As Antonia hesitated on the step the ridiculousness of her position struck her. She was a grown woman frightened to enter her own property in broad daylight. What would she say to Donna? That she was too afraid to look for the furniture they so badly needed? She stepped into the hall but still, she left the door wide open behind her.
As she moved from room to room, her skirts raised puffs of dust, but, to her amazement, everything was completely dry. There were no damp stains or musty smells, only dry dust and airlessness shrouding the contents of the house, left just as they had been when Cousin Caroline had died nine years before. Relations between Sir Humphrey and his querulous relative had been so poor her father must have ordered the place shut up and had never troubled himself to investigate further.
The ancient brick and oak had stood the test of time and the elements in a way more recent buildings had not. The old house had a homely feeling to it and now she felt quite safe there. Antonia roamed from room to room, lifted dust sheets, peered at hangings in the gloom, ran her fingers along the dark wood of the sturdy furniture. The stairs were wide and shallow and led her up to a gallery and a suite of bedrooms.
She was just inside the door of what must have been Cousin Caroline’s chamber when she heard the floorboards creaking in the hall below. She froze, all the Gothick horrors flooding back. She would not panic, there were no such things as ghosts, but even so… She wanted to get out into the sunlight, get her breath. There was some logical explanation for the sounds, there had to be.
But they were not her imagination, nor were they the sounds of an old house gently creaking. Whoever, or whatever, it was had reached the foot of the stairs. She could hear the boards groaning, just as they had when she had climbed them.
There must be back stairs. Antonia picked up her skirts and ran down the landing on tip-toe, down a passageway, through a doorway and found herself at the head of a flight of a narrow, winding staircase. She stumbled down, the very act of running feeding the sense of urgency. She rounded a dark bend and crashed into something large, solid and alive.
‘Got you!’ Strong hands seized her roughly by the shoulders and shook her. Muffled against woollen cloth, Antonia turned her head frantically and screamed. She could see nothing in the gloom. The man holding her was clenching her upper arms in a vice-like grip that brought tears to her eyes and her heart was leaping sickeningly in her chest.
There was no one within earshot to come to her aid. She had to get out of this alone. Antonia held back her screams and saved her breath for struggling. She began to kick with a vengeance, stubbing her toes against unyielding leather boots. If she could just get her head down she could bite…
Suddenly he let go. Antonia stumbled back against the wall, but before she could turn and run the man seized her by the wrist and dragged her down the last few steps into the kitchen.
‘Come on, girl, let me have a look at you. Out to see what you could steal, were you?’ The light from the casements fell on them and her captor released her with an oath. ‘Hell’s teeth. You again.’
His arms were full of shaking, furious female, one who had every right to be where she was. Antonia Dane glared up at Marcus and finally found her voice. ‘How dare you assault me in my own house?’ He sensed that although she was angry, she was also shaking with relief that it was him and not a thief, let alone someone with even more sinister intentions.
‘The front door was wide open, I could hear somebody moving about upstairs and I thought you were a housebreaker.’ He returned her glare with one of his own, largely because he was feeling unwilling guilt for scaring her. ‘What do you expect me to do? Pass by and let the place be ransacked?’
He let her go and she sagged against the kitchen table as she rubbed her arms. Damn, I’ve hurt her. She had felt so slender in his grip. She was more fragile than she looked and he had been angry.
‘I thought you… l thought you were…’
‘You thought I was the vagrant, someone who was going to attack you?’ He took a step forward as she went even paler. ‘Oh, Lord, you’ve gone sheet-white. Did I hurt your wrist?’
‘No, not really.’ She rubbed it nevertheless, as though the friction helped steady her. Even so, her voice quavered, then broke. ‘I thought you were a headless ghoul.’
‘A ghoul? Really, Miss Dane.’ He began to laugh then stopped. She really had been frightened. ‘Antonia, I am sorry, come here.’ He pulled her gently against his chest and held on while shivers of fright kept coming and she gave in to them, shaking in earnest as he stroked her hair and murmured reassurance. He wondered how often anyone held her, offered her the comfort of their arms. Miss Donaldson was clearly devoted, but he doubted whether her brisk sympathy and sensible friendship expressed themselves in hugs.
The shivering died away, but Antonia stayed in the shelter of his arms, her cheek nestled against his waistcoat.
Then she stirred against him as the realisation of the situation overcame the need to be held. Her awareness triggered something in him too, his hand stopped stroking and moved to caress her nape without conscious intent on his part. The hand holding her against him came up to tip up her face.
‘Your Grace… Renshaw.’
‘You look adorable with cobwebs in your hair, like a kitten that has been exploring.’ He found his voice was husky, that he was aroused. Don’t frighten her any more. Be gentle.
‘I do not t-think this is either wise or proper.’ She made no attempt to break free from his encircling arms.
