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About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
The Winterley Scandal (#ulink_87dd3a3a-fff5-5ff6-8f7c-c98a3ee99782)
Elizabeth Beacon
Under the gaze of the ton!
As the daughter of wild Pamela Winterley, Eve has always lived in the shadow of scandal. Society watches her every move, waiting for Eve to prove she is just as wayward as her mother…
Ever since his father’s scandalous affair, Colm Hancourt has lived life on his own terms. But then he comes face-to-face with Eve, the daughter of his father’s mistress! It may have begun with a kiss that set tongues wagging, but could the latest Winterley scandal be the start of something special?
Chapter One (#ulink_cc9e2859-9b17-506c-b85c-aa854e2033af)
It’s so hot tonight I am only wearing my new rubies as I write. The stones are glorious, but the settings—oh, my diary—so old fashioned I could scream. Still, only the diamonds to coax out of Lord Chris now—and how his brother the Duke of Linaire will gobble with rage when he sees me wear them.
No, I shall wear every last one of Lady Chris’s jewels, ancient settings and all, the day I get hold of the lot. The Duke of Linaire wants them for his fat mistress, whatever he says about them belonging to his nephew. He doesn’t even like the boy—and how dare he threaten to have me whipped at the cart tail because his little brother loves me to distraction?
Chris’s plain wife is dead and the jewels her vulgar father showered on her never looked half so well on her anyway. The truth is the Duke hates Chris for being young and handsome and having me. After marrying that plain heiress the old Duke insisted one of his sons wed when Lord Horace ran off to the Colonies with that odd female who paints, rather than shackle himself to a nabob’s daughter.
Chris deserves some fun. He endured that low-born creature in his bed for so long it must be bliss to share it with me—and his son can’t wear the jewels, can he? So what use are diamonds of the first water to the horrid brat?
Colm Hancourt carefully put down the expensive notebook lest he throw it across the room and let out the breath he hadn’t known he was holding in an uneven gasp. As the horrid brat in question, he could argue for a hundred better uses for a fortune in gold and jewels than decorating a vain and adulterous demi-rep with them all. The fortune she had been busy spending had been his as well—or it would have been if his father hadn’t stolen it before Colm was old enough to argue. Whatever Lord Christopher Hancourt had done with his son’s fortune, inherited from Colm’s fabulously wealthy maternal grandfather Sir Joseph Lambury, those jewels should be in the bank, waiting for Colm to take a wife. So here was proof, if he needed it, they were long gone. Colm’s maternal grandfather might have left his entire fortune to his only grandson, but that hadn’t stopped Lord Chris from spending it all before Colm was old enough to go to school.
He bit back a curse as the shock of that betrayal hit anew. All the wishing and cursing in the world wouldn’t make his lost fortune reappear and he should know; he’d tried every one when he was younger and seething with fury about the hand life and his father had dealt him. Rage and hurt fought to rule him even now, after eight years of soldiering and learning self-control at the charity school his eldest uncle sent him to before that. So how could he not curse his father for putting this heartless woman ahead of his children? That was the real question he had to answer if he was ever going to be content with what little he had left.
One thing he did know was that he should never have agreed to come here to Derneley House and meet the past head on like this. Pamela had grown up here, under the so-called care of her sister and brother-in-law, and reminders of the wretched female were everywhere. Portraits of the infamous Pamela seemed to jeer at him from far too many walls and it almost felt as if he might catch her and his besotted father up to something disgraceful if he turned round fast enough at times, although they had both been dead these fifteen years and more.
Still, he did owe the only one of his father’s brothers prepared to own up to him quite a lot. The current Duke of Linaire was so sheepish about asking him to come here that he couldn’t even claim he was bullied into it. No, he played down his revulsion at the idea of living in this house for however short a time he would be needed and had come here of his own free will, so he must endure this stupid suspicion that the woman who ruined his life was busy laughing at him from her front-row seat in hell.
