Once Upon a Tower

Page 23

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Edie frowned at him. “Your parents’ foolishness does not reflect on you.”
“That is very generous of you.” He hesitated, then said, “I must add that Susannah appears to be fairly unmanageable. I’m not the only person she’s bitten: I gather the nursemaids consider themselves in danger as well.”
Wonderful. Edie was already unnerved by the idea of caring for a child, let alone a difficult one. “Did she have any idea that you existed before she arrived on your doorstep? What is she like?”
“Small. Puny, in fact. I think she is remarkably articulate for someone so young, though her governess assures me female children are often so. And no, she seems to have had no idea she had family at all.”
“Does she look like you?”
“Her hair is a much brighter red. Other than that, I cannot say. I have not yet spent much time with her.”
“She must be miserable, what with losing her mother and then meeting a strange brother.”
“There is no reason for her to be miserable. It is my impression that she knew little of our mother.”
Edie had the distinct feeling that the Duke of Kinross was of the opinion that there were only narrow circumstances under which someone might be allowed an emotion as powerful as misery. “Even if Susannah was not close to her mother, she lost everyone who was familiar to her,” she pointed out.
“I receive a complete report every day of all events of significance, and the nursery has not been mentioned since a biting episode last week, so I am confident she is happy.”
Edie jumped up from her chair again. All that tingling awareness of Gowan she had felt earlier had been swallowed by a storm of nerves. She went over to the mantelpiece and picked up a pretty little porcelain Madonna holding the infant Jesus, fiddled with it briefly, then put it back down. Likely Mary had known perfectly well how to raise her son. Whereas Edie felt a dawning terror at the thought. Why hadn’t her father mentioned the child when he announced that she was marrying Gowan? She might have launched a protest.
Not that her father would have paid the slightest attention to her qualms, given that the alliance would make her a duchess.
“How on earth do you receive daily reports if you are here, and Susannah is in Scotland?” she asked Gowan.
“A groom leaves the castle every morning with a full report.” He, too, had risen, and stood at the opposite end of the mantelpiece. “I find that managing a large estate is significantly easier with a constant flow of communication. My more remote estates send messages to the castle every two to three days.”
“That must require a great many servants,” she said, awed at the idea. “And coaches, and horses.”
He shrugged. “I have a great many.”
Then, in an instant, a taut desire came back into his eyes, making her pricklingly aware of her body again. He took a step toward her. “Don’t worry about my sister,” he said. “If you don’t like her, I’ll find someone else to care for her.”
“Absolutely not!” Edie exclaimed. “I’m merely unused to children. But I shall manage.” Gowan’s smile was pure temptation—and had nothing to do with her reassurance as regards his sister. “This is terribly risky,” she said, remembering suddenly that they were alone in her bedchamber in a strange house in the middle of the night. “You must leave. I wouldn’t want to ruin Honoria’s wedding by creating a scandal.”
“Yes, I must.” His deep voice caressed her skin like velvet. She shivered and heard a strand of music in her head. And he didn’t move.
“If you are caught, it will cause a terrible uproar,” she said, and then added, “You’re rather large. Wide, I mean. Broad.”
“I swim in the loch every day.”
Apparently it was swimming that had given him the chest she longed to touch again. He bowed, and then started toward the balcony. She followed him as if drawn by a string.
“What did you think of my playing?” she asked, just when Gowan had one hand on the balustrade and was about to swing down a rope ladder that had been tied to the corner baluster.
His face was in shadow; the courtyard below him was illuminated only by moonlight. “I thought you were a genius,” he said. “Just as your father said. Will you teach Susannah the cello?”
“Yes,” she said, realizing for the first time that of course she would teach the child, just as her father had taught her.
“Then we must make it possible for Susannah, and any children of our own, to play for an audience if they so wish.” He began his descent.
His head disappeared below the marble parapet while she was still digesting that sentence. She leaned over and watched him as he climbed, making it look as easy as descending a flight of stairs.
Once on the ground, he threw back his head and looked up at her. Her heart gave a great thump at the sight of him. But she was also experiencing a toe-curling sense of embarrassment. Perhaps she should have been more standoffish. What if, after what had just occurred between them, he thought she was a wanton?
“Perhaps you’re right,” she called softly, staring down. “We are ‘quick bright things’ . . . too rash, too sudden, too ill-advised.”
“I can woo you tomorrow as if we’d never met, but I’m afraid that everyone in the drawing room already knows how I feel. And the notice is already in the papers.”
“Things like this don’t happen to people like me,” Edie said.
“Your voice is like music,” Gowan said, staring up at her. “What time do you rise?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I want more of you, and not just while staring across the pews during the wedding.”
He said it matter-of-factly, but her heart soared. “Nine o’clock in the morning. Good night,” she called.
“Good night,” he said, too softly for her to hear.
But somehow she heard anyway.
She stood gripping the cold marble, watching as Gowan strode across the courtyard and disappeared under the portico.
And then she stood a little longer, hearing music tumbling through her mind, even deeper and sweeter than she made on her cello.
Fourteen
No. 20 Curzon Street, London
The Earl of Gilchrist’s town house
“Your fiancé,” said the earl, with icy precision, “initially agreed to a five-month betrothal, but now he wishes to reduce that period. As I believe I mentioned to you, he has recently come into guardianship of an orphaned sister, a very young child. I gather he is worried that she will remain motherless during the interval, though he expressed no pressing concern when he asked for your hand in marriage.”
The Gilchrists had returned to London directly after the wedding, and Gowan had gone back to Brighton to talk to those bankers. Edie was secretly counting the days until the conference of bankers concluded. Tomorrow, she thought, or even tonight.
“I would be pleased to agree,” she said, shaping her tone to docile compliance. The last thing she wanted was to spur her father to a fit of righteous rage by pointing out the fact that he had neglected to mention Susannah to her altogether.
“I do not like it,” he said abruptly. He wheeled around and put his glass back on a table.