‘Are they harmful?’
‘As a rule, no. They have my permission to be on Arlington land just as they had from my predecessors—to come and go as they please, providing they behave themselves and abide by the law of the land while they are here. Unfortunately the gypsies encamped on the other side of the woods are strangers and therefore unpredictable. My bailiff has told them to move on. With luck they will have gone before the end of the week.’
‘I’m glad to see the two of you are getting on,’ Patience said when Alex had gone.
‘Yes, we are, but he never talks about himself. Despite his self-assurance, I sense a deep sadness in him, something frozen and withdrawn. He gives of himself sparingly. The only thing I know about him is that both his parents are dead.’
‘Gerald, his father, is—but Margaret—his mother, is very much alive,’ Patience told her with uncharacteristic bitterness. ‘After the death of her husband, Margaret married a Spanish count and went to live in Spain.’
Angelina was surprised. ‘Oh, I see. Did Alex not approve of this? Is this the reason why he refuses to speak of his mother?’
‘There’s much more to it than that.’
‘And I should not ask,’ Angelina murmured sagely. ‘I’m sorry, Aunt. I don’t mean to pry.’
Patience smiled. ‘It’s only natural that you are curious—and maybe I should tell you. Alex wouldn’t want us discussing something that he considers to be a purely personal and private matter, but, if you know something of his background perhaps it will help you understand him a little better and not judge him too harshly.’
‘I don’t judge him at all. What was his father like?’
Angelina listened avidly as Patience told her how Alex’s mother had married Gerald, Henry’s younger brother. Pampered and spoiled, she’d had her sights set on Henry, but Henry—who was deeply in love with someone else—didn’t want her. To spite him, Margaret married Gerald, who loved her to distraction. Being lamentably weak, Gerald was forced to endure her many affairs, which she flaunted shamelessly.
For some malicious reason of her own—which Patience suspected was because Alex bore such a striking resemblance to Henry—she had hidden nothing from Alex. He was young and impressionable and adored his father. Gerald began drinking heavily to blot out what Margaret was doing, until it became too much. One day when he was in his cups he shot himself. Alex was fifteen at the time and witnessed the whole dreadful business.
Angelina listened in horror, seeing her aunt’s eyes cloud with pain and bitter memory.
‘Because he sensed it could destroy him, Alex refused to submit to the anger and anguish that raged inside him. In Henry he found warmth and understanding. But no one has been capable of unlocking that closed compartment inside his mind where he keeps his pain. Margaret distorted his mind, inflicting mental injuries on her son no mother should. She fostered in him a loathing and terrible bitterness against the female sex. It will take an exceptional woman to succeed where all others have failed. Alex needs someone to love—and someone to love him unconditionally in return.’
Angelina felt a lump of constricting sorrow in her chest, deeply moved by what Patience had revealed to her, which went a long way to helping her understand Alex. She also realised that the same demons that chased her were chasing Alex, and that it was as hard for him to talk about what had happened to him as it was for her.
The following day saw a deterioration in the weather, with rain fluctuating from a drizzle to a torrential downpour. Disappointed at being unable to ride, Angelina’s spirits drooped. Undecided about what to do with her time, she decided to take a bath.
Unthinkingly Pauline sighed. ‘It’ll be a relief when the workmen have finished their work and water pipes have been laid throughout the house. Then we won’t have to haul water up from the kitchens any more. No doubt they’ll be starting on the west wing soon now work on his lordship’s apartments is complete.’
‘Trust him to take care of his own comforts before anyone else’s.’ Recalling Alex telling her that he would be away today, interest kindled in Angelina’s eyes as a sudden thought occurred to her, and when she turned to her maid they were feverishly gay. ‘Oh, Pauline!’ she said, laughing, scrambling off the window seat. ‘I’ve just had a rather splendid idea.’
There was such a look of excitement on her face and a familiar gleam in her eyes that made Pauline suspicious. It was a look she was beginning to recognise, one that boded trouble.
Five minutes later, when Angelina presented herself at the door of Alex’s rooms armed with a large pink towel and bathing lotions, Wyatt, Alex’s valet, was so astounded that all he could do was gape at her with a look of palsied shock. Bestowing on him her most brilliant of smiles, using her softest voice and being her most charming self, she eventually managed to cajole him into letting her use his lordship’s bath tub.
Carried along under some kind of compulsion in which his responses were suspended, shaking his head in disbelief at what he had permitted, knowing the full force of his master’s wrath would descend on him if he were to find out about this, Wyatt went to spend half an hour or more in the domestic quarters.
Angelina let her gaze roam over Alex’s apartments in wonder. Even if she hadn’t known to whom these rooms belonged she would have guessed, for the familiar spicy scent of Alex’s cologne hung like an invisible intoxicant in the air. Essentially masculine and fit for a king, the room in which she stood was tastefully decorated in dark green and gold, with walnut dressers and bureaus and a large bed on a shallow dais.
Placing her towel on a chair, her curiosity getting the better of her, she went and peeked into another room, seeing a large desk and leather chairs, the walls lined with books. It was a busy room, a working room, with everything neatly in place. Crossing to the room that Mr Wyatt had told her was his lordship’s bathing chamber and adjoining dressing room, gingerly she pushed open the door. Blinking at the extravagance and unaccustomed luxury, she felt as if she had suddenly been transported to a magical cave beneath a tropical sea and that Neptune would appear at any minute.
The ceiling was white, the walls pastel blue, green and white tiles interspaced with sparkling mirrors. In the centre of the tiled floor strewn with soft rugs was an enormous bath of white marble and gold taps. This fabulous object—the very height of luxury—beckoned her, and, unable to resist it a moment longer, she immediately turned on the taps and added her perfumed lotions before stripping off her clothes and stepping in.
Having concluded his business in St Albans sooner than he had expected, Alex and Hawkins returned to Arlington Hall, sodden after their long ride. With no sign of his valet and in a hurry to get out of his damp clothes, Alex stripped the garments from the upper part of his body and unfastened the top buttons of his trousers before crossing to the bathing chamber, picking up a towel as he went. Something about the towel made him pause and look at it in puzzlement. Pink? All his towels were either green or gold. Unable to work out what a pink towel was doing in his room, he shrugged and began to rub his wet hair.
On opening the door a wave of moist, perfumed air hit him in the face. He stopped short, unable to believe the sight that met his eyes. An enormous cloud of fragrant steam was rising from the bath, and emerging from the steam was a head, a woman’s head, crowned with a glorious wealth of chestnut-and copper-coloured curls. Stray tresses fell about her ears and clung to her nape in a saturated tangle, the rest of this adorable creature immersed in a mass of froth.
At first he was sorely tempted to ask her what the hell she thought she was doing in his tub, but it would have deprived him of the pleasure of watching her from his vantage point by the door. Until that moment he had never thought so much pleasure could be derived in simply watching a woman who was oblivious to being watched.