He’d had to slot back into his old familiar disguise to live here for as long as this took as well. The Duke of Linaire’s librarian had been dismissed for selling one of the finest volumes in the Linaire Library to a rival collector and expecting the new Duke not to notice. As Uncle Horace would never find a man he could trust to do this task in such a hurry, here he was, Uncle Horace’s long-lost nephew, doing his best to do a good job with the neglected Derneley Library where he’d spent the last eight years with only one book at a time to his name, to be read and passed round other readers who liked to lose themselves in a book when life was almost unendurable on campaign. So he couldn’t even be himself now that he was back in London after all these years. Lord Chris’s son would never be welcome under this roof while Lady Derneley lived under it as well. She still raged about what she called the murder of her little sister to anyone who would listen and Lord Chris Hancourt had driven so recklessly along an Alpine road at twilight that the coach missed a bend and he and Pamela hurtled to their deaths. So here he was, Colin Carter again—just as he’d been in the army. He wanted to push aside the thought that he might have died under that name at Waterloo, if not for his sister Nell and the new Duke, but somehow it haunted him.
Nell had coaxed, or bullied, Uncle Horace into taking her to Brussels when everyone else was fleeing it as battle roared only a few miles away. Revulsion at what his little sister must have seen ate away at Colm every time he thought of Nell viewing the hell of slaughter and corruption the day after Waterloo. She had scoured the battlefield until she found him, dazed and half-conscious from loss of blood, and somehow got him back to Brussels to be nursed at the new Duke of Linaire’s expense. When he was pronounced likely to live, Nell raced back to England and her position as governess to four orphaned girls. Colm’s hands tightened into fists; his sister had to rescue him rather than the other way about and he so wanted to protect her; give her back the life she was born to. In his daydreams she was fulfilled and happy with a man who would love and cosset her as she deserved for the rest of her life. A reminiscent grin spoilt his frown as he reminded himself this was Nell he was thinking about. She wouldn’t thank him for such a husband, even if it meant escaping her life as a governess. He might as well forget the fantasy of giving Nell a Season so the world could see what a wonderful woman she was. She would chafe at the controls society put on marriageable young ladies and ask for her old job back.
So where was he? Ah, yes, Uncle Horace—the second eldest of his father’s three older brothers and the only one Colm liked and might even learn to love one day. Uncle Maurice, the next Hancourt in line after Horace, hated Colm for being his father’s son and he’d hated Lord Chris even more for succeeding with Pamela when he failed. Maurice ought to be grateful to have escaped her clutches, but Colm knew he would never forgive that slight to his reputation as a devil with the ladies. Colm frowned and decided he could well do without his Uncle Maruice’s approval, but Pamela probably chose the younger brother because he’d wed an heiress. Whispers of the fabulous Lambury Jewels locked away in a bank vault would have seemed too delicious to resist as well.
Drat, he was thinking about the wretched female again and how she had seduced and nagged and wheedled that part of his inheritance out of Lord Chris. So where had he been before Pamela interrupted his thoughts? Ah, yes, Uncle Horace—he was a much more pleasant member of the family to think about. As soon as Colm was declared likely to live, the doctors insisted Colm convalesce before he settled into his new life, and neither the Duke nor the Duchess of Linaire would listen when he insisted he was fit to work. They even packed him off to the seaside to recover, so how could he turn his back on the only other members of his family willing to own up to him?
Uncle Horace had only come back to England when he’d inherited the dukedom last year. He probably didn’t realise how huge the scandal had been when his youngest brother had run off with Pamela Verdoyne and then died with her on their way to a party she’d insisted on attending whatever the weather. Uncle Horace had been cut off for refusing to marry the heiress Colm’s father had wed instead by then. Sensible Uncle Horace, Colm thought wryly, and almost wished his father had run off with a woman he could love instead of meekly marrying that unlucky girl as well.
No—he was brought up short by the thought of the woman his father had loved so deeply and unwisely after Colm’s mother died—he decided Sophia Lambury was a far better parent to own up to than the current Viscount Farenze’s first wife. His mother might have been the pawn her father sold for a title and a convenient wife Lord Chris didn’t love, but at least she wasn’t a lovely, heartless harpy.
