Chapter One #2
“Look here,” he said impatiently as he reached her, “The most I’ve ever had to manage is a terrace apartment, a cookmaid, a valet, and one horse.
And now I’m expected to look after a foundering estate with more than two hundred tenant farms. I should think that merits some consideration. Even sympathy.”
“Poor you. How trying it must be, how inconvenient, for you to have to think about someone other than yourself.”
With that parting jab, she tried to leave.
However, she had stopped near an arched niche in the wall, intended for the display of statuary or art objects on pedestals.
Deliberately Devon braced his hands on either side of the recess, blocking her retreat.
He heard her breath catch, and—although he wasn’t proud of it—he felt a bolt of satisfaction at having unnerved her.
“Let me pass,” she said.
He didn’t move. “First tell me your name.”
An incredulous laugh escaped her. “Why? I would never give you leave to use it.”
He studied her shrouded form. “Has it occurred to you that we have more to gain from mutual cooperation than hostility?”
“I’ve just lost my husband and my home. What precisely do I have to gain, my lord?”
“Perhaps you should find out before you decide to make an enemy of me.”
“You were the enemy before you ever set foot here.”
Devon found himself straining to see through the veil. “Must you wear that blasted head covering?” he asked irritably. “I feel as if I’m conversing with a lampshade.”
“It’s called a weeping veil, and yes, I must wear it in the presence of a visitor.”
“I’m not a visitor, I’m your cousin.”
“Only by marriage. We are not related in any way, thank heaven.”
After contemplating her for a moment, Devon gentled his voice and said, “Come, don’t be stubborn. There’s no need to wear the veil around me unless you’re literally weeping, in which case I would insist that you put it back down immediately. I can’t abide the sight of a woman crying.”
“Because you’re secretly soft-hearted?” she asked in a withering tone.
“No, it’s only that women’s tears are manipulative and worse, unattractive.”
“You,” she said with certainty, “are the vilest man I have ever met.”
Devon was amused by the way she enunciated every word as if it had been shot from a bow. “How many men have you met?”
“Enough to recognize a wicked one when I see him.”
“I doubt you can see much of anything through this veil.” He reached out to finger the edge of the black gauze. “You can’t possibly like to wear it.”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Because it hides your face when you cry.”
“I never cry.”
Taken aback, Devon wondered if he had heard her correctly. “You mean not since Theo’s accident?”
“Not even then.”
What kind of woman would say such a thing, even if it were true?
Devon gripped the front of the veil and began to hike it upward.
“Hold still—I mean to have a look at you.” He pushed handfuls of the crepe back over the little headpiece that anchored it.
“No, don’t pull away. The two of us are going to stand face-to-face and attempt a civilized conversation.
Good God, how much of this blasted cloth is there?
You could rig a merchant ship with all this—”
Devon broke off as her face was uncovered, and he found himself staring into a pair of amber eyes that tilted at the outer corners in a catlike slant. For a moment he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, while all his senses struggled to take her in.
He had never seen anything like her.
She was younger than he had expected, with a fair complexion and auburn hair that looked too heavy for its pins.
A set of dramatic cheekbones and a narrow jaw imparted an exquisite feline triangularity to her features.
The sweet curves of her mouth were so full that even when she pressed them together tightly, as she was doing now, they still looked soft.
Although she was not conventionally beautiful, she was so original that it rendered the question of beauty inconsequential.
Her mourning dress was slim and tightly fitted from the neck to the hips before flaring into a series of complex pleats.
A man could only guess at the figure encased in all that boning and ruching and intricate stitching.
Even her wrists and hands were obscured by black gloves.
Aside from her face, the only visible skin was at her throat, where the front of her high collar parted with a U-shaped notch.
He could see the vulnerable movement of her swallow.
It looked so very soft, that private place, where a man might press his lips and feel the rhythm of her pulse.
He wanted to start there, kissing her throat, working slowly up to her mouth while he undressed her like an intricately wrapped gift.
One button, one lace at a time, peeling back layers of fabric until he reached the blushing skin beneath.
