Liz Carlyle - [Lorimer Family & Clan Cameron 02] Page 4

  Elliot breathed a sigh of relief. “Pray think no more of it, Mrs. Weyden. As it happens, I am just taking my leave.”

  “I shall see you out,” murmured Evangeline Stone, making her way around the chairs and past the newcomers. Evie. He rather liked that name.

  “Yes, to be sure,” agreed Mrs. Weyden. “But do have a care, Mr. Roberts. The rain has worsened considerably, and this road is now barely passable. I have just come from the vicarage and very nearly did not make my way back—”

  The group rambled down the hall with Miss Stone in the lead. The boy and girl, laughing and chattering, followed Elliot like goodnatured puppies as Winnie Weyden continued her rambling exhortations. “—and our coachman said in all his seven and fifty years he’s never seen the like. Mud nigh up to our hubs! I do hope, Mr. Roberts, that you’ve come to us on horseback? For I cannot think that a coach could safely make its way back to the London road this evening.”

  The elderly housekeeper, Mrs. Penworthy, met them in the hall, Elliot’s hat in hand. Just then, the door flew open to admit a burst of whipping rain, followed by a stooped, elderly man in a long black coat. “Bolton!” cried the housekeeper, setting aside the hat to pull off the man’s drenched coat. “Pray, how did you find your daughter? And whatever took ye so long?”

  The elderly man, whom Elliot now saw was dressed in formal butler’s garb, seemed unfazed by the half dozen people crowding his hall and was obviously returning to his post from an unpleasant excursion in the rain.

  “My good woman,” the butler answered Mrs. Penworthy as he handed her his sodden hat, “I was quite unable to see my daughter. However, Squire Ellows, whom I met at the bridge to Wrotham Ford, tells me that she and the new babe go on very well.”

  “Haven’t seen her?” echoed the cheerful housekeeper. “Gone all that way in this torrent and haven’t seen her?”

  “No, indeed, madam. The bridge washed out, and none can pass through. I was obliged to shout at Squire Ellows across the water and could do little more. I’ve spent these last two hours pushing carriages out of mud, and I am none the better for it, I can tell you!”

  “Pushing carriages! At your age?” The housekeeper tugged on the bell. “Are ye daft? Best send for more tea, or we’ll likely have both you and Mr. Roberts here dying of lung fever or such like, what with the both of you nigh drowned a-traipsing about in it.”

  At this, the elderly butler looked at Elliot with what appeared to be perfectly amiable disinterest. “Indeed, sir. Indeed. And I shouldn’t go back out, if I were you.” As if to give credence to the old man’s warning, the skies opened wider still, and the rain began to hammer unmercifully at the front door. From the narrow window, Elliot could scarcely make out the front walkway, let alone the gardens beyond.

  “Hullo, Mama!” chimed a pleasant voice, and Elliot turned to see a young man striding down the hall from the drawing room. It was the same fellow he’d observed earlier dancing madly about with the fichu tied around his head. He smiled warmly at Elliot. “And Evie, who’s this? Have we a guest?”

  Evangeline interrupted. “Mr. Roberts, this is Augustus Weyden, Mrs. Weyden’s eldest. Gus, this is Elliot Roberts.”

  “Indeed, Gussie,” added Mrs. Weyden as Gus pumped Elliot’s hand up and down with the youthful enthusiasm of one who hopes he has met a kindred spirit. “Mr. Roberts has come to have his portrait done. He was just on his way back to town.”

  “Shouldn’t recommend it, sir,” insisted Gus Weyden, shaking his head. Elliot gazed at the young man appraisingly. He was young—twenty, perhaps—tall and lanky, with his mother’s gold-brown hair. A handsome fellow, Augustus Weyden was dressed for the country in a simple, well-cut blue coat and fawn trousers. Nonetheless, a hint of the youthful dandy lingered, evidenced by a fine cravat en cascade. “Best rack up here for the nonce,” finished Gus with an amiable shrug. “Lots of room, and Cook turns out an excellent joint.” Just then, a second young man, obviously another Weyden, stepped out of the drawing room and nodded politely in Elliot’s direction. Undoubtedly this was Theo, the rambunctious window breaker.

