If You Give A Girl A Viscount

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Charlie was shocked to see the fierce look on Daisy’s face, and even more surprised to see her stand toe to toe with her large stepsister. “Where is she? What have you done with Jinx?”

Miss Perdita whimpered. “I don’t know. I haven’t done anything to her.”

“You’re lying.” Daisy turned to Miss Cassandra. “If you were cruel to that cat in any way—”

“I don’t like your threatening tone.” Miss Cassandra managed to look angelic. “You have a tendency to be impulsive—”

“Oh, bother with that.” Daisy put her hands on her hips. “Where’s Jinx?”

“If either of you knows, out with it,” Charlie urged the two girls. He was disgusted with their obvious guilt.

Miss Cassandra drew herself up and looked at him with wide eyes. “Of course we didn’t harm Hester’s cat.” She put her chin in the air. “I’m horribly hurt, Daisy, that you think we’re capable of cruelty to an innocent animal. You’re embarrassing the entire family in front of the viscount. You’re volatile, careless—”

“Careless?” Daisy’s face flared red. “How have I been careless? I care enough to look for her—”

Miss Cassandra put on a patient look and swiveled to face him. “You do know about the tragedy, don’t you?”

Charlie felt vastly uncomfortable. Something was terribly wrong here. “No,” he said, and wished he could walk away. This was a family squabble. Private business. He didn’t belong.

But Daisy was obviously outnumbered and outflanked, and damned if he was going to let her stepsisters hide the truth about the cat. He already had a soft spot for Hester, and he wanted answers, too.

“Now is not the time,” Daisy said to Miss Cassandra.

Charlie couldn’t agree more.

The charged atmosphere sent Joe limping away.

Miss Cassandra crossed her arms over her chest and locked gazes with Charlie. “She burned down the bungalow.” She wore a distasteful smirk.

The words made no sense at first. It took several seconds for Charlie to understand.

Daisy looked at him with steel in her expression. “It was an accident.”

“Yes,” said Miss Cassandra, “but you were careless.” She looked at Charlie. “Sadly, her father—my stepfather—was so traumatized by the incident, he died a week later.”

Miss Perdita began to tremble.

A sheen of tears appeared in Daisy’s eyes. “You are cruel, Cassandra. How could you bring that up now?”

“I wasn’t trying to be cruel!” Miss Perdita roared, and put her hands over her ears.

“Enough.” Miss Cassandra laid a hand on Perdita’s shoulder. “Jinx is fine.”

“Then where is she?” Daisy demanded to know, but her voice was thin with worry.

“Be quick and tell us,” Charlie interjected.

Miss Perdita merely stared goggle eyed at all of them, her hands still over her ears.

“She’s locked in Perdita’s wardrobe,” Miss Cassandra said quietly.

“We put her in,” Miss Perdita boomed. “And I turned the key.”

“How could you?” Daisy’s voice trembled with fury. “The two of you should be ashamed of yourselves.”

Miss Cassandra lifted her chin. “Perdita did it and told me afterward. I was on my way to getting the cat out when we were diverted by news of the visitors.”

“No you weren’t,” Daisy said. “You strolled into the kitchen, and—”

She felt a restraining hand on her arm. It was Charlie, and she couldn’t help but take comfort from it.

“Just go let the poor animal out of the wardrobe,” he said quietly to Miss Cassandra, who blinked at him once and turned on her heel.

“Follow me, Perdita,” she said in injured tones. “As usual, I am being blamed for your folly.”

Miss Perdita finally dropped her hands from her ears and lumbered after her sister, shaking her head all the while. “I’m going to tell Mother, and Daisy will get in trouble. Not me. How dare she say I did anything wrong?”

Charlie watched Joe limp after them. He’d see to it that Jinx’s release was complete.

When they all disappeared into the house, Charlie looked at Daisy. “What’s going on?”

She had a hollow look about her. “You heard them.”

“Yes,” he said. There was a moment’s silence. “I’m sorry about your father.”