He shot the portrait of Pamela Verdoyne-Winterley hanging over the fireplace a hostile glare. She had been ripe and lush and beautiful, he conceded, but the mocking sensuality in her sleepy blue eyes said how aware she was of her power over fools like Lord Christopher Hancourt and how she revelled in enslaving lovers until they satisfied her every whim, whatever it cost them and theirs.
He compared her image to his shadowy memories of his mother and, yes, he definitely preferred having gentle, plain Sophia as his dam. So how would it feel to have Pamela’s blood running in his veins? Appalling, he decided, feeling sorry for the girl with that burden on her young shoulders. He didn’t know her, but for some reason he’d waited in the shadows to catch a glimpse of Lady Derneley’s niece tonight with the other servants. Miss Winterley had looked self-contained and almost too conscious of her mother’s sins, or was he being fanciful? Dark-haired and not quite beautiful, she looked very different from her notorious mother. He had to try not to snarl at the near-naked portrait of Pamela whenever he was in this room, but now he examined it for signs that her daughter had inherited her bold sensuality. Miss Winterley had her nose and slender build perhaps, but her eyes, the shape of her face and her height were all very different. Pamela’s daughter looked as if she, too, could be haunted by her mother’s sins a decade and a half after they had ended so abruptly on that Alpine pass.
So at least he didn’t have to fear a feral beast might lie under his own skin as Miss Winterley looked as if she did in her worst nightmares. Lord Chris was a fool who had loved a noble doxy beyond reason, though, and Colm hoped and prayed he would never love madly and without limits like his father. So they were equal in some ways. He sat back to brood on fate and their very different destinies and concluded that was all they had in common.
Miss Winterley was doted on by her family; Colm barely acknowledged by his. Now Uncle Horace was Duke of Linaire he had a roof over his head and a job, but Uncle Maurice was next in line; he would turn Colm out the day he succeeded to the title. Colm liked his new relative very well, but if anything happened to the current Duke he would have to support himself on one good leg and nothing much a year. So if Uncle Horace wanted him to list and pack the entire library to make sure Derneley wasn’t selling off the best volumes to dealers behind his back, Colm would stay here and do it and Mr Carter could live on for another week or two.
Miss Winterley’s presence in this house tonight, when he was sure she didn’t want to be here, was still something of a mystery. He wondered how Lady Derneley managed it, when the distrust between Pamela’s sister and the Winterleys, once Pamela openly gave up on her marriage, never seemed to have been bridged by either family. Luckily the maids hired for the evening whispered and why shouldn’t another servant listen to gossip? Colm thought with a wry smile at his own expense. Apparently Lady Derneley had put it about that this party was to be held in her niece’s honour, as a peace offering in a war where she would hear not a word said against her late sister, and the Winterleys had, not surprisingly, not a good word to say in her favour so they said nothing at all. The Winterleys had to attend or let the world know they were openly at odds with Miss Winterley’s relatives. Since it was Viscount Farenze’s mission in life to keep scandal at bay whenever he could, he would be furious to be forced into a corner, but his wife and daughter would even endure an evening at Derneley House to keep the peace.
That was the how of it all, so what about the why? Lady Derneley was a widgeon and all the brass and cunning in the family must have gone to her little sister, but was there a deeper reason behind her husband’s scheme to get his wife’s niece here tonight? Colm shuddered at the idea, but Miss Winterley had a strong protector in Viscount Farenze and he had powerful friends. Derneley wouldn’t risk all that power and influence turning against him, would he? Unless he was going to flee to the Continent to avoid his debts and thought the Winterley interest didn’t reach that far. No, it was too much of a risk, so Colm had imagined a furtive air about the man nobody else saw as he greeted his ‘long-lost niece’ as if he might cry like a stage villain over her at any moment.
