Orphan Bride

Chapter 4

There was a spate there where Felisa didn”t get a chance to go to the library. It wasn”t that the bastard had locked it, but such things as that seemed trivial on the face of it, considering what they had all learned they were facing.

It was nearly a week after he”d informed her that he was going to be that damned high handed about his books. She hadn”t had a chance to employ her method of getting around him yet, but she fully intended to do so, once the opportunity presented itself.

The dowager had developed a cold the day after the ball, and Felisa had been spending nights sleeping in her room, making sure that the fire in her room didn”t go out, as the dowager was prone to chills. She also kept a pot of water boiling over it, which she had found helped the older woman with the severe congestion that settled in her chest.

Felisa had even gone to the marquis a day or so ago, to let him know she thought the doctor ought to be called, just to make certain that everything was being done for her employer.

He had looked uncharacteristically harried, but he had done as she”d asked without comment. The next thing she knew, the doctor was being shown into the dowager”s room.

He prescribed a few medications, complimented her on the idea of keeping the room steamy, and cautioned that if her fever spiked, then she really would need to be brought to the hospital.

It took the better part of two weeks before the older woman began to feel more like herself again, and as she had before, she ascribed her recovery solely to her companion.

”That”s the second time you”ve saved my life, my girl. And I won”t forget either one of them, believe me.”

Embarrassed, as she was declaring such things in front of her son, who was sitting in a chair not far from the end of his mother”s bed, Felisa merely kept moving around the bed after having changed it, tucking in her sheets as she knew the dowager preferred.

But when she got to the woman”s left side, she found her hand captured by an older, more wrinkled one.

”I mean it, Felisa.” Amelia met her companion”s eyes. ”I won”t forget what you”ve done for me. I promise.”

”You don”t need to do anything special for me, m”lady,” she demurred.

”She may not be able to do anything special for you,” Rune mumbled under her breath.

”What did you say, son?” Amelia asked. ”Speak up.”

Rune sighed. ”Mother, I”m sorry to have to bring this to you when you”re just recovering, but it needs to be said.” He looked pointedly at Felisa. ”Perhaps you should dismiss Miss Heath. I”m not sure that she should be privy to this.”

His mother straightened a back that had rarely been allowed to relax while she was conscious, and she reclaimed Felisa”s hand. ”I believe that Miss Heath has proven her worth to me and this family many times over, and I would like her to stay with me now, just as she stayed with me while the doctor was examining me. She”s another pair of sharper eyes and keener ears, and I trust her with any and all aspects of my life.”

He held up his hand. ”Fine, fine. I don”t need the suffragette speech.” He caught Felisa”s eye. ”And I mean no disrespect to Miss Heath. I am well aware of her value to this family.”

That caught Felisa unaware, but it was certainly nice to hear, even if she didn”t think he really meant it.

”I was just thinking about the fact that what I have to say to you—although I wouldn”t choose to say it now, it has to be said—is of a delicate financial nature, and I wondered if you might not want to expose her to such things.”

”I stand by what I said before,” Amelia answered staunchly. ”Why don”t you take a seat, Felisa?”

She sank down into the chair she had kept next to the dowager”s side of the bed, not at all certain that she wanted to hear what his lordship was going to say, even though his mother seemed quite unaware that he had a look of impending doom on his face.

”One of the reasons I left so abruptly almost a year ago was that our concerns in several parts of the world—the more volatile parts—were under attack, and I have to admit to you, that despite my best efforts, many of our larger holdings have gone under, due to civil unrest, catastrophic weather, and other things that are out of my control, unfortunately.”

”What exactly does that mean, son?”

Rune stood, pacing over to one of the big windows and staring out of it as he spoke. ”It means that if I can”t make some very good investments—some investments with quick turnaround times and big returns fairly quickly—we will likely not be able to keep Fenton Hall, and we will be forced to live in much reduced circumstances.”

Felisa had to give it to her employer. She didn”t bat any eyelash at any of that. If she had been the dowager and had only ever known plenty, she would have been in hysterics by now. Felisa had been in households that had had to be dissolved—she had been one of the staff who was let go because of their bad fortune—and she had never seen anyone, even some of the men, take such devastating news as well as Lady Alderton.

Even his lordship seemed surprised at her calm demeanor.

He looked at her, then at his mother, then back to her, obviously thinking that she”d missed his speech entirely. ”Did you hear what I said, Mother? We might well end up having to live just in the townhouse in London—if that. We might well have to sell that, too, to pay our creditors.”

”I heard you, and I understood you, Rune. I”m not senile yet.”

Ignoring that jab, he ran his hand over his face. ”I am so sorry, Mother. I have been just about as careful with our money as I could possibly be, but things happened?—”

”Rune. You forget that I was a parson”s daughter. I grew up in ”reduced circumstances”, and as much as I will hate to have to leave this house, more because it is your rightful inheritance than any prestige or rank that accompanies it, I will be perfectly fine if that is how I have to live again. And if there”s anything I can do to help, you will please let me know. I have quite a bit of money tied up in jewelry, you know, and I would be only too happy to contribute that to the cause.”

Despite the circumstances, Rune found himself smiling at his mother. ”I”ve said it before, and I”ll say it again. You are a tough old bird, Mama.”

She made a disgusted sound at him. ”And I heartily wish you”d stop saying it!”

Still, Rune went and hugged his mother. ”I am terribly, terribly sorry to have to tell you this, Mama, especially when you”re not feeling yourself.”

”I am much improved, thanks to my Miss Heath. And I don”t want you to feel guilty or worried at all, Rune. I know how careful you”ve been. I do. I might natter at you, but most of the time, it”s just to hear myself talk. You are a wonderful son, come what may.”

He smiled down at her, still holding her hand.

”Now, what we really ought to do is find you a rich woman to marry. Then our problems will be solved.”