He could see her jaw working.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” he assured her.

She looked at the ground but cocked her head to her right. “Do you see that empty spot, over by the oak and rowan trees? It looks as if something was once there?”

He nodded.

She wouldn’t look at the site herself. “That was where my mother’s bungalow stood. Papa built it for her. She painted there. It was the perfect spot, she said. She could see everything—all the way down the glen to the village, and up to the top of Ben Fennon.”

“I see.” He waited for her to go on.

“I used to go there, too, to sew at Mama’s feet. And after she died, I continued. It was my haven. I did almost all my sewing there. Papa would come in, too, and sit and write occasionally. The place reminded us both of my mother.” She took a breath. “One night, I was sewing late, and I must have left a candle burning—”

She hesitated again, and he saw her jaw work even more.

“It’s all right,” he said. “You don’t need to talk about it. And you mustn’t blame yourself. It was an accident.”

She looked up at him then with the most mournful eyes he’d ever seen. “I know,” she whispered. “It was a terrible accident.”

He wanted to take her into his arms then and assuage her grief. But he daren’t. No doubt Cassandra and Perdita were watching them from the castle windows. And she didn’t want him to get close, did she?

Not an hour before, she’d let him know very clearly that their intimacy couldn’t continue.

“At least Jinx is safe,” he reminded her.

She gave him a wobbly smile. “Yes, that’s true. It would have broken Hester’s heart if she’d been hurt. Mine, too.”

They began a slow walk toward the sheep pasture.

Daisy allowed her mouth to quirk up on one side. “I long for the day when Castle Vandemere is ours again.”

Her home had slipped out of sight. They were beyond the byre now, with only fields before them and the long, curving road that wended its way down the slope of Ben Fennon to the village below.

“Ours?” he asked.

“Mine, Hester’s, and Joe’s.” She bit her lip and was silent a moment. “That’s the way it needs to be,” she said eventually. “The castle will be ours. Not my stepmother’s nor my stepsisters’. Because unless a miracle occurs and they change in the near future, I’m—I’m going to kick them out.” She looked up at Charlie, almost as if she were fearful. Or would faint.

He took her upper arms and braced her. “It’s all right.”

“I never thought I’d say that,” she whispered, staring at his chest. “But today is the last straw. I can’t wait to see them go.” Her voice gained more strength. “I don’t even care where. My stepmother will land on her feet, without a doubt.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not just saying this, either. I mean it.”

Her gaze was unwavering.

“I believe you.” He sensed she needed reassurance, and he had it for her. In spades.

“Do you?” Her expression was more determined than he’d ever seen it, yet he saw a bit of desperation there, as well.

“I think it’s a very good thing.” He longed to caress her. “You deserve better treatment than what you receive from your stepmother and your stepsisters.”

“I never really thought about what I deserve.” She began to pace in a tight circle. “I’ve always thought about what I wanted, however. I wanted freedom from Stepmother’s vitriol and Cassandra’s disrespect—Perdita’s, too—but I’ve been so busy trying to survive their lobs, jabs, and outright attacks, it simply didn’t occur to me that I don’t have to live with it. With them.”

She stood still a moment. “I can cut them loose. Not only in my imagination, either. In real life. I used to dream of their moving back to London, far away from me. But I never thought it could actually happen. Maybe I can make it happen. Or at the very least, push them in that direction.”

She turned to look at him, and he was gratified by her keen interest in his response.

“Yes, you can,” he said. “Trouble is, will they go? Or will they hang on by their claws?” He tossed her a small grin. This was serious business, but he wanted to bolster her spirits.

She managed a weak grin back. “I don’t know.” There was a frustrated edge to her honey-bee voice. “But we will get to that point, after these visitors leave and we get our money. And I can’t tell you how much I look forward to it.”

It was a miserable hour later, and they still hadn’t arrived at the Keep. Castle Vandemere was without a wagon or a horse, so Charlie had had to strap Mrs. Montgomery’s and her daughters’ trunks onto the wheelbarrow to get them there.

