You Only Love Twice (4 page)

Just as grave, Lucas replied, “Not when you talk nonsense, and not when I feel as though I’d just been kicked in the head by a horse. You did mention coffee?”

It took a long time before Adrian’s lips curled in a reluctant smile. “You look like hell,” he said. “What did you expect after wallowing in this dung hill for the best part of a week?”

“A week?” Lucas’s brows rose. “That long?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Vaguely. How did you know I was here?”

“Your steward saw your horse in the Black Swan’s stable and was good enough to tell me. He knew we were all worried about you.”

Lucas’s eyes narrowed beneath the black slash of brows. “If I had wanted you to know where to find me, I would have told you.”

As soon as the words were out, he regretted them. Adrian was far more to him than a cousin. They’d been friends since they were infants. As boys, they’d done everything together, gone to the same schools, followed the
family tradition of attending Oxford University. They’d served in the same regiment, fought in the Spanish Campaign and had both sold out after Waterloo. They’d loved and lost the same girl, Bella. Now that they were older, they were not so close, but they were still good friends. Adrian deserved better of him.

Trying to make amends, he said flippantly, “If I promise to be a good boy and stay out of mischief, will that satisfy you?”

Adrian let out a bellow of laughter, making Lucas wince. “That’s more than I would dare ask,” said Adrian. “You might demand the same of me.”

“At least we understand each other. Shall we go?”

Adrian straightened, but he did not move away from the door. “One final word of advice?”

That was the trouble with making amends. People always took advantage. As stoically as he could manage, Lucas said, “What now?”

“Stay away from Jessica Hayward. Remember what happened the last time you tangled with her. She’s—”

Lucas’s voice slashed across Adrian’s words. “Jessica Hayward has a lot to answer for. I’m not looking for trouble, but if she crosses swords with me, she’ll regret it.”

Adrian stepped to the side and allowed Lucas to open the door. “As stubborn as a jackass,” he muttered. “Haven’t I always said so?”

In the taproom, the coffee was already waiting for them, as well as hot, buttered rolls that were straight from the oven. Perry did most of the talking. Adrian watched Lucas and was not surprised when after only a few sips from his cup, he pushed back his chair and rose.

“I’ll see you back at the house,” he said.

Adrian reached for a buttered roll and said casually, “You’re making a mistake.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

Perry said, “But where are you going?”

“To take care of some unfinished business,” said Lucas.

CHAPTER
3

J
essica Hayward
. She paused to savor the sound of her name, then went back to kneading the dough for the day’s bread. She still found it hard to believe. She didn’t feel like a stray anymore. She was a real person, Jessica Hayward, and she’d come home.

Not that Hawkshill Manor belonged to her. It had been sold to Lord Dundas to pay off her father’s debts. That was one thing that had come as a great disappointment to her. She had no living relatives. She still didn’t know what had taken her to London.

The sudden sting of tears took her by surprise. It was stupid, of course, but she’d hoped.… She blinked them away. So she was an orphan, just like their boys. It couldn’t possibly matter to her, because she couldn’t remember her parents. But it did matter. Before Mrs. Marshal, the woman at the infirmary who had recognized her, had filled in the blanks, she’d begun to weave fantasies about her family. She’d imagined her homecoming. She would be like the prodigal son returning from a far country
and her parents would throw a party in her honor. She would be surrounded by her brothers and sisters and cousins and uncles and aunts, and there would be great rejoicing throughout the land. Then she’d learned that she had no living relatives. Her mother had died when she, Jessica, was an infant and her father not long before she’d turned up at the convent.

So much for her fantasies.

She shook her head. She should be grateful just to be here. And now that she was home, she would meet people who had known her from before. Then she would have the answers to all the questions that teemed inside her head. And now that she was in familiar surroundings, maybe her memory would start to come back to her.

She stopped kneading, and glanced around the kitchen. If only she could remember … Impatient with herself, she went back to kneading her dough. The important thing now was the work she and the sisters had to do, and Hawkshill Manor was ideal for their purposes.

