Page 6 of The Lover's Eye
“Lady Pemberton’s sister, you say?”the servant asked.“Well, we must get you taken care of, before you all catch cold.If his lordship is not obliged to accommodate you, I shall see you to the Three Hens myself.”
There was a brief pause.“Is he not a generous type?”
“Oh, he does well enough.Just a peculiar man, is all.”
Isobel was growing impatient.Up the hill, she could make out the faint outline of looming black gates and a stout grey lodge—neither of which revealed anything about where they had landed, or whose hospitality they now relied so heavily upon.
“Who is his lordship?”Brook finally asked.
“Oh, you don’t know where you are?This is Cambo House.”
When he was met with the same blank, shivering gazes, the boy continued in some astonishment, “Lord Trevelyan, the Earl of Cambo?”
3
Giles Trevelyan settled into his favorite chair with a sigh of contentment.All was as it should be—blazing fire, his spaniel curled at his feet, a book in hand, and a quill pen at the ready.
His nighttime library ritual was undoubtedly the finest part of his day.A time devoid of disruption and unmarred by estate affairs.It was also an exquisite distraction from the worst part of his day yet to come: sleep.
Or, rather, the attempt at it.
He opened a volume he’d been itching all day to read: the works of an emerging poet, Mr.John Keats.No sooner had he read the first line than a knock sounded on the door.
Giles didn’t even have time to feel vexed.He sat bolt upright.“Yes?”
The door creaked open, and his butler, Finch, walked in.He clasped his wrinkled hands in front of him, his mouth drawn to a grim line.“Forgive me, my lord, I am terribly sorry to interrupt you—”
Giles waved a hand.“What’s happened?”
“There’s a coach of travelers outside, sir.”
“What?”Giles drew a slow breath, forcing himself back into his chair.He raised a hand to his chin.“In this weather?”
“Yes, my lord.It would seem they became stuck, and have been on the road many hours.”The old butler wet his lips.“It is a young lady and her servants.She claims to be an acquaintance of Lord Pemberton.”
A young lady?This tale was growing stranger by the second.Giles tapped his pen pensively.“And I am, no doubt, expected to take the whole lot of them in.”
“If you would prefer them escorted to the Three Hens, sir, I have no doubt that would be acceptable.”
“Come now, they can’t make it all the way to the village.”Giles dropped his pen with a thwack, running a coarse palm over his face.“Dash it all.”
He appraised his surroundings, as though he didn’t know where every sheet of parchment and every book were in this room.That was just the issue—the library and his own chambers were the only rooms kept warm and functional in recent months.
“There’s nothing to be done for it.Have them shown up.Try to make the damn place look as presentable as you can.”Giles had already started to rise, tucking the book under his arm and calling for Smooch to join him.The spaniel rose, bowing into a deep stretch.
“And, pardon me, sir, will you require anything else tonight?”Finch asked, his obsidian eyes inscrutable.
Finally, a question that could be easily answered.“Absolutely not.Treat her to whatever you like, but I want no hand in the business.”
Giles headed straight for his chambers while the sedate household awakened with activity, the servants attempting to air out rooms long closed and give them some pretense of comfortability and warmth.
What foul luck he had.Or, perhaps, it was the universe’s way of telling him his hermitage had lasted too long.
He rubbed his eyes.Finch said the young lady had travelled a fair distance to reach Northumberland.Perhaps she wouldn’t know, then?
Unlikely,Giles thought, a scowl framing his mouth as he drifted to the windows of his bedchamber.Word travelled fast in polite society, and distance was unlikely to be an impediment.His mind conjured an image of his bride’s face, unbidden.It was growing difficult to recall a time when that name and countenance symbolized his future, and not an unsavory past.
It had been six months since Aurelia vanished, just a week before their wedding was to take place.When Finch’s knock sounded at the library door tonight, Giles had almost thought himself thrust back to that terrible day.He could still see Aurelia’s face, beautiful, twisted features as she’d argued with him, until she wasn’t speaking anymore, but turning her back and leaving, never to be seen again.
