undid his loose cravat and twisted the ends back into an uncooperative knot. To say he was startled when he’d turned to find her in the dining room last night was putting it mildly. He couldn’t have been more stunned if she’d marched in claiming he’d fathered a child. Since then, to his ire, he’d thought more about her than the heroine of his latest manuscript. Her sharp cheeks highlighted by the fair hair pulled into tight ringlets at the back of her head, the blush of youth across the sweep of her skin and the azure eyes watching him with suspicion, had proved fascinating. She’d dressed modestly, with a higher bodice than even a vicar’s daughter, but the raw appeal of her curving body had been jarring—just like her request for his help.
Shame made his cravat tighter and he pulled loose the knot again. Not even the other gentlemen’s disapproving and less polite scrutiny had been enough to shake her determination, but his near refusal had. When he’d hesitated, it had sent a whisper of fear through her clear blue eyes before her determination had overcome it. She’d been like the most stalwart of captains, unwilling to let anything stop her from achieving her goal, not even a ridiculous sense of propriety. If only all people possessed the same judgement and resilience. The Admiralty certainly didn’t, heaping pay and praise on physicians who did nothing but hide from illness onshore while the underpaid surgeons choked below deck treating the wounded men.
Warren gave up on the cravat and allowed the loose linen to dangle around his neck. He shouldn’t have been so quick to leave Miss Domville last night. She’d caught his struggle with the past and despite her own concerns she’d reached out to him. Instead of thanking her for her sympathy, one people rarely offered him, he’d shoved her away. Despite his misstep, it was probably for the best given his inability to stop thinking about her. He didn’t have the time or money for anything as expensive as a wife and family, even if the woman possessed means. He wasn’t about to make his fortune by marrying it. He’d earn it as he always had, and as a man should, through his own industry.
‘Warren, you can’t be rude to Lady Ellington.’ His mother shook her head at him, her lace cap fluttering over her dark hair which was more grey than chestnut now. ‘Her nephew is a marquess who could do a great a deal for you and your career.’
‘I have the Prince for a patron. I hardly need a lowly peer,’ he teased with a grin she matched with a slightly more serious one as she patted Lancelot on the head. ‘I have too much work to do. I’ll rely on you to speak glowingly of me and cultivate her support.’
‘So you won’t come for Lady Ellington, I understand. But I thought for sure you’d want to see Miss Domville.’ His mother was far more tenacious than Rupert, who’d watched the conversation with interest, but her company much more pleasurable
‘Not if you want to maintain your good reputation,’ Rupert snorted now.
‘She’s a very charming young lady,’ Warren’s mother corrected, silencing Rupert’s chortles.
He didn’t respond and Warren didn’t press for the story behind his snide remark. Gossip didn’t interest him and he hated encouraging the spread of it by asking for whatever tale Rupert had heard.
‘Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I have chapters to write.’ He opened his arms and caught his mother by the shoulders and gently guided her to the hallway. He waved Rupert over and Rupert jogged forward to join them like a summoned spaniel.
‘Perhaps you could discuss my business venture with Lady Ellington,’ Rupert near panted. ‘If she or the Marquess could be convinced to invest—’
‘One thing at a time, Rupert.’ He clapped him on the back, unwilling to solicit the county on his behalf, not when he could devote the same time and energy to selling his next book. Assuming he could write it.
‘Come, Rupert, I’ll show you the new plasterwork in the sitting room before you return to London.’ His mother took Rupert’s arm and led him into the hallway as Warren slid the study door closed.
He sagged against the heavy oak. Lancelot’s eyebrows shifted as he watched his master.
Chapters. Warren had barely written a page today, much a less a whole chapter. It wasn’t for lack of trying. His desk and the floor around it were littered with discarded papers full of useless words for pointless stories of boring characters that went nowhere and would make him no money.
Warren dropped into his chair and stared at the silent and cold collection of books and medieval manuscripts surrounding him. In the midst of it all, he felt as lonely and isolated as he had aboard ship when no one had understood his struggles or his dreams for a different future, except Leticia. And then he’d killed her.
He snatched up his pen and held it over the paper, determined, as then, to forge on. He wouldn’t allow his doubts or guilt to hinder him, not with so much depending on his continued success and the money it would make him. The half-filled page taunted him from the blotter, along with the incessant banging of hammers from somewhere overhead. Pressing the nib to the paper, he wrote one word, then another, determined to push through. He had no choice, there was no one else who could do it or save him.
Sir Warren still hadn’t made an appearance by the time the butler removed the tea service. Mrs Stevens said he was busy at work and couldn’t be disturbed. More than likely he was avoiding Marianne and her damaged reputation like every other gentleman of quality. The same couldn’t be said of the large portrait of him hanging over the fireplace. It was of Sir Warren at his desk, an open book balanced on his knee, the pen in his hand poised over what must be his next great creation. Mr Smith used to devour Sir Warren’s novels of medieval knights and ladies. Once, during a snow storm, when the family had been stuck inside for three days, he’d read a novel aloud. Marianne had only half-listened. Historical novels were not to her taste.
It wasn’t the open book balanced on his knee or the manuscript which kept bringing her back to the portrait. It was Sir Warren’s posture, the subtle way his body turned, his attention focused on the distance instead of the viewer. His brow shaded his green eyes, stealing their light. The haunted expression hinted at some threat just beyond the frame, something only he could see, like whatever it was that had troubled him at Lady Cartwright’s. It undermined the confidence in his firm grip on the book and reminded her of his pained expression when he’d written out the laudanum recipe after helping Lady Ellington, before he’d darted away from her.
Irritation more than the warm autumn day made her tug at her high collar.
‘How we must be boring you with all our talk of Italian landscapes,’ Mrs Stevens apologised from across the round tea table.
Marianne jerked her attention to Mrs Stevens’s kind round eyes, her son’s eyes, and shook her head. ‘No, not at all.’
‘Liar,’ Mrs Stevens teased. ‘When I was young I used to hate sitting with old ladies and listening to them talk. Lady Ellington tells me you play the pianoforte. We have a lovely Érard in the music room. The man who sold us the house said it was once in the Palace of Versailles, but I’m not sure I believe him.’
‘A French-made Érard!’ Excitement filled Marianne more than when the carriage had approached the house, before it had become obvious Sir Warren had no intention of joining them. ‘I used to play one at the Protestant School in France. Do you play?’
‘Oh, heavens, no.’ She laid a thin hand on her chest. ‘I hate to think of a fine instrument going to waste. If you’d like to try it, you may. It’s