Manor
was too grand a word for this dilapidated redbrick building. One could tell that Hawkshill had once been a working farm, but that was before it had fallen into decay. And a working farm it would become again if the Sisters of Charity had anything to do with it. It was a dream the mother superior had long cherished—to train the older boys in the orphanage for a trade, and everything had fallen out, so she’d said, as though it had been ordained.

Ordained
. Jessica couldn’t help smiling. All that meant was that when Father Howie had made inquiries on her behalf, he’d discovered that Hawkshill had lain empty for three years and could be rented for a song. So not only could Jessica return to her home with the sisters to keep an eye on her, but the mother superior’s dream could be realized as well.

The landlord obviously had no interest in the place. His house was only a mile along the road and could be
seen from their attic windows but, according to the attorney, Lord Dundas had no use for Hawkshill’s buildings and had bought the property because its acreage adjoined his own estate. This being the case, there was a good chance his lordship could be persuaded to waive the rent if he thought it was in a good cause. Lord Dundas was known to be a very generous man.

And so here they were, the advance party, she and Sisters Dolores and Elvira, along with old Joseph, the burly former pugilist turned convent doorman who was now their watchdog. It was their job to get Hawkshill ready before their boys arrived. She wondered how the boys would react when they saw her as she was now. She was no longer Sister Martha, no longer in the garb of a novice. Deep down, she’d always suspected she had no calling as a nun, and now she knew it. She was plain Miss Jessica Hayward, and dressed to suit her new station in life.

Her new station in life. She absently dipped one hand into the crock of flour by her elbow, rubbed her hands together and began to divide the dough into three equal parts. She would not have been human if she hadn’t been avidly curious to know about her friends. She’d met one already, Mr. Perry Wilde. Yesterday, he’d stopped her in Sheep Street and had seemed really pleased to see her. It had been an awkward moment for her. She didn’t want anyone to know she’d lost her memory. As irrational as it was, she was ashamed, fearful. She didn’t want fingers pointing at her or people whispering behind her back, saying that she was odd. What she wanted more than anything was to be treated as an ordinary girl.

Oh yes, just an ordinary girl! If they ever got to know of her Voice, they would do to her what they’d done to Joan of Arc.

Time and enough to think of that later. For the present, it was her job to bake the bread. And when she’d finished with that, there were strawberry tarts to make. In
fact, there was no end of work to keep her busy. The house looked well enough from the outside, but inside it was a shambles. The day before, after they arrived, they’d done no more than clean out the kitchen and one of the bedrooms. When Sisters Dolores and Elvira returned from Chalford, where they’d gone to fetch supplies, they were going to tackle the rest of the house, with Joseph doing most of the heavy work. Meanwhile, he was out searching for firewood and she had bread, scones and pies to make.

She worked quickly now, patting the dough into three loaves and covering them with a damp cloth before setting them aside. There were no eggs to be had, so she used milk to brush the surface of the scones she’d just made, and grasping the long wooden paddle at the side of the fireplace, she eased them into the brick oven. The heat from the fire was scorching hot, and when the scones were in place, she shut the door with a snap and swiftly stepped back. It took only a few moments to set out the ingredients for her strawberry tarts.

She straightened and stretched her spine. The table was too low for comfort, and if she was going to do most of the cooking, which seemed likely, one of the first things they would have to do was replace it or she would end up with a permanent backache. To ease her aching muscles, she took a few paces around the kitchen, then wandered into the breakfast room and into the front hall.

There was a long, cracked pier glass between two doors, and though she always avoided looking at herself when the sisters were there, she had to admit that nothing in the house fascinated her half as much as that looking glass. There were no mirrors in the convent that were bigger than a thumbnail. Until now, she’d never seen a full-length reflection of herself.

The girl in the looking glass stared solemnly back at her. Jessica moved closer and traced the reflection of her eyes, her brows, her nose, her chin. She smiled, she
frowned, she turned this way and that to get a better look at herself. Though she was by no means sure, she thought her best feature might be her hair. It was the color of honey and the curl could only be tamed when she did it in a long plait, as now. Her figure—she removed her apron and set it on a bench—she thought was too thin. The high-waisted spotted muslin hung on her loosely. She pinched it between her fingers to get a smoother fit. That was better. She wondered if that nice young man she’d met on Sheep Street thought she was pretty.