  Winnie Weyden smiled at her younger son, then turned to Miss Stone. “Indeed, Evie, dear. I daresay it would be best if Mr. Roberts stayed. I shall have Tess lay another place for dinner,” she added, as if the matter were settled.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Weyden,” interjected Elliot. “You are exceedingly kind, but I do not go back to town tonight. In fact, I have business … nearby.”

  “Bridge is out,” mumbled the butler in a tone that implied he found Elliot’s intelligence wanting.

  “Yes, but I haven’t got a carriage. Surely a horse—” But Elliot’s protestation was cut off by a warm hand encircling his arm. He looked down into the bottomless blue eyes of Evangeline Stone, and an enigmatic, nameless longing seized him, stealing his breath and taking him quite by surprise. The sweet emotion twisted roughly inside his stomach, fast bringing him to the edge of pain.

  “Please stay, Mr. Roberts,” she softly insisted, so near that he could smell her warm fragrance. For the briefest moment, Elliot ceased to think. “It is perfectly proper, I can assure you,” continued Miss Stone, apparently oblivious to the effect she was having on his senses. “We entertain frequently here, and I would be exceedingly glad for your company tonight.”

  “I should not like to impose.”

  “Not at all.” She shook her head. “As you can see, we always have a jolly house full, and one more can be no inconvenience. Indeed, if you are an early riser, then you’ll find that the morning light here is of an excellent quality. Spare me two hours tomorrow, and I shall begin your portrait, yes? Then the water will no doubt have receded, and you may ford the stream.”

  Miss Stone’s warm hand slipped slowly away from Elliot’s arm, and with it went his resolve. Staying the night made some sense, he reassured himself. And although Elliot generally gave no consideration whatsoever to the propriety of his actions, he now paused to give a passing thought to the matter. However, his hostess was a grown woman, chaperoned by a mature companion and a gaggle of cheerful young people, so surely his remaining—or at least the honorable Elliot Roberts’s remaining—would not be improper.

  And indeed, if he managed to reach Wrotham Ford this late in the day, he would simply find himself obliged to put up for the night at Mr. Tanner’s inn. Not a very pleasant prospect, that. Far better, whispered the devil perched upon his shoulder, to go tomorrow when the weather has cleared.

  “Ah, come on, Roberts,” cajoled Gus Weyden, apparently in cahoots with Elliot’s personal demons. “Stokely, Theo, and I need a competent fourth for cards tonight. Evie don’t like ’em, and Mama’s dreadful!”

  “Augustus!” scolded his mother, rapping him soundly on the hand. “You should be grateful that I—”

  “Quiet, please!” called Miss Stone sharply over the din. “We are inundating our guest with people whose names he cannot possibly remember. Let us not add confusion and quarreling to the mayhem just yet!”

  “Indeed,” murmured Winnie Weyden in agreement. “There are far too many of us!”

  “Mrs. Penworthy,” directed Evangeline, “please show Mr. Roberts to the Tower Room. Frederica,” she said, looking at her little cousin, “go tell Cook there shall be nine to dinner. Michael, find Polly and tell her to prepare hot water for Mr. Roberts’s bath, for he’s been soaked to the skin.”

  As Miss Stone’s young brother trotted off to do her bidding, Elliot opened his mouth to protest, but his hostess was still issuing orders while the people who filled the hallway stood at attention. For a moment, the directives seemed out of place coming from such a pretty, delicate thing, and it struck him that Evangeline Stone was a woman of great contrasts. Looks could, indeed, be deceiving, for there was apparently nothing delicate about her.

  “And Bolton shall see to the brushing of your jacket and trousers, Mr. Roberts. Now, Gussie,” Evangeline continued, turning her gaze firmly upon the elder Weyden son, “go to the stables and t
ell Hurst he’s to stable Mr. Roberts’s horse for the night.”

  “Oh, Evie! It’s pouring!” whined the young man pitifully.

  “Then shut your mouth, Gus, and you shan’t drown,” replied Miss Stone firmly. “Now, Theo,” she said, turning her attentions to the younger Weyden boy, “finish cleaning the broken glass in the drawing room. And where is Nicolette? What has become of my sister?”

  “Here,” said a soft voice from the drawing-room door. A beautiful young woman who looked very like Miss Stone darted into the crowded hall.

  “Nicolette, I’m finished painting for the day. Will you clean brushes for me?” asked Miss Stone, and the girl nodded. “Later, we shall begin work on pigments for tomorrow, since Mr. Roberts has agreed to stay the night.”

