The Heir - Catherine Coulter [35]
“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.
10
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 here he was, far from the thick of things, saddled with a damned title and a huge estate. With a frustrated grunt the earl shook his head and returned his concentration to the page of entries. What he needed was Arabella. The one afternoon she had spent with him explaining such things as rents, market prices, crops, and the like, she had spoken concisely and knowledgeably, and he had achieved at least some rudimentary insights. Blackwater, his agent, had been far less helpful. The studious little man seemed to have difficulty in focusing his fading wits on the new century.
Arabella. During the past week, she had been practically as nonexistent as his ghostly visitors. He guessed that she was breakfasting very early in her room, to avoid him. She rode out alone on Lucifer, and on many days did not return until the sun was fading behind Charles II’s cedar in the front lawn.
Wisely, he left her alone. At least he thought