Heat rushed to Valentine’s face. It was all she could do not to press her hands against her scalding cheeks to cool her blushes. “Oh dear,” she whispered. “You know him.”
Mr. Sinclair was no longer laughing. “Intimately,” he said.
She wished she might fall through the floor. And considering the dilapidated state of the folly, such an event was not entirely impossible. “Do forgive me, sir. Had I known he was your friend, I would never have said anything. Indeed, I shouldn’t even be—”
“Sitting with me. Talking with me. Yes, I do believe we’ve established that, Miss March.” His expression had been hard and stern, cold enough to scare her for an instant, but now it softened. “Never mind. You’ve said nothing to offend me.”
Valentine looked at her companion. It was ridiculous to feel so at ease with a stranger. And yet he’d put her at ease from the moment he entered the folly and sat down beside her. Funny that. He hadn’t been particularly nice to her. Indeed, he’d been brusque and commanding, ordering her about until she got her tears under control. He’d insulted her, too. At least, he’d insulted her gown and her rather unflattering coiffure.
And he’d thought The Song of Solomon was a love poem!
Clearly his education was somewhat lacking. Which was quite odd since he seemed to be very much a gentleman. A brutish sort of gentleman, to be sure, but a gentleman nonetheless. He must live on a neighboring estate. Perhaps he was some manner of country gentry? His clothes were cut well enough, for all that they were stained with mud, grass, and sweat. And he carried himself with an air of importance, even if his thick black hair was disheveled and there was a shadow of stubble on his strong, chiseled jaw and over the enticingly sensual curve of his lip.
Indeed, he was outrageously handsome. Perhaps the most handsome man Valentine had ever seen. Not that she’d seen very many. But surely few could compete with Mr. Sinclair’s great height, broad shoulders, and smoldering dark eyes.
And she would have had to be blind not to notice that his breeches clung to long, powerfully made legs.
Or that his hands, when he snatched away her paper, had appeared to be twice the size of her own.
When he laughed, she’d even seen a flash of strong, white teeth. A bit wolfish, that laugh. A bit strange. But then, she didn’t pretend to understand subtle society humor. Not that Mr. Sinclair was anything like the foppish drawing room exquisites she’d encountered during her first month working for Lady Brightwell.
And he was certainly nothing at all like Phil. But then, Phillip Edgecombe was slight of build, with the vaguely sickly pallor of a romantic poet. It had been the very quality that set all the girls in the village swooning over him.
“You do understand, don’t you Val?” he’d said the last time they saw each other. “Some things are simply not meant to be.”
They’d been standing outside of the vicarage as two burly men unloaded a cart containing the furniture and various odds and ends belonging to the new vicar and his family. Valentine’s own small trunk sat at her feet. “Yes, Phil,” she’d said numbly. “I understand.”
“It doesn’t mean I love you any less. And it doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends. Indeed, I shall write you as often as I can.” He’d caught hold of her hand then, clutching it fervently in his. “And if anything changes— If you should hear anything at all— You must write me immediately. Promise me, Val.”
No. Tristan Sinclair was nothing like Phillip Edgecombe. He didn’t disguise his true intentions with silky words and flattery. He was a brutally honest gentleman. A thoroughly masculine one, too. The kind Valentine suspected could only be found in the rural countryside. A gentleman farmer, she decided. God particularly approved of farmers. At least, Papa had always said so.
“Surely Lord St. Ashton can’t be as bad as you say,” she replied at last. “Else why would Lady Brightwell bring Miss Brightwell to meet him?”
“The Viscount St. Ashton is the Earl of Lynden’s son and heir. That fact alone makes him irresistible—and has done since he was a lad of eighteen.”
Valentine considered this with a furrowed brow. “Yes. I did hear Lady Brightwell likening him to some rare beast that has evaded capture for far too many years. I didn’t regard it. It’s simply how Lady Brightwell talks. She is…rather candid.”
“She’s vulgar.”
“Oh.” Valentine frowned. She’d thought all aristocratic ladies spoke in the manner of Lady Brightwell and her daughter. “Do you really think so?”
“Everyone in attendance at this house party of yours is vulgar.” He gave her a wry smile. “Everyone save yourself and one other.”
“Who is the other?”
“The Earl of Lynden.”
She blinked in surprise. “Lord St. Ashton’s father? I had no idea he’d be in attendance. Lady Brightwell hasn’t mentioned—”
“He wasn’t invited. Even if he had been, he would never attend this sort of party.”
“Then why…?”
“He’s come here for the sole purpose of surprising his wayward heir. I expect a confrontation later this afternoon. No doubt some ultimatum will be involved.”
“An ultimatum? I don’t understand.”
“The earl’s younger son married last year. His wife recently presented him with a son. Meanwhile, St. Ashton is still unmarried. He’s made no attempts to secure the line. I daresay Lynden fears his heir will never wed. Or that, if he does, it’ll be to some music hall performer. Or worse.”
“If that’s the alternative, then it’s lucky for Lord St. Ashton that Miss Brightwell is in attendance. He can simply make her an offer of marriage and—”
“Is that what you advise?” he asked sharply.
