‘Then see that it is,’ Alistair said, allowing his displeasure to show. He had no fear of ghosts and he had every intention of stamping his ownership on this house from the start.
‘Her ladyship is still occupying the adjoining suite, my lord. And she has taken over his late lordship’s— your—sitting room and the dressing room,’ the butler said, looking wretched.
‘I see.’ Alistair put one booted foot on the bottom step. ‘I have no wish to inconvenience her ladyship at this hour. I will take whichever of the guest chambers is easiest, Barstow.’
‘My lord, of course. The Garden Suite would be most comfortable, I believe.’ He began to gesture to footmen. ‘Gregory, you will act as his lordship’s valet for the time being. Fetch his lordship whatever he needs from the Marquis’s Suite. I will have the decanters sent up, my lord. Her ladyship dines at eight.’
Alistair began to climb past the lavish trophies of arms and armour on the wall. So, she had won the first round, had she? Even as he thought it there was a flurry of rustling silk and the patter of slippers on the stair. He looked up as he reached the first turn and saw the black-clad figure of his stepmother.
‘Alistair!’ She held out her hands and waited while he climbed the stairs to her side. It allowed him ample time to appreciate the picture she presented, as no doubt she intended.
‘Stepmama,’ he said, bowing over her hand. ‘My condolences.’
‘So cold, so formal,’ she said, but there was something very like fear in the wide blue eyes. ‘There was a time when you called me Imogen.’
‘Indeed, but that was before you married my father,’ he pointed out politely.
‘I know I broke your heart,’ she murmured. ‘But are you still angry after all this time?’
‘Do you really wish to discuss it here?’ he asked. ‘Allow me to walk you back to your retiring room. Or, should I say, mine?’
‘Alistair, are you going to grudge me one tiny room?’ The fear had gone, perhaps when she realised he was not going to treat her to some Cheltenham tragedy. Where had the affected wide-eyed manner come from? Eight years ago Imogen had been sweetly naïve—or so he had thought.
‘Not at all,’ he said with a smile as he opened the door for her. ‘You will have the whole of the Dower House all to yourself.’
‘What?’ She turned like a cat as he closed the door behind them. ‘You cannot throw me out of here!’
‘I most certainly can require you to move to the Dower House,’ Alistair said. ‘I will have it overhauled for you immediately.’
God, but she is lovely, he thought, studying her dispassionately. For over a year the thought of her had torn his heart. Petite, vivid, with big blue eyes and glossy black hair, she had a certain something that transformed her piquant little face from merely pretty to a loveliness that took men’s breath away. She had certainly deprived him of both breath and sense as an idealistic twenty-year-old.
‘But how can you exile me? After all I have been to you!’ The flounce was new as well, although it gave the most excellent opportunity for any onlooker to admire the curves of her figure.
‘A stepmother?’ he enquired, deliberately obtuse. ‘Do sit down, Imogen, because, frankly, I would appreciate the chance to.’
‘You loved me,’ she declared in throbbing tones as she sank on to the chaise. ‘I know I broke your heart, but—’
‘I was infatuated with you eight years ago when you were nineteen,’ Alistair said flatly. ‘Young men are liable to be taken in by lovely faces and you are, my dear, very lovely.’ She cast her eyes down as though he had made a passionate, but slightly improper, declaration. ‘It was a shock to discover that you had been—shall we say, flirting?—with me when all the while you were in my father’s bed. I had not thought myself so unobservant, I must confess.’
‘Alistair! Must you be so crude?’ Imogen lifted one hand as though to ward off a blow. ‘I had no idea of the depth of your feelings and my lord was so … passionate and demanding.’
‘Let us be frank, Imogen.’ He found he had no patience with her games. ‘You thought my father might not come up to scratch, so you strung me along as your insurance policy. Either that or you thought a marquis in the hand, even if he was old enough to be your father, was a more certain bet than the heir.’
Her guilty colour was proof enough. The daughter of the local squire three parishes away, Imogen Penwyth had been an acknowledged local belle and her parents were avid in their ambition for her. At the time he had been too angry and wounded to think this through, but he had had time since to realise just what had been going on.
‘Mama was simply anxious to do the best for me,’ she whispered. He wished he could believe she had not been as ambitious and unscrupulous as her parent. Between them his father and this woman had made him deeply cynical about love, but he knew how gullible he had been. An idealistic young idiot, in fact, he thought with wry affection for his youthful self.
That young man had been serious, rather studious and puzzled about where his life was going to lead him, given that he had a vigorous, tough father who had shown no desire to hand over any part of running the estates to his only child. He knew then that he wanted to travel, to explore. His interest in botany was already leading him to read widely on the subject, but it never occurred to him that he could—or should—leave England.
His duty was to be at his father’s side, he had assumed, aware that the other man despised him for not being the hard-drinking, wenching gambler he was himself. The marquis had been unable to condemn his son for being a milksop, however, not when Alistair was acknowledged to be the best shot in the county, rode hard and even, much to his father’s loudly expressed relief, conducted a number of discreet affaires.
But he had paid off his current mistress when he had come face to face with Imogen Penwyth at a dance. She was too lovely, too pure for him to even look at another woman when he loved her.
‘You don’t understand,’ Imogen said, petulant now.
‘I understood perfectly well what was going on when I walked into the library and found my father with his breeches round his ankles and you spread all over the map table with your skirts up to your ears,’ Alistair replied. He was too tired for this, but if he didn’t make it quite clear to Imogen that he was no longer a slave to her charms life was going to get even more complicated. ‘And don’t try to tell me he forced you, or your parents forced you or you had no choice in the matter,’ he added. ‘Frankly, I don’t care.’
‘Oh!’