‘Then do not think at all,’ he murmured, his mouth coming down on hers. He fought his own pressing desires and was gentle, undemanding and she clutched at his shoulders as his mouth moved insinuatingly on hers, drawing her deeper into the kiss.
Her response was sensual, instinctive. Shy. She is an innocent. Stop this.
Antonia clung to Marcus Renshaw, dizzily drowning in unfamiliar sensation, overwhelmed by the feeling of security his strong arms gave her. This should not make her feel secure, this was so unsafe…
Renshaw lifted his mouth from hers and looked down into her eyes. ‘I think I had better take you home. Your companion will be wondering what has become of you.’ He let go of her and she braced herself, determined not to show any weakness. It was bad enough that she had let him kiss her, that she had responded.
The Duke held the door open for her to pass through. ‘Where is your horse?’
His abrupt return to conventional manners underscored just how improper her behaviour had been. He was a nobleman who took what he wanted. She was a lady and it was, apparently, her duty to stop him.
Antonia felt her colour rise. ‘I walked over. Your Grace, you must disregard, I beg you, my behaviour just now. I was frightened, driven by relief after such a scare. Normally I would never do such a thing.’
‘I quite understand,’ he said. ‘You are not normally in fear of headless ghouls.’
They were now on the other side of the front door. Renshaw twisted the key in the lock, then handed it to her, his fingers brushing hers momentarily as he did so. His horse was cropping the grass, its reins thrown over the branch of a tree.
‘I will walk back with you to Rye End Hall,’ he said, taking the reins in his hand.
She winced at the coolness in his voice, confused by the welter of emotions she was feeling. Yes, she supposed she had offended him by implying that the only reason she had returned his kiss was relief that he was not some vagabond – or ghoul. Would she ever live that down? – But he should never have kissed her in the first place. She had no intention of trying to make amends. After all, it was the second occasion on which he had taken liberties with her.
‘It will not be necessary for you to accompany me, Your Grace,’ she said with matching coolness.
‘I think it is.’ He fell into step beside her. ‘Even if there are no ghouls, there may well be undesirables in the woods. With no keepering on your lands, anyone could be roaming.’
Stung, Antonia snapped back, ‘Do not keep harping on my foolishness, Your Grace. Have you never read a Gothick tale and then wondered at a creak in the night?’
‘No, I have no time for such nonsense.’
In the face of such a comprehensive snub, there was little left to say. They walked without speaking along the rutted lane until they reached the gates of the Hall.
‘Goodbye, Your Grace, thank you for your concern for my property,’ she said politely, holding out her hand to him.
He accepted neither her hand, nor his dismissal. ‘If you have recovered your composure, Miss Dane, there is something I wished to speak to you about.’
‘Any loss of composure I may have suffered, Your Grace, is entirely attributable to you,’ Antonia said frostily, then realised what a double-edged remark that was.
He smiled thinly. ‘None the less, if you could spare me a moment of your time?’
‘Very well, Your Grace. We are still some minutes from the house.’
‘I do wish you would call me Marcus as Renshaw does not seem to come easily to you,’ he said in an abrupt change of mood. ‘We are, after all, near neighbours. If, that is, you are intending to stay here.’
Antonia raised her brows, ‘There is no question of my leaving, Your… Marcus. This is my family home and I intend to live here.’
She followed his gaze as it strayed over the ruins of the pleasure grounds. One deer was nibbling delicately at the remains of a rose bush.
‘It must be a powerful attachment you feel that overcomes the many disadvantages of the situation,’ he remarked.
‘What disadvantages?’ Antonia demanded.
‘To find yourself without friends, in a property that is tumbling around your ears, set amid derelict lands which can be bringing you no income. Forgive me for speaking frankly, but that appears to constitute not one but several disadvantages.’
‘The house is not tumbling about my ears. There is merely a little damp and that can soon be put right.’
Marcus nodded. Somehow she did not think it was in agreement. ‘Then no doubt it is the damp that prevents you from furnishing Rye End Hall?’
‘And how would you know in what condition my furnishings are, might I ask?’
‘It is difficult to keep secrets in the country. Let us be frank, Miss Dane. Antonia. Financially, you are at a standstill. If you have any concern for your tenants, or indeed yourself, you must look to raise income.’
‘This is being frank, indeed.’ Antonia stopped abruptly and faced him. ‘I believe, Marcus, you cross beyond frankness. What concern can you have with my private affairs?’
He studied her from dark brown eyes. ‘I am, after all, a neighbour, but more than that, I am in a position to alleviate your situation. I have an offer for you.’
Antonia stared at him in wild surmise. Marcus Renshaw, Duke of Allington, offering her marriage? Surely there was no other interpretation to put on his words, especially after that kiss just now? Unless he was making an offer of a far less reputable kind.
