Chapter 19
“You are leaving? Now?” Sophia asked as her eyes followed Lavinia around the drawing room an hour after their kitten rescue.
Thunder rattled the eaves with a violence that suggested Evermere Hall could be undone by a storm.
Lavinia snatched her reticule from the side table and fastened the clasp with fingers that trembled from fear.
When she walked, she could barely hear the tap of her own boots on the marble over the storm’s drumbeat.
“I must leave now before the storm traps me outside, and then I may never find my way home.” Lavinia donned her cloak and cinched it at the throat.
Sophia cast an anxious glance at the window, where sheets of water ran down the glass in muddy rivulets. “Are you going to walk?”
“I will find a hack.”
“But the roads—”
“—are only slightly worse than your father’s disposition on a Sunday,” Lavinia said. She steeled herself and advanced on the front hall, prepared for whatever resistance Sophia might yet mount.
Instead, it was Tristan who intercepted her at the threshold.
He had simply appeared, as though conjured by the storm itself, his frame blocking the door and all hope of a straightforward escape.
“Lady Lavinia,” he said, “you will not make it past the drive.”
“I have faced far worse than a puddle,” she replied, tilting her chin until she was near eye-level with the knot of his cravat.
He did not move. If anything, his presence seemed to deepen, to draw the air from the entryway. “The lane is flooded. A footman went out not an hour ago to fetch the poultry and sank to his knees in the mud. If you attempt it, you will lose both your shoes and your dignity.”
“My dignity is well accustomed to trauma,” Lavinia said, “and my shoes are serviceable.”
He ignored that. “You will remain at Evermere until the storm passes.”
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“You will remain,” he repeated. “It is not a matter to be negotiated.”
Lavinia drew in a breath and straightened. “I appreciate your concern, Your Grace, but I must return home. My sister—”
“Will survive one night without you,” he cut in, as though discussing the weather or the price of barley.
“Frances has never spent a night alone in her life,” Lavinia said, “and I have never spent a night away from home since my father’s—” She stopped herself, but the word hovered between them.
He did not seize upon it. Instead, he stepped closer in a slow and deliberate invasion of her space. “This manor is built to withstand storms. You may stay in any guest room you prefer. If you wish, I will post a footman outside your door and assign you a personal maid for the duration.”
“And what of propriety, Your Grace?” she said. Her cheeks were warm now, and it was still an unaccustomed sensation. “You know very well what the county will say if word gets out I spent a night beneath your roof.”
His eyes narrowed slightly, and she thought she saw the corner of his mouth twitch in amusement. “If word gets out, I shall dismiss every servant in the house and sell the story myself to The Times. You have my word.”
Lavinia almost laughed, but it came out as a sharp huff. “You are impossible.”
He regarded her for a beat. “That is also non-negotiable.”
There was a moment's silence. Outside, thunder detonated again, and the rain crescendoed until it sounded like a thousand fists pounding the leaded glass.
She moved toward the front door, just to make a point. Mr. Farrel opened it but the wind snatched it from his grip and slammed it shut again with the force of a giant’s hand. Tristan stood back, watching, neither smug nor sympathetic.
“I will not be responsible for your demise,” he said, “however dramatic it may be.”
She turned from the door and found herself staring at the black of his waistcoat.
This is how it begins, she thought. A single misstep, and the world spins out of control.
“I expect a tray for supper,” she said, “and at least three blankets. I will not be cold on your account.”
He gave a fractional nod, as though approving the terms of a treaty. “You will have four blankets and two fireplaces if you wish.”
She could not stop the smile then, though she hid it behind a pretense of severity. “Then we are agreed.”
He gestured to a footman, who appeared instantly, as if from a trapdoor.
“Show Lady Lavinia to the guest room,” Tristan said. “And see to it she is comfortable. No one is to disturb her unless she requests it. Also, fetch Mrs. Woods and inform her that Lady Lavinia is to wait out the storm here.”
The footman nodded, and Lavinia started to follow him. Sophia poked her head from the drawing room doorway and grinned. “I am glad you are staying.”
