Whisper of Magic (13 page)

“Wouldn’t it be simpler to just bar the house doors instead
of the gate?” Zack inquired, studying the solid stone posts and the heavy oak.
“We don’t need medieval fortresses any longer.”

“In this case, we do,” Erran said, studying the distance
from gate to house. “We have every reason to believe there are unsavory
elements who wish the Rochesters gone, and their assaults have been escalating.
And with Duncan moving in . . . His accident was no accident. If
someone still wants to kill him, I’d rather opt for caution.”

“I’ll have to bring my workmen in and out through the gate,”
Zack reminded him. “It will delay construction if they have to wait for someone
to hear them knock every time they wish to enter.”

“It will be complicated,” Erran agreed. “Perhaps after our
meeting with the solicitors, the family might trust us enough that they can be
persuaded to visit Iveston. I’m not certain that anything short of sending an
army to Jamaica will satisfy them, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Sending the Rochesters anywhere was his devout desire.
Perhaps then his life could return to the humdrum pursuit of justice through
legal means, once he persuaded the judges he wouldn’t throw more tantrums.

Erran was measuring the yard for a bell pull when the
servants arrived. He stopped to watch how Aster’s newly trained men reacted to
Jamar. They merely doffed their caps, hefted their boxes of belongings to their
broad shoulders, and followed the giant into the house.

“They seem . . . polite,” a soft voice said
from the shrubbery.

Erran swung around to find Miss Rochester sitting on a bench
in the barren rose garden behind a hedge. The woman moved with the graceful
silence of a butterfly.

“Lady Aster will have grilled them for their birth dates,”
he said, “then drawn up their zodiac charts to be certain they are reliable,
and trained them to a standard of her own. The ones she’s introduced to Iveston
seem to think for themselves—a good thing since
we
never know what to do with them.”

Her sky blue eyes turned up from her sewing to study him
quizzically. “Surely your housekeeper knows how to employ servants?”

He fought the urge to take the seat beside her and discuss
any subject on earth but the ones they must adhere to. Tearing his gaze from
her entrancingly pursed lips, he jotted figures down in his notebook as a
distraction.

“The Iveston housekeeper has taken to tippling after lunch
and is incoherent by dinner,” he explained as he tucked his notebook away. “But
she has been with us forever and none of us is capable of casting a female into
the cold. Ives are not . . .
normal
by society’s standards. I will warn you now that the marquess is subject to
fits of temper and flings things at anyone who stands in his way. Servants tend
to disappear regularly on us, so we don’t dare remove the few who linger.”

“So Lady Aster has found servants of independent minds who
learn how to avoid the marquess and your housekeeper? Quite enterprising of
her, I’m certain.” She sounded amused as she returned to applying tiny stitches
to the pleats in the linen.

“Well, she’s stuck living at Iveston most days, so it’s a
matter of self-defense. Until she came along, we’d been an all-male household.
It was like living in a pig sty inhabited by savages. I’ve been avoiding the
place like the plague for years.”

She chuckled. “And here I’ve always thought of noble estates
as stuffy and boring. I suppose I must go in and meet our new butler. Will he
get along with Nana? She’s been in charge of us forever.”

“As if I have any notion of the hierarchy of servants.”
Erran held out his hand. “Come along. I need to be assured that they know how
to secure the doors and windows and keep out blackguards.”

The moment she placed her ungloved hand in his, he knew his
mistake. He’d removed his gloves to write. With her soft flesh pressed into his
rough palm, his instinct was to wrap her hand tightly and not let go.
Skin-to-skin contact was electrifying, and he inhaled sharply at the shock.

She tried to slip her fingers away, but he couldn’t have
released her if he’d been paid all the gold on earth. She did not protest but
let him lead her into the house. She seemed as short of breath as he. This
wouldn’t do.

But he didn’t know how to make it go away. Swallowing, he
hid his shock by calling roughly to his cousin. “I’ll be back shortly. Don’t do
anything interesting until I return.”

To his horror, Zack froze in the process of hammering a
loose board.

