Patricia Rice (4 page)

He glared at her and began pacing, until he smacked
his shin on a low table and nearly stumbled over her writing desk. Her
father had sought to please her by buying her things. She’d about run
out of places to put them. In any case this man would be too large for
any room he entered.

With an exceedingly masculine growl, he retreated to
the fireplace, where he leaned against the mantel and all but barked at
her.

“I need a place to keep the children while I’m waiting for my ship.”

Well, he could tarry all he liked—somewhere else.
She had enough problems of her own. Beatrice dared to stare at him while
she waited for him to realize she had nothing to offer. He had a
piercing way of looking at her that made her feel bubbly inside, but she
refused to let that daunt her. She was safe here, in the protection of
her own lovely home. And he was a rude, crude, uncouth stranger who
shouldn’t expect anything.

“I need a nursemaid,” he clarified, with some urgency.

Perhaps... if he needed a nursemaid as desperately as she needed...

He did, if his look of agitation meant anything.
Despite his rumpled appearance, her visitor wore a gentleman’s clothes.
She recognized the richness of the embroidery on his satin waistcoat and
the fashionable cut of London tailoring. Gentlemen should know of
estate management.

Bea took a deep breath and let the notion spill out before she could reconsider. “I need a teacher of estate management.”

“You’re in need of an estate manager?” he asked with polite curiosity, apparently startled by her sudden change of topic.

“A teacher,” she said as firmly as she was able.

“A teacher?” he asked, incredulous.

“A teacher of estate management,” she confirmed.

“A teacher.” He didn’t look pleased.

Casting him a sidelong glance, she could tell by the
way his jaw muscle twitched that he was appalled at the idea, as any
man would be, she supposed. She should know better than to believe in
miracles.

He grimaced and ran a hand over his face. “I’m not a
teacher. I’m a businessman. But I’ve worked my father’s plantation and
have some grasp of land management, although you’ve an entirely
different set of circumstances here.”

Beatrice pressed her hands against the knot in her
stomach and tried not to leap to conclusions. She couldn’t pay him, but
she didn’t dare say that aloud.

Every able-bodied person in the village would pack
up and leave if they knew she could not pay her bills. She nodded, as if
she understood where he was leading.

He clenched and unclenched one great fist, pounding
it impatiently on the mantel. “You’re a woman. You should know what the
children need. Give us a place to stay, and I’ll take a look around, see
what I can do, maybe have my agent in London find you an estate manager
who can look after things.”

“I want a teacher,” she said decisively. His
assumption that she could deal with his children was laughable. As if
she knew any more of babies than she did of estate management.

“I’m not a teacher.” He glared at her again. “You
can tell me what you want done, and I can tell you how I’d do it. That’s
the best I can offer.”

Her stomach clenched and hope trembled. “In exchange for room and board?”

“And nursemaids for the children.”

She’d wanted a miracle, but now that one had walked
in her door, she was suspicious of its origins. Why would a man like
this—even an uncouth American—offer to help in exchange for room and
board?

She was a fool to agree.

She would be a fool not to.

Oh, my
. Could she do this?
What would the curate say? And the Misses Miller? She would be the talk
of the town. He hadn’t even promised to teach her.

But he wouldn’t stay long, so he couldn’t run all over her like another man might.

And his fingers were clenched as tightly as hers, his frown just as anxious.

Taking a deep breath, Bea nodded. “You may have the
steward’s cottage. Mary has experience with children. She will look
after them while we work.”

Butterflies danced in her belly, stirred by a
dangerous gleam in his eye. So, she was nervous. She squeezed her
fingers against the flutter.

She had the niggling suspicion that she might have just made a deal with the devil.

The bright light of interest in his eyes confirmed it.

With Mr. Warwick and his children duly ensconced in
their new abode, Beatrice returned to the task at hand—finding the funds
to pay the staff. Hiring someone to haul off her modish furniture would
throw the town into spasms of despair and wouldn’t pay the bank note,
in any case. She ran her fingers lovingly over the piano keys while her
cousin waited impatiently. Selling the instrument would be the last
thing she would do.