Valentine blushed. “I-I have no advice.”
“You must have. You’re acquainted with Miss Brightwell. Tell me, would she make a good wife? A good viscountess?”
Valentine had already said too much about Miss Brightwell. It was bad enough that she privately loathed her. To be airing her grievances to strangers was well-nigh unforgiveable. Not to mention profoundly unchristian. She was supposed to love her neighbor. Turn the other cheek and so forth. It was how she’d been raised. Oh, how disappointed Papa would be if he could see her now. Sitting with a strange man unchaperoned. Gossiping about the very employer whose wages kept her from the workhouse.
Well, perhaps not the workhouse. She wasn’t that badly off. Not yet, anyway.
“I’m sure she would make a creditable viscountess,” Valentine managed to say.
Mr. Sinclair didn’t look very convinced. “Creditable,” he repeated. “The very girl who destroyed what you hold most precious in the world.”
Valentine stared down at what was left of her book of Bible verses. She’d almost managed to come to terms with the disastrous events that had driven her to the folly, but, at Mr. Sinclair’s words, she felt the full, oppressive weight of her servitude descend once more over her shoulders. Tears stung at the backs of her eyes. “What does it matter how she’s treated me? I’m only a companion. Not much better than a servant, really.”
“Miss March,” Mr. Sinclair said quietly, “I—”
“There you are!” a man’s voice called out. “Higgins said I might find you here.”
Valentine looked up with a start to see a florid-faced gentleman approach. She recognized him as Lord Quinton. An impeccably dressed, middle-aged libertine who bore on his reddened visage the marks of a life spent indulging in all manner of vices. He was a particular friend of Lady Brightwell, who’d grudgingly introduced him to Valentine earlier that morning in the front hall of Fairford House.
“And who’s that with you?” Lord Quinton briefly squinted in her direction, clearly not recognizing her without her spectacles. He grinned at Mr. Sinclair. “I say, St. Ashton. After all these years, you still don’t miss a trick. Not an hour in the place and already out in the woods with a willing female.”
Valentine shot up from her seat and straight out of Mr. Sinclair’s greatcoat. It fell from her shoulders, dropping to the debris-covered floor to pool around her feet. Mr. Sinclair rose just as rapidly. He reached out to her, but she instinctively backed away, her shoulders bumping into one of the splintered pillars of the folly. Her heart beat a rapid, panicked rhythm in her chest. It fairly stole her breath away. “Y-you are Lord St. Ashton?”
“If you’ll allow me to explain—”
“Oh no,” she said. “Oh, how could you.”
Mr. Sinclair looked stricken. But it was not Mr. Sinclair at all. It was the Viscount St. Ashton. She could see the truth plainly on his face. He held her gaze as he took a step toward her. “Miss March—”
She flattened herself against the pillar.
“What in blazes is going on, St. Ashton?” Quinton asked in a great booming voice. He climbed the steps to join them. “Don’t you know the earl’s here? Back at the house waiting for you? Come, man, the sooner you speak with him the sooner he’ll quit the place.” Quinton’s eyes came to rest on Valentine’s face. “And then the real fun can begin.”
Valentine lunged away from the pillar and ran down the steps, nearly falling over a broken board as she went. She thought she heard someone call out to her, “Miss March!” But she didn’t heed it. She clutched her heavy skirts and ran through the woods as fast as her legs could carry her. Tree branches with wet leaves whipped at her face and body. Droplets of rainwater and mud spattered her gown and her hair. But she didn’t stop. She kept running until she was within sight of the kitchen entrance to Fairford House.
Once there, she leaned against the wall outside the door, breathing heavily and clutching the stitch in her side with one trembling hand.
“You there!” someone shouted. “Ain’t you Lady Brightwell’s new companion?”
Valentine squeezed her eyes shut for a moment before answering. “Yes!”
“She’s been asking for you this last hour. Ringing that bell of hers ’til she damned near broke the bell-pull.”
Valentine looked at the young footman who addressed her. He was painfully thin with a self-important gleam in his small rat-like eyes.
“If I was you,” he advised, “I’d have a care about losing me place.”
“Yes, thank you. I shall go to Lady Brightwell at once.” She moved toward the kitchen door, but he stepped in front of her.
“Not so fast,” he said, eyeing her suspiciously. “You look different.”
Valentine was at the limits of her endurance. “I’m not at all interested in your opinion of my appearance, sir.”
The footman grinned, showing two chipped front teeth. “I know what it is. You’ve taken off them spectacles of yours.”
“My spectacles?” Valentine’s hand flew instinctively to her face. They were gone! She must have left them in the folly.
And suddenly, with a sickening sense of despair, she realized that her spectacles were not the only thing she’d left behind on her mad flight from the folly. The last remaining page of her book of Bible verses was there, too. She had dropped it when she leapt from her seat and forgotten it completely in her desperate dash back to the house.
Now it was as good as gone.
The last remnant of her mother’s legacy to her.
Out there somewhere in the woods. At the mercy of one of the worst rakes in England.