She stared at him. The black smudges of dirt on her face stood out starkly against her pallor. She had become mute.
“You’re not, then. Very well. You’re a maid, and a dirty one at that. You simply saw George when he visited here? You work at this house? For that paltry bugger who wrote me that impertinent letter? If you do work here, you don’t appear to do a very good job. The place looks like it’s ready to fall down and crumble.”
She got hold of herself. “That’s true enough, but I ask you, how could a maid be responsible for how
the house looks on the outside?” That stymied him and she smiled to herself. She realized, of course, that most self-respecting maids would turn up their noses at her. Her hands were dirty, there was black dirt on her muslin gown and under her fingernails, her hair was straggling about her face.
She let him wriggle free from that one finally, saying, “I not only work here, I also live here.”
“Then you are not a maid?”
“No, I’m not a maid.” She didn’t say anything more. She watched him draw a piece of foolscap from his greatcoat pocket. He waved it at her. “If you live here, then perhaps you can tell me why this man named Joseph Hawlworth wrote me this insolent letter telling me that George had ruined you? It is you who are ruined, is it not?”
2
SHE WAS SILENT FOR A LONGER TIME THAN IT USUALLY took his valet to arrange Rohan’s cravat. Rohan wasn’t a patient man, but he managed to hold himself quiet. He fairly bubbled with questions, but he would be patient now. He would wait her out. Finally, spreading her dirty hands in front of her, she said, “I’m not ruined. I was never ruined.”
“Did you really know my brother George? I realize you know what he looked like, but were you really close to him?”
“Yes, I was, but he didn’t ruin me. May I read the letter my father wrote to you?”
He handed it to her. She had to smooth out the creases. Those creases bespoke a fine anger. Well, good, her father deserved it. She read: “My Lord Mountvale, Your brother, George Carrington, ruined my daughter. You are the head of the Carrington family. It is now your obligation . . .”
She sucked in her breath. Her father’s intent was painfully clear. Very slowly, very carefully, she folded the paper and handed it back to him. She said, “My father made a grave mistake.” She just looked at him. “George did not ruin me,” she said again, her litany. She hated this. Of course now she knew why her father couldn’t wait to leave Mulberry House. He’d written this damnable letter to George’s brother, then hied himself out of the line of fire, leaving her to deal with his blackmail scheme. Her father had no idea that George’s brother was a debauched satyr whose appetites, according to George, brought new meaning to the word. But then George had grinned and rubbed his hands together and said his brother was the very best in the world. She hadn’t understood that, particularly when George had told her that she was to avoid his brother until George had the chance to arrange everything just right, to explain her to his brother. He said earnestly that if his older brother viewed her as a threat to him—George—he would destroy her without a second thought, despite what George could say or do. It had all been very confusing.
Now she was facing George’s older brother. There was no George to aid her. She had never planned to see the baron at all, to meet him or speak to him. She had certainly never wanted him to know about her.
Rohan slipped the folded letter back into the pocket of his greatcoat. “I was more surprised than I can say when I received this impudent letter. So this Hawlworth fellow is your father?”
“Yes, he’s my father. He isn’t here.”
“And he is the master of this magnificent house?” He was staring right at the chimney stack that had lost a load of bricks.
“He is the master. I’m the daughter, but George didn’t ruin me. I’ve already told you that. I mean it. You may leave with a clear conscience. I neither want nor need anything from you. I’m sorry my father did this. You may be certain that I will burn his ears for his attempt to do you harm.”
This was unexpected. Rohan didn’t like unexpected situations. And this one had been nothing but unexpected from the beginning. What stunned him still was that it had been George the scholar, the budding cartographer, the studious young man, who hadn’t ever appeared to grasp the reality that there was a fair sex. George had managed to rouse enough lust to make love to this lovely young lady? And she was a lady, dirt and all. It was in her bearing, in the way she spoke so clearly and precisely. “Why are you so dirty?”
She raised her head and smiled, a lovely smile really, not that he cared. “Look around you. I am the gardener here. I am very good. Flowers and plants love me. Shall I show you my lilies and iris and candytuft? My roses are the most beautiful in the area.”
A gardener, was she? Now that was something, but he wasn’t about to let her sidetrack him. “What do you mean, George didn’t ruin you?”
“Just what I said. You may leave now, sir. Let me go fetch Jamie for you. I’m sorry I had him take away your horse and curricle in the first place.”
“No, wait.” He lightly grasped her sleeve. “Listen, you’re not what I expected—at least at first glance you’re not. I want to talk to you. My brother has been dead nearly a year now. If you knew him, then I want to hear you talk about him. It appears that George had interests I wasn’t aware of, namely you.”
She said very quietly, “George had many interests in the time I knew him.”
“Then why didn’t you come to his funeral? Why didn’t he come to me and tell me about you?”
“He was trying to find the perfect moment, he told me several times. I guess he didn’t ever find even close to a perfect moment.” She shrugged. “Then it was too late. As for his funeral, I couldn’t come.”
“Why?”
“I was needed here. I couldn’t leave.”
There was more here than met the eye. So George had been trying to find the perfect moment to tell him? Tell him what, exactly? That he wanted to marry this girl whose face was smudged with dirt and was really quite fine-looking and was a gardener? “Look, can we go inside? I’m hot and thirsty.”
“If you are so hot, then remove that greatcoat.”