And who was she, even if she had had a respectable companion, to be paying a call on the Marquess of Bedford? She was wearing her best day dress, yet it was patched in three places. She had had to walk from the village because she owned no conveyance or even a horse or pony. In two weeks’ time she was to be a servant.
She should have come to the kitchen entrance, not to the main doors.
Lilias took one step back from the fireplace, suddenly feeling uncomfortably warm. If she hurried, she could grab her cloak and bonnet from the hallway and be outside and on her way home before any more harm was done. The rain and wind would be at her back on the return journey.
But she was too late. The door to the salon in which she had been asked to wait opened even before she could take one more step toward it, and he stepped inside. Someone closed the door quietly behind him.
The Marquess of Bedford.
Lilias swallowed and unconsciously raised her chin. She clasped her hands before her and dropped into a curtsy. She would scarcely have known him. He looked taller, and he was certainly broader. He bore himself very straight, like a soldier, though he had never been one. He was immaculately and fashionably dressed. His hair was as thick as it had ever been, but its darkness was highlighted now by the suggestion of silver at the temples. But he was not thirty yet.
His face was what had changed most. It looked as if carved out of marble, his jaw firm and hard, his lips thin and straight, his blue eyes above the aquiline nose heavy-lidded and cold. One eyebrow was arched somewhat higher than the other.
He made her a stiff half-bow. “Well, Miss Angove,” he said in a voice that was softer, colder than the voice she remembered, “what an unexpected pleasure. You are the first of my neighbors to call upon me.
All alone?”
“Yes, my lord,” she said, clasping her hands more firmly before her and consciously resisting the impulse to allow them to fidget. “This is not a social call. I have a favor to ask.”
His one eyebrow rose even higher and his lips curved into the suggestion of a sneer. “Indeed?” he said, advancing farther into the room. “Well, at least you are honest about it. Have a seat, ma’am, and tell me how I may be of service to you.”
She sat on the very edge of the chair closest to her and clasped her hands in her lap. Someone had tamed his hair, she thought irrelevantly.
It had always waved in a quite unruly manner and had forever fallen across his forehead. It had been a habit of his to toss it back with a jerk of the head.
“It is not precisely a favor,” she said, “but more in the way of the calling in of a debt.”
He seated himself opposite her and looked at her inquiringly. His eyes had never used to be like this. They had been wide and sparkling eyes, mesmerizing even. But then, they were compelling now too. They regarded her with cynical contempt. Lilias glanced down nervously at her sleeve to find that the darned patch was staring accusingly up at her. But she did not twist the sleeve again. Perhaps he would not notice if she kept her hands still. Except that she felt that those eyes saw everything, even the larger darned patch beneath her left arm.
“When you were at school,” she said, “and found your Latin lessons difficult, Papa helped you during your holidays. You used to come to the rectory every morning for two successive summers. Do you remember?” She did not wait for a reply. “You would not tell your own papa for fear that he would be disappointed in you. And Papa would accept no payment for your tuition. You told him-I was there when you said it-that you would always consider yourself in his debt, that you would repay him one day.”
“And so I did say,” he said in that quiet, cold voice. His expression did not change at all. “Your father has been dead for well over a year, has he not, Miss Angove? But I take it that the day of reckoning has come. What may I do for you?”
“I think less than the tuition for two summers would have cost you,” she said hastily, wishing that she could keep her voice as cool as his. “I would not put myself in your debt.”
His eyelids appeared to droop even lower over his eyes. “What may I do for you, ma’am?” he asked again.
“I want a Christmas for my brother and sister,” she said raising her chin and looking very directly into his face. She could feel herself flushing.
Both his eyebrows rose. “An admirable wish,” he said. “But it would seem that if you wait patiently for one more week, Christmas will come without my having to do anything about the matter.”
“They are still children,” she said. “My parents’ second family, people have always called them. Philip and I were two years apart, and then there were eleven years before Andrew was born. And Megan came two years after that. They are only eleven and nine years old now. Just children.
This is our last Christmas together. In two weeks’ time we will all be separated. Perhaps we will never be together again. I want it to be a memorable Christmas.” She was leaning forward in her chair. Her fingers were twining about one another.
“And how am I to help create this memorable Christmas?” he asked. His mouth was definitely formed into a sneer now. “Host a grand party? Grand parties are not in my style.”
“No,” she said, speaking quickly and distinctly. “I want a goose for Christmas dinner.”
There was a short silence.
“Papa was not a careful manager,” she continued. “There was very little money left when he died and now there is none left, or at least only enough to pay for our journeys in two weeks’ time. The people of the village would help, of course, but they were so used to finding that Papa would not accept charity in any form that they now do not even offer. And perhaps they are right.” Her chin rose again. “I have some of his pride.”
“So,” he said, “instead of asking charity, you have found someone who is in your debt.”
“Yes,” she said, and swallowed awkwardly again.
“And you want a goose for Christmas,” he said. “Your needs are modest, ma’am. That is all?”
“And a doll for Megan,” she said recklessly. “There is the most glorious one in Miss Pierce’s window-all porcelain and satin and lace. I want that for Megan. She has never had a doll, except the rag one Mama made for her when she was a baby. I want her to have something really lovely and valuable to take with her.”
“And for your brother?” he asked softly.
“Oh.” She gazed at him wistfully. “A watch.A silver watch. But there are none in the village, and I would not know how to go about purchasing one for him. But it does not matter. Andrew is eleven and almost not a child any longer. He will understand, and he will be happy with the scarf and gloves I am knitting for him. The cost of a goose and the doll will not exceed the cost of tuition for two summers, I don’t believe.
Will it?”
“And for yourself?” he asked even more softly.
Lilias gazed down at her hands and reached out to twist the offending sleeve. “I don’t want anything that will cost money,” she said. “I want only the memory of one Christmas to take with me.”
“Where are you going?” he asked.
She looked up at him. “Into Yorkshire,” she said. “I have a post as a governess with a family there.”
“Ah,” he said. “And your brother and sister?”
“I have persuaded my grandfather to take Andrew,” she said. “It took several letters, but finally he agreed to take him and send him to school. Sir Percy Angove, that is, Papa’s father. The two of them never communicated after Papa’s marriage.”
The marquess nodded curtly.
“And Megan is going to Great-aunt Hetty in Bath,” Lilias said. “I am afraid I pestered her with letters too. But it will be only until I can earn enough money to bring us all together again.”
Bedford got to his feet and looked down at her from cold and cynical eyes. “Ah, yes,” he said. “A suitably affecting story, Miss Angove. I must congratulate you on the manner in which you have presented it.”