A Lord Apart Page 11

  “That was kind,” said Daniel. Had his parents had any such concerns about Frithgerd’s cook? Or any of the servants? He didn’t think so.

  Miss Pendleton blinked rapidly. “My mother was extraordinarily kind.” She took a deep breath. “When the coast was clear, we spread open the box and ate spoonfuls of the…contents. We decided to call it an ‘eclart.’ Which I still think is a very fine word.”

  “Like a burst of excitement in your mouth,” he replied.

  “Exactly!”

  As their eyes met, alternative meanings for this phrase seemed to unfold between them. Daniel was suddenly conscious of the beautiful shape of her mouth, not far away at all. He wasn’t aware of leaning forward until he noticed that she’d done the same. They were inches apart. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, pull her close, and kiss her passionately, repeatedly, until they were both dizzy. He could just barely make himself sit back. The effort left him rigid, in more ways than one.

  Penelope caught her breath. She hadn’t touched him, but it felt as if she had. The sense of connection had been as intense as an actual caress. She’d never experienced anything like it. She was suffused with longing. Did it show on her face? Was he wondering what was wrong? Her hand twitched. Their fingers brushed, and another bolt of sensation coursed through her.

  Whitfield moved his hand away. He raised it, left it hovering in the air for a moment, then reached for another Shrewsbury cake.

  Penelope ordered her hands to stop trembling, and they obeyed. She’d learned to hide her feelings in the past year, as she discovered that a person being questioned by the authorities, particularly a woman, had to appear calm and rational at all times. Emotion roused suspicions and drew contempt. Interrogators might shout and be seen as forceful, but they would pounce on the slightest tremor in their prey and call it instability. Not that Lord Whitfield was like that. She was muddling two very different things. She had to get hold of herself.

  Picking up a page from one of the piles she hadn’t yet investigated, Penelope scanned the contents. “Are you installing a bathing chamber at Frithgerd?”

  Whitfield leaned over to look, and the page shook slightly in her grasp. “I forgot about that,” he said. “I met a fellow in London who promised we could have hot water at will and all sorts of other conveniences. He made that drawing.”

  Penelope ran her eyes over the diagram, interest growing as she understood the various elements. “Do you have a water tank in your attic?”

  “Not now. We have a rainwater cistern, but it’s dependent on the weather, of course.”

  “And a mill-wheel pump?”

  “No. We’d have to build that part. Unless the servants carried the water up to the tank.”

  “Which would be at least as much work as hauling cans of hot water,” said Penelope.

  Lord Whitfield nodded.

  “Imagine turning a spigot and having hot water!” Penelope looked more closely at the drawing. “The water would be heated in the wall beside the kitchen fires?”

  “The fellow said that was the way, because they’re always lit. People would have to come downstairs for a bath.”

  “It would be worth it!” She met his eyes, thought of naked limbs lolling in a luxurious bath, and looked away. “You’d have to lay in a good many pipes.”

  “You’re very clever with architectural plans.”

  “Philip was interested in all sorts of mechanisms.” It was easier to say her brother’s name this time. Perhaps, eventually the pain would fade? “He used to explain new inventions at the dinner table, with illustrations.” She turned the page over. “A water closet, too?”

  “That was the plan.”

  “You should install it,” said Penelope, imagining a world in which no one had to deal with chamber pots.

  “I don’t know.” Lord Whitfield surveyed the cluttered room. “There’s so much else to do.”

  “You’d only have to supervise. I’m sure you know the best workmen in the neighborhood.”

  “I do. But they’ve never built anything like this.” He gestured at the plans.

  “You could get advice from the person who made these.”

  “I’ve forgotten his name.”

  She pointed to a neat signature at the bottom of the page. “Andre Fontaine. With his address as well.”

  Whitfield smiled at her. “You’re very enthusiastic.”

  The warmth in his eyes made Penelope feel as if she’d stepped close to a roaring fire. “My family has…had a mechanical bent,” she managed.