Digby had discreetly sold the best silverware
without asking questions. Perhaps she might disguise the disappearance
of other pieces, if only to pay the servants. “We must sell the silver
epergne, James, or at least the coffee set.” Saying the words to the
accompaniment of Mozart wasn’t quite so difficult.

“Oh, never the epergne,” James wailed with a
dramatic flinging of his gloved hand to his forehead. “We will be
ruined, completely
ruined
.”

Beatrice bit back a smile at his antics. She never
knew what role he would play next—he’d just imitated Clara Miller to a
fare-thee-well. She wished she could be as... as free to emote as James.

The lulling melody beneath her fingers turned to a
rollicking comedy she’d heard at a Punch and Judy show. She’d never
learned to look at servants as creatures beneath her dignity. She was
curious about a cousin who insisted on working for wages. But she was
too shy to ask for more than he was willing to impart, and James dodged
delicate inquiries with the grace of a gazelle.

Now that Nanny was gone, James was the only person
in the village to treat her like a friend. He had been the only one
audacious enough to offer her a shoulder to cry on the night her father
died. They’d wept buckets together. She couldn’t part with him despite
his absurdities.

She supposed she must maintain some semblance of
authority. “It’s sell the epergne, or sacrifice your allowance and forgo
the pleasure of buying more gold buttons this quarter,” she said
sternly, looking up from the piano keys.

James had designed his outrageous coat himself, and
he’d insisted on the powdered wig as well. The pretentious ensemble
might be all the rage in London, but she thought it seriously out of
place here.

He sobered and stiffened his spine and shoulders. “You cannot possibly sell the epergne in the village. It would be a disgrace.”

“Not to mention an impossibility,” she murmured. The
village had no jeweler or silversmith. “You will have to take it into
Cheltenham, as Digby did.”

“Digby is old and wears black and looks the part of a
gentleman. The storekeepers would brand me a thief,” James declared.
“Besides, I simply cannot wear black,” he concluded, as if this were
argument enough. He shuddered eloquently. “I would look a carrion crow.”

“Thank you very much,” she said dryly, glancing down at her own black bombazine.

“Oh, but black becomes you,” James insisted. “I do envy you your coloring.”

Well, he was the only one. Rusty hair and ghostly skin struck her as exceedingly boring, not to mention unfashionable.

He was diverting the subject. She crossed her hands
on top of the keys with a resounding crash. “You must wear black and
look dignified and go to Cheltenham, James. We have no choice. Mr. Digby
is busy opening the inn, and I cannot impose on him anymore. You must
stand in his place.”

James quit fussing with his buttons to look at her directly. “No, cousin, it’s time
you
learned to go about in the world. You cannot hide away in this
backwater forever. If you are to keep this household afloat, you must
find a husband, and it cannot be done here, unless you mean to court
that uncouth American. Selling the silver won’t help.”

All the resolution flooded out of her, and Beatrice
slumped. At the moment, she couldn’t even muster indignation that he
thought she couldn’t manage on her own. James was
always
right, drat his painted and powdered hide.

She’d never been outside of Broadbury in her life.

Which was worse—the thought of venturing outside her sheltered world, or the thought of courting an uncouth American?

Her mouth going dry as she thought of the scowl on
the giant’s handsome face, she wondered where she could find the funds
to hire a driver for her barouche.

***

“What the devil do you do with all these horses?”
Striding through the towering stone barn after dinner, passing stall
after stall of expensive, idle beasts eating their worth in hay, Mac
couldn’t conceal his disgust at the waste.

“I sold the jumpers,” Miss Cavendish answered coldly, her many layers of petticoats stirring the dust.

“Then what the hell are all these pretty things?” he
demanded, gesturing toward half a dozen fine-boned mares. “Not plow
horses, I wager.”

“Carriage horses. My father had the finest in the
shire.” Pride tinged her normally reticent voice. “And we’re here to
discuss the leaky roof, not the animals.”

