Thunder and Roses (5 page)

Marged scanned the sheets, asking an occasional question. When she was done, she said worriedly, “Three of them know almost as much as I do. After all, it hasn’t been that long since I was a student in your adult class.”

“The advanced pupils are the easiest of all. Not only do they largely teach themselves, but they help with the little ones. You’ll manage very well,” Clare assured her. “Remember, if you have questions or problems, I’m only two miles away.”

Marged’s smile was a little tremulous. “As usual, you have everything wonderfully well-organized. I’m frightened, but—oh, Clare, it’s so exciting that you believe I can do this! Five years ago, I couldn’t even read. Who would have believed I’d ever be a teacher myself?”

“My biggest worry is that the school will turn out not to need me when I come back.” Though Clare said the words lightly, she felt a pang at their truth. With experience, Marged would be a fine teacher, in some ways better than Clare. Though Marged was not as learned, she had more patience.

Business finished, Marged leaned back in her chair and sipped at the tea Clare had made. “What’s he like?”

Caught unaware, Clare said, “Who?”

“Lord
Tregar
, or rather, Lord Aberdare as he is now.” Marged slanted an impish glance at her. “Our Nicholas. It wasn’t often that he was able to escape his keepers and come down to the village to play, but he’s not a lad one would ever forget. You were younger, of course, so you wouldn’t remember him as well. Mischievous and a little wild, but there was no harm in him, nor snobbery, either. He spoke Welsh as well as any of us. Not like the old earl.”

“I didn’t realize that he knew Welsh.” Since the upper classes of Wales were usually very English in both language and customs, Clare was reluctantly forced to raise her opinion of Nicholas. “I spoke English when I visited him.”

“I remember when he came down from Oxford with those three friends of his,” Marged said dreamily. “Someone said that in London they were called the Fallen Angels. Nicholas, as dark and handsome as the devil. Lucien, blond and beautiful like Lucifer. Rafael, who’s a duke now, and that Lord Michael, before he became the bane of Penreith. Maybe they were a little wild, but they were also the best-looking lads I’ve ever seen.” She grinned. “Except for Owen, of course. A good thing he was courting me, or I might have been tempted to become a fallen woman.”

“Surely you exaggerate.”

“Only a little.” Marged drained the last of her tea. “So now Nicholas is an earl, and home again after years of traveling in heathen places. Is he as handsome as he used to be?”

“Yes,” Clare said repressively.

Marged waited hopefully for more details. When none were forthcoming, she said, “Were there any odd beasts running around the estate? They say that he sent some strange creatures back from his travels. It’s been all I could do to keep the children from going up to investigate.”

“I didn’t see anything more exotic than the peacocks, and they’ve always been there.” Clare squared the stack of papers and handed them to her friend.

Taking the hint that it was time to go, Marged got to her feet. “You’ll come to class meetings, won’t you?”

“Of course.” Clare hesitated. “At least, I will when I can. Lord Aberdare said something about taking me to London.”

Her friend’s brows shot up. “Really? He wouldn’t take a housekeeper there.”

“But he might if I were acting as his secretary,” Clare said, uncomfortably aware

that her answer was less than honest. “It remains to be seen what I’ll be doing.”

Becoming serious, Marged said, “You be careful of Old Nick, Clare. He could be dangerous.”

“I doubt it. Lord Aberdare has too much arrogance to force a woman who isn’t willing.”

“That’s not what worries me,” Marged said darkly. “The danger is that you’ll be willing.” On that ominous note, she left, to Clare’s relief.

It didn’t take long for Clare to pack the few possessions she would take to Aberdare, and there were no other chores to be done. Too restless to sleep, she drifted through the four rooms of the cottage, occasionally touching familiar objects. She had been born under this roof, had never lived anywhere else. The smallest chamber at Aberdare was grander, but she would miss her whitewashed walls and plain, sturdy furniture.

Lightly she skimmed her fingertips over the age-blackened lid of the carved oak chest. Clare thought it was a pity she would probably have no daughter to pass the chest to, for it had been handed down through the women of her family for generations. Inside the lid, “Angharad 1579” was chiseled. Sometimes Clare wondered about the life of that distant ancestress of hers. Probably Angharad had been the daughter and wife of smallholders who wrested a living from the land, but what had her husband been like? How many children had she borne? Had she been happy?

The overflowing bookcase at one end of the sitting room was the only note of luxury in the cottage. Thomas Morgan had been a son of the Welsh gentry who had been educated at Oxford and ordained as an Anglican vicar. After experiencing a profound spiritual conversion when hearing
John
Wesley preach, he had become a Methodist preacher himself. Though his rigidly traditional family had disowned him, he had never regretted his choice. Instead he had married the pious daughter of a smallholder and settled in Penreith, preaching and teaching the truth that had illuminated his own life.

Thomas had never lost his love of learning, and he had passed it on to his only daughter. Whenever he went on a preaching circuit, he had tried to find an inexpensive used book, and there had been many such circuits. Clare had
 
read every volume in the cottage, many of them more than once.

Clare’s mother had died twelve years earlier, quietly, the same way she had lived. Reverend Morgan had suggested that his fourteen-year-old daughter stay with other Methodist families when he went on a preaching circuit. Clare had flatly refused to leave the cottage, the only time she had ever defied her father. Eventually the reverend had acceded to her wishes, with the proviso that members of the society keep an eye on her when he was away.