It was rough going.

Daisy carried her own things in a bag. It was light, she said, and not bulky. It was also about a third of the size of the trunks.

Along the way, Perdita pouted, still shaken by that morning’s events. Cassandra kept up a steady stream of chatter, as if she’d not been involved in a cruel prank at all. Mrs. Montgomery strode ahead of all of them, her dark cape swirling out behind her.

Daisy said very little. It was obvious to Charlie that she, too, was still affected by the incident of Jinx’s incarceration and her subsequent decision to rid herself of her stepfamily as soon as possible.

And no doubt she was sad to say a temporary farewell to Hester and Joe.

“Although I’ll be down every day if I can,” he’d heard her whisper to them before she’d left, and kissed both their cheeks.

When they arrived at the bottom of the impressive front steps of the Keep, neither Mrs. Montgomery nor her daughters offered Charlie a word of thanks for carrying their trunks over rough terrain.

Daisy, still in a brown study, lifted her gown with one hand and walked with great purpose up the steps to the grand entrance to the Keep. Charlie couldn’t keep his eyes off her ankles, so dainty and fine they were. He remembered seeing her whole leg bared—indeed, her whole self bared—to him on the Stone Steps, and the memory caused a surge of heat in his loins that he knew would plague him all day.

To his left, Mrs. Montgomery waved away the four crofters’ sons who were doing a fine job at playing footmen, offering to help the residents of Vandemere with their trunks. “Don’t you dare touch my precious things. You’re thieves, all of you!” she cried.

The young men managed to race back up the stone steps and go back through the gigantic front door of the Keep as fast as they could, disappearing long before Charlie could call them back.

And no wonder. Mrs. Montgomery was terrifying, especially in her swirling black cape.

Not that Cassandra and Perdita seemed terribly concerned about their mother’s fit of pique. They rushed up the steps after the footmen, giggling the whole way. Charlie had no doubt that they were off to introduce themselves to all the males in the house.

“Lumley,” Mrs. Montgomery called to him. “Take the trunks to our rooms straightaway.”

He wondered what particular sin he’d committed that caused him to have to endure this particular widow. With a weary sigh, he hoisted her trunk onto his shoulder and regretted every moral lapse of his youth and childhood.

“And don’t dally,” she told him, her tone curt. “Daisy’s gone on ahead, the impertinent girl, so I need you to empty them and—”

“Put all your shoes in perfect rows,” he finished for her.

“Right,” she said.

He’d been joking.

Poor Daisy, to have to perform such menial chores for the ungrateful harridan on a regular basis!

The weighty trunk dug into his shoulder. When he circled around Mrs. Montgomery, he resisted the perfectly natural urge he had to knock her over like a bowling pin with the end of the trunk—“by accident,” of course.

He heaved a sigh and carried the bulky chest up the front steps of the Keep, wondering how far in the bowels of the castle he must walk to find the woman’s bedchamber.

He ran into a maid who said she knew the way, so he followed her.

It was hard work, carrying that massive trunk, but it felt good to exert himself. Charlie thought of the myriad times he’d allowed other men to pick up his bags, shine his shoes, deliver him his horse, fix his wobbly chair legs, feed him meals while on the hunt, tie his cravat, carry his dead birds, balance his accounts, clean his guns, wipe down his saddle, pour his whisky, shine his cuff links, build his homes, remove his dishes from the table, bury his faithful hunting dogs, escort women he’d slept with from his home, take his coat, his hat, his coat, his hat, his coat—

His damned hat.

His coat.

How many times?

How many thousands of times?

His throat tightened.

What kind of a man are you? Daisy’s words echoed through his mind.

The only exertion he’d ever made had been artificial work—in the boxing ring and at D’Angelo’s, fencing.

The trunk dug into his neck now, and he was sweating. God help him, he was sweating. He straightened his back, felt his spine align with his hips and shoulders, and adjusted the trunk.