Anyway, what better way was there for the Derneleys to fool their creditors a family reconciliation had taken place? The Winterleys were rich and powerful and it might work, and there were no bailiffs in the hall or toughs in the kitchens tonight. He shivered at the idea of anyone being imprisoned for debt and resolved not to long for the wife and family he might have had if things were different. Derneley’s ruin was all his own work, though; Colm had nothing in common with that noble idiot. Even he knew selling the Derneley Library to the new Duke of Linaire wouldn’t keep Derneley solvent long, but the man didn’t seem worried. Colm wondered how the guests would feel if the bailiffs turned up for dinner, dancing and a nice little gossip with the nobs. Delighted, he suspected; they had come here to be entertained after all.
Colm eyed the beautifully bound book Pamela confided in and refused to be sorry it was probably the closest she ever got to a friend. She had hidden her diaries behind a row of sermons and he wondered that they hadn’t burnt holes in the worthy volumes. The library was being taken apart and shipped to Linaire House book by book, so they would have been discovered sooner or later and Colm was suddenly very glad he was the one taking it apart, not some poor clerk happy to sell such deliciously scandalous diaries to the highest bidder. Some of the lower branches of the publishing world would love to get their hands on such ‘work’. But what on earth was he going to do with them? Burning seemed a fine idea with that prospect in his head, but he wanted to find out more about his father. Lord Chris died when Colm was eight, but he’d left his children before then.
Stuffing the expensively bound books into a portmanteau and limping off into the night was a tempting idea, but his work wasn’t finished and the tale that would do the rounds if he was caught creeping out of the house with Pamela’s diaries would enliven the radical press for years to come. Someone might recognise his name and if Captain Carter of the Rifles was smoked out as Lord Chris’s son how the ton would sneer at a duke’s grandson forced to serve in a regiment famous for dash and daring, but officered largely by tradesmen’s sons and great gruff soldiers promoted on merit.
‘Oh, no, my dear, the fellow’s totally unsuited to polite company even without those unsightly infirmities. Not a penny to bless himself with and even a cit’s daughter wouldn’t risk marrying Lord Chris’s son since he’s likely to spend her fortune on a doxy like his father.’
It was uncomfortable enough to imagine, what if he had to listen to real asides and furtive titters when he was openly his uncle’s nephew? He’d end up calling some fool out and he didn’t want to flee justice, or shoot some idiot in a duel. Nell would be furious and the thought of his lion-hearted sister made him smile. If she were here, she would bid him get on with his life and forget the past. Well, he couldn’t quite manage that yet, but he would put most of Pamela’s diaries back and hope nobody chanced on them before he could think what to do with them. Then, if he could only forget his sister had to work for her bread because of the selfish adulteress who had bled their father dry, he might be able to enjoy the novelty of not being shot at on a regular basis and be himself for the first time in eight years.
Colm cursed the day Lord Chris set eyes on Pamela as he limped towards the steep little stair to the upper shelves of the library to replace the rest of her diaries and the Derneleys’ guests enjoyed the remnants of their host’s once-fabled wealth only a few rooms away.
Eve Winterley still couldn’t work out how her stepmama talked her into attending this wretched party. She wished clever Lady Chloe Winterley, Viscountess Farenze, hadn’t right now. First there was Aunt Derneley’s delusion they doted on each other to endure, then Lord Derneley trod so clumsily on her skirt in passing as she curtsied to her dance partner that she had to hastily leave the room. If not for that the appalling old man who waylaid her on her way to find a maid to help mend it she could have left this horrible house by now… Ugh, no, she didn’t want to think about him yet, but how she wished she had invented a headache to keep her at home tonight.
She didn’t care if the gossips gloated over the split between the Derneleys and the Winterleys. Her mother had willed her to die in the attic of this place once upon a time, so little wonder she couldn’t wait to go home even before… No, she wasn’t going to think about that awful old wineskin until she was safe. She wasn’t sure she could endure the thought of him and what he might have done even then. Papa always said the best thing her mother did was reject her and usually Eve agreed, but tonight a small part of her wanted to throw something fragile because Pamela did her best to starve Eve to death in the attics here instead of being any sort of mother to her newborn babe.
