The Saint (4 page)

“Old England is learning that there is strength in youth.”

“You refer to our last war. A minor skirmish. It would have ended differently if Bonaparte did not occupy us as well.”

Somehow, barely, she kept a civil tone. “My father died in that skirmish, Mr. Duclairc.”

Another thick silence fell. Penelope smiled weakly and rose. “Why don't we go in to dinner?”

Dante demanded Bianca's attention during the meal. The viscount did not speak much. She looked over several times to find him scrutinizing her, as if he wondered what he had. Nothing but trouble, she wanted to warn him. You really should send me packing at once.

She had every intention of cornering him after dinner in order to make that clear, but Vergil excused himself as soon as they returned to the drawing room. Dante stayed, however, and joined them for cards.

He complimented her play far more than her skill deserved. With familiarity and the passing hours, his smiles assumed an unsettling warmth. She began to get suspicious that Vergil was avoiding her, and using Dante as a distraction.

“Where is the viscount?” she finally asked Charlotte. “Perhaps he would like to take my place here.”

“He is in the library, I expect. Or his study.”

She rose. “Excuse me. I will invite him to join us.”

She did not wait for permission, but walked from the drawing room and aimed down the corridor for the library.

He was there, sitting at the desk and poring over some papers in a folio. He glanced up at her entrance and rose.

“You appear startled to see me. Have I done this wrong? Am I supposed to apply for an audience?” she asked.

“Of course not. I assumed that my brother and sisters would keep you entertained this evening, that is all.”

“Cards do not amuse me long if the hands are thrown to me. If we were playing for money, I would have already won your brother's entire fortune. I decided to give his pride and generosity a rest.”

“He is only trying to make you feel welcome. However, I am glad that you sought me out. I want to apologize for my careless comment in the drawing room. I should have been more sympathetic to the possibility that you suffered in the war. I did not intend to demean your father's sacrifice.”

The sincerity of his expression disarmed her. He did not appear nearly as stern as was normal for him.

“Perhaps now you understand why I do not welcome a long visit in this country, Mr. Duclairc, and why I do not want to partake of the society for which your sister tries to prepare me. I want to return to London so that I can tend to my affairs there as quickly as possible.”

“The war is long over, Miss Kenwood. Our countries are friends again. As to your affairs, I am tending to them for you.” He said it with a firm smile that indicated he considered that particular direction of conversation ill-advised.

“You are convincing me that I made a mistake in coming to England. I should have followed my first inclination and told Mr. Williams to have the investments that I inherited sold out.”

“That cannot be done. Most of it is in trust. Short of petitioning the Chancery Court, a very lengthy process that would take years, it is impossible to break the terms.”

“So he explained. My second inclination was to have him arrange to send the income to me in Baltimore.”

“Then why didn't you? Especially if you blame us for your loss?”

“As I explained in London, I had reasons for coming.”

“Yes. Your opera lessons.” His tone managed to convey relief that those plans were now dead.

It would take more than this man's disapproval to kill them. They were very much alive, and she was desperately impatient to progress with them.

“Whatever my reasons, I am in England for only a short spell and I have interests that cannot be satisfied while I am in this house. I do not accept your interference. I do not need a guardian.”

“Considering how I met you, I think it is obvious that you do. Today has done nothing to change my belief in that.”

He was referring to the lake. Nothing in his expression really changed, but a provocative ripple eddied from him to her. It entered her body and shivered down her limbs. Yes, he had seen her in that soaked chemise. Despite his dispassionate demeanor, he was seeing her in it again right now.

For an instant, lights entered his eyes that said he knew that she knew. That acknowledgment added a dangerous nuance to his masculinity. She suddenly felt at a disadvantage and had to struggle to regain her indignation.

“I fail to understand why you are so determined to take on the trouble of me.”

“Your grandfather's will gave the responsibility to the Viscount Laclere. He had intended it to be my brother, but since he did not change the will after Milton's death, it falls to me. I do not shirk my duties, no matter how troublesome they may be.”

