Page 14

A listair’s library at Rylemoor was considerably more impressive than the one in Town, with bookshelves lining three walls, a mahogany desk, and a Turkish carpet covering the stone floor.

Not that anyone ever journeyed all the way into Devonshire to be impressed by a library. In point of fact, no one came here at all.

Nevertheless, some previous Earl of Ryland had furnished the room in what was then a modern style, eschewing the monastic austerity of much of the rest of the abbey. It adjoined the drawing room, similarly furnished, and the two rooms together could have entertained a houseful of guests, if Alistair were either circumstanced or inclined to entertain.

Truth be told, he preferred the shabbier comforts of the family sitting room. But there was work to be done, work that required concentration and privacy, and the library fairly rang with silence. Even though his sisters were just above him in the schoolroom turned studio, no doubt boisterous in their attempts to learn whatever it was that Constantia—Miss Cooper—had elected to teach them, he heard nothing of it through the thick floors and walls.

Not that he escaped the effects of her presence entirely. One or more of them reported over dinner every day what progress was being made or some witty remark that had fallen from their teacher’s lips.

Lips he had kissed. Lips that had kissed him.

With a groan he dropped his head into his hand and rubbed his eyes until he saw spots. Nothing wiped away the memory, though.

Just as nothing erased the numbers in the ledgers piled at his elbow.

It seemed, in spite of all his efforts, matters at Rylemoor had only grown worse. The estate’s lands were mostly moor, as the name implied, rather than fertile farmland. His few tenants cut and sold peat and struggled to pay their rents. He had extended their leases anyway—those poor souls had nowhere else to go, and what they might have contributed to his coffers would not have made a dent in his debts.

Or rather, his father’s debts, in the form of spendthrift habits, investments gone sour, and a mortgage on everything as far as the eye could see.

When Alistair had inherited those debts, along with the title, he’d made it his mission to right the wrongs his father had perpetrated and keep the estate running as best he could.

The abbey required constant repairs, only the most desperate of which it received. It needed a staff at least twice the size of the one he could afford. Even with all of his cost-saving measures, he was staring down a pile of bills he couldn’t pay: interest due on loans, taxes owed to the Crown.

And then there was the matter of dowries.

Seven of them, to be exact.

In his will, his father had written down sizable numbers, made outlandish promises he expected his son to keep. But he had never actually set aside any funds.

Bernie’s husband, Lord Brinks, had need of the money—new curricles and cattle were not cheap—but when Alistair had begged leave to defer payment, Brinks had professed himself too much in love to wait and married her anyway. Then he’d made up for the loss by withholding his new wife’s pin money until she produced an heir, who still had not arrived.

Charlie’s husband, Mr. Powell, who did not have need of money and also claimed to be head over heels in love with his bride, addressed the matter of the unpaid dowry differently: by having his solicitor send a polite reminder of the balance due every quarter.

Eddie had fallen in love with Samuel Forster, the village curate, who could surely never afford to marry her if she brought nothing but her gentle nature to the match. Danny had sold herself into servitude with Aunt Josephine and might never have the opportunity even to meet an eligible man.

If all that weren’t bad enough, he had Freddie, Georgie, and Harry yet to manage. The elder two had begged for a London Season. Pretty dresses. Balls. He had taken them to Town this year expressly to introduce them to good society. And to keep his eye on them.

And because, even with all the expensive temptations on their doorstep, Haythorne House was smaller and less costly to run.

Still, he’d had to deny them more than he would’ve liked. And in the end, taken aback either by their headstrong natures or their lack of dowry, or both, every promising suitor had melted away.

The only thing worse than having seven dowries to pay was having seven unhappy sisters, most of whom were only going to grow more miserable as the years went on.

With a muttered oath, he slammed shut a ledger and shoved it aside. His best efforts would never be enough. Everyone would be better off if Rylemoor Abbey sank into a bog...and took him with it. Perhaps whatever distant relative who presently stood to inherit the title had a mint.

He shoved away from the desk, stood, and strode to the window. Wind was whistling through the cracked lead around the diamond-shaped panes. He would have liked to have built up the fire to drive back the icy fingers of air. Instead, he tugged his coat more snugly around him and reached up to draw the drapery. As he did so, a flash of bright copper down below in the courtyard caught his eye.

Constantia was sitting on what appeared to be a three-legged milk stool, her sketchbook propped on one knee. The wind had pushed down the hood of her green wool cloak and was now whipping her hair around like tongues of flame.

He wasn’t surprised to see her. She’d been seated thus every afternoon. Though he couldn’t make out her drawing at this distance, she was obviously working on a sketch of the abbey in the hours after her lessons were done.