Pamela didn’t matter. Dear Bran was brought here to nurse Eve and then Papa rescued them both. Eve grew up knowing she was loved as surely as the sea beat on the rocks below her father’s northern stronghold. Then Papa married Lady Chloe Thessaly when Eve was sixteen and what a relief to love and be loved by such a remarkable woman, she reminded herself, and supposed she would have to forgive Chloe her part in this wretched evening after all.
A nasty little voice at the back of her head whispered she couldn’t escape the past in this down-at-heel mansion the Derneleys were clinging on to somehow. What if the gossips and naysayers are right when they whisper, ‘Like mother, like daughter,’ behind my back? her inner critic goaded. What if one day I meet a man who wakes up the greedy whore in me and she makes me need ever more wild and wicked things from him and the rest of his sex as Pamela did?
No, never, she denied it as her headache beat in her ears and she scuttled down the next half-lit corridor in the hope of sanctuary. She was a Winterley—everyone said how closely she followed her father in colouring, build and character. Even after three years out in society not a whiff of real scandal tainted her name, despite all the rakes and fortune hunters who tried to blast it so she would have to marry them or accept a lover. Still those whispers circulated without proof to back them up and malicious eyes watched for signs she was like Pamela. Anyone who mattered knew her and not the creature gossip said she was, but ageing rakes like Sir Steven Scrumble still thought they could force her into an unlit room and make her agree to marry him because she must be like her mother, or so he’d mumbled as he did his best to make sure she was the next Lady Scrumble. She shuddered at the memory of his wet mouth and invading hands and wiped a hand across her lips to try to rub out the feel and taste of him. Hadn’t she just promised herself not to revisit that horror?
If she collapsed into a weeping heap everyone would know she had something to cry about and she hadn’t got her flounce mended either, so she had to hold it out of the way not to trip over it and now she was lost. The wicked old fortune hunter fell into an agonised heap when she’d kneed him sharply in the privates, though, so she doubted he’d be on her tail. Uncle James was a most satisfactory mentor for a young lady who didn’t want to be landed with a husband she hated. If that tactic failed, there were more to fall back on so thank heavens she belonged to a powerful clan; if she was poor and alone her mother’s wild life and blasted reputation would have ruined her years ago.
Her first real suitor came so close to doing it she shuddered at the thought of her youthful stupidity. How had she ever thought herself so in love with a fool? Papa and Chloe had warned her he wasn’t the man she thought. It wasn’t until she told him she wouldn’t elope that the gloss and excitement of having her first grown-up lover melted. He wanted her because she was her mother’s daughter, not despite it. Memory of the hot, greedy need in his eyes as he tore her gown and got ready to rape her made her feel sick even now. That was when Uncle James intervened and, as that boy hadn’t shown his true colours since, maybe his punishment worked.
Fighting the memory of that night and all the times since when even a quiet and outwardly respectable man would look at her with the memory of her mother in his hot eyes, she looked for somewhere to ply the needle and hank of thread snatched from the deserted ladies’ withdrawing room. Opening a promising door warily, she checked for fat and lazy fortune hunters, then slipped inside. There was an air of peace in the old-fashioned book room; a very small fire and one branch of candles cast mellow shadows. Her uncle by marriage would never come in here for a quick read; he was probably allergic to printers’ ink. She moved the candle and sat on a stiff and old-fashioned sofa by the fire to whip quick, impatient stitches into her torn flounce, glad to be alone for a few precious moments. Shifting the material round so she could reach the tear, she made herself sew more neatly, so it would look as if a maid mended it for her and that was where she had been all along.
There, that was the tear darned. Once she had the strip of fine French braid tacked neatly in place she would be respectable again. It was still trailing like a tail behind her when a suspicion this wasn’t such a wonderful place to hide crept up on her. One of Uncle James’s rules was assess all escape routes when you entered a strange room. She froze in her seat, needle in mid-air and every sense alert now it was too late. Another faint movement made her look round and see there was a gallery to this faded room she should have noted of earlier. Someone was coming down a hidden stair so slowly and quietly a superstitious shiver ran down her back.
