Chapter 1 #2
“You ought to address a lady with respect,” she returned primly. “Has no one ever taught you manners? But then, I suppose if they had, you wouldn’t have to resort to robbing carriages to earn your bread.”
He blinked and then stared at her as if she had just turned into something mysterious and perplexing before him.
And then his brow furrowed, and he gave her the most ferocious glare she’d ever experienced in her nearly twenty-three years.
“You think I’m robbing your carriage.” He stated it as a grim fact.
Wasn’t he?
A gust of wind sent a fresh rush of snowflakes tumbling into the carriage.
Addy shivered. “Yes, of course that’s what I think. Why else would you break down the carriage door and demand I get out of it?”
“Because,” he said slowly and with agonizing precision, “the door was frozen shut. As I already explained. Now, if you please, get out of the blasted carriage. My hat is on the ground, filling with snow, this storm shows no inclination of stopping, and I would prefer not to perish by turning into a block of ice.”
Sarcasm dripped from his words. Apparently, her speech about manners had fallen upon ears that were decidedly uninterested in listening.
She glanced back to his outstretched hand. “Where do you intend to take me?”
“To Marchingham Hall,” he growled. “Where else?”
“How opportune.” She grudgingly laid her gloved hand in his. “That is my intended destination.”
His fingers closed over hers, and he pulled her unceremoniously from the carriage. His motions were so swift and strong that she nearly went headlong into the snow. She stumbled on cold, booted feet, catching herself at the last moment. Snow fell mercilessly upon them.
The stranger had bent to retrieve his hat, which was indeed filling with snow, from the ground. With a sound of irritation, he emptied it and then stuffed it back upon his head.
“Follow me, madam,” he said with all the cheer of a pallbearer.
And then he had the temerity to turn his back to her, stalking away to where a massive brown mount awaited. The horse had a patch of white on its face and long white fur on each leg.
“What about my trunks?” she asked, looking over her shoulder to where the abandoned carriage sat helplessly mired, her trunks piled high.
“They’ll have to wait,” the man said, unconcerned.
Horror struck. “They can’t wait! My gowns, my shoes, my jewels! They’ll all be stolen or ruined.”
He reached the horse and cast a harsh glance in her direction. “Then perhaps you ought to have thought of that before setting out on a journey in a snowstorm.”
“But I need them,” she protested.
He hissed out an irritated sigh. “Does it look as if I presently have a way to transport your trunks?”
Addy eyed the gargantuan horse. “No.”
“Would you care to freeze to death in this snowstorm?”
He was quite beastly, this wretched man. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him so, but then Addy thought better of it. There was always the chance he would leave her stranded here.
“I would not, sir,” she admitted.
“Then get on the horse,” he said.
Addy cast another forlorn glance back at her trunks, which were already coated in white. Her precious silks from France. Her shoes. Her sapphires and diamonds and emeralds. Dandy’s favorite blanket.
“Now,” he snapped when she hesitated.
Addy turned back to the dreadful stranger. “Fine. But only because I have no wish to die in a Yorkshire snowbank.”
He grumbled something unpleasant beneath his breath, and she had no doubt it was a vile insult against herself.
Ignoring the hand he offered her, she gathered what remained of her shredded pride and heaved herself up into the saddle.
It was no easy feat, given the weight of her travel gown and her frozen legs.
He swung up in front of her. “Hold on to me.”
She scarcely had her arms wrapped awkwardly around his lean torso before he kicked the horse into a gallop. They were off down the road, snow pelting them, leaving the carriage and her worldly possessions behind.
By the time Lion reached Marchingham Hall, he was frozen, surly, and more vexed with Miss Adelia Fox than he could recall being with anyone he’d ever known.
The woman was a bloody menace in silk skirts.
A spoiled, outrageous hoyden who had mistaken him for a common footpad.
And most of all, she was an uninvited guest who had unexpectedly arrived at his manor house in the midst of a vicious snowstorm with half of New York City and a mad dog in tow.
She was damned fortunate the elderly manservant, maiden aunt, and mongrel she had brought with her for accompaniment had made it to his door.
Otherwise, the lot of them would have been icicles by morning.
“Where have you taken me?” she demanded, her American accent strangely pleasant.
It aggrieved him mightily that he found her voice mellifluous. He was meant to find all qualities concerning Miss Fox deeply, unutterably repellent.
