Unlacing the Innocent Miss. Margaret McPhee

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      He made no comment, yet even so, Rosalind felt the flush of warmth in her cheeks. Embarrassment made her seek something—anything—to say, desperately searching for a diversion from her awkwardness.

      ‘It is a cold night for the time of year.’ She looked round at him, and attempted to sit back more comfortably on the seat.

      The man gave no response, just manipulated the reins, and made soft clicking noises to steer them round so that the horse and cart were ready to trot down a smaller road to the side. As they changed direction, the moon lit his face so that Rosalind saw him for the first time. He was not as old as she had expected; indeed, she estimated that he could not be so very much older than her own twenty-five years.

      His were strong features, harsh and lean…and handsome. High cheekbones and a chiselled jawline, a straight manly nose and a hard uncompromising mouth that did not smile. A small pale scar slashed across the skin of his cheek beneath his right eye. And his face held a slightly mocking expression. But it was none of these things that caused the breath to catch in Rosalind’s throat. Within the cool moonlight, the man’s eyes seemed almost silver, and he was looking at her with an expression so cold as to freeze her.

      The shock of it made her rapidly avert her gaze, and when she glanced again, his face was looking forward and in shadow once more. She wondered if she had been mistaken. And the thought occurred to her that perhaps he knew that she was lying to Mr Stewart and that she had come from Evedon House. Perhaps he even knew her real identity. It was impossible, of course. They had hanged her father twenty years ago. And as for the rest—Evedon and his accusations—she had been careful: writing her application from Louisa’s in Edinburgh, lying about what she had been doing for the last years, erasing any hint of a connection with the dowager Lady Evedon.

      The man was probably just irritated at being dragged from his bed in the middle of the night to fetch her. She was safe. She was going to Benmore House and everything would be fine. She took a deep breath and tried to convince herself of that.

      ‘You have the advantage of me, sir. I do not know your name.’ Small talk, something plucked from the air to break the uneasy silence that lay between them.

      Within the quiet of the night, the horse’s iron-shod hooves were loud against the compacted surface of the road. Rosalind deliberately kept her gaze averted from the horse, glancing round at Hunter’s man instead. There was only the noise of the horse’s hooves, and she thought that he would not answer her, but eventually he spoke.

      ‘Wolversley, but they call me Wolf.’ The silver eyes flicked down to meet hers once more.

      Wolf. The skin on the nape of Rosalind’s neck prickled, and not just at the name. There was an intensity in that single silver glance that shook her.

      The reins twitched beneath his fingers and the horse began to pick up its pace. She could not help but grip again at the seat.

      ‘Is the pace too fast for you, ma’am?’ She thought she heard an edge of mockery in his words, but whether it was there in truth or was just a product of her own guilty imagination, she did not know.

      ‘No, sir. The pace is perfectly fine.’ Rosalind had no intention of admitting her fear to anyone at the Hunter residence. One more secret to be kept amidst many. ‘Perhaps you could tell me something of Benmore House.’

      ‘Best just to wait and see for yourself,’ he replied. A moment’s pause before he added, ‘But happen you could tell me of Benmore’s new housekeeper. We have been curious as to Miss Meadowfield.’

      Not a question that Rosalind wished to answer, yet she knew that she would have to do so time and again within her new position, and she supposed that now was as good a time as any to start. ‘There is little to tell, Mr Wolversley.’

      ‘Wolf,’ he corrected.

      And again that strange sensation whispered down her spine. ‘Where did you work prior to taking up this position? Mr Stewart said it was Edinburgh.’

      ‘I did indeed work for a household in Edinburgh.’

      ‘Anyone we would have heard of?’

      ‘No one you would have heard of,’ she replied quickly, not wishing to drag her old school friend and her family into this any more than was necessary. It had been good of Louisa to take her in after her flight from London, especially given that she knew the truth of Rosalind’s father. It had also been Louisa’s idea to say that Rosalind had spent the last years as her housekeeper and to write her a glowing character in response to the advertisement that she had taken from Lady Evedon’s chamber that terrible night. Even so, she had not told Louisa the truth of that night, just that there had been a disagreement and she wished to find paid employment.

      ‘Where exactly did you work, ma’am, if you do not mind me asking?’

      Rosalind’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Oh.’ She forced a smile and tried to sound as if everything was perfectly normal. ‘Ainslie Place. A fairly small household.’

      ‘Ainslie Place?’ Wolf turned his face to hers and she was struck anew at its strength and harsh handsomeness, and the cold cynical light in his eyes that he made no pretence of disguising. ‘Interesting.’

      And the thought that pulsed in her brain was that this Wolf might prove to be a very dangerous man to her, although in quite what way she did not know. ‘I am glad that you think so,’ she said with careful politeness and glanced away, desperate to think of some way of steering him on to a safer topic.

      ‘What made you wish to leave?’

      ‘I read Mr Stewart’s advertisement in The Times and thought the position exactly suited to my purposes.’ That much, at least, was true.

      ‘You were not happy where you were?’

      ‘I was very happy, but I am a little tired of the city. Benmore House’s rural location attracted me greatly.’ Indeed, it was Benmore’s isolated location and distance from London as well as Mr Stewart’s self-confessed hermit tendencies that had made it the perfect place for Rosalind. She could remain hidden in the safety of such obscurity and earn a living.

      ‘What of you, sir?’ she said, determined to draw him away from pursuing the matter any further. ‘Yours does not sound to be a local accent.’

      ‘I am a Yorkshire man.’ There was a ruggedness to his voice.

      ‘And have you worked at Benmore House for long?’

      ‘Long enough,’ he said and glanced round at her with that harsh unsmiling demeanour, and again she felt the faint shimmer of something ripple down her spine, something that she could not quite place. A warning—or excitement. More like foolishness and fatigue, she told herself firmly.

      ‘Come straight over from Edinburgh have you?’

      She gave a small nod of her head.

      The man Wolf gave no comment, and Rosalind made no further attempt at conversation with a man who was more interested in asking his own questions rather than answering hers. Better an awkward silence than another awkward question, she thought. Perhaps this was going to be harder than she had anticipated. Perhaps her own lies would trip herself up in the first week. She closed her eyes against the thought. It was late and СКАЧАТЬ