Too late to avoid whoever it was now, she wasn’t about to run back to the ballroom with her braid trailing behind her, so she grasped the needle like a weapon and hoped it might work. Lord Derneley’s cronies were too soft and idle to fit into the narrow confines of the ladder-like stair she could see now her eyes were used to the dim light, so this was a less substantial person. Halting steps met the marble floor at last and she squinted against the candlelight and deep shadows it cast to see whom she must defend herself against this time.
Chapter Two (#ulink_c1ebf40e-28e9-5962-924a-4dcaf431250e)
‘What the devil are you doing here?’ a gruff male voice rumbled as Eve froze, staring at the stiffly held figure and telling herself he wasn’t made of shadows.
He took a step forward and stared nearly as rudely back. He looked both old and young at the same time and she wondered how such a shabby gentleman could seem so arrogant it was as if he owned the room and not Lord Derneley’s creditors. His overlong hair was neither brown nor gold but a mixture of both and his nose had been broken once upon a time. There was an air of contained power about him that didn’t fit his modest shirt points and a very ordinary dark coat and breeches. He shouldn’t be in the least attractive to a lady like her and yet he was. Now he turned his head as if to listen for more intruders into his domain and the candlelight struck his face full on. She could see a still raw scar high on his forehead that made her gasp, then wondered how much damage his tawny pelt hid and if that explained why he let it grow. Something wary and proud in his unusual eyes stopped her answering his question with a casual put down from lady to upper servant. Even from several feet away and by weak candlelight those eyes looked dark and light at the same time. He came a little closer to peer down at her as if she was an exhibit in a museum and she gazed up and saw his irises were brown, but his pupils were rayed with flares of light gold that made them look paler.
Here was a man who kept his hopes and dreams hidden, but when their gazes met something sparked between them that she didn’t understand. It felt as if he was important to her somehow, but he couldn’t be so, could he? Looked at coolly he was a young clerk in shabby day clothes and had nothing in common with the Honourable Miss Winterley. Still she felt an eager leap of the heart she had heard about but never experienced before; the dawn of something huge she never believed in until now. It threatened to turn her world upside down as they gazed at each other as if under a spell. Which was just plain nonsense, wasn’t it? There might be enough mysteries in this stranger’s striking eyes to intrigue a flock of unwary young ladies, but she was Eve Winterley and he was an upper servant by dress, if not his arrogant manner as he silently dared her to set him down as nobody.
‘You took the words out of my mouth,’ she informed him huskily, doing her best to act the composed society lady in the face of his impudence.
‘Her ladyship’s ball is that way, Miss Winterley,’ he said and Eve felt that tingle of warmth she’d been trying to fight turn to ice. The coldness in his voice made her shiver and something like disapproval iced his gaze as he dwelt on her exposed ankles and calf, then he looked away as if she offended him.
‘You have the advantage of me, sir,’ she said stiffly.
‘Carter, ma’am,’ he said unenthusiastically.
‘And now I know?’
‘The Duke of Linaire engaged me to sort the Derneley Library and have it packed up and sent to Linaire House or the bookbinders.’
‘Well, it’s a fine collection and Lord Derneley is desperate,’ she said, then wondered what demon had got hold of her tongue tonight.
‘His father was a notable scholar,’ the man said as if every word must be paid for and he was unwilling to waste them on the likes of her.
‘Maybe his son is a changeling then,’ she said, her temper prickling. She refused to tell polite lies after the evening she’d endured so far and this man’s hostility seemed to be coming towards her in waves now he’d taken a good long look at Miss Evelina Winterley and decided he didn’t like her one little bit.
‘Lord Derneley is my host,’ he reproved her, as if she had no idea it was rude to make comments about one when you were under his roof.
‘And therefore above criticism? I shall employ you to sit in my father’s library and whisper my grace, talent and general omnipotence in my ear when I feel less than pleased with myself and the world.’
‘I shall be very ill occupied then,’ he said unwarily—so that was what he thought of her, was it? ‘I beg your pardon, I’m sure dozens of fashionable gentlemen queue up to praise your elegance, beauty and cleverness, Miss Winterley,’ he added patronisingly, as if that should make her feel better.