“Welcome to Marchingham Hall,” he told the infuriating woman as he drew Athena to a halt before the front portico.
If his voice was laced with sarcasm, then so be it. He had never intended to play host to her.
“This is Marchingham Hall?”
Surely he didn’t denote a trace of disbelief in her voice? Lion was more than aware that the extensive manor house, most of which had been built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was in varying states of disrepair. But how dare she look down her nose upon his ancestral dwelling?
“Are you hard of hearing, madam?” he snapped.
The maddening Miss Fox, whose arms were yet wrapped about his midsection and whose breasts had occasionally and quite scandalously grazed his person during their snowy journey, made an indelicate snort.
“Of course not. I was merely expecting something less…old, I suppose.”
Less old.
He ought to have left the mannerless American chit to her fate in that frigid carriage.
“You may release me now so that I can dismount,” he informed her icily. “Unless you wish to remain in the snow whilst you heap insults upon one of the finest examples of Palladian architecture in England.”
She withdrew her arms. “Forgive me. Mama always says my tongue is faster than my mind. I speak without thought.”
“I’m sure that’s the least concerning observation your mother might have made about you,” he muttered as he dismounted, his booted feet landing in powdery snow.
His head groom emerged from the equally dilapidated stables, approaching through the snow to return Athena to the haven of her stall.
Whilst some of the edifice needed a new roof, Athena’s area remained dry.
Come spring, Lion would have to see to as many repairs as the estate could afford.
He’d been delaying far too long as it was in the hope he could change the fortunes of Marchingham Hall.
Thus far, it had proven a losing battle.
Lion held up a gloved hand for Miss Fox. She was quite pale, snow lining what had been a dashing hat with flowers and feathers, matching her travel pelisse. Her lower lip quivered, her teeth chattering.
He banished a swift rush of sympathy, for she had brought this on herself with her madcap scheming. She was fortunate she hadn’t frozen to death in that blasted stuck carriage. She accepted his aid, dismounting stiffly and stumbling into him.
When she collided with his chest, he grasped her waist, steadying her.
“Oh,” she exclaimed.
The scent of violets permeated the air. Violets with a hint of orris root. He’d caught absurd little traces of her perfume on the ride to Marchingham Hall.
Her eyes were a truly mesmerizing shade of green, brilliant as spring grass. A snowflake caught on her golden lashes, and her hands were on his shoulders, as if holding him to her in a loving embrace.
“Th-thank you,” she said, teeth clicking together.
She needed to get inside and warm herself before a roaring fire. Gently, he settled her away from him. The more distance between the two of them, the better. Ideally, there would yet again be an ocean as soon as possible.
“Your Grace,” Jacob greeted him as he approached, tugging at his forelock. “I’ll take Athena out of the snow and see her settled.”
Lion gave his mount a fond rub on her muzzle and then handed off the reins to the groom. “Thank you, Jacob.”
Reluctantly, he turned back to his unwanted guest, offering her his arm. “Miss Fox?”
Her brow wrinkled. “Are you…?”
“The Duke of Marchingham,” he informed her, garnering a bit of enjoyment from the shock passing over her face. “Quite.”
“Not a thief, then.”
“Not a thief.”
“Oh.”
She bit her lip, and then a shudder went over her as the wind blew snow into their faces. The ridiculous woman almost sounded dismayed. But then, what had he expected from her? A proper curtsy? The appropriate deference that was his due? Hardly. Miss Adelia Fox’s reputation preceded her.
“I expect you shall need to stand before the fire and warm yourself,” he said. “Come. There’s no need to tarry in the snow.”
He guided his vexing, unwanted guest beneath the portico where they were at last sheltered from the snow and then to the double doors, which swept open at their approach.
Stevens, his loyal butler, bowed and stood back to allow them entrance.
Lionel stripped away his gloves, hat, and coat, handing them off.
Suddenly, a small creature raced into the entry hall, barking loudly enough to make Lion wince. The hound rushed directly for Miss Fox, emitting a sound that was more suited to a cat than a dog.
Miss Fox dropped to her knees in a sea of wool and snow. She eagerly scooped the mongrel into her arms, whereupon it proceeded to thoroughly lick her face and ears, knocking her snow-laden hat askew in its vigor.
“Oh, my darling,” she was crooning to the pointy-eared hound. “Mama missed you too. Yes, she did. Yes, Mama missed you, sweet pea.”