Right
. This wasn’t his
estate. He’d just bite his tongue, and not question what wasn’t his.
Obviously English nobles didn’t possess the same frugal instincts as
wealthy Americans. He glared upward at the medieval abomination she
called a roof. “The damned barn is made of stone,” he exclaimed in
disgust. “Why the devil does it still have a thatched roof when it can
support tile?”

“Your language,” she protested, stepping away from him and toward the doors.

He wanted to shout
Damn my language
!
and blister her for stupidity as if she were one of his men. With
difficulty, he tried to remember: teachers did not berate their
students, especially not noble ladies who were too polite to curse back.

He’d better start practicing proper etiquette if he hoped to hide Marilee’s children for the next few weeks.

“My apologies,” he said gruffly, stalking past
stalls of carriage horses, riding horses, and even a plow horse or two.
She couldn’t fix the roof, but she kept up with her wealthy neighbors.
He
didn’t have to live with that hypocrisy.

Even in the dusk of the tall barn he could locate
the spreading water stain on the inside wall. He could fix a real roof. A
thatched roof was another matter entirely.

“I take it you have no interest in improving the
barn with tile or slate.” He knew he sounded grumpy. He didn’t mean to,
but his hostess had a damnable way of drawing regally away every time he
barked. After the disasters of this past week, he derived some
satisfaction from making an English aristocrat jump.

Marilee.

Mac closed his eyes against the gaping hole his
sister’s death left. Even though he’d confirmed her death from childbed
fever through reliable sources, he couldn’t believe his gentle sister
was really gone. He could still hear her singing nursery rhymes and
laughing as she shoved hay from the loft onto his head. She had been
far, far too young to die. And much too loving to die alone.

Grief surged through him, but he’d learned not to
give in to raw emotion. He had to appease this silly female so Marilee’s
children would be safe from their drunken sot of a father and his
ignorant minions.

“I suppose there’s someone hereabouts with
experience at thatching?” He tried to sound reasonable. He didn’t want
to be thrown out on his ear.

“Yes, of course, but...” Her voice dragged off hesitantly. “But I’d hoped you could...”

He turned and studied her pale face through the
dusk. “Just tell me who it is. I’ll work out a trade and no coin will
come from your pockets.”

She looked immensely relieved, and he fought a
moment’s surprise. She obviously had more wealth than Croesus had gold.
Why didn’t she simply hire a thatcher?

“I... Thank you. It won’t be too difficult, will it?” she asked anxiously, inching toward the door.

He strode briskly for the exit. Maybe she thought
all Americans were barbarians who ate ladies for midnight snacks. Or
maybe she just thought
he
was the barbarian.

“Don’t know until we look. What else needs work?”

“Well, oh, dear...” She hurried to catch up.

Her soft scent wafted around him as they stepped
into the evening air. She stood shoulder high to him, and should he be
so inclined, he could comfortably wrap his arm around her waist without
bending to accommodate her. Surreptitiously, Mac eyed her waist. Maybe
it was some trick of the full skirts that made her look so trim in the
middle. His gaze drifted higher. She might be a snob, but she was
definitely all woman.

Why the hell hadn’t some proper English gentleman
come along and claimed a prize like this one? Proved they were all
namby-pamby idiots.

“I’m not certain what needs doing most,” she said
with a helpless gesture. “Father told me my place was in the house, and I
needn’t worry about such things. And now I—”

Her voice broke, and Mac shoved his hands in his
pockets and gazed at the first star appearing on the horizon rather than
watch her wipe away a tear. Fine pair they made. They’d both be weeping
in a minute.

He used to wipe away Marilee’s childish tears.

“I’ll take a look around in the morning, all right?”
he said gruffly. “Then I’ll come talk to you, and we can decide what
needs doing.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. She had rich brown eyes, the kind that could melt a man’s heart. “I
can
learn. If you will explain things to me...”

“You could hire someone,” he pointed out. “That’s what most people do.”

The warmth left her eyes, and she turned away again. “And then I’d be just as ignorant as I am now. Good night, Mr. Warwick.”