  He leaned closer again to examine the drawing. His brown hair curled slightly at the nape of his neck. Penelope was seized by an intense desire to run her fingers through those strands.

  “All right. Yes, let’s go ahead. If you’ll take charge.”

  “What? Me?”

  “You’re so efficient.”

  “Efficient,” Penelope repeated. It was the sort of compliment she’d sometimes wished for when a dance partner had praised her fine eyes or her grace. Now, it seemed less than satisfactory. He couldn’t know how her heart was beating.

  “I’m sure all would go smoothly under your direction,” Whitfield added. “I’m continually amazed at your abilities.”

  Penelope couldn’t help herself. She leaned into his warm brown gaze, basking in the admiration she saw there. They were close, closer, and then their lips brushed. A soft, glancing kiss. Fleeting, but volcanic as a rush of desire shuddered through her.

  Whitfield jerked back. “I beg your pardon,” he said, sounding breathless.

  “You do?”

  “I should. I must. You’re a guest in my house, a young lady. I would not offer you insult for the—”

  “I believe I kissed you. I think I did.”

  She had. Those brief sentences brought the experience back in every detail. How could there be so much to remember in such a brief caress? The surge of longing that followed was overwhelming.

  “Did you like it?” she asked.

  Daniel groped for words. One didn’t speak to young ladies about such matters. It wasn’t done. They would be scandalized and offended. Or so he’d always been told. Miss Pendleton did not seem to be either. She appeared simply inquisitive. She wasn’t like other young ladies. Unless they were all like this, and he’d just never had the opportunity to find out. She wasn’t going to walk out in a huff; that was obvious. Little else was, at this moment. Except that Daniel was seriously interested in Miss Penelope Pendleton. He would have liked to hear that she felt the same. He did want to hear it. “Very, very much. Did you?”

  She looked away, straightening a stack of documents on the desk. “Yes.”

  Exultation raced through his veins. The muddle of his papers suddenly seemed more a blessing than a burden.

  “What shall we do about that?” Miss Pendleton asked.

  It seemed an honest question. She spoke as if there might be an answer lurking out there somewhere. He ought to promise that kisses would never happen again. He didn’t want to. But he couldn’t expose her to gossip and disrespect. “I suppose it would be best if we get back to work and forget what happened,” he said.

  “I don’t think I can forget.”

  The heat in her blue eyes thrilled him beyond measure. No, forgetting was right out, Daniel thought. “Ignore it then. Obviously we can’t be in here kissing when we’re supposed to…” A vivid picture of embraces silenced him. Her expression suggested that she shared his imaginings, which was the most enflaming idea of all. “To be keeping our minds on the task at hand,” he finished weakly.

  She blinked, breaking the lock of their gaze, and looked down. “I do want to find information about Rose Cottage,” she said. “And of course help you bring order to your papers, as I promised. It would be fascinating to supervise construction of the bath.”

  He wanted t
o continue enjoying her company. And kiss her again. He thought of having her here for the rest of the day. Of sitting down to dinner with her and talking afterward in the drawing room. Her presence would brighten a humdrum evening, which all of them tended to be lately. And when the time came for bed… Ah, what was he thinking? He couldn’t take advantage of her innocence. But he couldn’t let her go either. He had to make sure she would be here tomorrow, and the day after. “So, we’re agreed. We’ll go back to the way things were before the… Before.”

  Penelope gazed at him. This was not a disappointment. On the contrary, it was the only choice, unless she wanted to leave Frithgerd and never return, as a respectable young lady would undoubtedly do. What would he think of her otherwise? What did he already think after the way she’d behaved? She looked down at the papers on the desk. Order suddenly seemed such a dull thing, such an overrated ideal. “Very well. We’ll say no more about it.”

  “Agreed.” He seemed about to offer a handshake; then he didn’t.