He was going to be the best damned trunk carrier there ever was.

At least it was a start.

By the time he’d turned back around to carry in the other trunks, as well, he’d even convinced himself he’d be the best damned sheep shearer there ever was for the visitors. And then when he got back to London, he’d be the best damned …

He had no idea.

It would be something substantial—something beyond the contrived world of high society and the advantages that had been bestowed on him because of his wealth and birth.

It would be something … real. And he couldn’t wait to tell Daisy. She’d be excited for him. She’d take an interest. He just knew it.

Perdita rushed through the great front hall and stopped in front of him.

She was patting her frizzy brown hair. “Excuse me, Lord Lumley. They’re here—the visitors are here! I saw them out a window, many carriages pulling up to the drive. And there’s a man—”

She stopped talking and went running past him.

He inhaled a breath to recover from her onslaught when Daisy came around the front door of the castle into the great hall. She was all aglow. Those were the only words for it.

A gentleman appeared behind her, obviously the one that had left Perdita speechless. He looked like Apollo, and he carried himself as if he were the Keep’s owner. Perdita’s trunk sat lightly on his broad shoulder.

“Where should I put this, Miss Montgomery?” he asked Daisy in an American accent.

“You really didn’t have to carry that,” she said warmly. “You should have stayed outside with your colleagues to admire the view.”

He halted in his tracks. “It’s my great honor.”

“How kind.” She gave a nervous chuckle. “Please put it down here, Mr. King, and we’ll get a footman to take it.”

Charlie had never seen Daisy so discombobulated.

Mr. King shook his head. “I insist on delivering it to its proper place.”

“Follow me, then,” Charlie chimed in.

Mr. King made a quarter turn and locked gazes with him.

In that instant, Charlie assessed him as being a man who was used to getting his way, was familiar with power and success, and had more ability to charm women in his little finger than most men had in their whole bodies.

In other words, he was very much like Charlie.

Mr. King grinned. “Lead on, sir,” he said with jaunty confidence.

“My lord,” Daisy stammered to Charlie, “may I present to you Mr. Matthew King, of Smithfield, Virginia? Mr. King, this is Charles Thorpe, Viscount Lumley.”

“It’s a pleasure to welcome you to the Keep.” Charlie inclined his head while Mr. King stood unmoving.

Granted, the trunk made it difficult to do anything else.

“I’m most grateful to be here,” the handsome visitor replied with enthusiasm. “It must be quite something to be master of such a place. I envy you, Lord Lumley.”

Daisy’s eyes widened at him. Play along, they said.

Charlie decided it was becoming rather a thing with them, this role-playing. He stood tall and cleared his throat. “Thank you, sir. It’s a great privilege. I hope my fiancée—”

“I usually reside at the neighboring castle,” Daisy interjected, as if she were afraid of scandal.

“Yes.” Charlie smiled patiently. “I hope Miss Montgomery’s informed you that the Keep is yours to explore for the next ten days. We want you to have the full Highland experience.”

“Indeed, she did,” said Mr. King in the warmest of tones. “And I intend to take full advantage.”

He looked directly at Daisy when he said so, and she appeared delighted, clasping her hands together and giving one little hop, as if she were a child in front of a window full of sweets.

She’d never hopped for Charlie before.

And in exactly what quarter did Mr. King plan to take full advantage?

“Mr. King is not only an avid bird-watcher,” Daisy told Charlie, “he’s a self-made man.”

Mr. King chuckled. “Yes, we Americans have to start from scratch, as they say.”

“He’s invented several important agricultural tools that have saved innumerable farmers from bankruptcy and thousands from starvation,” Daisy went on.

“How … inventive of you,” Charlie said.

He hated the man already.

“He also designed and built his own home,” Daisy waxed on, “a three-story Elizabethan-style mansion on a large plantation on the James River.”

And she’d learned all this in the one or two minutes since they’d met?

“I didn’t hammer in every nail or lay every brick,” their esteemed guest said. “But I certainly did my fair share. I enjoy that sort of thing.”

