“Not any longer,” the duchess assured him. “I was quite rude to them, I’m afraid. But they made me angry—criticizing Alex and Con in my own home! I hadn’t even invited them. They simply came calling, hoping, no doubt, to surprise you at home—though, of course, they pretended that it was me they had come to call on. Abominable women.”
“Thank heavens you sent them packing,” Theo remarked. “I scarcely dare attend a party anymore for fear Lady Kempton will pop up with one or the other of her daughters in tow. Which did she have with her today—the silly one or the spotty one?”
“I’m not sure. I am afraid I didn’t look at her closely,” the duchess admitted.
“She was definitely silly,” Megan offered. “As if those mice could do her any harm!”
“Mice?” Theo asked, a smile starting. “There were mice involved?”
“Oh, yes, and Rufus, as well,” the duchess said with a resigned air.
“Rufus wouldn’t have snapped at her ruffles if she had not jumped up onto the bench and danced about like that,” Megan said, defending the dog.
Theo threw his head back and laughed. “This sounds like a scene I very much regret missing. No doubt it would have been worth even having to converse with Lady Kempton.”
“Well, I would rather you had been there,” the duchess retorted. “I am sure then she would have been all honey and courtesy.” She sighed. “Much as I love having you at home, dear, I must say it is easier when you are off on one of your travels. Then I don’t have all these ambitious mothers trying to be friends with me.”
“Shall I set sail tomorrow?” Theo joked.
“Of course not.” The duchess rose and patted her son’s cheek fondly. “Now, dear, if you will do me a favor and show Miss Henderson about the place…I really must get back to my correspondence. I am right in the middle of a very important point to the prime minister.”
“Of course. It would be my pleasure,” Theo replied, and his eyes went over to Megan.
Panic fluttered through her. She didn’t want to have to face Theo Moreland alone right now. Indeed, she did not want to be around him at all, even accompanied by the duchess. She was feeling much too uncertain and confused.
She could not understand the feeling that had flashed through her when she first saw Theo—the visceral tug, the bizarre sensation that she knew him. It was like nothing she had ever experienced before.
But even putting that whole odd moment aside, she found Theo Moreland’s presence distinctly unsettling. She had expected to feel something as soon as she saw the man—but she had not expected the something she felt to be attraction!
She knew logically that it was unreasonable to expect the man to look the way she had envisioned him for years. The fact that a man was a villain did not mean that he would look like one. A handsome face and form could hide all sorts of wickedness. She had met venal, cold, selfish—even evil—men before in the course of her work, men who had appeared to be quite ordinary or pleasant looking, even handsome. She knew better than to take someone at face value.
Yet she had trouble reconciling this square-jawed, handsome, smiling stranger with the weasely-faced murderer she had always imagined. It wasn’t just his looks, she knew; it was his smile, his frank and open demeanor, the charming twinkle in his eyes—none of these things seemed to suit a murderer.
Most of all, she could not deny the sensations that rushed up in her in response to this man—the flutter in her stomach when he smiled at her, the strange heat that crept through her when his gaze settled on her. It was disturbing, even a little frightening, that a man she hated could make her feel so…so fizzy and unaccountably warm.
And why had he kept looking at her? After that first unnerving moment when she had been pierced by the sensation that he had somehow figured out who she was, Megan had noticed him sneaking glances at her as the three of them talked. There was a certain warmth in his eyes that she knew denoted an appreciation of her face and figure, but there was something else, as well, a questioning, considering quality that she could not quite understand.
She told herself that he was curious about her only because it was odd for a woman to tutor two boys. Even knowing his mother’s espoused causes, he would have to wonder about Megan for applying for the position. It was unorthodox.
He could not suspect her true reason for being here. It had been ten years since he had killed Dennis; he surely would not connect her arrival with that.
As for the interest in his eyes when he looked at her, there was nothing remarkable in that. She had heard a number of tales of wealthy employers trying to seduce—or even force their attentions upon—governesses and maidservants. It meant nothing other than that she could add vile seducer to his list of sins.
Theo presented his arm to Megan, smiling. “Well, Miss Henderson? Shall I give you the grand tour?”
Megan pulled herself from her worried thoughts and pasted a smile on her lips. “Of course, uh, my lord. I would appreciate it very much.”
She hesitated for an instant, then stepped forward and slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. His arm was rock solid beneath her fingertips, and even though she kept her hand as lightly on his arm as she could, it was impossible not to feel the firm muscle beneath his jacket.
“You have trouble with ‘my lord’?” he asked as they strolled through the garden. “I find Americans often do.”
Megan cast a look up at him. He was gazing down at her, not quite smiling, but his green eyes were alight with life and amusement. Megan realized that it suddenly seemed more difficult to breathe.
What was the matter with her all of a sudden? Why did this man affect her so strangely? She had never felt so tongue-tied and nervous, so unsure of herself.
“I always tell them just to call me Moreland if it makes them feel better. Or Theo.”
“Oh, I could not do that,” Megan said hastily, then mentally castigated herself for sounding so missish.
“As you like,” he replied equably, guiding her around toward the side of the house, where they entered by a different door from the one Megan and the duchess had taken earlier.
“This is the gallery,” Theo told her. One wall of the long hall was a bank of windows overlooking the garden. The opposite wall held portrait after portrait. “Countless generations of former dukes,” Theo explained carelessly, gesturing toward the paintings. “Nothing much of interest here, although it makes a great long expanse for rolling hoops down or turning cartwheels.”
“Activities of the twins?” Megan asked, smiling. She could well picture the boys using the grand, somber gallery for such occupations.
“For all of us at one time or another,” Theo replied. “I fear Reed and I were rather like the twins when we were young. Of course, we were not able to communicate with one another without words as Con and Alex can, which I suppose put us at a disadvantage in the area of creating trouble. And we didn’t have quite the number of animals to add to the mix—Mother blames me for that.”
“Oh? Did you bring them Rufus?”
“No. Reed was responsible for him. Alex and Con found him in the woods near Reed’s house last fall, rather badly torn up. An old farmer there patched him up for them and nursed him back to health. Then they brought him back here to terrorize the household. But I am the one who sent them the parrot and the boa and a number of other unseemly pets.”
“Indeed? Those are rather unusual pets.”
“I travel a good deal,” Theo responded. “Only the fear of Mother’s wrath keeps me from sending back more. I wanted to bring them a koala bear from Australia, but then I would have had to transplant eucalyptus trees for them to eat, as well,