‘Some things are better left to rot,’ she thought she heard him mutter.
‘People harm other people. Buildings merely endure our faults and caprices, as this one testifies all too well, but they have no feelings about us.’
‘Thus speaks the voice of experience?’ he asked with too much perception for the empty-headed Bond Street Beau she so badly wanted him to be.
‘Of course, none of us would be here if we had anywhere else to go,’ she replied with a shrug meant to deflect more questions.
‘And I suspect you think I have no right to ask,’ he said with a look in his deceptive blue eyes that promised he would find out anyway.
‘Since you’re sure to turn us all out now you have turned up, you have no right to know anything about us.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘You will, once you are properly settled here you won’t be able to help it. What could Lord Mantaigne have in common with a ragtag band of beggars?’
‘I’m surprised you haven’t listened to the tales of my childhood that must be raked up when someone wonders why I don’t cherish it as my forefathers did.’
‘For some strange reason I admit I can’t fathom, your people are loyal to you. We were told you disliked your guardian and he went mad, but they don’t give out details to newcomers, and you must know we’d still be those if we’d been here decades.’
Polly caught a flash of emotion in his watchful gaze, then it was gone as if he didn’t allow himself such luxuries. He was touched his people felt something for him; she could have sworn it in the brief moment he left himself unguarded. It shouldn’t matter to her if he felt endless sonnets of overblown emotions or none at all, but if she wasn’t careful she could find this contrary and deeply irritating man fascinating and that would lead her to places Polly Trethayne could not afford to go.
‘Such loyalty is beyond me,’ he admitted with a rueful shrug.
‘Indeed?’ she made herself say as if it was a puzzle she didn’t care to enquire any further into. ‘It must have been as long a day for you and Mr Peters as for the rest of us, my lord. Perhaps we should agree to eat and sleep before we resume arguing how your arrival will change Dayspring Castle in the morning.’
‘We might as well, but tonight I can say thank-you for saving my house from dereliction and my staff from an uncomfortable night in an abandoned wreck and a cold supper, Miss Trethayne. I’m sure you would say that was all I deserve, but you must admit Peters and my servants are not to blame for my misdeeds.’
‘They are welcome to share what little we have and I didn’t do it on my own,’ she said, but could tell from the twitch of a smile at the corner of his mouth that he’d noticed her side-step his share of their hospitality.
‘Then let’s agree there will be time enough for a report on all you and your friends have managed to save from my neglect another day,’ he allowed, but there was a steely purpose under the limpid blue of his eyes now that ought not to surprise her. He’d already proved a very different marquis from the one she’d despised for the past six and a half years, so it was little wonder he kept surprising her.
* * *
Managing a half-hearted smile of greeting for her friends and Mr Peters when they finally reached the Great Parlour together, Polly did her best to fade into the background when Lady Wakebourne greeted his lordship like the Prodigal Son. Even those who ought to know better seemed dazzled by the presence and glamour of a real live lord in their midst. She tried to tell herself he was really a wolf in very handsome camouflage, but even to her the fact of him outdid the image.
If only she could have held on to her first impression of him as a man of fashion; spoilt, idle and self-obsessed as the Regent himself was reputed to be. Hating him would be so much simpler if that cliché was nearer the truth than this complicated rogue. She slanted a glance at him being polite to his guests as if they were the noblest gathering in Europe and frowned at him for not being high enough in the instep to put her off feeling this unwanted connection between them.
And she couldn’t fool herself into thinking he was a soft and dandified gentleman who loafed about Mayfair raking, gambling and doing whatever else idle young lords did to relieve their boredom any longer either. She was in a very good position to affirm there wasn’t a spare ounce of fat on Lord Mantaigne’s lean but powerful frame and he didn’t get like that by going to bed with the dawn and rising too late to see more than a glimpse of daylight. This afternoon his grey-silk waistcoat had clung so lovingly to his muscular torso and narrow waist she suspected many otherwise respectable women would be eager to examine the fit and quality of it for themselves if he gave them the chance.
Luckily she had already given herself a stern lecture on the differences between such women and Polly Trethayne and she trampled down any lingering spell her first sight of him had cast and told herself she would now be immune. There had been a sharp moment of Ah, here he is before she felt the heat of those bluest of blue eyes linger on her long limbs and remind her she had given up all hope of respectable marriage the day her father died and left nothing but a mountain of debt behind him.
She had dared all she had in her to keep the boys with her, but that was dare enough for one lifetime. She couldn’t consider the dishonourable intentions of a rake, or dream of might have been if things were different. The boys were not yet grown and she wasn’t free to meet any rash promises those hot blue eyes of his had made her, even if she wanted to and of course she didn’t want anything of the sort.
Yet still his magnificent physical presence was still emphasised by the long-tailed dark coat of a fashionable gentleman dining with friends, and she was still a sentient female with the use of her eyes. How could she not look at him and be reluctantly impressed, despite all her resolutions not to be? Clearly no Cumberland corset was necessary to give him a nipped-in waist and even the idea of his tailor having added buckram to pad out those muscular shoulders was laughable. She wondered what the fine ladies and gentlemen of the ton would make of the Marquis of Mantaigne sweeping his own stables, then spreading straw for his horses and waiting until they were fed and tended before taking himself off for a much-needed bath in the castle laundry.
The gentlemen might laugh up their sleeves while they secretly envied him his fitness and cheerful good humour as he got very dirty indeed, but the ladies would be too busy with less straightforward thoughts and impulses to listen to jokes at his expense. Polly knew that because she’d experienced a terrible urge to watch him at his labours this afternoon and had almost peeped through a knot hole in a shutter at the back of the building in an effort to do so. Somehow she found the strength to turn away, but considering he’d found her in his sweat-and-dust-covered glory afterwards anyway she might just as well have indulged herself to the full.
Now she squirmed in her seat as she waited for the men to sit once the women were in their accustomed places at the table, despite the marquis being a lord and most of them of far lower rank than any ladies he was accustomed to dining with. The heat that ran through her at her shameful thoughts of him sweaty and dishevelled and naked before jumping into his bath told her she found this particular lord far too desirable for her own good. She was suddenly very glad their precious beeswax candles were placed sparsely and flickered now and again in the draught from an ancient window. At least nobody would know she was blushing at such a scandalous idea in this mellow and uncertain light.
For a while it was quiet in the room while they ate hungrily after a hard day of toil and travel. The silence was testament to Prue’s fine cooking, Polly told herself as she slanted a look at Lord Mantaigne every now and again to make sure he was duly impressed. If he kept Prue on to cook for him, she and Jane would be safe. A plan to point out the skills and talents of her fellow interlopers took shape in her head as she tried to distract herself from