‘Since we seem to be jumping to conclusions about each other so freely tonight, you must be a cynic and a Jacobin, Carter. Why else would you take against a lady you don’t know, unless you hold a grudge against my family, of course?’ she demanded, suddenly very tired of being Pamela Winterley’s daughter. Tonight was bad enough without a stranger sniping at her as if she must deserve it.
Colm tried to rein in his temper, but the sight of her looking as if she had only just left the arms of her lover made him deaf to the voice of reason. Apologise, then bow politely and leave her to her sewing, you blundering idiot, it whispered, but this was a very different Eve Winterley from the one he saw enter Derneley’s hall tonight. Then she was pale and composed; a dark-haired version of the Ice Queen, so cool and distant she could have been made of bronze and cold painted. Now she was ruffled and flushed and he still wanted to touch her, not to find out if she was real this time, but to carry on the work of the lucky devil she must have been kissing in the long-disused conservatory at the end of this corridor.
He sounded like a jealous lover and how could that be when he didn’t even know her? He still wanted to be the one who tousled all that cool perfection, though. If he had sent her racing along dusty passage ways to find the least-used part of this rambling old place and set herself to rights after their amorous encounter, now that would be much more acceptable. Even the thought of being the one whose kisses set her delightful breasts rising and falling with every fast and shallow breath made him hard. Exploring even the edges of passion with her warm and willing in his arms wasn’t to be thought of. No, it really, really wasn’t, he argued with his inner savage.
Colm felt the gnawing of bitter envy as he let himself sneer ever so slightly at the difference between her public face and private morals. Miss Winterley was set fair to follow her disgraceful dam after all. He recalled Pamela’s shocking declaration that she was writing her diary wearing nothing but rubies and that did nothing to help his wild fantasies about seeing her daughter in a similar state of nature.
‘How can I feel anything about your family when I don’t know them?’ he asked as coolly as he could while he tried to shackle his inner sensualist.
‘I don’t know; how can you?’
‘Obviously I cannot.’
‘Yet you have your shallow prejudices about me and mine and seem to think it quite acceptable to show them off. For a mere librarian you are very daring, Mr Carter,’ she said with a pointed stare at the scar on his forehead he usually felt so defensive about.
‘Librarians do not spring fully formed from the head of Zeus like the goddess Athene, Miss Winterley.’
‘Waterloo?’ she demanded rudely and he supposed he’d asked for it by leaping to conclusions about her as well.
He nodded, still unable to talk about that terrible day. Not even Nell knew the terror he had felt, the dreadful urge to turn his back on his men and this hell of powder and shot and pounding artillery all around him and walk off into the woods to find peace. Now that his emotions seemed too close to the surface he was afraid he might let her see things he didn’t want any other human being to know about. She was his enemy; Winterleys and Hancourts had hated one another since his father ran off with her mother. It was probably his duty to think the worst of her, but as his lust and temper cooled he took a second look and wondered if he misjudged her.
‘I can see how a library might offer peace and quiet after that,’ she added as if she understood a bit too much. ‘Will this be enough for you after a life of action?’
‘I don’t know, Miss Winterley. No doubt I shall find out when these books are safely housed in my employer’s various houses.’
‘And rescued from the neglect of nearly half a century,’ she agreed rather absently, as if her real thoughts were elsewhere.
‘Indeed,’ he said, sounding stuffy even to his own ears. ‘I wonder they are not in worse condition.’
‘Fascinating as you find this topic, Mr Carter, I need to get back to the ballroom before people notice I have been away too long. Kindly turn your back, or go away, so I can finish sewing this braid back in place and go.’
‘I still have work to do tonight,’ he said, wishing he had pushed the open volume of Pamela’s diary he had kept out to read under something else, so there was no risk she might spot it if she wandered closer to the library table to see what he had been doing. ‘Here, let me move the candle so you can see better and be gone all the sooner,’ he offered ungraciously and moved it before she could argue. Then he meekly turned his back as ordered and hoped that was distraction enough from her mother’s appalling scribbles.
