“Yes, thank you, sir.” She tucked her knees up under her and balanced her chin on her hand. She had a very good hold on herself now. “You are certainly calm about all this. Were I you, I would sleep in the stable.” He handed her the glass, grinning down at her. “Believe me, I would gladly ask Dr. Branyon for a sleeping potion if I thought it would not lower me in your estimation. But it would lower me at least a bit, wouldn’t it?”
“My father never asked for a sleeping potion. Perhaps he should have. It quite raises the hair on my neck every time I hear or recount that story.
Now, as for you, that, sir, is quite the stupidest thing I’ve heard you say. Of course I have only known you for two days. Doubtless in the future there will be many more stupid things to come out of your mouth.” So she’d accept it. He felt a spurt of relief, but he said easily enough,
“You call me stupid just because I try to butter you up? Don’t deny it.
Also, I find it invigorating that you speak of the future. Drink your sherry, ma’am, and stop frowning at me. That’s a new frown, one manufactured just because I caught you in the truth.”
“To your continued health, sir,” she said, and tossed down the remainder of her sherry. “Maybe.”
“When will you let me call you Arabella?” She said, “It is far easier to keep you at arm’s length with ma’am. I think arm’s length is a good distance for you. If I could but think of another appellation that would keep you further away from me I surely would use it.”
“But I would prefer being much closer.”
“I don’t think so. You move quickly, sir, too quickly.” Her voice had risen. She felt a spurt of panic, then knew that such a thing as panic was for lesser folk, those who weren’t secure in themselves, those who were weak and feckless.
“I don’t mind if you call me Justin.”
“Sir suits you quite nicely. It grows very late. Good night.”
“We’re back to the beginning again,” he said and managed a credible sigh.
“You’re fleeing me, ma’am. I will think you a coward.” He set down his glass and walked toward her.
She showed no alarm whatsoever. “I don’t believe you’re executing a sound strategy. Come any closer and I will fire off my glass of sherry at you.”
“Are you always so physical, ma’am?”
“Only when necessary,” she said, her chin well up. “Keep your distance and you will remain intact.”
To her, it was a challenge. To her surprise and perhaps a bit of chagrin, the earl backed away. He sat in a spindly chair that groaned under his weight. “So, now you will flee,” he said, his voice all meditative and sad. “Now you will abandon me to my fate in the haunted bedchamber.” Now this wasn’t something she’d expected. He was acting human. It was disconcerting. She said, her voice all grudging, “I suppose I cannot blame you after that terrifying experience. I have always felt uncomfortable in that room. Actually, I avoid it.”
“How relieved I am to hear you say that. Is your bedchamber large enough for the both of us?”
“Oh dear, that really is too much,” Arabella said, and dashed from the room.
“It’s just the beginning, ma’am.” He smiled, a confident smile. She was obstinate and headstrong. She was also an excellent rider, she had a brain in her head, and she could be amusing. Also, she knew how to run Evesham Abbey. She had talent and experience where he had none. Perhaps many men would have condemned her for that, but he found it a vast relief. Suddenly, he did not think that he would wish her to be any other way. He pictured her breasts. His hands curved. He was beginning to think that he had not made such a bad bargain after all. Surely he was a bounder.
The earl drummed long fingers impatiently on the most recent pages of the estate account book. Damn, he was not used to the endless rows of numbers to be tallied and retallied, all the details of what to do with this or that investment, or the juggling of rents of his tenants to secure the best income. He would just as soon that all the numbers would magically disappear and stay gone, just as had the ghost of Evesham Abbey a week ago after scaring him spitless that first night.
He sat back in his chair and dropped his pen on the open page. He had passed his adult years soldiering—a leader of men, not these damned numbers that seemed to dance from one column to another. Ah, Ciudad Rodrigo—there was a battle, and a decisive one. Yet, he thought, picking up the pen and tapping it on the open page, Napoleon still held Europe fast in his Corsican hands. England was suffering from the French blockade, and if rumor had it correctly, Napoleon was now casting greedy eyes to the east, to Russia.
And
