Unforgivable(42)

As he trotted through the gates, Gil was struck by a wave of nostalgia for all those careless summers he’d spent here with his family. He and James had been hellions then, galloping along the beach on horseback and losing poor little Tonia in the woods; blackberry picking and tickling for trout; sneaking down to the secret, forbidden swimming hole. They had been allowed an amazing degree of freedom here, a world away from Stanhope Abbey and school and society’s expectations. When they were older, they had taken to loitering around the home farm. Gil had shared his first proper kiss with a bold dairymaid called Mary. Even now, a dozen years later, he could vividly remember the surprising slide of the girl’s eager tongue into his mouth and the press of her thighs against his own. It had been shocking and wonderful. She was probably married with half a dozen children by now.

Suddenly, the house was before him. Gil smiled to himself. It looked just as it always had: the solid, quietly impressive hall of a country squire. He almost expected his mother to be waiting for him in the drawing room, sewing or writing a letter.

He dismounted before the large front doors, handing his horse to a groom to take to the stables. The door was opened before he could knock by a tall, thin man with a beaky nose who wore an expression of polite enquiry upon his face. His intelligent gaze swiftly took in the quality of Gil’s tailoring and the large, glossy chestnut that was being led away. His tone, when he spoke, was deferential. “Good afternoon, sir. May I enquire who is calling?”

“Good afternoon,” Gil replied pleasantly. “Lord Stanhope, calling on his wife.”

The butler’s hastily disguised astonishment was almost comical. Gil adopted an expression of perfect unconcern and walked past him into the house. By the time he turned around, the butler’s unruffled look was back in place.

“I will advise her ladyship of your arrival. Your lordship’s baggage…?”

“Is following. My carriage and my man should be here in an hour or two. My rooms will need to be made ready.”

The butler noticeably pinkened.

“I’m afraid,” the man said, in a voice tight with embarrassment, “that your lordship’s rooms are already taken.”

Gil frowned. “My wife has visitors?”

“Ah—no. It’s just that her ladyship took over the earl’s apartments some years ago.” The man flushed even pinker. As though he felt he should have prevented such a travesty.

“I see,” Gil said. He felt slightly foolish and unaccountably annoyed. It was absurd of him, he well knew. He had made it very clear he would not be visiting Weartham at any time, so why should she not take the largest and most advantageously positioned rooms?

And yet it felt like a deliberate insult.

For a moment, he considered instructing the butler to have his wife’s things moved back to the countess’s apartments. But that would be ridiculous. Petty. He would not sink to that level. What he would do was see her now.

“Very well. Make me up one of the guest bedchambers,” Gil said calmly, as though it didn’t matter to him at all. “And while you get it ready, I’ll see my wife in the library. Be good enough to inform her I will be waiting for her there.” He began to walk toward the library.

“Ah, my lord…?”

Gil turned around again, impatient at this further interruption. “Yes?”

The man looked embarrassed. “Her ladyship is, ah, in the library already. Going over the accounts.”

It was idiotic to feel so wrong-footed. As though Rose had planned to be in the library when he arrived. She hadn’t even known when to expect him! If he hadn’t been so irritated he might have laughed. So far, she was running rings round him, and he hadn’t even glimpsed her yet.

“I see,” he said. “Well, I’ll announce myself. Thank you…?”

“Lennox, my lord.”

Gil nodded. “Thank you, Lennox.”

He would have a brief advantage, he thought, as he walked to the library. A moment or two while she took in his sudden and unannounced arrival.

He wasn’t sure what he would say to her. He was prepared to be reasonable. Generous even. But it depended on her. How she dealt with him in these next few minutes would determine everything.

He paused briefly before the closed library door. Then he took the door handle in a firm grip and entered without knocking.

His mouth opened to say “Good afternoon, Rose,” the only words he had rehearsed, but they died on his lips, withering there unspoken as a dark, familiar head lifted from the enormous accounts book on the desk.

He stared; then his mouth opened, and a single word emerged.