  They sat in silence. Having told herself to forget the kiss, Penelope of course thought of nothing else. Echoes of longing still reverberated through her. “Perhaps we should have a look at the trunks they brought down.” She needed to move, to put some distance between them, or she was going to kiss him again. What would a longer, deeper embrace be like? She rose and stepped away. “To see what we have.”

  Daniel stood when she did. They walked to the parlor where the trunks had been placed, with some distance between them, like two people who were barely acquainted. He found it maddening.

  Miss Pendleton moved around the room, opening all the lids. Then she stood back and gazed at the trunks. “I don’t suppose it matters where we start. We can pick a trunk and go clockwise from there.”

  “Very methodical.” He hadn’t meant to be sarcastic, but he was frustrated at her withdrawal, even though it had been his suggestion. She gave him a sharp look. Daniel turned to the nearest trunk and picked up a sheaf of paper.

  “I’ve forgotten my notebook,” said Miss Pendleton. She turned and left the room.

  Despite the trunks, the parlor felt empty and barren without her. Daniel realized that he’d begun to think of her as part of his home, part of his day. He looked forward to her arrival. He thought of things to tell her when she wasn’t here, set aside items to show her. He enjoyed that. A new estate agent would be a damned nuisance, he realized. He’d put off hiring a new one until…until he decided to do so.

  She’d been gone quite a while. Could she be as unsettled as he was? He hoped so. Daniel put the pages back in the trunk. His thoughts were as disorganized as his dashed estate records.

  The object of his perplexity returned with her small notebook. “Lost your pencil?” he asked.

  “What? No.”

  “Thought you might have been looking for it.”

  “I keep it with the notebook,” she replied, frowning at him.

  “Of course you do.” Who would have imagined that efficiency could be adorable, Daniel thought. If anyone had asked him a few months ago, he’d have sworn the idea was ridiculous.

  “We’ll assign numbers to the trunks,” Miss Pendleton declared. “Then we’ll glance through them quickly, and I’ll record a general idea of their contents.”

  He nodded.

  “A bit of chalk would be helpful,” she murmured as she surveyed them. “But eight isn’t too many to remember. The trunk on this side of the door shall be one, and we will go from there.”

  “Clockwise,” said Daniel. Could she switch to business so easily? Or had her extended absence to fetch the notebook provided time to subdue her agitation? He hoped for the latter.

  She gave him a sidelong glance as she pointed at the other trunks, designating them two through eight. Then they dug in. Their shoulders brushed as they began to riffle through the stacks of paper, and Daniel nearly caught hold of her. His mind wasn’t going to settle on these new documents, he thought. But a general idea of the contents of these trunks would be the same jumble as everywhere else.

  “This is odd,” said Miss Pendleton.

  “What is?”

  “It seems to me… I don’t know.” She went to another trunk and sifted through the contents, tried a third.

  “What?” Daniel repeated.

  “I almost think these documents have been mixed up. As if they’d been quickly searched and shoved back in. See, part of this stack is upside down, and another section is reversed compared to the rest.”

  He looked. “Perhaps they were just dumped in by someone clearing out the estate office.” Daniel frowned. “I don’t remember that ever happening though. The room has been much the same for as long as I can recall.”

  “This account is twenty years old,” she said, indicating a page at the top. “The one below it is three decades older. And then, facedown and reversed, comes a hundred-year-old receipt.” She turned it over to match the order of the pile. “Which hardly needed to be kept,” she muttered. “Five shillings to the blacksmith.”

  “You think the records were gone through and put back out of order?” Daniel asked again because it was such a strange idea. Who would care to do that?

  Miss Pendleton nodded. “These trunks were all in the attic?”

  “Yes.”

  “So someone could search them without being noticed.”

  “Not just anyone. They’d have to get into the house and…” Daniel shook his head. He couldn’t see it. “Perhaps my father’s estate agent was looking for a particular record. Rather as we are about Rose Cottage. And he went mad over the disorganization. Had to fling papers about to relieve his feelings.” He could see the appeal. “Perhaps that’s why he left.”