Celeste giggled and called, “The gate is not interesting,
Mr. Zack. Please, return to beating it up.”

Zack enthusiastically began beating nails into wood again.

“That did not just happen,” Erran muttered as they entered
the garden door.

“Evil, my lord,” she said sweetly. “We are evil, remember?”

Damnation! Before Erran could wring her neck, Jamar led his
new charges to meet them. The majordomo didn’t blink at the sight of their
clasped hands. He merely introduced the servants Ashford had hired and allowed
Miss Rochester to question them.

Erran wanted to scratch under his collar and flee, but he
forced himself to study the new staff. Lady Aster had found three burly,
seemingly intelligent men to protect the household. He recognized one who had
served dinner at Theo’s. Multi-talented servants were excellent. Ones who could
survive having rocks and shoes thrown at their heads would be beneficial.

Seemingly unfazed by the weirdness in the garden, Zack
entered through the back door, donning his hat and gloves, as the servants were
being led off to become acquainted with their duties. “I’ll bring you plans and
estimates in a few days.” He hesitated when he realized the lady lingered. “I
don’t wish to be alarming, but you might want to employ one of the new men in
watching that gate until you can add a more substantial bar.”

Miss Rochester placed her slender hand on Erran’s coat
sleeve in a gesture indicating uneasiness. He resisted covering it with his own
hand. Instead, he bunched his fingers. “More ruffians lingering in the mews?”

“No, someone has sawed half way through the bar. A few good
shoulders pounding against the gate will snap the wood in two.”

Damn
.

Erran turned to the lady. “I’ll send one of the men to pick
up a few clothes and my gear. I’ll be staying here until this is settled.”

He couldn’t tell if her look of apprehension was for him or
the knowledge that their enemies were more dangerous than petty ruffians.

Biting her lip, Celeste hesitated in the doorway of Nana’s
sewing room.

The aristocratic Lord Erran with his expensively tailored
clothes and polished boots had transformed into another man during the last
twenty-four hours. He had slept in the study again, despite her protestations
that he should take one of the empty beds upstairs. And this morning, he was
sprawled on his back like a workman across the floor, fitting bits of metal
beneath a table.

He was in stocking feet and shirtsleeves—an intimacy that
had her wallowing in admiration at his manly physique, plus other feelings not
quite so admirable—especially since his position revealed a great deal of his . . .
masculine proportions.

She glanced up at Nana for guidance, but her arbiter of
propriety was simply sewing and ignoring the man on the floor.

“I have made teacakes, if anyone is interested in stopping
for morning coffee or tea,” Celeste said in a diffident whisper. She hated to
disturb them. She was so far out of her depths these days, she might as well be
living with penguins and wondering if they ate fish with their tea.

Lord Erran’s head popped out from beneath the old table he’d
dragged down from the attics. He had dust in his dark curls and a smudge on his
nose. “I need a strong elastic band, two preferably, so I can repair the other
machine. I don’t suppose you have anything in your sewing baskets?”

Celeste feared her mouth gaped open for a moment too long.
She’d asked if he’d like teacakes. And he wanted
elastic
? Penguins might be easier.

“You look in your father’s box,” Nana advised in her raspy
little-used voice.

Even Lord Erran glanced up at the normally silent woman in
surprise. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said politely, before glancing back to
Celeste. “Your father’s box?”

“I’m not sure where it is,” Celeste admitted. “Perhaps with
the trunks in the attic. He always had a chest of tools and mechanical bits,
and none of us knew what to do with them.”

Lord Erran sat up and brushed himself off. “Tell me what the
chest looks like, and I’ll hunt for it. I’d love to see the workbox of a man
who built this machine.”

“I suppose I might show you,” Celeste said, glancing at Nana
for approval. She’d never spent time with a man, unchaperoned, but the elderly
woman didn’t even look up from her sewing to glare. Perhaps she felt out of
place too. “Shall I have someone bring up cakes for you, Nana? Or will you be
going downstairs?”

“Go, child,” Nana said brusquely, turning the linen on the
table to start a new seam. “You are the lady of the house now.”