“Do you?” Charlie asked politely.

“Oh, yes. A life of leisure bores me. Bird-watching is only one of my hobbies.”

Oh, right. Mr. Beebs had collected not only Charlie’s anglers from Brawton but some bird-watchers staying at Lower Cross Junction.

“My newest passion,” Mr. King prosed on, “is working with wrought iron. I’m still a beginner, but I made a lovely balcony railing for whoever is going to be my bride.” He grinned, his white teeth sparkling like jewels. “I like to think ahead.”

“It sounds lovely, Mr. King.” Daisy’s admiration appeared sincere, although Charlie felt it was misplaced.

She should be admiring him. Of course, he’d never built a house or designed a wrought-iron balcony, but he had skills. Skills she’d assessed as being nice. Surely that counted for something.

“I’ll not hold you up, Mr. King,” said Charlie. “Let me show you where to put that trunk. No doubt the footmen are itching to take it from you. You’re our guest, after all.”

“I’m in no hurry,” Mr. King replied. “And I’ve little need of servants. I find they hamper my independence.”

Was he going to stand there all day with that bloody trunk on his shoulder and wax on about how marvelous and independent he was?

Charlie knew exactly how much Miss Perdita’s trunk weighed—as much as Mrs. Montgomery’s, which surely meant the man’s back was aching by now.

“Oh, but we’d like you trunk-free so we can show you about the grounds,” Charlie said in the amiable way a good host should.

“Yes,” Daisy piped up. “I’d like to take him around myself. I’ll wait right here until you come back, Mr. King.”

“Fantastic.” Their guest bestowed a charming smile on her. “I’d love a private tour with you, Miss Montgomery, while my traveling companions settle in.”

“We’ll be happy to provide that for you,” Charlie responded smoothly.

Emphasis on we.

“Excellent,” the man said just as smoothly back.

Oh, he was good!

“Shall we?” Charlie gritted his teeth and began the circuitous route to Miss Perdita’s room, Mr. King following easily along beside him with that blasted trunk.

They chatted about what wealthy, powerful men usually do: the state of international affairs, horses—“We keep very few up here,” said Charlie, “although the stable is large and will accommodate yours quite well”—and the condition of his wine cellar and his library, both of which he said were in fine shape, although he really had no idea.

By some miracle, they avoided Miss Perdita and Miss Cassandra.

In the bedchamber, Mr. King refused to let Charlie take the trunk from his shoulder and, in one swift, graceful movement, placed it at the foot of the bed. When he stood again, he smiled cheerfully.

“Miss Montgomery has a piquant face and an expansive personality, doesn’t she? I can see why you’re attached to her, even though she dresses as if she comes from little wealth. She has other charms, eh? I wouldn’t mind a little flirtation with a Scottish lass myself.”

Charlie’s expression turned to stone. “I don’t discuss my personal business with strangers,” he said, “particularly my relationship with Miss Montgomery. She, by the way, shall be treated with all the respect due one of your hostesses and my future wife.”

A slight shift occurred in Mr. King’s eyes, but his expression remained affable. “Of course, Lumley. No offense meant.”

Charlie refused to say none taken. “I’m rather busy overseeing things, so I’ll leave you to find your way back,” he said gruffly. “If you get lost, consider it that private tour you wanted.”

And he left without a backward glance, torn between wanting to evict the man immediately and needing to keep him on for the money.

The money Daisy needs, he reminded himself sternly.

But it wasn’t enough to make him turn around and escort Mr. King back to the front hall. Nor, he determined, would he ever treat the man with anything but common civility. Even that, he knew, would tax him.

The truth was, Mr. King’s careless remark—revealing his obvious lack of respect for Daisy—had made Charlie eager to pummel him until his patrician American nose bled profusely.

Why was that? All men made careless remarks about comely females.

Ah, but this was different—just as Daisy was different. Different from any girl he’d ever known. She was a danger to his Impossible Bachelor’s heart.