  “Possibly.”

  She smiled, and Daniel felt a spark of triumph. He wanted her smiles. Nearly as much as he wanted her kisses. Nearly. “I’ll write and ask him.”

  “If he went mad and tossed papers about?”

  Daniel smiled back. This was better. “If he went through the trunks.”

  “A good idea. You might inquire how he kept track of transactions, too. This top one had to have been placed here when you were a boy.”

  “Briggs wasn’t here then. That would have been old Garrity.”

  She sighed. “The label ‘old Garrity’ does not fill me with confidence.”

  “You’re very perspicacious. Garrity worked for my grandfather for many years, and my father kept him on. By the time I knew him he was… ‘Doddering’ is the word that comes to mind.” Daniel looked at the trunks. “That might account for this mess. Papa kept him on until he died.”

  “Sitting at the desk in the estate office, I suppose,” said Miss Pendleton. “With a quill in his hand and a blotted parchment. And so he haunts the chamber still, mixing up the records to thwart his successors.”

  Daniel laughed. “At his cottage in his sleep, I’m afraid. Though your tale is much more exciting.”

  She closed her notebook. “There’s no simple way to record what’s in these trunks. We may as well give up. And I should go.”

  “It’s pouring rain,” he said. Water streamed down the windows.

  “I see that it is.”

  “Better wait till it clears. That gig of yours won’t keep you dry.”

  “That could be hours.”

  Their eyes met. That kiss would remain between them whatever their resolutions, Daniel thought. Until, perhaps, another sweeter one replaced it.

  “Lord Macklin will be wondering where you are,” she added.

  He’d forgotten his noble guest. He kept doing that. The lovely Miss Pendleton drove everything else from his mind.

  “I must go.” She sounded determined, or resigned. He couldn’t tell which.

  “A little longer.”

  “No, I really must.” She hurried out, leaving him alone with his muddled he
aps of history.

  Nine

  Penelope did get wet driving home. Though Whitfield provided an oilcloth to spread over her skirts, and the servants raised the gig’s folding top, the rain drove in under it. The horse seemed aggrieved; his hooves threw up clods of mud, some of which whizzed past her ears. Kitty would raise a fuss when Penelope got home, but she had needed to get away from her beguiling neighbor before she flung herself into his arms again. She wanted to do that as much as she’d ever wanted to do anything in her life. The thought of their brief kiss kept her warm in the rain. But that wouldn’t do, would it? He wanted to observe the proprieties, because he was a gentleman. And that was not a melancholy thing to be. How could she think so?

  Reaching Rose Cottage, she drove around to the barn and left the horse with Foyle. She ran through the rain to the back door and up to her bedchamber, shutting the door on Kitty’s hand-wringing. Solitude, quiet, space. As she changed out of her wet gown, she noticed that none of these seemed to help. Her thoughts—her heart?—remained at Frithgerd.

  There was a knock at the door, and Kitty looked in. “I’ll hang your wet things by the kitchen fire, miss.”

  “Thank you, Kitty.” Penelope handed over her discarded clothing.

  “Are you all right, miss? You look a bit peaked. I hope you haven’t caught another chill.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “If that cough should come back, where would we be then? You shouldn’t ought to drive out in the rain.”

  “I’m fine,” Penelope repeated. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  Kitty took the damp garments and departed with a lingering backward glance. Penelope turned to the window and watched the rain fall from the gray sky. The garden and countryside looked less green in this weather, but Penelope felt more alive than she had in months and months. More than she ever had, perhaps. She wanted. She wanted to go where she liked and do as she pleased and work and learn. She wanted, especially, to kiss Lord Whitfield again. Her fingers curled at the memory of his touch.

  She’d promised—what had she promised? To ignore what had happened between them. Not to forget it. Which was fortunate because she would never forget. She’d had to go off to another room and wrestle with the tides of yearning that rushed through her in his presence. Forgetting was impossible.