‘You are almost as eager to see the back of me as I am to go,’ she said, her voice muffled because she was paying close attention to her gown.
Colm was tempted to use the old mirror nearby to sneak another look at her fine legs and ankles as he fantasised about the thread pulling up her hem as she worked on the most awkward part of the braid once again. The unresolved question of who did that damage plagued him and he could still hear her move, feel her presence in this shadowed and oddly intimate room and long to be someone else.
‘You can’t marry a librarian if we are caught here in such a compromising position,’ he explained gruffly.
‘Even if you are a hero?’
Wouldn’t it be fine if they truly felt easy enough to laugh together? They never would if she knew who he really was. After tonight they could go back to different worlds. Except he thought Uncle Horace and his Duchess had plans that might make those worlds collide. Heaven forbid, he thought. He hated the idea of who he really was frosting Miss Winterley’s eyes when they met as polite strangers.
‘I am nobody’s hero, Miss Winterley,’ he said dourly. ‘They usually end up dead and not maimed like me.’
‘If that scar was on the back of the head I suppose I might believe you got it running away,’ she said as the faint sound of her needle penetrating the heavy satin of her gown reached his over-sensitised hearing and he held his breath against the quiet catch of her breathing and what it was doing to his dratted body.
‘Maybe I walked backwards from the guns?’ he said wryly and she chuckled. The warm sound of it brought back all the temptations he had been fighting since she walked into the room and he saw her all flustered and compelling from his perch at the top of the spiral stairs, before she even knew he existed.
‘And maybe a bullet bounced off somewhere else and hit you in the leg, but somehow I doubt it.’
‘I could have been devilishly unlucky.’
‘You could.’
‘Are you done yet?’ he asked sharply, because it felt dangerous to argue, then almost laugh with her.
‘Eager to be rid of me?’
‘Eager to keep my job, Miss Winterley. That will not happen if we are found alone here with the door shut.’
‘Yet the new Duke seems such a reasonable sort of man,’ she said as if he could be explained away with a careless smile and a shrug that said of course we were not up to anything untoward, how could a viscount’s daughter and a librarian be anything but strangers?
‘Your papa doesn’t look so where you are concerned.’
‘True, but he’s not here and now I’m set to rights he won’t need to be.’
‘Kindly hurry away then and make sure of that, if you please. Can I turn round, by the way?’
‘Yes, I am quite neat and unmarred again,’ she said and he frowned as he turned and met her challenging gaze. ‘I cannot say it has been a pleasure meeting you, Mr Carter.’
‘Good evening, Miss Winterley,’ he said curtly and wished she would go away and leave him in peace.
‘Good evening, Mr Car…’ she began, then faltered as the sound of hurrying feet sounded outside. ‘Where can I hide?’ she demanded urgently.
He darted a look at the alcove set aside for a clerk to catalogue new finds in the days when Lord Derneley’s father collected rare volumes from anywhere he could. Even that dark corner couldn’t conceal a young woman in pale and rustling silk. She gave him an impatient look and darted towards the narrow wooden stair he had climbed down so carefully only minutes ago. She scrambled to get out of sight and was lost to his view, if not to his senses, just in time not to be seen when the door opened and Lord Derneley sauntered in.
‘Thought you could have helped Lady Derneley with the wallflowers, Carter,’ he said distractedly, looking round as if this half-empty room was a surprise to him.
The thought of Miss Winterley standing so near and still made Colm tense as a drum. He breathed more shallowly for fear she might make a noise and be found and what on earth would they do then? An offer of marriage from him would hardly quiet the scandal. Yet there was something furtive in Derneley’s pale eyes that said he knew she had flown somewhere to set her appearance to rights and he intended to find her. That suspicion he had earlier that the man was up to something devious as far as his wife’s niece was concerned returned in spades. He felt a fierce need to protect her from whatever moneymaking scheme the rogue had thought up at Miss Winterley’s expense.