What was
that
supposed to mean? She’d had to step into her mother’s role years before, but
she’d always consulted Nana before making any decisions. She supposed teacakes
weren’t important, but she felt still even more lost by Nana’s dismissal.

His lordship loomed over her expectantly, and she retreated
to the corridor. “It is a large, long wooden box. If you would go up and start
searching, I’ll have someone fetch cakes for Nana.” She thought perhaps the
“lady of the house” would look after loyal family retainers, and Nana deserved
a rest, even if it wasn’t for tea.

“She’s frightened,” Lord Erran said unexpectedly. “She has
every right to be. It takes months for us to send word and hear from anyone in
the islands. I have an uncle in the shipping business sending me ship schedules
so I know which ones will take my letters soonest and fastest. We know people
who know people all over the world. It may look as if I’m doing nothing, but my
family is doing everything they can to protect your servants and tenants.”

Hearing his concern, overwhelmed by his earnestness, Celeste
touched his coat sleeve. “I trust almost no one these days, but I believe you
in this. I don’t know what we’ve done to deserve your support, but I hope
someday we can repay you.”

And she meant it. She felt lighter for knowing someone else
shared her burdens, even if that someone was so far beyond her experience that
she could not imagine the world he walked in . . . .

Except for his voice
,
which left her very confused but on familiar grounds. They really needed to
talk about their shared oddity, but she thoroughly disliked being considered
evil.

“You’ll take back any desire to repay us once Ashford moves
in,” Lord Erran said with dark humor, before trotting off to the attic door.

More unwelcome change, but if it meant her family would be
out of danger, she wouldn’t argue. This shabby London mansion was a far cry
easier to live in than the caves and fields where the plantation’s workers must
be hiding now. It felt safer staying with a mad marquess until they could go
home. She hoped they might help each other until then.

She sent one of the new footmen to carry a tray to Nana,
then hurried up the stairs to the attic storage room under the eaves. Lord
Erran was collecting more dust by crawling around under the low roof,
attempting not to bang his head while he sorted through old trunks and boxes.
He already had an assortment lined up for her perusal.

“I didn’t want to open anything that might be private,” he
explained, pointing at the row of old boxes. “I thought you might recognize
your father’s tool chest.”

“Most of those should belong to your family. We’re living
out of the trunks we brought with us. But father’s things . . .”
She swiped angrily at an escaping tear and pointed at a wooden box with carvings
and a leather-bound trunk. “We couldn’t bear to part with them.”

“I don’t suppose he kept documents in any of them?” his
lordship asked without hope.

“Nothing useful.” She opened the trunk. “This only contains
the lease, introductions to family and friends, letters to the bankers and
solicitors . . . no will. He was young and hadn’t planned on
dying.”

“Or having Lansdowne usurp his assets,” Lord Erran said
grimly, glancing through the papers. “Might I take these down and go through
them? It might give me some insight in how best to fight this battle.”

“Please, if you would. All we did was cry as we read through
them, which admittedly, is not a very constructive reaction.”

“But a perfectly normal one. Counteracting grief-stricken
families is the reason we have cold-hearted lawyers like me.” He flashed her a
bleak smile. “And this other box is the workbox? I have your permission to use
the contents?”

“Absolutely.” It felt very odd to be in this narrow enclosed
space with a gentleman, no matter how unlike a proper gentleman he currently
appeared. She wasn’t certain of the etiquette, or even of what to do with her
hands.

He stood up, his head bending to accommodate the low
rafters. The space became even smaller. “I’d like those teacakes now,
especially if they come with your delicious coffee.” He hefted the heavy
workbox to his shoulder. “I’ll come back for the trunk before I join you, if
that’s all right.”

Lord Erran seldom smiled, but he sounded almost content at
the moment. Or pleasant, at least, and Celeste felt another tickle of
excitement. She almost rather he would return to calling her immoral so she
didn’t have to like him. Recalling what she planned, she wouldn’t have to worry
about him much longer.

“In the main drawing room?” she asked, leading the way down
the stairs.