“I relieve you of the duty. Now, I demand that you allow me to leave for London in the morning.”

“No.”

She waited for more, but nothing else came. That one word was his entire response. No.

She glared at him, searching for a way to win this stupid battle. He gazed back like a general who knew he had the superior army.

She turned on her heel. In a few days she expected her reinforcements to arrive. She looked forward to throwing them at him.

“Miss Kenwood, if you are returning to the drawing room, please tell Charlotte that I would like her to join me here before she retires.”

Bianca mounted the steps and strolled her way through the huge Gothic-style house, to her room. It was the largest and most luxurious bedchamber that she had ever used, with a gilt-framed mirror and heavily carved furniture.

Jane moved toward her, to begin unfastening her gown, chattering away with gossip about the servants and tenants. That lower world sounded a lot more fun and interesting than the high one in which Bianca lived out her days.

The last two weeks had felt like two months. They took walks. They arranged flowers. They exchanged visits with neighbors she didn't know. They talked about fashions and who was who in society. All the while Pen instructed the American savage on the proper address and acceptable behavior here in England.

Bianca had gotten to where she envied the servants who polished the silver. Finally she had arranged a few ways to break the monotony for herself.

Charlotte arrived just as Bianca drew on her batiste dressing gown. It had been a short meeting with her brother.

“He didn't say one word about the lake.” She scooted onto the bed while Jane began brushing Bianca's hair. “Actually, he wanted to talk about you.”

“Me?”

“Asked what you had been up to. He did not put it that way, of course. He inquired if you were content and occupying yourself.”

Why, the intruding …

“I think that he knows about the lake and blames you, and wanted to know if you had done anything else scandalous.”

The arrogant, self-righteous …

“Then he gave me a lecture. How you were raised differently and permitted more freedoms than is proper, and how I am not to be influenced by you to do things that aren't proper. I counted at least ten propers before he had finished. I had to promise him to behave very correctly while you were here.” Charlotte giggled. “I think that you have my saint of a brother very concerned.”

Bianca didn't know what to say. She
had
been raised differently, and permitted more freedoms than Charlotte would ever know, but there had been nothing improper in any of it, just unconventional, even by America's standards. She also planned a life fated to be unconventional but not at all improper, although Vergil Duclairc would probably assume that it was.

Charlotte laid back on the big bed. “I am glad Dante came to visit. He doesn't much. He prefers London.” She looked over slyly. “I am not supposed to know this, but I think that he has a mistress there. I have surmised this last year that my brother may be a rake. What do you think? Would Dante make a good rake?”

“I wouldn't know,” Bianca said, but she guessed that Dante would make a magnificent rake. It also occurred to her that this rake had seen her almost naked and had spent the evening giving her intent looks and warm smiles.

“I always thought Vergil would make a good rake, too, so long as one never actually met him. He looks like he might be one, but of course he is
so
proper. He has been courting Fleur for over a year and I have never seen him do more than touch her hand.”

Bianca had heard all about the perfect, ethereal, very wealthy Fleur, who was Vergil's presumed intended. They expected a visit from her and her mother soon.

She did not intend to be here when they came. “Charlotte, is this the only property that your family holds?”

“There are several others here in Sussex, but no one visits them except Vergil. They are not in the best repair. Father let some things go, what with his writing and then rebuilding this house. Vergil also has a manor up north. It was his portion from our mother.”

“Do any relatives live at these other places?”

“There are none there, or any with whom we are close. Father was reclusive and we lost contact with them while he was alive. Milton was a bit odd too. Vergil isn't the least eccentric, but he has not revived the connections.”

No close relatives. No aunts or female cousins on whom to foist an errant ward.

“I think that my brother likes you,” Charlotte said.

Which brother?
Bianca caught the impulsive question before it left her throat, shocked by the jolt of excitement that had accompanied it. “I am sure that he just felt obliged to entertain me.”