  Elliot was just about to point out that he’d agreed to no such thing when he was struck by two dissimilar thoughts. The first was that one did not easily disagree with Evangeline Stone’s instructions, and the second, even more surprising thought was that he really had no wish to disagree with her. Indeed, it was pleasant to have someone see so efficiently to his comforts—a bath, clean clothes, a warm meal, and good company. Someone who was not even being paid to do so.

  After all was carefully considered, Elliot could think of nothing he’d rather do than spend the evening enjoying the odd companionship of this very large, very strange family.

  Just for tonight, whispered the devil. What could be the harm?

  2

  True it is, she had one failing; had ae woman ever less?

  —ROBERT BURNS

  Despite her outward calm, Evangeline watched with unsettled emotions as, one by one, the crowd trundled down the thickly carpeted hall to do her bidding. The housekeeper, still rattling on about the dreadful health hazards of damp weather, was slowly leading a rather dazed Mr. Roberts up the front staircase, and Bolton, the butler, had made an expedient escape to the warmth of the kitchen.

  Beside her, Winnie Weyden gave a deep sigh of feminine satisfaction. “Oh, Lud!” she whispered. “What a charming, handsome man!” By far the shorter of the two, Winnie tugged on Evangeline’s sleeve. “Do you not find him handsome, Evie? I vow, he puts me so very much in mind of my dear Hans.”

  “Winnie, every stunning looker over six feet puts you in mind of Hans,” interposed Evangeline with feigned disinterest, remembering all too well what she had felt upon seeing—truly seeing—Elliot Roberts for the first time. Holding his chin in her hand and letting her normally impartial artist’s eye roam across his hard, strong-boned face, Evangeline had felt a sudden knifing heat and a disturbing, inexplicable sense of intimacy. And he was handsome, Evangeline had to admit. Not classically beautiful but darkly seductive, in a fascinating, rugged way. Even now, watching his long, booted legs as he strode effortlessly around the final turn of the staircase, Evangeline could still feel the sensation of vibrant energy beneath her fingers as she had laced them tightly about his arm.

  Good Lord, whatever had possessed her to clutch at him so? And why had he, a virtual stranger, looked back at her with such sudden and unsettling intensity? Evangeline had spent just over an hour alone with him, studying and sketching and … yes, enjoying the enthralling shadows and angles of his extraordinary face, and every moment had been an unexpected test of her artistic detachment. Not to mention her composure.

  He had undoubtedly thought her serene, perhaps even distant, for such had been her intention. And yet, when she had laid her hand upon his arm, he had responded to her with a look so intimate and so unexpectedly penetrating that Evangeline had been almost frightened to return his gaze. But return it she had, and in it she had seen shock and warmth and something more. Need? Yes, for the briefest of moments, she had looked up into those stunningly clear gray eyes and had glimpsed a need that had very nearly mirrored her own.

  But no, that simply could not be. She was perilously close to making an utter cake of herself, while Mr. Roberts was simply a client, a pleasant, handsome London gentleman who intended to gift the woman he hoped to wed with a betrothal portrait. Heat? Need? Intensity? What fanciful ideas she was beginning to have! And at a time when she could least afford them, too.

  Winnie Weyden made a vague pout and, taking her friend by the arm, pulled her gently into the library. “Oh, Evie! Must you spoil a poor widow’s fantasies with your cool realism?”

  Evangeline suppressed a sharp, bitter laugh at her companion’s misjudgment. Determined to maintain at least the semblance of composure, Evangeline collapsed into a chair by the hearth and watched as her best friend and former governess withdrew to a nearby table and poured two glasses of wine.

  Deliberately, Evangeline shot her friend a teasing smile. “May I remind you, dear Winnie, that Mr. Roberts is not yet wed? Why do you not wear your red dress to dinner? The one with the bodice cut down to here”—Evangeline skimmed her index finger low across the swell of her bosom—“and he shall quickly be convinced of your many fine qualities. Particularly so, should one of them tumble out onto the tablecloth!”

  Winnie returned to thrust a glass into Evangeline’s hand. “Madeira, darling,” she announced. “Perhaps it will restore a touch of color to your cheeks. Your pallor suggests that I am not the only one felled by the charms of our houseguest.”