Clare had started her first small, informal class when she was only sixteen, teaching adult women to read and write. Four years later, Emily, the young second Countess of Aberdare, had set up an endowment to establish a charity school. Dozens of villagers had worked together to fix up an abandoned tithe barn. Though teachers were usually male, Clare’s experience had made her the logical choice for the new school, and she had taught there ever since. Over the years, half the people in Penreith had been her students at one time or another. The twenty pounds a year she earned would never make her rich, but it sufficed.

It had taken Nicholas Davies to pry Clare away from her home and her well-ordered life. As she looked into her small back garden, not yet planted for the year, she shivered, unable to suppress the feeling that she was seeing everything for the last time. Not literally, perhaps, but in her bones she was sure that one phase of her life was ending. Whatever happened at Aberdare would change her forever. Though she doubted that the changes would be for the better, she was committed to this course and would not turn back from it.

Finally, in a despairing quest for peace, she knelt and prayed, but there was no answer to her prayers. There never was.

Tomorrow, as always, she must face her fate alone.

3

 
Nicholas awoke with a pounding headache, which he richly deserved. He lay still, eyes unopened, and took stock of his situation. Apparently his valet, Barnes, had put him to bed in a nightshirt. Nicholas much preferred sleeping in his skin, but he supposed that he was in no position to complain.
                           

He moved his head a fraction, then stopped, since it seemed in danger of falling off. He had been a damned fool and was paying the price for it. Unfortunately, he hadn’t drunk enough brandy to obliterate his memory of what had happened the previous afternoon. As he thought of the pugnacious little wench who had stamped in and taken up his ridiculous challenge, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Knowing the consequences to his head, he did neither.

He had trouble believing some of the things he had said, but his memories were too clear to permit denial. Lucky that Clare Morgan hadn’t come armed; she might have decided that it was her Methodist duty to rid the world of a parasitical nobleman. He almost smiled at the thought. He had rather enjoyed their encounter, though he devoutly hoped that after mature consideration she would decide to stay home and let their bargain lapse. A female like her could seriously unbalance a man.

The door swung open and soft footsteps approached. Probably Barnes, coming to see if he was awake. Preferring to be left alone, Nicholas kept his eyes shut and the footsteps retreated.

But not for long. Five seconds later, icy water sluiced over Nicholas’s head. “Bloody hell!” he roared, coming up swinging. He’d kill Barnes, he’d bloody kill him.

It wasn’t his valet. Nicholas opened his bleary eyes to find Clare Morgan, who stood a safe distance away with an empty china pitcher in her hand.

At first he wondered if he was having an unusually vivid nightmare, but he could never have imagined the expression of sweet superciliousness on Clare’s small face, nor the cold water that saturated his nightshirt. He snarled, “What the devil did you do that for?”

“Tomorrow morning has turned into tomorrow afternoon, and I’ve been waiting for three hours for you to wake up,” she said calmly. “Long enough to have a cup of tea, organize my list of requests for Penreith, and make a brief survey of the house to see what needs to be done to open the place properly. Rather a lot, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Or perhaps you didn’t—men can be amazingly unobservant. From sheer boredom, I decided to wake you. It seemed like the sort of thing that a mistress might do, and I’m trying my best to fill the role you have assigned me.”

She spoke with a hint of lilting Welsh accent and a rich, husky voice that made him think of aged whiskey. Coming from a prim spinster, the effect was startlingly erotic. Wanting to discomfit her, he said, “My mistresses always wake me up in more interesting ways. Care for me to explain how?”

“Not particularly.” She took a towel from the washstand and handed it to him.

He roughly dried his hair and face, then blotted the worst of the water from his nightshirt. Feeling more human, he tossed the towel back to Clare.

“Do you get drunk often?” she inquired.

“Very seldom,” Nicholas said dourly. “Obviously it was a mistake to do so this time. If I had been sober, I wouldn’t have to endure you for the next three months.”

With a look of demure malice, she said, “If you decide not to go through with this, I won’t think less of you.”

Nicholas blinked at hearing his own words thrown back at him. “You’ve a tongue like a wasp.” He glowered at her until she began to look distinctly uneasy, then finished, “I like that in a woman.”

To his delight, she blushed. Insults might not faze her, but compliments or shows of masculine interest did. Feeling cheered, he said, “Find my valet and send him in with hot shaving water. Then tell the kitchen to brew a very large pot of very hot coffee. I’ll be down in half an hour.” He threw the covers back and started to climb out of bed.

Averting her eyes, Clare said, “Very well, Nicholas,” and beat a hasty retreat.

He chuckled as the door closed behind her. She really was a most intriguing female. If her natural forcefulness could be transmuted into passion, she would make a hell of a bedmate.

As he stepped onto the cold floor, he wondered if he would be successful at seducing her. Probably not; he suspected that her relentless virtue would outlast his patience.

But it would certainly be fun trying. Whistling softly, he stripped off his sodden nightshirt and considered when and where he should collect his first kiss.

 
When Lord Aberdare appeared downstairs in the breakfast parlor, exactly half an hour later, all traces of overindulgence had been removed. Except for his dark coloring and over-long hair, he looked every inch the fashionable London gentleman. Clare decided that she preferred it when he was informal; his present garb made her uncomfortably aware of the vast gap between their stations in life.