“Dante rarely feels obliged to do anything. He let you win at cards and he kept smiling at you.”

“You are mistaken, but if you are not and he is a rake, I am hardly flattered.”

“Oh, you do not need to worry about
that.
He knows that you are Vergil's ward and our guest.” She slipped off the bed. “I had better get some sleep. Dante is going to take us for a carriage ride tomorrow. It should be fun. He is a crack whip, and always drives fast.”

“Will the viscount accompany us too?”

“You don't need to worry about him spoiling the fun. By the time we rise, he will have lived a whole day. He rides at dawn, and then tends to the estate affairs.”

When she was gone, Bianca sat on the bed and embraced her knees.

So, Vergil Duclairc worried that Miss Kenwood might badly influence his sister. He had warned Charlotte to be on her guard. What would the saint do if he became convinced that Miss Kenwood was not just a little different, but quite unconventional, and a bit wild?

No other relatives to send her to. Too dangerous to keep around. No remedy but to sever all social ties and let her go her own way. It would be the only responsible decision for a very responsible brother.

She would have to make sure that this viscount concluded that her presence and influence were totally unacceptable.

“Jane, I want you to borrow a few garments from the servants for me. The male servants.”

chapter
3

V
ergil took the polished boots from Morton and pulled them on. He accepted the starched white linen and adroitly tied his cravat in a conservative knot. Morton held out a black riding coat.

These morning preparations were a routine at Laclere Park or in London, and Vergil performed them instinctively while his mind organized plans and duties. It still amazed him that he had no trouble abandoning certain details of these habits when circumstances demanded it.

Light had barely broken when he let himself out a side door and walked through the dew to the stables. He much preferred these silent, solitary rides at daybreak to the official circuits that he made with his estate agent later. It was one of the few habits continued from those free years as the second son. He could sometimes recapture that youthful belief in unfettered opportunity permitted by his insignificance back then. He could simply
be,
not the lord surveying his domain, but merely a man riding through the countryside, admiring its beauty and dreaming in time to its rhythms of life.

Sounds came from the stable. George, a lanky red-haired young groom, was laughing while a younger boy in breeches and a straw hat mumbled something. Together they were fitting the bridle on a chestnut mare.

George heard Vergil's bootstep and jumped back with a flushed face.

The younger boy merely stiffened. Vergil noted a familiar something in that slender back, and took in the peculiar way the breeches stretched over curving buttocks. He had seen this form before, rising all but naked out of water.

“Miss Kenwood, I see that you rise early too.”

She turned with nonchalance, as if no one should be surprised to find her like this because she donned breeches every day. Maybe she did. Who would know? Pen, Charlotte, and Dante probably would not emerge from their rooms until noon.

“I thought that a morning ride would be pleasant.” She fit the bit like she knew what she was doing.

“George offered to escort you? How chivalrous of him.”

“I planned to ride alone.”

“Well, we cannot have that at such an early hour. You can ride with me, however.” He examined the mare. “You have made an error, George. If that is Miss Kenwood's animal, it will need a sidesaddle. Then you can prepare my horse. We will wait outside.”

Bianca paced into the yard with him. He stepped back in the silver light and raked five and a half feet of trouble with his gaze.

Her cotton shirt bagged around her body, but managed to drape revealingly over the swells of her breasts. The breeches hung loosely from her thighs to the boots into which they were stuffed, but were loose nowhere else. The straw hat crushed low over her brow emphasized her eyes.

She looked thoroughly disreputable and provocative as hell.

He walked away and slapped his whip against his leg. The slight sting distracted him from the flaring impulse to … not something to contemplate and certainly not to name. “It will take George some time with the horses. Go back to your room and change your clothes.”

Her lids lowered at his order. He expected her to refuse. What the devil would he do then? No one under his authority ever defied him, least of all a woman. Fortunately, she turned on her heel and strode off in the direction of the house.

He went back into the stable.

“Does Miss Kenwood ride alone often?” he asked George.

