‘Ouch!’ Julia Chancellor sucked her thumb and frowned at the additional bead of red now decorating the holly wreath. ‘That carriage door slamming out there made me jump, Fred. Who could be foolish enough to try driving anywhere in this weather, let alone up here? The Falconer ladies must have a very determined guest and one who has overshot their house, at that.’
Fred—fat, fluffy and ginger—merely glowered from his post on the bottom step of the stairs. He did not approve of snow, even a light dusting, and snow a foot or more deep he considered a personal affront. He thumped down on to the hall floor and stalked off towards the kitchen, tail erect except for a right-angled kink at the end. ‘Mrreow.’
‘It is snowing out at the back as well, you know, you daft cat. Oh, bother this wreath.’ Julia fiddled a length of twine through the back at the cost of two more punctures and held up the result in triumph. ‘There, just this to fix and I’ll make tea. Not that anyone is going to be passing to see it in this weather.’
She reached for the door handle at the same moment as the knocker rattled out a sharp staccato and she juggled the prickly wreath and a pair of scissors as she opened the door, expecting to find a lost and shivering coach driver needing directions.
Standing on the top step was a tall, handsome, dark-haired man. His hat was a thing of beauty, his boots gleamed. In between the two was nothing except naked man. Rather a lot of naked man. He flung his arms wide, presumably just in case she missed any of what was on display. ‘Surprise!’
A gasp filled her lungs with freezing air, her eyes streamed, but not before she dragged her appalled gaze up from muscular, hairy, goose-bumped male skin to the man’s face. ‘You.’
Her straight-armed shove caught him squarely on the chest with the holly wreath, and Giles Darrowby, Viscount Missenden, fell backwards into the snow with a yelp of pain.
Julia slammed the door and leaned against it defensively. That man. She had not seen him for almost two years. She had never seen him before without his clothing—thank heavens—but that was unmistakably the man who had abandoned her in the middle of a scandal that had ruined her, wrecked her come-out and sent her into exile in deepest rural Hertfordshire. That deceptively innocent, charming smile was burned into her memory. Let him try to smile through frostbite.
He was audible through the thickness of a door designed to stand up to the worst the weather could throw at it, although fortunately she could not make out exactly what he was saying.
Surprise? I’ll give him surprise, she thought grimly, her fingers fastening around the key that jutted from the lock.
Then the sharp, thin draught through the lock gave her pause. If the Viscount stayed out there he would die, clothes or no clothes, and, loathe him as she might, she was not going to have a man’s death on her conscience.
Julia went into the front parlour, pulled the knitted throw from the back of the sofa and opened the front door again. She had not been hallucinating and the small glass of sherry she had sipped while she was stirring cake mixture had not gone to her head. Even in the evening gloom she could see that the considerable length of Viscount Missenden was sprawled in the snow, already receiving a light dusting of flakes that lay decoratively on his hairy chest and muscular thighs and...everywhere.
He had tossed aside the wreath and, when the light from the hall flooded across him, he moved his hat rapidly to groin level.
Somewhat too late, Julia thought grimly. I am never going to get that image out of my mind now.
‘Get out of the snow, put this round you and come in before you die in my front garden and ruin the view.’ She turned, adding over her shoulder as she hooked the blanket over the handle, ‘And hang the wreath on the front door as you come, my lord.’
Giles hauled himself to his feet, slapped his hat back on his head, furled the blanket around himself like a toga and picked up the confounded wreath. This is the last time I listen to one of Woodley’s schemes, he thought, as he found the string loop with numbed fingers and managed to fix it over the hook above the knocker.
‘We can’t abandon Felix, poor devil, not to that ghastly woman,’ Woodley had said. ‘The man is too amiable, he’ll never have the resolution to extricate himself. We need shock tactics and I’ve got just the plan.’
And they had all agreed and cut for it and Giles had drawn the two of diamonds. Not that he’d protested, it had seemed sensible enough at the time, with the benefit of a good dinner and several bottles of palatable claret inside them. What could possibly go wrong?