Lion stared at the spectacle of snow and woman and dog on the marble floor. How disgraceful. He wasn’t surprised, of course. But he remained properly horrified as the hound proceeded to lick Miss Fox’s throat as she giggled in scandalous abandon.
The sound of her laughter wasn’t grating as some women’s levity was.
But it was loud and boisterous, wild peals that echoed off the high ceilings.
Stevens clasped his hands behind his back and respectfully averted his gaze.
And well he might have done, for Marchingham Hall had presently, and quite literally, gone to the dogs.
Lion needed to act. Posthaste.
“I’m afraid that the mongrel will need to bed down in the stables,” he warned Miss Fox, interrupting her reunion.
The hound licked her cheek, and Lion found himself incongruously, ridiculously envious of the brindle dog. He tamped down the unwanted sensation at once.
“She cannot sleep in the stables,” Miss Fox said, her voice outraged. “She sleeps with me.”
“Then perhaps you shall also seek shelter in the stables,” he said.
He didn’t mean it, of course. Unfortunately, the dreadful Miss Fox would have to remain under this roof until the snow ceased and the roads to York were passable again. But he’d never had an American writhing on his entryway floor with a dog before.
It was making him peevish.
“You expect me to bed down with your horses?” she asked, looking astonished by such a prospect. “I think not, sir. Where are Letty and Lila? They’ll no doubt be horrified to learn of their brother’s ill treatment of their closest finishing-school friend.”
“By closest friend, do you mean to say the friend whose ruinous, reckless influence caused them to be sent away from finishing school?” he asked sharply.
“Because that is the only Miss Adelia Fox I am aware of, a cunning, wayward American jade who encouraged my sisters to make unfortunate decisions with lasting consequences.”
She flinched as if he had struck her, and Lion knew a moment of regret for speaking so harshly, particularly before a servant. He sent a pointed glance in the butler’s direction, and Stevens caught his gaze, offering a barely perceptible nod before he disappeared.
“You disapprove of me,” Miss Fox said, cradling her dog to her bodice now as she eyed Lion as if he were a monster.
“How can I not?”
“I can explain what happened, you know, as can Letty and Lila. Where are they? Are you keeping them locked away somewhere?”
The suspicious glare she pinned him with suggested she thought him capable of all manner of villainy.
“Lady Violetta and Lady Lila are not in residence,” he informed her. “They are a day’s train ride away, visiting our aunt and uncle, the Earl and Countess of Hargrove.”
Her mouth fell open, and for once, the minx was reduced to silence.
“They’re not here at Marchingham Hall?” she asked at length.
“As I just said.”
“I intended to surprise them.”
She looked so heartbroken in that moment, almost comically bereft with her hat halfway off her head, snow still lining her pelisse, and the frenetic dog in her lap. Then she sniffled, tears welling in her vivid green eyes.
Well, Christ.
The woman was mad and maudlin. She was also presently melting snow all over his floor whilst seated indecorously upon it.
With an irritated sigh, he stalked forward, extending a hand to her.
The mongrel made a high-pitched sound of outrage and nipped at Lion’s fingers.
He glared at the creature. “Do you dare to bite me in my own home, you insolent mongrel?”
“She would never bite anyone,” Miss Fox hastily defended the dog in her lap. “Would you, sweet pea?”
The dog licked her chin in response.
Lion knew when he had felt teeth, curse the woman. Fortunately for the hound, she hadn’t clamped down or actually caused him injury.
“Regardless, it will need to bed down in the stables,” he informed her coolly.
“No.” Miss Fox clutched the dog to her.
“Yes. Because this is my home, and I do not like mongrels.”
“Spend some time with her, and you’ll change your mind.”
He glared.
She smiled brightly.
Lion hissed out a sigh of frustration. “I can assure you that nothing can alter my opinion on the matter.”
He’d had a dog once. Mittens had been struck by a cart and killed. Since that wretched day, Lion had been unable to stomach the presence of any dog in his vicinity. This particular one was no different.
“To the stables with the mongrel,” he added harshly before adding, “and do get up off the floor, Miss Fox. I understand you are American, but one would imagine you possess at least a modicum of decorum. I’ll see that Mrs. Burton comes to show you to your room.”
With a curt, hasty bow, he took his leave.