George shrugged. “Just the last few mornings, m'lord. Heard some noise in here last week, and found her saddling up that mare, so I helped, didn't I?”

“And the garments?”

“Showed up in them this morning. Makes sense, since she always rides astride. She be a good sort, just a little free-minded for these parts. They's different, them Americans. Talk like they know you right off.” He bent to check a hoof.

“Yes, they are different. Do not let me suspect that you misinterpret that familiarity.”

George shot him a glance of horror, as if the insinuation were too shocking to contemplate. Vergil took the mare's reins and led her out to the yard.

Miss Kenwood emerged from the house just as George brought Vergil's gelding out. She had dressed in a violet riding habit of severe cut and little decoration. A tidy high-crowned hat perched on her sedate hairstyle, its brim skimming her eyebrows.

“Where were you planning to ride?” he asked after they had mounted.

“Oh, I just wander about.”

He led the way into the park. She kept fussing with her position on her saddle, scootching this way and that while she frowned down at her legs.

“You are not accustomed to it?”

“I did not live on the edge of civilization. The dreadful, dangerous things are given to women in Baltimore too.”

“Did you ride astride there?”

“Yes.” She glanced a challenge at him, then grinned. “Aunt Edith forbade me to use a sidesaddle unless I just poked along, and I was not inclined to do that. She knew too many women who had fallen from one when doing serious riding.”

“And what was the reaction when you rode astride through the city, with breeches and boots?”

“If I had been anyone but Edith's great-niece, some might have been scandalized. Her position is unassailable. As a young woman she was active in our war of independence. She knows all the great men from that time. If presidents pay calls on a woman, no one else is inclined to criticize her much.”

“She sounds very interesting. It is a pity she did not accompany you on this journey.”

“If she were not so old, she would have. She would be back there now, lecturing George on how he is your equal and should not grovel.”

“England hardly needs to import radicals. We are growing plenty of our own. Nor did George grovel. He retreated because he knows it is suspect for a man to be alone in such a familiar demeanor with a young lady, especially at such an hour.”

“I see. However, you are a man and now I am alone with you, aren't I? Is that suspect?”

The insinuation took him aback. Her mocking smile hinted that Miss Kenwood was not some naive schoolgirl who remained ignorant of what might occur between a man and woman alone together for hours.

“I am your guardian. Like a parent.”

She broke into low peals of laughter, melodic like her voice. “Heaven spare me, Mr. Duclairc. With a father like you, I would have grown up to be the dullest of women.”

“Are you implying that dull fathers make for dull daughters?”
Are you insinuating that I am a dull man, you vexing piece of baggage?
An inclination to show her just how undull he could be had been trying to poke into his awareness since he saw her in the stable.

“No, sir. I am thinking that strict fathers make for very narrow daughters.”

“Your less orthodox upbringing did not leave you narrow, I assume.”

She turned those big blue eyes on him for a long, knowing look, as if she could see inside him and identify the veiled, improper images creeping around the edges of his mind and alluded to by his impulsive, indelicate question. The impact of that naked gaze was so staggering that she might have caressed his thigh.

“I have had experience in the world, Mr. Duclairc, and that is why I am not narrow. When my father died, my mother needed to support herself and me, so she returned to singing. I was eleven at the time, and for the next six years we lived a peripatetic life, traveling part of the year.”

Experience in the world.
Bianca would have been seventeen before her mother died, a pretty girl traveling in the wake of a mother whose profession was sure to attract men.

“I would have thought that she would leave you with your aunt, and not drag you to strange cities and towns.”

“
You
would, wouldn't you?” She implied he was so predictable as to offer no surprises whatsoever. “I wouldn't have it, not after just losing Father, and Mother needed someone to look after her. She was not a very practical woman. It was left to me to make sure that she got from one place to the other.”

“An odd role to give to a child, surely.”

“Not a child so long, and it wasn't planned. I found myself taking care of it because she was so bad at it.”

Not a child so long.
“Life must have become very dull when you went to live with your aunt.”