“So am I, my dear,” Lavinia said for the girl’s benefit.
Sophia grinned again, then darted away, her footsteps clapping like the memory of laughter.
You should be frightened, Lavinia told herself as she was shown into the guest room.
She changed into the nightclothes that the housekeeper, Mrs. Woods, provided—a thing so starched and pristine it might have been made for a bishop—and sat at the edge of the bed.
Hours later, sleep would not come. Not after the day’s lessons, nor after the standoff in the entryway. Not even after the footman delivered a tray laden with hot tea, fruit preserves, and four scones, the last of which she devoured in a single bite.
Her mind spun with worries for Frances, though she had sent word home via the stableboy. They spun with the memory of Sophia’s wide, hopeful eyes and the helplessness of the small gray kitten, hidden away in the gardener’s shed at the edge of the rose walk.
She tried to read, but the words swam. Every time the wind moaned, she saw the kitten, shivering and hungry, alone in the storm.
She lasted until half past eleven.
Then she threw off the blankets, pulled on her cloak, and stuffed a crust of scone in her pocket. She tied her boots, checked the hallway for sentries, and, finding none, she crept down the servants’ staircase with the stealth of a burglar.
The halls were cold and dark, the only light a single candle guttering in a bracket by the kitchen. Lavinia snatched it, shielding the flame with her hand, and tiptoed through the scullery to the back garden door.
The wind nearly knocked her flat and completely blew out the candle. She fought the handle, braced her back against the jamb, and slipped out into the night.
It was worse than she had expected. The rain did not fall so much as fly, driven sideways by a wind that smelled of damp earth and shattered branches. She stumbled across the yard, her boots instantly sodden, and skidded down the muddy path to the kitchen garden.
The shed loomed up, black and hunched. She ducked inside and called, “Whisper?”
A faint, desperate mew answered her.
She found the kitten curled in a ragged nest of burlap, shivering so violently she feared it might fracture. Lavinia scooped it up and tucked it into the hollow of her cloak, pressing it to her chest.
“There, darling,” she murmured, “you’re not alone now, though you look nothing more than bones and hope.”
She touched her finger to the kitten’s nose, and it licked her fingers. She should have felt foolish. She should have felt anything but this immense, absurd tenderness.
Stepping out of the shed with the kitten held tight, she nearly collided with a wall of black.
Tristan.
He stood in the storm, his hair plastered to his head, his face full of white-hot fury as lightning flashed.
“What in God’s name are you doing?” he demanded.
Lavinia’s first impulse was to shield the kitten, as if he might seize it from her arms and hurl it into the darkness. “I am rescuing him,” she said. “If you must know.”
“Who?”
“This.” Lavinia revealed Whisper.
He advanced on her. “You are risking pneumonia. Or worse.”
“Then let it be on my conscience,” she said. “You may discharge me in the morning, if you like.”
He stared at her. “You are a lunatic.”
She squared her shoulders, meeting him glare for glare. “At least I do not leave helpless creatures to die in the wet.”
“You think I do?” The question burst from him.
“I have no idea what you do, Your Grace. You are an enigma, like a perfectly preserved monument to duty and decorum. But for all your rules, you have no sense at all.”
They stood, less than a yard apart, mud to the ankles, rain seething down their faces. The kitten made a small, pitiful sound, and Lavinia hugged it closer.
Tristan’s jaw worked. “You should not have come out here.”
“I could not leave him,” Lavinia said. “Now I must find another suitable and dry place for him.”
He stared at her—no, through her, as if trying to decipher a language he had never bothered to learn. “You are the most exasperating woman I have ever met.”
She shot back, “And you are the most insufferable man. You cannot even—”
She broke off, because he had closed the final distance and seized her shoulders.
“Why do you never do as you are told?” he demanded.
“Because I am not a sheep,” Lavinia snapped.
His hands tightened. “You could have died out here. Do you understand?”
The words struck her, but she would not give him the satisfaction of an apology. “What does it matter to you?”
Thunder cracked, and for one moment, neither of them breathed. Then, as if the storm itself commanded it, he bent and kissed her.