Nothing, it seemed, he brooded as he pushed at the door and stumbled into the warmth of a neat little hallway. Nothing except a blizzard and incompetent map-reading and the inescapable fact that he had just exposed himself like some pervert to an innocent female who had absolutely nothing to do with any of this. The fact that it was freezing cold was a slight mercy, but even so, she must have had a far better view of his accoutrements than any decent woman would want.
With an effort he got his boots off—no point in aggravating matters by treading melting snow down the hallway.
‘Ouch!’ He hopped on one stockinged foot, clutching at the blanket.
‘Mind the holly, Lord Missenden,’ the decent woman called from somewhere at the end of the hall. ‘There may be leaves on the floor.’
‘Thank you so much,’ he muttered darkly, hobbling forward, hitching the blanket, which seemed more inadequate by the minute, closer around him. Then, as he opened the door on to a kitchen, it struck him. ‘How do you know who I am?’
The woman—lady, she was clearly a lady from her speech and the plain but elegant gown she was wearing—looked round from dragging a screen about a tub set in front of the range. She banged it into position and glared at him. Brown hair, just on the blond side of mouse, straight nose with freckles, determined chin, grey eyes and a mouth that, just at that moment, resembled a rat trap.
‘Because I have a very clear recollection of the man who ruined me, my lord. Even when he is blue with cold and covered with goose bumps. There is hot water in the copper through there along with buckets and a scoop. Soap and towels are there.’ She pointed at a chair next to the tub. ‘Where are your clothes?’
‘In a carriage disappearing down the hill,’ he said grimly.
‘I will find you something to wear.’
Giles stared at the kitchen door as it shut behind her. Ruined? Her? Me? He had never seen the woman in his life, he’d swear to it. Besides, he did not go about ruining ladies, or any females come to that. Perhaps he had wandered into the clutches of the local eccentric, some spinster who was convinced that every man she came across was making dubious advances to her. But she knows my name.
He shivered—and not entirely because of the cold. Either he was snowed in with a madwoman or he had done something appalling he had absolutely no recollection of.
From one corner of the kitchen came a low, menacing rumble of a growl and a vast ginger cat prowled out.
‘Nice pussy,’ Giles ventured, edging towards the scullery. He had a healthy respect for a cat’s armoury of claws and this one appeared to be in a particularly bad mood.
It sat down and sneered at him as he scooped water into the pair of buckets and carried them through, not deigning to move, so he had to manoeuvre around it.
When he had the tub half-filled and the temperature adjusted to just short of boiling with cold water from a brass jug, it turned around and watched while he lowered himself in cautiously, moaning with mingled pleasure and pain as his extremities defrosted.
‘Does everyone in this house loathe me?’ he enquired after the narrow amber gaze became uncomfortable. Or was there no one else here? Now he thought about it, he would have expected to be handed over to a footman or the cook, not to have the mistress of the house lugging screens and bathtubs about.
The man who ruined me...
Even a gentlewoman in disgrace would have a servant, surely?
The kitchen door opened behind him and the cat made an ambiguous noise as it went to investigate. ‘Sir Thomas Kilver has just equipped his entire household with new livery and he gave me the old garments to see what can be salvaged for the poor. My name, should you not recall it, is Julia Chancellor,’ she said.
Giles kept a wary eye on the reflections in the brass jug but, mercifully, Miss Chancellor was staying behind the screen and not advancing to flagellate him with more holly or whatever her delusions were suggesting to her.
‘I have taken the braid off most of the coats and there are some of the shirts the sewing circle have been making as well. I brought them home to finish the hemming. I imagine something in all of this will fit you. I will put the clothes on the table.’
‘Thank you.’
‘My pleasure,’ she said, her tone unmistakably sarcastic.
‘Do you not have a footman, Miss Chancellor?’
‘I have a maid and she is at the cottage to the east of this one helping the Misses Jepson, whose own maidservant is about to give birth at any moment. Come along, Fred, I am sure we can trust His Lordship not to run off with the spoons.’ The door shut again with a sharp click.