  Gratefully, Evangeline sipped at the wine. It was pathetically true, but even with Winnie, Evangeline was afraid to give voice to such a new and frightening emotion. Yes, despite Winnie’s goodnatured teasing, any woman with an ounce of blood in her veins could see that Elliot Roberts was an artist’s dream come to life. His was a face that she knew as if it were her own, for indeed she had studied it well.

  Many years ago, Evangeline’s mother, in the interest of expanding her sixteen-year-old daughter’s artistic horizons beyond those of France and Flanders, had taken her abroad to study the Italian masters. There, in the grand palazzo of a Florentine nobleman, had stood the bronze statue that was almost the very likeness of Elliot Roberts. Although painting had been Evangeline’s only passion for as long as she could remember, that godlike Etruscan sculpture had drawn first her eyes, then her hands, and ultimately her pencil, as if she were bewitched by it. Much to her mother’s consternation, Evangeline had insisted on spending hour after hour sketching the bronze from every angle while Marie van Artevalde had been left to stroll the piazzas of Florence with their remarkably hospitable host. Her daughter’s “obsession,” Marie had called it. And obsession was surely what Evangeline felt when she looked at Elliot Roberts.

  She had felt the lure of his attraction, even before she had laid her hand upon his arm. No, he was not an Etruscan hero, made of once-molten metal which had long since cooled. He was hot blood and hard bone, lavish shades of light and dark, pulsing with life, breathing and wanting. And making her want. She had sketched him today like a madwoman, afraid that he might leave, for in him she had also sensed an uncertainty and an apprehension which she did not fully comprehend.

  Peter Weyden referred Evangeline few portraits these days, for her other work had become far more profitable. Yet, after one glance at Elliot Roberts, it was obvious why Peter had recommended this commission. The man possessed the sort of rare, unrefined beauty almost never seen among the English. A hard, huge man with long legs and arms, Roberts had a hard, chiseled face to match. Black hair, heavy, straight, and far too long, emphasized Roberts’s strong jaw and square, stubborn chin. Cool eyes the color of smoke gave way to a nose that was too prominent, too arrogant, and slightly crooked, while his forehead was high and aristocratic. The man was too much of everything. The combined effect was overwhelming.

  From across the expanse of her studio, Roberts had immediately commanded her attention, and she had been unable to restrain her hand, which had been drawn, inexplicably, to touch his face. There had been something in the sharp, assessing light of his eyes that had made her instantly aware that she was not only an artist but a woman as well. And that he was, in every sense of the word, a man. In that one unexpected
moment, Evangeline had felt the sharp, sudden pain of emptiness, of yearning for what she had never known and could not afford.

  Despite his overwhelming height, the man was lean, narrow-hipped, and broad-shouldered, and for the first time in her life, Evangeline Stone found herself wishing that she were a sculptor instead of a painter. Two dimensions could not possibly do justice to Elliot Roberts. He was an artist’s gift, this man, so starkly beautiful that she’d finally yielded to her foolish inclination to wrap her hand around his arm and beg him to stay. What would it be like, she wondered, to run one’s fingers over the lean, hard muscles of Elliot Roberts’s back? To shape and mold his—

  “Evangeline! Evangeline! Do attend us, please!”

  Wine glass still clutched in her hand, Evangeline looked up to see both Winnie and the cook, Mrs. Crane, standing very near, peering owlishly at her. “Oh … very sorry,” she answered, straightening herself in the chair. “You—you were saying?”

  Winnie’s lips turned up into a sly smile. “Cook is asking about the pippin tarts.”

  Mrs. Crane, wiping her hands on her apron, nodded energetically. “Aye, miss. We’ve enough left over, for them as may want ’em. And the rice—to be stewed with the beef as usual?”

  Between dragging out the extra blankets and supervising the pouring of Elliot’s bath, Mrs. Penworthy had made it plain to him that Chatham Lodge kept country hours and that the household would sup promptly at half past six. From her warm but precautionary tone about the early dinner hour, Elliot could easily surmise that he was not the first London visitor to occupy the Tower Room, and he found himself wondering what sort of guests the Stones were in the habit of entertaining.

  “There, sir,” said Mrs. Penworthy, rising with a little grunt from her stooped position over the tub. “ ’Tis hot enough, I vow. And if there be aught else you’re wishful of, you’re to pull the bell straightaway. Miss Stone does like her guests proper treated, I do assure you!”