“I was ready. Mother's death knocked the life out of me, and I needed time to sit in one place and sort things out. Only when Aunt Edith employed a music tutor for me did I begin to feel normal again.”

Vergil pictured them, the precocious child and flighty mother, arranging subscription concerts in the churches and halls of rough towns, roles reversed while the little blonde girl negotiated for transport and managed their funds. Exciting perhaps, and obviously maturing.

Not a normal childhood, however. No hours of carefree play, and probably no friends. No protection or security except what she created for herself. He felt a little sorry for her and admired her strength, inconvenient though it promised to be.

Their wanderings took them to the southern edge of the lake and he began the route around it. Miss Kenwood appeared annoyingly indifferent at finding herself at the location of yesterday's indiscretion.

“Our family has lived here since Norman times,” he explained, deciding he should impress her with the family history and prime her for Dante's attentions. “Both our name and the estate's derive from this water. Clear lake. Duclairc is a corruption of
du clair lac,
as is Laclere.”

“Norman times. Back then, the ancestors of the Kenwoods probably lived in hovels.”

“Well, money has a way of leveling such differences.”

“What a democratic notion, Mr. Duclairc. Almost American.”

He pulled onto a path leading to the farms. “You can stop that now. You have made your point.”

“Stop what?”

“Mr. Duclairc.”

“It is not intended to offend you. Aunt Edith made me promise to bow to no aristocrat, not even your king.”

“Your diplomats conform when they are here, as do most visitors.”

“I am not a diplomat. And Aunt Edith—”

“Yes, yes, the Revolution and all. If addressing me as Lord Laclere will bring the ghost of Washington down on you, you may simply call me Laclere.”

“How generous of you. Then perhaps you should call me Bianca.”

He would rather not. Really. Even vague familiarity with this young woman was breeding uncomfortable feelings in him. She was his ward and would soon be his brother's wife and he found her exasperating, to say the least. All the same, an alluring, disconcerting simmer flowed in him. Boiling bubbles broke to the surface on occasion, tiny little explosions not at all acceptable under the circumstances. Under any circumstances. To call her Bianca would only make another bubble pop each time he did so.

“I think that would be too familiar.”

“Well, then, perhaps Laclere is too familiar as well.” She cocked her head. “I know. I will call you Uncle Vergil. Despite what you say about a guardian being like a father, ‘Papa' would be ridiculous.”

Uncle Vergil, indeed.
He glanced under that brim and caught a fleeting smile. She was deliberately teasing him and he kept rising to the bait.

Worse, her provocative ambiguities and sidelong glances gave her a very worldly air, and made that simmer relentless.

“Uncle Vergil, are we near the border with Woodleigh?”

“It is just over that hill. You can see the house from its top. Would you like to go up?”

She accepted. It did not miss Vergil's attention that she knew how to find the easiest path without his help.

She reached the crest of the hill that overlooked the fields leading to Woodleigh. In the distance she could see the gargantuan bulk of the classically inspired mansion that Adam Kenwood had built.

“It is very big, isn't it?”

“Yes.” He said it quietly, but she heard a criticism. Too big. Too much. Vulgar in its mass, especially for a newly minted baronet.
Nouveau riche
from its foundations to its cornices. He must have been Adam's friend or her grandfather would have never made him guardian, but that did not spare the old financier from the judgment of this aristocrat who dated his lineage back to Norman times.

She did not resent that censure. In fact, she welcomed it. Adam Kenwood may have left her a fortune, but she hated him anyway. If he had bequeathed this house to her, she would have burned it to the ground. He had committed one great sin that she knew of, and she did not doubt that others shadowed his entire life.

She cantered down the hill and over the fields. Vergil pulled up alongside her when she stopped in front of the house.

“Help me to dismount, please.”

“Miss Kenwood, your cousin inherited this property, and he has not returned from France yet. You should wait until he has taken up residence before you visit. The house has been closed for months, and there are only a few servants tending the property now.”