That is a very angry woman.
Giles got out of the tub, towelled himself dry, then padded over to investigate the clothes she had piled up. It was easy enough to find a shirt to fit him: the sewing circle was obviously intending to outfit sturdy labourers and most of the coarse linen garments would have been big enough. He pulled on his own stockings, then went through the pile of livery suits. Sir Thomas, whoever he was, had half-a-dozen well-built footmen by the look of it and after some experiment he found some breeches that were not too loose at the waist and a coat that did not pinch on the shoulders.
As Miss Chancellor had said, the elaborate braid work had been removed from the coats and the buttons, which must once have been crested silver, had been replaced with horn. Giles dug through the pile in the hope of a neckcloth, but could only find some spotted Belcher handkerchiefs. The resulting ensemble was bizarre enough—Hoby’s boots, a coachman’s neckcloth and formal dark blue tailcoat and knee breeches—but at least he was warm and, more importantly, decent.
It was much easier to think with his clothes on, he realised. Especially with an ill-disposed female in the next room. Giles frowned at his reflection in the battered mirror propped up on the dresser and raked his fingers through his hair, which had, of course, become a tangled mass. Abject apologies and explanations were in order and after that she might have calmed down enough to realise that they had never met before in their lives. Which still did not explain how she knew his name.
Julia stopped pacing the hearthrug in the parlour and sat down when there was a tap on the door. It would not do to allow him to see how agitated she felt. ‘Come in!’
She had expected him to seem less disturbing when he was clothed, but Giles Darrowby merely looked large, dark, imposing and apologetic. At least he had managed that.
‘Miss Chancellor. I am aware that I owe you an explanation.’ He stood just inside the door, resembling nothing more than someone courageously facing a firing squad.
Julia refused to be charmed by manly fortitude. ‘Do come in and close the door and sit by the fire, Lord Missenden. You will be even more of a nuisance if you succumb to pneumonia.’
‘Ma’am.’ He came in, took the chair she indicated, settled his long limbs and sat back. At least he was no longer looming. ‘We became lost. We were looking for Beech House.’
‘That is in Lower Bourne, the village at the foot of the scarp. You are in Upper Bourne, which is merely a hamlet on a terrace above it, and this is Beech View Cottage. It was a miracle your coach managed to navigate the hill. Unless, of course, they have ended up in a snowdrift.’
‘I had three companions in addition to the driver and groom. They should be able to dig themselves out,’ he said confidently. ‘We’d been blundering about in the snow and then we saw the nameplate on your gate.’ His mouth twisted in a rueful grimace. ‘It was half-covered in snow and all we could read was Beech. Miss Chancellor, you appear to believe you know me and I have no recollection of having ever met you before.’
‘Tell me first what you were doing in the snow stark naked.’
‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’ The ruefulness was attractive. The wretched man had charm. ‘You are acquainted with Sir Felix Wheaton?’
‘We have not met, but I know he has taken Beech House for a house party for the festive season. His own country home some miles away has a problem with the roof, I understand.’ She shrugged. ‘That is the gossip in the village at any rate.’
‘Felix is the best of fellows. Kind, honest, do anything for anyone, chivalrous to a fault—and like putty in the hands of a scheming female. A certain Mrs Fanshawe who has a daughter to marry off has decided that Felix is just the man for a son-in-law. That is to say, he is wealthy, well connected and far too gentlemanly to evade her tactics. He doesn’t like the girl, who promises to be every bit as ruthless and grasping as her mother, but he cannot seem to evade her and Mrs F. has manoeuvred him into inviting them to spend Christmas with him in front of witnesses.
‘We’ve been doing our best to put her off—hints about Felix’s completely fictitious naughty past, suggestions that he gambles, keeps an opera dancer and so on, but none of that weighs against a baronetcy, an elderly bachelor uncle who is a viscount and a healthy amount invested in Funds. So we decided something drastic was called for. I drew the short straw as the first salvo in the campaign. The plan was for me to arrive on the doorstep, as you saw, pretending that I thought it was the kind of house party where such behaviour was expected and that Felix had wagered I wouldn’t do it. The next two would turn up slightly the worse for drink with the baggage and finally Woodley was to arrive with an E.O. wheel and turn the whole place into a veritable gaming den.’