This was vanity. She shouldn’t be thinking these thoughts. The mother superior was right. Idleness was an invention of the devil. She should get back to work.

She was reaching for her apron when she heard the clatter of a horse’s hooves on the approach to the house. Her heart gave a leap. It might be that nice Mr. Wilde, coming to call, or a friend who had heard from him that she was back in Hawkshill. Nerves fluttered in the pit of her stomach. Breathing deeply, she opened the door and stepped onto the porch.

When she saw the horse and rider, she felt a shiver of alarm. The man on the horse looked as though he might have stolen it. The horse was a magnificent beast—black glossy coat, streaming mane, muscles that moved and rippled as it climbed the slope. Its rider was the opposite. He slouched in the saddle. His clothes were disheveled; his hair uncombed; his face unshaven. But it was his expression that alarmed her more than anything. His brows were down and his jaw was tensed. This was definitely not a friendly visit.

Her mind made a lightning connection. He must be one of those Gypsies or tinkers—“those thieving rogues” as Sister Dolores called them—who had encamped in Hawkshill while it had lain empty. It was their mess she and the sisters were now forced to clean up. Joseph had warned her they might return and had advised her on how to handle it. This called for a show of strength.

Swinging around, she darted into the hall and snatched up the old blunderbuss that lay, primed and ready, behind the door. Then she walked out of the house to face the intruder. A show of strength, that’s all the blunderbuss was. She wasn’t supposed to aim it at anyone. If worse came to worst, she was to fire it into the air and that would bring Joseph to her.

The stranger reined in a few yards away. He didn’t dismount, but sat at his ease, eyes narrowed on her speculatively, as a panther might eye a rabbit that had suddenly strayed into its path.

He spoke first. “I swore I wouldn’t come here. Curiosity got the better of me, that and an irresistible urge to welcome my new tenants.”

His meaning hardly registered. She was puzzling over the sneer behind the words and the insolent twist to his mouth. He was angry about something, and she couldn’t think what. She hadn’t done anything. He was the one who was trespassing.

He leaned forward in the saddle and gave her the same insolent smile. “Didn’t my attorney tell you? I own Hawkshill now.”

“
You
own Hawkshill?” She could hardly credit it. This was their landlord, this unkempt, disreputable-looking wild man? She shook her head.

“Oh, it’s perfectly true. Ask my attorney if you don’t believe me. I, Lucas Wilde, am the owner of Hawkshill.”

Wilde?
That was the name of the young man she’d met in Sheep Street. They must be related. “You are Lord Dundas?” she asked incredulously.

“Aye, a lord now, Miss Hayward, and rich enough to buy and sell my neighbors ten times over.” He edged his horse forward. “But life is full of these little ironies, don’t you think?”

He might look like a Gypsy but he spoke like a gentleman. Lord Dundas. It must be true. Now she understood the condition of the house. It was just like its owner.

The conviction that he was telling the truth hardly reassured her. From the look of him, she would have said that he’d been drinking.

She’d dealt with drunkards before, when she and the sisters had combed the stews of London for abandoned children. But on those occasions, she’d been dressed in her nun’s habit. Even the most ramshackle dock worker showed respect for the Sisters of Charity. She wasn’t wearing her habit now.

She eyed him warily. He was their landlord and she didn’t want to get his back up. At the same time, she knew that drink made a man unpredictable. As a subtle reminder that she wasn’t as defenseless as he might think, she inched the gun into the crook of one arm.

His response was a low rumble of laughter. “Careful,” he said, “you might hurt someone with that thing,” and without taking his eyes off her, he slowly dismounted and tethered his horse to the hitching post.

She backed up a step, giving herself room to maneuver in case she had to get off a shot to summon Joseph. “The sisters aren’t here,” she said, “only our man, Joseph.” The reference to Joseph was another subtle reminder that she wasn’t as defenseless as he might think. “And I have no authority to act for the sisters.”