While he stood watching, she rose and walked toward the crumbling west wing, closer and closer, until she had to crane her neck backward to look up at what remained of the bell tower, a jagged peak piercing the gray sky.

Alistair found it, well...not soothing, exactly, to watch her sketch. Compelling would be the better, more accurate, word. What had begun in the carriage, where there had been little else to attach his interest, had become a habit. Each day, he found it more difficult to tear his eyes away.

Over the course of a week, her gait had lost its stiffness. Though her wrist was still bandaged, the plaster on her cheek was long gone, and the scrape and bruise it had covered were already beginning to fade.

How long would she find it necessary to stay?

That question sent his gaze to the distant horizon, as bleak and empty as ever. Had she told him a story about pursuers to garner his sympathy? He could well imagine dangers lurked out there for her, as they did for far too many women. But a mysterious hunter, sent by some nameless marquess who wanted to rid the world of any evidence of his daughter and the mistake she had made? Alistair looked back at Constantia. It seemed more than a little far-fetched, but one expected as much from creative sorts.

Or perhaps the marquess hadn’t yet learned that family portraits were all but impossible to destroy.

Alistair had persuaded himself that bringing her here was the safest thing to do. Safer for her, as she recovered from her injuries and determined the future course of her life. Safer for him, because Rylemoor Abbey was big enough that he could keep his distance from her.

And filled with reminders of why it was essential for him to do so.

Fortunately, the architecture of the east wing was too utilitarian to be of artistic interest. She had never once looked in his direction. She had no idea he watched her, day after day. His sigh, loud in the hushed library, fogged the glass.

When her head whipped around as if in response to the sound, he leaped back from the window.

But she couldn’t have heard him, of course. Unlikely even that she had seen him. He dared to peek around the edge of the curtain. She tilted her chin as if listening to something far off, then tucked her sketch pad against her breast and scurried inside.

Alistair could just make out his puzzled frown in his faint reflection on the glass. Something obviously had startled her. She had darted from the courtyard like a doe flushed from a copse. But what had she heard?

He was on the point of abandoning his fruitless speculations when a familiar chaise and four lumbered into view: Aunt Josephine. And a day early, at that.

Constantia had been wise to run.

He found himself watching with a sort of horrified curiosity to see whether Wellend had noticed the arrival. The lack of a proper, deferential greeting would result in endless complaints.

Then again, if no one assisted his aunt from the carriage or opened the door to the house, would she turn around and go home?

He had momentarily forgotten about Danny, who was employed by their aunt to do precisely those sorts of menial tasks, along with reading aloud, answering correspondence, and taking her yippy little dog for walks.

No sign of the dog, at least. Aunt Josephine was marching across the courtyard now, not even pretending to require her companion’s arm. Then, abruptly, she stopped. She snapped open her lorgnette, gestured with it at some obstacle in her path—though God knew there was ample room to go around whatever it might be. Danny hurried forward, bent, and retrieved the item at which their aunt had been pointing: Constantia’s stool.

Aunt Josephine would no doubt give him an earful over dinner about lax servants and unsightly litter. But for now, and in spite of himself, he snickered. Constantia did have a way of upending plans.

He really ought to go down and welcome his aunt, though in point of fact, she had invited herself. She was his father’s sister, as unlike the man as it was possible to be. As such, she should have been Alistair’s ally in the war against the trouble his father’s foolishness had caused.

But her help always came with a heaping side of judgment. She’d offered employment as a lady’s companion to one of his sisters—she’d wanted Edwina, but Danielle, recognizing her next younger sister’s misery at the prospect, had fallen on her sword. For nearly a year Danny had been bristling under the weight of constant comparison to docile, domestic-minded Eddie.

His aunt had also, more than once, recommended he hire a man of business who could restore some semblance of order to the estate’s account books, as from the look of things, Ryland, it seems you’ve inherited your father’s incapacity for figures.

Stubbornly, Alistair sat down on his chair. Dinner was in an hour. That would be soon enough to greet her.

And he would spend the time between now and dinner checking his sums. Perhaps his aunt was right. Perhaps he’d made some mistake in his arithmetic.. .

“Alistair?”

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed since he’d sat down again. He only knew that his fingers ached from the grip on his pencil, and his head ached from the conclusion he’d reached again and again. No, not his head—his heart.

What choice did he have but to ask Aunt Josephine for help?

But all that melted away when he looked up from the ledger at the sound of his name and saw Danny hurrying toward him, arms outstretched. “She’s not mistreating you?” he asked, enfolding her in an embrace and resting his cheek against the top of her head. Was it his imagination, or was she a little thinner?

