortunate,” Naomi said slowly, “that he’s been called away so … suddenly.” She was acutely aware that no fewer than five gentlemen she did not know were all honed in on her conversation. “What kind of work does your cousin do, Miss Hunt?”

One gentleman erupted into a fit of coughing, and another slapped him on the back and called for a glass of water.

During the disruption, a man stepped between Naomi and Miss Hunt. “Please permit me to introduce myself, my lady,” he said, “Robert Elton, at your service.” He pressed a hand to his chest and bowed deeply. Behind him, she saw Miss Hunt had been drawn away into another group’s conversation.

“Are you, by any chance, related to Miss Elton?” Naomi asked the man.

He nodded and smiled self-consciously around overlarge front teeth. “Miss Elton is my sister. Have you met?”

“We have been introduced … ” Naomi’s voice trailed off as she caught sight of Lord Freese walking around the perimeter of the sitting room. Lady Whithorn moved beside him, speaking in a low voice, a vexed expression on her face.

She excused herself from Mr. Elton and hurried to her hostess. “Pardon me, Lady Whithorn.”

Lord Freese and his stepmother paused. The large male raised a brow as he held Naomi’s gaze. Awareness built between them until Naomi blushed, sure everyone in the room could see it pulsing in the air. She jerked her attention to Lady Whithorn. “My lady, is there anything I might do to be of service?”

The countess smiled and patted Naomi’s hand. “Thank you, Lady Naomi, but I’m afraid not, unless you happen to have stowed away three gentlemen you can bring out for supper.” She cast an annoyed glance at her stepson, whose face was a mask of innocence. “It seems three of our guests are indisposed for various reasons. Now there are not enough men to escort all the ladies in to supper.”

“What about Mr. Ditman?” Naomi asked. “He was a late addition to the party, was he not? There’s one spare gentleman for you.”

“Mr. Ditman?” Lady Whithorn frowned and glanced around the parlor. “Is that the man who barged in earlier, Jordan? I don’t recall seeing his name on the guest list.”

Jordan’s attention had wandered. He stared intently at the parlor door until his stepmother said his name. “Hmm? Yes, Ditman. Bumped into him by happy chance just yesterday and invited him to join the party. He’s an old friend. From Spain. In fact … Fitz!” he called, waving the gentleman over.

Mr. Ditman bowed to Lady Whithorn while Lord Freese made the introduction. When he straightened, their hostess gasped. “Oh, sir!” she exclaimed, clearly startled by Mr. Ditman’s scar. “Forgive my forwardness,” she said, “but how can this be? I did not notice this earlier, but … ” Her hand tentatively rose toward Mr. Ditman’s face; she snatched it back.

“It was my great honor to fight alongside Lord Freese, my lady,” Mr. Ditman said.

“And it was our equally great misfortune to run up against the same French bloke who had a dab hand with the bayonet,” Lord Freese quipped.

“I thought it was a saber.” Naomi didn’t realize she’d voiced her musing aloud until the others looked her way. Flustered, she said, “This morning, my lord, you said your and Mr. Ditman’s injuries came from a saber blade.”

“Did I?” he said smoothly. “Perhaps I misspoke. It was a bayonet.”

Mr. Ditman shook his head. “I recall it as being a saber, Freese. But then,” he turned his hard eyes on Naomi, “one blade looks much the same as another at such close range. All you can make out is the gleaming point of steel whistling toward your head.” He slashed a finger through the air near Naomi’s cheek. She flinched and took an involuntary step closer to Jordan. “Uncertainty and chaos are the order of the day on the battlefield, Lady Naomi. Women love to hear tales of their gallant heroes’ exploits, but truth is hard to come by where war is involved. Attempting to pin down details as inconsequential as the nature of the implement Lord Freese and I each met is an exercise in futility, so I suggest you desist.”

A muscle in his temple twitched, jerking the upper end of his scar.

Cold tendrils slid down her chest and spread through her middle. She could not feel easy around this man; no matter he had fought as bravely as Lord Freese and thus deserved her approbation. “I beg your pardon, sir. I meant no impertinence.”

His lips twisted in a mocking smile.

“Please think nothing of it, Lady Naomi,” Lord Freese interjected. He fired a glance at his friend before looking back to her. “Of course, you meant no offense, and none is taken. By either of us,” he added with a hint of finality.

Naomi was grateful for his intervention. He seemed to have a knack for coming to her aid just when she found herself in over her head.

The butler — Weston, she recalled — announced supper.

“Bosh! I still haven’t sorted out who shall escort whom,” Lady Whithorn despaired.

“I’m sure no one cares how we convey ourselves to the dining room,” Lord Freese drawled, “so long as a meal awaits us when we arrive.”

It was all finally sorted out, with a few gentlemen escorting two ladies. There was nothing to be done for the seating arrangement, however, leaving some ladies to sit side by side. Naomi sat at Lady Whithorn’s left hand at the foot of the table.

At the head of the table, Lord Freese seemed distracted. He sawed his meat more than the tender cutlet required. He laughed when his immediate companions had made no jest. Though he wore his typical smile and spread it around liberally, there was a brittle quality to it this evening. He repeatedly glanced at the doors.

There was no window in the room, and Naomi remembered what he’d told her earlier about detesting the feeling of confinement. Was he confined here, she wondered, in his own home? By his own guests?

His eyes found hers, and a flicker of awareness passed between them. Naomi was unsettled by her body’s immediate response — the quickening of her pulse, the knot in her belly. Yet she kept her head and nodded politely. Surely, it was nothing for a guest to turn her eyes upon her host from time to time?

“Lord Freese has always been more like a younger sibling to me than a stepson,” the countess remarked. The lady looked sophisticated in a dark green evening gown and elegantly dressed hair. She leaned slightly toward Naomi, amusement crinkling the skin around her eyes.

Naomi realized her hostess had noticed the lingering gaze she and Lord Freese had shared, and blushed. “Perhaps you regard him so because you are nearly the same age,” Naomi suggested.

The countess laughed. “Not quite. And please call me Clara. May I call you Naomi?” At her nod of assent, Clara smiled. “There are little more than ten years separating me and Jordan. I’m too young to be his mother, but closer in age to him than to my husband. It made for an interesting family dynamic in the early years of my marriage.”

Clara’s gaze slid over Naomi’s shoulder, focusing on nothing in particular. “For a while, I tried to be his mother, but a spirited boy of fourteen was not about to have any of it. I finally contented myself just being his friend.” Her eyes came back to Naomi’s. “That arrangement has served us very well. Peace has reigned in our family for fifteen years. The earl and the viscount have a relationship founded on mutual respect. Jordan is a loving, if rather absent, brother to Kate, and he sometimes seeks my advice. Whether or not he listens to it is another matter.” Her wry smile faded as her voice dropped. “But this party of his is something else. Only a moment after you all arrived, Jordan humiliated his sister and then berated me. Something here is upsetting my family’s peace, and I do not care for it.”

She held Naomi’s gaze for a long moment. So, long, in fact, that Naomi began to feel scrutinized. “I’m sorry, my lady — Clara — if I have in any way contributed — ”