She inclined her head.
She was not elderly at all. She was probably five or six years younger than he, in fact. She was rather tall, and slender almost to the point of thinness. She had a rather thin, pale face, with fair hair smoothed back into a bun at her neck. Her gray dress was of cheap fabric and was high-waisted but made no other concession to fashion. Only her eyes saved her from being so nondescript that she might have faded entirely into her surroundings. Her eyes were dark gray and long-lashed. And they appeared to have such depth that he had the strange feeling that most of her living must be done very far within herself.
“Miss Craggs.” He took a few steps toward her. “I understand that you will be staying here for Christmas?”
“Yes, my lord.” Her voice was unexpectedly low and soft.
“You are expecting company?” he asked. “There would be someone to miss you if you were not here?”
Her face did not change expression. And yet he was given the impression that far within herself, where her living was done, she grimaced. “No, my lord,” she said.
“I am Deborah Latimer’s uncle,” he said. “Warren Nash, Viscount Buckley, at your service, ma’am. Would it be possible to persuade you to come with us to my country seat in Hampshire? My sister and her husband, Deborah’s parents, have gone to Italy and left her in my care. Frankly, I do not know what I am to do with a fifteen-year-old over Christmas. I need a female companion or chaperon for her. Will you come?”
There was the merest flicker in her eyes. Nothing more. He had never known a woman who was so impassive. He had always thought of women as open books, their emotions as clear to view as the words on a page. He had never had any problem knowing what his various mistresses felt or thought.
“Yes, my lord,” she said.
He waited for more, for some questions or conditions. But she said nothing else. Her eyes, he noticed, were focused, not on his, but on his chin or thereabouts.
“I would guess that Deborah is eager to leave,” he said. “How soon can you be ready, Miss Craggs?”
“Half an hour?” she said.
Half an hour! Good Lord, most women of his acquaintance would have asked for two or three days. He inclined his head to her. “Would you have Deborah sent to me?” he asked as she turned to leave the room.
Damn Susannah, he thought, too irritated to think of an original way mentally to censure his sister. How was he supposed to break the news to his niece?
Miss Craggs looked as if she had about as much joy in her as would half fill a thimble. A thimble for a small finger.
Damn!
She could not remember going farther from the school than could be accomplished on foot. She could not remember riding in a carriage. She could not remember being in company with a gentleman for longer than a minute or two at a time, except the dancing master who came in to teach the girls. She was usually chosen to partner him when he taught them the steps because he was not allowed to touch any of the girls, and none of the other teachers was willing to tolerate his lavishly insincere compliments and his moist hands.
She was not sure if she was glad or sorry to be where she was. At first she had been numbed with the strangeness and wonder of it. She was going on a holiday. She was going to spend Christmas at a private home in Hampshire. The home of Viscount Buckley. She was not going to be alone at the school, as she always had been for as far back as she could remember. And then she had been excited. Her teeth had chattered and her hands had shaken and her mind had whirled at dizzying speed as she had packed her few belongings into a valise she had had to borrow from Miss Phillpotts.
Now, after hours of travel, the luxury of a well-sprung, lavishly upholstered carriage was no longer able to mask the discomfort of the near silence that existed among its three occupants. An unnatural, uncomfortable silence. Deborah was sullen and unhappy. Jane did not blame her when she had discovered only this morning that her parents had gone away for Christmas and left her behind. But she feared that part of the sullenness was caused by the fact that she had been appointed the girl’s companion. Craggs, the teacher who was not really a lady.
The viscount was merely silent. Jane doubted that he felt uncomfortable.
But she did. Dreadfully so. She had had no experience with maleness.
Viscount Buckley seemed suffocatingly male to her. He was dark, not much taller than she, elegant. She imagined he was handsome by any standards.
She really had not seen many men. He seemed to her more handsome than any man she could possibly imagine. And very male.
She was uncomfortable and terrified.
“We are almost there,” he said, turning his head and looking at Deborah.
“You will feel better after a cup of tea.”
“I will not feel better,” his niece said sullenly. “I hate Christmas.
And I hate Mama and Papa.”
Jane looked at the girl. She wanted to take her hand and tell her that at least she had an uncle willing to take her in. At least she had someone to whom she belonged and somewhere to go. But such an assurance would not console, she supposed.
“If it is any consolation,” the girl’s uncle said, “they are not exactly my favorite people at this moment either, Deborah.”
“Meaning that you do not want to be burdened with me, I suppose,” the girl said, misery overlaying the sullenness. “Everyone knows you do not believe in Christmas, Uncle Warren.”
“Well,” he said with a sigh, “I shall have to see what I can do to exert myself on your behalf this year, Deborah. Ah, the house. It is always a relief to see it at the end of a long journey.”
Jane did not hear the rest of the conversation if, indeed, there was more. She had seen the house. Built within the last century, it had a classical symmetry of line combined with a deceptive simplicity of design. Built of light gray stone, it was rectangular in shape, three stories high, with a domed central portion and a pillared portico with wide marble steps leading up to double doors. It was larger and more magnificent than the house of her dream. And there was no snow, only bare trees and flower beds and grass of faded green. But it was all like enough to the dream house to catch at her breathing.
This was Cosway? This was where she was to spend the holiday?
She was aware suddenly that she had leaned forward and was gazing rather intently through the window. She was aware of the silence of her two companions. She turned her head and met the viscount’s dark eyes. She sat back in her seat again and retreated within herself, into that secret place far inside where it never mattered that no one noticed her or respected her or loved her. A secret place she had discovered as a very young child.
“You admire my home, Miss Craggs?” the viscount asked her.
“Yes, my lord,” she said. She felt the uncharacteristic urge to babble, to enthuse. She curbed it. “It is very beautiful.”
“I think so, too,” he said.
She felt his eyes on her for a few moments longer. She kept her own eyes firmly on the hands she had clasped in her lap. And then the carriage lurched slightly as it stopped, and the door was being opened and the steps set down. She felt excitement ball in her stomach again.
Was this really happening? To her?
Always as he drove up to the house, and more especially when he stepped inside the great domed hall, he wondered why he did not spend more of his time here. There was always a special feeling of homecoming when returning to Cosway. He loved the hall, especially in the winter, when the log fires in the great twin fireplaces at opposite sides gave welcome and the illusion of warmth. The hall was too large and too high, of course, ever to be really warm in reality.
“Ah, Kemp,” he said to his butler, rubbing his hands together as a footman took his hat and his gloves and waited for him to remove his greatcoat. “It is good to be home. I have brought my niece with me, as you see, and her companion, Miss Craggs. You will see that Mrs. Dexter assigns rooms to them? And that their bags are taken up? We will have tea served in the drawing room immediately.”