‘E.O.?’
Poor Sir Felix.
‘Even-Odd. It’s a betting game with a spinning wheel. Popular in the hells, but not something to be played in a gentleman’s house. By the time we’d finished with him Felix would appear to be a hopeless rake on the verge of gambling away all his wealth.’
‘But who else had he invited?’ What a ruthless set of men Sir Felix’s friends appeared to be. But she had to admit, the plan could have worked. ‘You cannot have meant to scandalise an entire group of innocent guests, surely?’
‘He was so taken aback and in such a panic when Mrs F. bullied him into holding a house party that we promised we’d see to the rest of the guests. Woodley’s sister will be there with her husband and she’s game for any rig. The sister of one of the others, Jimmy Truscott, is also staying and, if things got too bad, she was going to fling herself into Felix’s arms in a strategic manner. Her mama’s with her, chaperoning another two girls, one of whom Felix was dangling after before La Fanshawe got him in her sights, so we have hopes of that as well.’ He spread his hands as though offering her the blueprint of their plan. ‘We have to do the best we can for him, poor fellow.’
Was it true? Could she trust him that far? But the story was too ridiculous not to be the truth, Julia thought. Too ridiculous and too dangerous in this weather. ‘What will your friends do now?’
‘Arrive all at once and do the best they can, I suppose. Assuming they’ve reached the village safely and have discovered where they are, I imagine they’ll soon work out what has happened. But how on earth are you going to manage, cut off like this with no servants?’
‘Here on Spinsters’ Row we assume that we will be snowed in at least once every year and we prepare for it.’ His eyebrows rose at the name, but she ignored that. ‘This is particularly bad weather, but between the five cottages we have wood for at least two weeks and plenty of food even if we do run out of milk.’ She smiled sweetly at Lord Missenden and saw his eyes narrow warily. ‘Once it stops snowing people will begin to dig out the paths and you will be safe then, my lord. In the meantime you are trapped in the midst of a coven of single ladies with one about to give birth next door. You will be at the mercy of my cooking and in the same house as Fred, who would like to shred whatever parts of your anatomy he can reach.’
‘You do not like me, Miss Chancellor,’ Giles Darrowby observed. He was quite still except for the gentle drumming of his fingers on the arm of the comfortable old chair.
Any moment now Fred will pounce.
She leaned down, picked up the catnip mouse and tossed it into a far corner. The cat stalked off after it.
‘I have no very good impression of your character, that is true. I applaud your concern for your friend, but otherwise you appear to be a rakehell, a care-for-nothing and heedless of the honour of young women who cross your path.’
That did get through the negligent air of self-confidence. Lord Missenden’s mouth tightened into a hard line and the sensual curve of his lower lip, at which she realised she had been staring, became something else entirely.
‘The honour of any woman must be the concern of every gentleman, myself included. You appear to be labouring under the impression—or perhaps delusion—that we have met before. I can assure you, it is not the case.’
‘Indeed? I suppose you are going to tell me that you have no idea who Miss Sara Belton is and have no knowledge of her elopement with Lord Cranton?’
‘Sara? Of course I know who she is. Cranton is a friend of mine. Her father was planning to marry her off to a man his own age, even though he knew she and Cranton were in love. If you have taken against me because I helped them elope, then you’ll get no apology from me.’
‘No?’ Julia found she was on her feet, trembling slightly with the tightly controlled anger that was threatening to escape. ‘I am not permitted to hold a grudge for the fact that you abandoned me to take the blame for the entire enterprise? You were part of a conspiracy to have me blamed for making the arrangements, hiring the carriage they escaped in, smuggling her out of the ball to the inn—and then when you abandoned the coach you were driving as a decoy you simply left me there to face the music. And ruin. Call me unreasonable, but I think I am entitled to some gesture of regret from you.’