‘Marcus, this is so sudden. I scarcely know you...’ She broke off at the look of astonishment dawning on his face. He had it under control in a second, but not before she realised the appalling error she had fallen into. Burning with humiliation she blundered on. ‘That is to say, it is very kind of you to offer help to someone you scarcely know.’
‘Our families have been neighbours for centuries.’ He spoke smoothly, but she could see a trace of colour on his cheekbones. His attempts at tact were as humiliating to her as her original error had been. ‘Your father sold me some land several years ago and I would give you a fair price for the remaining farmlands and the woods. It would leave you the pleasure grounds. Then, with the house restored, you would be able to sell it easily, perhaps to a London merchant seeking a country retreat. There are many such these days.’
Embarrassment turned to anger as his words sank in. So, Marcus Renshaw had only kissed her, been so sympathetic, in order to gain her confidence as a prelude to snapping up her lands.
His impression of her as an empty-headed female must have been compounded by her falling into his arms not once, but twice. To be arrested as a poacher, to be found in a twitter over ghosts and then to so misinterpret his intentions on the flimsiest of evidence – he must think her so foolish she would accept his offer without hesitation or calculation.
‘The day will never come when I am prepared to sell so much as one yard of my land, Your Grace. Not to you or anyone else.’ She gathered up her skirts and swept off, turning as a further thought struck her. ‘And your protestations of neighbourly concern would ring more true if you conducted yourself as a gentleman and did not manhandle me at every opportunity.’
He had swung up into the saddle. Her words obviously stung, for the horse tossed its head in protest as his hand tightened on the reins. ‘I am not in the habit of manhandling unwilling ladies, ma’am. I would suggest you look to your own behaviour before you criticise mine. I would hardly characterise you as unwilling just now.’
Before Antonia could do more than gasp at this attack, he had dug his heels into the horse’s flanks and cantered off down the track.
She was still seething when she re-entered the kitchen, now mercifully restored to order.
Donna was placidly brewing a pot of tea, the stock was simmering fragrantly on the range, mixing with the delicious odour of roasting pigeon, Mrs Brown had gone and the cats were sleeping off an excess of rabbit in the scullery. Through the half-open door she could see a tangle of tails.
‘My dear, whatever is the matter?’ Donna put down the teapot. ‘Your cheeks are flushed and you are positively scowling. You really should not, it is so unbecoming in a lady.’
‘That insufferable man.’
‘Which man?’ Donna asked, not unreasonably.
‘Are there more than one in the neighbourhood determined to interfere in my life at every turn? Marcus Renshaw, of course.’ She plumped down in a chair and began to fiddle irritably with a folded paper which lay on the table.
‘The Duke?’ What has he done to upset you now, Antonia? Drink this tea and calm yourself.’ Donna pushed the cup across the table and followed it with the sugar bowl.
Antonia took a deep breath. ‘I was in the Dower House, exploring. It was very dark and gloomy in there, and in truth, after a while, rather unsettling. He saw the front door standing open and came in looking for burglars. I have never been so scared in my life when I heard the footsteps on the stairs. And then he... Then he... I was agitated and naturally, er, clung to him. And then…’ She found herself unable to finish the sentence.
‘Are you trying to tell me he kissed you?’ Donna seemed inclined to be amused rather than shocked, which only fuelled Antonia’s annoyance.
‘Really, Donna, I am surprised at you. I would not have thought you would regard such behaviour so lightly.’
‘Well, if you had cast yourself into his arms, he is but a man, after all, my dear. And,’ she added, musingly, ‘a most eligible one at that. Too eligible, I suppose, being a duke.’
This was uncomfortably close to the truth. Antonia sank her head into her hands.
‘Antonia, dearest – are you telling me he offered you some grosser insult?’
‘No. But, oh, Donna, I made such an abject fool of myself. I thought he was making a declaration of marriage, but he was only offering to buy the land.’
‘If he misled you in any way, then he must do the honourable thing, duke or not,’ Donna said hotly.
Antonia cut across her. ‘No, I kissed him back, I fear. And it was entirely my own stupidity in misunderstanding him. I said nothing which could not be explained away, but he knew what assumption I’d made, which is so humiliating.’
‘But when you came in just now you seemed angry, not embarrassed. Did you quarrel?’
‘l told him I would never sell Rye End Hall lands to him. That is what he wants, what he is scheming to get.’
There was a short silence, then Donna said, ‘I fear you may have to sell some of them to someone. That paper under your hand is the bill of estimate from Mr Watts the builder from Berkhamsted who came last week. It seems there are more roof timbers to replace than we had realised and, of course, we had not allowed for the cost of lead.’ Her voice trailed off as Antonia spread open the paper.
‘It seems a reasonable and honest estimate,’ she said blankly when she had read it through carefully. ‘But you are right, it is quite beyond our means.’ They stared at each other across the table finding nothing to say, the tea cooling between them.