‘Girls, you were wrong to go against my wishes,’ she said, her expression becoming severe. ‘Come away this instant.’
‘But, Mama, he is going to ask his lordship,’ Miss Melford said. ‘You were, weren’t you?’
Mama? How was that possible? She could not possibly be old enough to be a mother to these children.
He looked from the mother to the small serious faces staring up at him. ‘It depends on your question.’ Devil take it, did he have to sound quite so surly?
‘Please, do not trouble his lordship,’ Mrs Melford said, breathing hard from her dash up the drive, a circumstance resulting in a most pleasing expansion and contraction of the brown pelisse in the region of her chest.
Again Adam dragged his gaze back to her face and saw consternation lurking in those beautiful eyes fringed with lashes the colour of guineas. Strands of the same coloured hair had managed to escape in little tendrils around her oval face.
‘And you are?’ she said with a lift of delicately arched brows.
For a moment he frowned, then he realised the import behind her question and its tone. She thought him a servant. As did the little girls. They had no idea to whom they spoke. And no wonder. He had answered the door in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat. Something no gentleman would do. But then he wasn’t much of a gentleman these days.
‘Royston.’ Almost without thinking, he gave his mother’s maiden name as he often did when he travelled on estate business. Self-defence against toadies and matchmaking mamas.
The woman hesitated. ‘Cassandra Melford. Please give my apologies to Lord Graystone for the disturbance.’
A proud woman despite her air of genteel poverty. The unexpected spark of interest deep inside him flared higher. ‘Why don’t I ask his lordship your question, so he can decide if it is a trouble or not?’
‘We wanted to ask if his lordship would permit us to cut some Christmas boughs in his woods.’ Miss Lucy spoke quickly, before her mama could forbid another word, sly little puss. She waved an arm off to the right where Adam had noticed a formidable expanse of deciduous forest. ‘And perhaps, if we just happened to find a log—by chance, you understand—we could bring it home for the holidays.’ She smiled and he could see a gap where an incisor used to be.
Miss Diana peeped around her sister and removed a finger from between rosebud lips. ‘There is—’
‘Hush,’ Miss Lucy said.
Clearly the child had already located the log of her choice.
‘Girls, it is not right for us to trespass in his lordship’s woods,’ their mama said softly, as if to ease the blow of her words. ‘I am sure we can find some greenery in the hedgerows. I promised you we would go tomorrow. And Mr Harkness might have a log left at the end of the day we can…purchase.’ How telling was that little stumble. Money was a problem. She smiled apologetically, a smile that transformed her face from stern to warmly charming. ‘I am so sorry we bothered you, Mr Royston.’
The sadness in her eyes, despite her brave smile, was painful to see. Adam did his best not to see it. He was no knight in shining armour.
‘Wait here, while I ask.’ Blazes, now what was he doing?
Mrs Melford looked ready to refuse.
‘I’ll be but a moment.’ He closed the door, castigating himself for his deceit. Yet, strangely, he found it pleasant to converse with a woman who was not my lording him all over the place. Or sympathising. Or simpering and batting her eyelashes.
‘He said to wait,’ Miss Lucy said, her high voice piercing.
A small silence.
‘He just closed the door. He didn’t go anywhere,’ little Miss Diana announced, clearly hard up against the other side of the door. Listening.
Another odd twitch of his mouth he recognised as the beginnings of a rusty smile on lips tight from lack of practice.
He crept a few feet up the hall, not quite believing his idiocy, and stomped back to open the door, only to discover Mrs Melford in the throes of dragging her daughters away.
He followed them a few steps down the snow-covered drive and raised his voice. ‘His lordship has one condition. I must go with you. He can spare me tomorrow afternoon.’ He should be done with his paperwork by then, but it would be too late to set out for Portmaine Court and arrive before dark. Though why he was even thinking of doing this—perhaps because the girls reminded him of his younger sisters whom he rarely saw. Or perhaps it was his curiosity about the woman.
‘No, thank you,’ Mrs Melford said stiffly.
‘Mama,’ Miss Lucy pleaded, her eyes big and sad.
‘I meant you also, Mrs Melford,’ Adam said, at once realising the difficulty of a stranger accompanying two little girls anywhere. ‘And Mr Melford, too, of course.’
The woman tensed. ‘There is no Mr Melford.’
A widow. Now why did that lift his spirits when he should be expressing regret?
‘Bring whomsoever you wish,’ he said. ‘But his lordship insists I accompany you.’
‘We won’t steal anything,’ Miss Lucy said indignantly.
Adam shrugged, feigning surly indifference, when he felt anything but indifferent. ‘Won’t you need help with the log? Unless you have a servant to assist?’ Which from the condition of their patched and worn clothing he very much doubted.
Clearly torn, Mrs Melford gazed at the hopeful faces of her children. She heaved the small sigh of the beleaguered parent; he’d heard enough from his own to recognise it as defeat. ‘Tomorrow, then. At two.’
‘Where do I find you?’ he asked.
She looked surprised and then flustered. ‘Ivy Cottage. We are his lordship’s tenants.’
‘Ivy Cottage?’
‘A little way along the lane between here and the village.’ She took her daughters’ hands and walked away. For all its mud-coloured ugliness, the skirts of her pelisse swayed from her generous hips in a most pleasing manner. He stilled. His blood hadn’t warmed to the back view of a woman in years. And nor should it be doing so now. The woman was his father’s tenant. She deserved more respect. And clearly, she was not that sort of woman. While she might be a widow, she was also most definitely a lady.
He closed the door. Ivy Cottage? He didn’t recall any rent-paying tenants anywhere on this blasted benighted property.
Twenty-five beeswax candles. Cassie stepped back to admire the fruits of her labours hanging from their racks. Hers and those of the wonderful little creatures who had also given them jars and jars of honey. Who would have thought a childhood interest could have kept them from the brink of disaster? Her throat felt a little too full. The prickle at the back of her eyes just a little too painful.
Sir Josiah St Vire had been a kindly old man and had professed a love of honey in his tea, her particular honey. The white clover that grew so well in this area gave it its delicate flavour. If this new landlord would also take honey and candles in lieu of rent as his predecessor had, they might survive another twelve months. His servant, Mr Royston, was certainly not a friendly sort. He’d practically frightened poor little Diana out of her shoes. He’d regarded Cassie herself as if he was Red Riding Hood’s big bad wolf ready to gobble her up.
Her face heated. Oh, no. Not another blush. As she had told herself the previous afternoon, the look