“I have nothing to say to you.” She kept walking and he began to walk beside her.
“Did you get all your meals today?”
“Every one.”
“And you had an interesting day, lots of intelligent conversation? Did you talk of politics or maybe have some enlightening talks about your Bonnie Prince Charlie?”
“It’s cold out here and I’m going inside.”
“I see. They ignored you again.”
She turned on him. “No one ignored me. I met some very interesting people. I met a playwright who’s writing a part in his next play just for me. I had a discussion about the Prince of Wales and I met Harry’s sister. We spent some lovely time together.”
At that speech Trevelyan began to laugh.
Claire couldn’t help herself but she laughed also. How utterly heavenly it felt to laugh! How wonderful to be able to say something and have someone understand. “It’s really quite an extraordinary group of people who
live in that house. Leatrice has a bell in her sitting room and when her mother rings, she has to run. I wonder if she’s allowed to leave the room except for meals.”
“She isn’t.”
“How awful. And she dresses like a child. I wonder how old she is.”
“Thirty-one.”
“Is that all? She looks older. She—” She stopped as she saw Trevelyan sway on his feet. “You’re ill again.” She took his arm and led him down a path to a bench. By now she knew the garden rather well.
When he was seated, she sat beside him and he leaned a bit against her.
She wanted to put her arm around him, but she didn’t. If she thought the other people in the house were odd, Trevelyan was by far the oddest. One moment he seemed like a scholar, the next he acted like a criminal. He hid from everyone at the top of a tower, acting as though he wanted only to be alone. Yet…Yet every time Claire left the main house, he came to her. He covered his seeking her out—for that’s what she was beginning to see it as—with snide and cynical remarks, but the facts were still the same: he was as much in need of companionship as she was.
She could feel his body relaxing against hers. She had at times felt…well, attracted to him. He had looked at her with eyes that bored into her and made her know she should get away from him. But right now she felt almost motherly toward him. She wanted to pull him into her arms and feel his forehead for fever. She wanted to tuck him into bed and feed him warm soup. Instinctively, she knew he’d hate that, so she sat up straight and pretended she didn’t realize how weak he was feeling.
“About this morning,” she began slowly. “I had no right to get angry at you. You have to do what you think is right, just as the rest of us do.” She sighed. “I do wish this man MacTarvit could stay on the land until Harry and I are married, though. Then I shall see that he comes to no harm.”
“You’re planning to try to usurp Her Grace?” Trevelyan’s voice, usually so strong, so full of confidence, was weaker now.
“Of course. Harry says that when I’m the duchess I shall be able to do whatever I want.”
Trevelyan laughed at that. “The old woman would die before she gave up her power.”
“That’s not what Harry says.”
“And Harry knows everything, does he?”
He had an unequaled ability to enrage her. She forgot her motherly feelings and stood up, looking down at him. “I hope, sir, that you recover your strength and can make it back to your quarters on your own. I wish you long life and happiness. Now good night.” She turned away and hurried back to the house.
Chapter Seven
You are disturbed,” Oman said as he cleared the dishes from the table.
“Women,” Trevelyan muttered.
Oman smiled. “This one is different, is she not?”
Trevelyan drew on his pipe. “This one is different. This one is fire and ice. This one is woman and child. This one knows a great deal, yet is the personification of innocence.”
He leaned back in his chair and blew smoke rings into the air. “This one could be trouble,” he said aloud. Since he’d met her, he’d been unsettled. One minute he wanted to take her to bed and the next he wanted to read something he’d written to her. Tonight he’d felt her tenderness and he’d been surprised by it. Women who were as full of passion as she was weren’t usually the type to pay attention to a man when he was ill. Yet she had. She could be motherly as well as passionate—when he thought of the way she’d looked at his hands that day she’d read his translation, sweat began to form on his forehead. He had very much wanted to show her what he could do with his hands.