His smile dimmed quite a bit at that prospect.

Rune looked down at Felisa. ”This will be a test of what you said to me at one time, Miss Heath.”

”And am I to know what that is?” his mother asked imperiously.

Still staring at her, Rune informed his mother, ”Miss Heath told me at one point that she would be happy to work for you for free, and that might well become the case.”

To both of their surprise, she chimed in without the slightest hesitation, ”I would be happy to donate my salary to the cause.”

”You most certainly will not,” the dowager said.

But then her son had to correct her, much to his chagrin.

And, when he and his mother, whom he transported below stairs to sit in the butler”s chair—and thus the best chair—spoke to the rest of the staff, many of whom had been with them for decades, they made him the same offer as Felisa had, to a man.

It was enough to make the dowager all uncharacteristically misty eyed.

”We appreciate your loyalty, and once my son gets us back on our feet, I can promise you that not only will you be given your back pay, but with a bonus, too.”

Rune looked a bit agog at that promise, but he was willing to go along with it—hoping that he would be able to pull them away from the brink of disaster.

* * *

Once the dowagerwas feeling well enough that Felisa didn”t think she needed to remain in the room with her at night, her thoughts returned to that locked library, worrying his edict like a sore tooth and chafing against a limitation that hit her where she lived, perseverating about how much it annoyed her that he had done that to her.

After all, it wasn”t as if she was sitting in the middle of the Royal Albert Hall, showing all and sundry what she was reading. In fact, she never took any book outside of the house that she had the slightest thought that anyone might have been looked slightly askance at. She was by herself, in the middle of the night, reading. There was no one around to be offended—except for him!

Besides, as she”d reminded him that his mother was not hers, neither was he her father! Or even her brother—not that she thought either of those men should have an opinion about what any woman read, either, but she would bet that he thought they should!

She supposed that he could play the employer card, although it was really his mother who employed her, not him. And, since the financial news he”d given the household, he wasn”t even paying her, so that didn”t give him much of a leg to stand on, either.

But the bare truth of it was that he was a man, and he was head of this household, and thus, he had a reasonable right to think that he could make rules for anyone who resided in it, unfortunately. Felisa wondered if there would ever be a day when things would be different, when a woman—even a lower-class woman, such as herself—could truly function entirely independently of men.

Somehow, she doubted it. Male dominance was much too entrenched in every society on the face of the planet.

But she wasn”t going to roll over for him quite that easily. So, when, the next night, she had a hankering to read something different—preferably something somewhat risqué in his eyes—she waited until the wee hours of the morning, plotting, whether she wanted to or not, that she was going to find something she thought he would find objectionable to read, just because he”d gotten her dander up.

The house was quiet, and there were no other lights visible, beyond the dim sconces on the walls. She checked in—out of habit—to the dowager”s room, but the older woman was sleeping peacefully, not even the slightest hint of a wheeze or a cough. There was no light coming out from under his room, either, she noticed as she tiptoed by, so Felisa figured she was safe. And, just in case she was discovered somehow, she was fully dressed as she crept around the old mansion.

While he was gone, she”d gotten lax—sometimes, she even wore her gown and robe down there, and frequently, she violated that stupid rule about food and drink that he”d set for her, since he wasn”t there to enforce it.

She”d been surprised that he hadn”t said anything to her about it when he”d so rudely interrupted her not long ago, but she had no doubt that he”d noticed.

It seemed that he was home to stay, she sighed, so no more of either of those things from this point on. But still, she wasn”t about to let him get away with restricting her access to all of those wonderful books—especially the ones he didn”t want her reading!

She didn”t encounter anyone on her way down to that floor, and no one was in the hallway that led to the library, either.

Felisa looked up and down the hallway again, furtively, before she bent down in front of the door, reached up into her bun and pulled out the two small tools she”d hidden in it, each about the side of a hair pin but with small hooks on the end, which she then inserted into the keyhole and began to move around carefully. She certainly didn”t want to break the lock, just open it.

She”d been at it only a few seconds when a long, tall shadow fell over her.

”My, my, my, what do we have here, I wonder?” he drawled. ”I would bet that my mother never got to the part where you listed ”lock pick” on your CV.”

Felisa sighed. Damn him! She knew she should have dared to tiptoe by his study before she came here, but she was so sure he wouldn”t still be up!

”I assumed you would be in bed, m”lord,” she admitted.

”Obviously,” he answered, eyebrows raised. ”Don”t stop on account of me. I want to see you do it. I”d like to know if I have even more of a thief in my midst than I already knew about.”

Knowing that doing so would not be of advantage to her as far as he was concerned, she made a halfhearted attempt at fiddling the pins around a little, entirely ineffectively, then said, ”I can”t.”

But damn him, he was much too smart to let her get away with that.

”I don”t think you”re trying very hard, Miss Heath, and you”re already in considerable trouble with me for trying to thwart my will. To say nothing of the fact that, when I found you in the library when I first got back, you were—again, against my rules—drinking my wine and eating my sweets. So I suggest you put a much better effort into it. If you”re down here trying in the middle of the night, you must be pretty sure you can get in.”

Damn and blast! He was the most annoying man she”d ever met, by far! She was caught six ways to Sunday, and she knew it.

So Felisa flicked the pins back and forth much more expertly, and the door opened. She couldn”t help but look somewhat proud when she rose and faced him, her arm already up to put the pins back.

But he had his hand out expectantly, and—with severe reluctance—she gave them over to him.

He surprised her then by not motioning for her to enter the library, with him following close behind, of course. Instead, he pulled the door closed and locked it.

”I can see that I”m going to have to invest in some better locks for those doors,” he said casually as he wrapped his long fingers around her upper and began to pull her down the hall, back in the direction from whence she”d come.