She pulled back just enough to look up into his face, her dark eyes dancing merrily. “You must know I’d never allow that.”

Eddie would not have stood up for herself. Freddie or Georgie would have been sent home inside of a fortnight. But Danny? Well, Danny had a way of putting people in their places, without ever seeming to have done so.

“Oh, I’ve missed you.” He hugged her close again, at the same time steering her away from the desk. He couldn’t risk her seeing the ledgers. He never wanted any of them to worry.

Danny clasped his hand and led him toward a pair of brocade-covered chairs in front of the empty hearth. “What’s this about a drawing master? Harry was so excited I could hardly make heads or tails of anything she said.”

“Oh. Yes. I brought someone from London.”

Her brow wrinkled. “Are you sure that’s wise, given Papa’s...struggles?”

Danny was the closest to Alistair in age, and the youngest of the eight of them to have any real memories of their father. Eddie recalled what others had told her of him more than the man himself, and the three youngest had been too young when he died to remember anything at all.

She knew their father had dabbled in painting, and she probably remembered seeing his work around the abbey before Alistair had ordered it all taken down.

She knew, but she didn’t... know . Not everything Alistair did.

He’d had a week of listening to his youngest sisters prattling away about the pictures they’d drawn, watching the sparks of creativity flare in their eyes. A week of sharing his home with the most maddeningly unpredictable woman he’d ever met. A week of wanting, with every fiber of his being, to throw old cautions to the wind. “In fact, I’m sure it’s not wise. But it...it couldn’t be helped.”

That earned him another skeptical frown. “You make it sound as if some starving artist flagged down your carriage and demanded to be taken to Rylemoor Abbey and employed to teach your sisters.”

He managed to laugh. “I would say you’ve been reading the wrong sorts of books, but I know Aunt Josephine would never allow that. Oh, Danny.” He reached out to pat their still-joined hands. “Is it awful in Bristol?”

“Bristol’s fine,” she answered, deliberately evading the question she must know he’d meant to ask. “But I’m glad to be home.”

Those words pushed him to his feet. Releasing her hand, he took two unsteady steps back toward the desk and his gaze fell on the ledgers. Then he raised his eyes—not toward heaven, but toward the schoolroom turned studio. Did Miss Cooper mind dining alone? Freddie had wheedled every day to have her to join them at the table, but he hadn’t given in.

He couldn’t give in to his own selfish desires. Couldn’t let Rylemoor crumble around him. Couldn’t doom his sisters to lonely, miserable lives.

He knew, perhaps had known for some time, what he must do to put things right.

“Come,” he said, holding out an arm to his sister and offering her a reassuring smile. “We don’t want to risk Aunt Josephine’s wrath by being late to dinner.”

They entered the dining room one floor below to find all the others already assembled, and Aunt Josephine seated at the foot of the table in Edwina’s usual spot. Her iron gray hair was arranged in a tight chignon, and she turned to inspect Alistair through her lorgnette—an entirely unnecessary affectation, he was sure. Aunt Josephine might look frail, but there was nothing weak about her, not even her eyesight.

“Did our early arrival prevent you from changing for dinner?”

“No, Aunt,” he said around a fixed smile as he bent to kiss the air near her cheek. “We do not stand much on ceremony here in the country.”

Meanwhile, Danny rushed to their youngest sister’s side. “Harry, there you are! I didn’t see you earlier.”

“I despise those nicknames,” Aunt Josephine muttered.

Harry paid her aunt no mind at all. “I was upstairs, admiring Miss Cooper’s latest sketches of the abbey.”

Danny’s dark brows climbed her forehead. “ Miss Cooper? I had not realized your drawing master was a”—she turned and shot a speculative glance toward Alistair—“mistress.”

Freddie giggled, and Alistair turned a quelling look on each of them.

“I for one do not approve,” said Aunt Josephine, “of young ladies being taught by men. But I must say, Ryland, I am surprised you have gone to the trouble and expense of hiring a drawing master. How can you afford it?”

“The truth is...” He had made his way to the head of the table, intending to take his seat. But for what he had to say next, he decided, it would be better to stand. “I cannot. Things are...difficult. Which is why I must ask you this favor.”

He paused to glance around at each of his sisters, who were staring at him with varying degrees of wide eyes and slack jaws. They all realized things must be bad if he was contemplating placing himself in their aunt’s debt. Some of them might even have understood he was doing it for them.

But not one of them had any notion of how far he was going to have to go to set things right.

He cleared his throat, took a sip of wine, and carefully returned the glass to the table. “Aunt Josephine, I wish you to find me a wife.”