In that second, Trevor realized two things. Something very large was thundering back down the stairs.
And the person he held pinned to the floor was a woman.
Gwendolyn Allbridge glared up at the man who held her flattened to the carpet. With the lantern across the room and behind him, all she could make out was height and strength. The arms that pushed on her shoulders were like pillars of polished oak. She wiggled against the pressure but only managed to press herself deeper into the pile of the carpet.
“Let me up!” she demanded. “Dolly!”
To her surprise, he immediately released her and rose. She scrambled to her feet, breath coming in gasps. Taking a step back, she nearly tripped over the useless pistol, its single ball spent. She should have brought both her father’s pistols. She should have woken her father and made him come up to the house to investigate the strange lights himself. She was unarmed and alone with a looter in an empty house, and no one would hear her if she screamed.
Well, no human, perhaps. Dolly bounded through the door, a dappled mountain that only looked larger with the shadows thrown by the lantern. The mastiff took one look at the intruder and bared her teeth. Her growl reverberated through the room.
“What on earth?” he said. “You have a trained bear?”
She smiled at his confusion. Dolly was the largest mastiff ever bred in the Evendale Valley. Her massive head reached above Gwen’s waist, and, at nearly two hundred pounds, she outweighed her mistress by over sixty.
“She doesn’t like strangers,” Gwen said. “I’d leave now if I were you.”
Dolly let out a bark, deep and demanding, and he took a step back.
“I fear I have two problems with leaving,” he said, and she was a little disappointed he didn’t sound more terrified. In fact, he didn’t sound like the vagrant she’d expected. His voice was educated, cultivated. And, if she didn’t know better, she’d have thought he was amused.
“And what would those be?” she asked sweetly while Dolly growled and prowled closer to him.
“Your bear is standing between me and the door,” he replied. Then he turned his head to look at her. “And I own this house.”
The owner?
Gwen’s breath left her lungs in a rush. But it couldn’t be. They’d received no word, seen no one at the gate. Two months had gone by since Colonel Umbrey, the previous owner, had passed on, and they’d only just heard the estate had been sold.
“Prove it,” she challenged.
He sketched her a bow that made Dolly pull up with a grunt of surprise.
“Sir Trevor Fitzwilliam, baronet, of Blackcliff Hall,” he said, “at your service. And you would be?”
“Unconvinced,” Gwen said. “Dolly, come!”
The mastiff edged around him and pressed herself against Gwen’s side. Now that her pulse was calming, Gwen felt every bruise along her backside. She’d have to use some of her mother’s liniment tonight. Leaning into the dog’s strength, Gwen crossed to the table in front of the bow window, where she’d set and hooded her lantern on arrival to avoid detection. As she opened the hood, she turned and let light flood the space.
Oh, but he was a handsome one! Raven-haired, square-jawed, with features clean and firm. She couldn’t be sure of the color of his eyes—blue like her father’s? Brown like hers? Green?—but they were deep set and narrowed now as he considered her.
What did he see? A slip of a woman with untamable auburn curls and a pert nose? She was certain she didn’t look like the respectable daughter of the estate’s former steward. The brown cloak was slipping off the shoulders of her green wool gown, and both were wrinkled from her collision with the floor.
On the other hand, she could well believe he was the master of the house. His navy coat was cut to emphasize the breadth of his shoulders, and his fawn trousers hugged muscular thighs. The lantern light glinted off the gold filigree buttons on his satin-striped waistcoat, and a gemstone winked from the hopelessly rumpled folds of his snowy cravat.
Oh, Lord, what have I done!
“If you could provide proof of your identity, sir,” she said, knowing her voice sounded decidedly fainter, “I would be pleased to welcome you properly to Blackcliff Hall.”
Sir Trevor’s mouth curved up in a smile that was perilously close to a smirk. “My papers are upstairs. Do you trust me to fetch them, or would you and your bear like to accompany me?”
She probably should, just in case he was lying and had friends or a pistol waiting. After all, she had seen a light moving in the house earlier. That’s why she’d come up to investigate with Dolly.
The house had been broken into three times in the past two months. Her father would find a door left swinging or a window wide open on his rounds about the estate. She’d helped him inventory the rooms each time, but they’d never been able to determine that anything had been taken or even disturbed.
Vagrants, Mr. Casperson the constable was sure, although the look he directed toward her father was knowing. He suspected Horace Allbridge of neglecting his duty, either by failing to protect the property he currently served as caretaker or by siphoning off its treasures, selling them himself and blaming mysterious others.
Gwen bristled just thinking about the unfair accusation. Help me, Lord. Help me show them how wrong they are.
“I’d be delighted to wait here,” she said.
He snapped her a bow and strode from the room. Gwen followed him to the door and watched as he started up the stairs, which squeaked at the fall of his high black boots.
It seemed the master of Blackcliff had arrived at last. But would he be the man Gwen had prayed for?
Chapter Two
The moment Sir Trevor turned the corner for the upper floor, Gwen burst into action. She tugged the carpet back into place where their struggle had creased it, then pulled off her cloak and used it to wipe the dust from the side tables and mantel. She shook out the dust in the dining room (time later to clean that) and left the cloak out of sight on the embroidered seat of one of the mahogany chairs.
Returning to the withdrawing room, she picked up the sword he’d left lying on the carpet and was surprised to find that it looked familiar. Had he taken it from the ancient armor upstairs? Wrinkling her nose, she tucked it into a corner to return later.
But the sword wasn’t the only thing that needed returning. She located the shepherd statue rolled against the wall and went to right it. The soft white marble glowed with life; she could feel the shepherd’s vigilance in guarding his sheep, his eyes narrowed into the distance, one hand against his brow, the other gripping his staff.
I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep and am known of mine.
She smiled at the familiar verse, but her smile quickly faded into a frown. Why had Sir Trevor moved it to the center of the withdrawing room, where she’d seen it when she’d arrived earlier? He could hardly be redecorating so soon. And if he was, he wasn’t very practical. Why would he want to trip over a statue every time he crossed the room?
She picked it up and nearly tripped herself. Sir Trevor must be as strong as he looked, for she had trouble carrying it back to the entry hall. Dolly padded alongside her, pink tongue lolling out crookedly from her heavy jowls, her breath coming in huffs of delight to be up and moving.
“We must make a better impression on him,” Gwen told her as she returned to the withdrawing room. She snatched the tinderbox from the mantel and set about lighting the brass lamps that rested here and there among the tables. The light gleamed off the heavy oak paneling that ran through the house and veined the ceilings and stairwells. Blackcliff Hall could be warm