Until she was gasping and squirming beneath him.
If she were any other woman, and they had found themselves in any circumstances other than these, Devon would have seduced her on the spot.
There was no question as to why Theo would have married this woman.
The only question was how he could have ever left her bed.
Devon fiercely envied his cousin for having had the right, even for a handful of days, to lie with her.
Realizing that it would not do to stand there gaping a landed trout, he searched through his hot, disordered thoughts for some conventional remark, something coherent.
To his surprise, she was the first one to break the silence. “My name is Kathleen.”
“Why do you have no accent?”
“I was sent to England as a child, to live with family friends in Leominster.”
“Why?”
A frown knit between her winged brows. “My parents were very much occupied with their horses. They spent several months of each year in Egypt to purchase Arabian bloodstock for their farm. I was . . . inconvenient. Their friends Lord and Lady Berwick, who were also horse people, offered to take me in and raise me with their two daughters.”
“Do your parents still reside in Ireland?”
“My mother has passed away, but my father still lives there.” Her gaze turned distant, her thoughts chasing elsewhere. “He gave Asad to me as a wedding present.”
“Asad,” Devon repeated, puzzled.
Refocusing on him, Kathleen looked perturbed, color sweeping from her neck to her hairline.
Then Devon understood. “The horse that threw Theo,” he said quietly.
“It wasn’t Asad’s fault. He was so badly trained that my father bought him back from the man who had originally purchased him.”
“Why give a problem horse to you?”
“Lord Berwick often allowed me to help him train the young colts.”
Devon ran a deliberate glance over her petite, fine-boned frame. “You’re no bigger than a sparrow.”
“One doesn’t use brute force to train an Arabian. They’re a sensitive breed--they require understanding and skill.”
Two things that Theo had lacked. How bloody stupid it had been to risk his neck and a valuable animal along with it.
“Did Theo do it on a lark?” Devon couldn’t resist asking. “Was he trying to show off?”
A glint of searing emotion appeared in those luminous eyes before it was quickly extinguished. “He was in a temper. He wouldn’t be dissuaded.”
That was a Ravenel for you.
Unfortunately Theo, as the presumptive heir to the earldom, had been spoiled and indulged from birth.
If anyone had dared to contradict him, or refuse him anything, it had triggered an explosion.
Perhaps Kathleen had thought she could manage Theo, or that time would mellow him.
She couldn’t have known that a Ravenel’s temper would, at times, outweigh any sense of self-preservation.
Devon would have liked to consider himself above that sort of thing, but he had succumbed to it a few times in the past, throwing himself into the volcanic fire of consuming fury.
It felt glorious until one had to face the consequences.
Kathleen folded her arms tightly, each small black-gloved hand forming a clamp around the opposite elbow. “Some people said I should have put Asad down after the accident. But it would be cruel, and wrong, to punish the horse for something that wasn’t his fault.”
“Have you considered selling him?”
“I wouldn’t want to. But even if I did, I would have to retrain him first.”
Devon doubted the wisdom of allowing Kathleen anywhere near a horse that had just killed her husband, albeit inadvertently. And in all likelihood, she wouldn’t be able to stay at Eversby Priory long enough to accomplish anything with the Arabian. However, now was hardly the time to point that out.
“I’d like to see the grounds and gardens,” he said. “Will you walk with me?”
Looking consternated, Kathleen retreated a half-step. “I’ll arrange for the head gardener to show them to you.”
“I would prefer your company.” Devon paused before asking deliberately, “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”
Her brows rushed downward. “Certainly not.”
“Then walk with me.”
Ignoring his proffered arm, she gave him a wary glance. “Shall we invite your brother?”
Devon shook his head. “He’s napping.”
“At this hour of the day? Is he ill?”
“No, he keeps the schedule of a cat. Long hours of slumber interrupted by brief periods of self-grooming.”
Though Kathleen’s expression remained unchanged, he saw the corners of her lips deepen with reluctant amusement. “Come, then,” she murmured, brushing by him to walk briskly along the hallway, and he followed without hesitation.