The Rake of Hollowhurst Castle. Elizabeth Beacon
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façade of a superior butler, trained from birth to run Hollowhurst below-stairs as Sir Granger had been raised to rule above them.
‘I thank you, but my uncle would be the first to tell you not to be an awkward pack of idiots and get back to where you’re needed.’ Mulish expressions turned to doubtful frowns as they silently admitted she was right. Sensing victory, Roxanne pressed ruthlessly on. ‘You trained your deputies, so how can you doubt they’re capable of bothering me with unsolicited advice at all turns while running my house, stables and gardens almost as efficiently as you would? Meanwhile, you can help Sir Charles in his new life as the master of Hollowhurst Castle, knowing that I’m in safe hands.’
‘Bravo, Miss Courland, I couldn’t have put it better myself, and I must add a personal plea for as many of you as Miss Courland can spare to take pity on me and come and help me run the castle before I’m properly in the basket for lack of your skills.’
Sir Charles Afforde then strolled further into the overcrowded room to stand by her side, and Roxanne wasn’t sure if she was more furious with him for looking as if they’d hatched this argument between them or with her staff for silently ghosting out of his way as if he’d every right to barge into her house and interfere without the least encouragement. Holding on to her temper while trying to look as if she concurred with his every word, although she’d like to kick him sharply in the shins, took every ounce of self-control Roxanne possessed.
‘Good morning, Sir Charles,’ she managed to greet him civilly.
‘Good morning, Miss Courland, and good morning to you all,’ he responded cheerfully, as if he was calling on her in her drawing room and not lounging about the commodious kitchen as if he owned that as well.
A general murmur greeted him, ranging from stately politeness to a flutter of delight from the flightier maids, and again Roxanne had to choke back fury. Just because he was ridiculously handsome and a hero of the late wars, everyone forgot he was also a rake and a rogue. Wishing she hadn’t encouraged any of the female staff to return to the castle, she frowned repressively at them and won nervous, excited giggles for her pains. Hoping he was too gentlemanly to take advantage, Roxanne scowled fiercely at him, but he seemed unimpressed and just gave one of his piratical grins.
‘I suggest you take the rest of the day to consider what I’ve said,’ she suggested to her assembled staff, having little hope of the female section of it hearing her, as their attention was centred on Sir Charles lounging beside her as if he was as welcome as the flowers in spring.
‘Indeed we will, Miss Courland,’ Mereson intoned on behalf of all his minions. After giving the chief among them a few significant looks, he made sure they dispersed to their supposed places in her household, and Roxanne wondered, not for the first time, how on earth they managed to fit into it without constant collisions.
At last only the kitchen staff were left, and the last giggling housemaid had been towed away by more sensible friends. Roxanne looked on Sir Charles with even less favour as he refused to notice she wanted him gone.
‘There’s scones and fresh blackberry jelly if you’d like me to send them through to the drawing room, Miss Rosie,’ Cook prompted, and Roxanne decided her light-as-air touch with such pastries was no compensation for an interfering nature, and Sir Charles was welcome to her.
‘Then will you join me, Sir Charles?’ she managed to say graciously enough. ‘Such a treat is not to be lightly missed, I can assure you.’
‘My thanks, Miss Courland, but it defeats me how you managed to find room for so many in this rather compact house and still omitted to engage a companion to make my visit respectable,’ he carped as she led the way to her not-yet-formal drawing room.
‘If my companion and my reputation were any concern of yours, Sir Charles, I might explain myself. As they’re not, I feel no need to do so.’
‘They soon will be if you get yourself ruined in the eyes of the world because you’re too stubborn to engage a duenna. I feel compelled to see you set right, Miss Courland, as I’m the most likely cause of our neighbours whispering scandal about you living alone so close to the Castle if you don’t see sense and employ a duenna.’
When she would have burst out into an indignant denial that he had any rights or obligations toward her, he held up his hand and Roxanne could see just how this supposedly light-hearted rogue had commanded his own ship and several others with ease.
‘It’s not because I possess a managing nature that I plague you about this, although I admit that’s part of it, but I promised your brother I’d make sure you were well settled and happy. Setting the gossips tattling about you before you’ve hardly got your boxes unpacked and your furniture arranged doesn’t augur well, Miss Courland. But if you cherish some bizarre plan to get yourself ostracised by polite society so you may become a recluse and ignore all your neighbours, then tell me now and I’ll leave you to get on with it.’
Oh, how she’d like to snap some smart retort back at him, to claim her position in local society was too secure to need his approval or interference. Inwardly seething, she managed to give him a sickly smile in recognition that he was a guest under her roof, and her uncle had taught her that obliged her to at least try to be hospitable. Somehow she managed to contain the flood of protest longing for release into what she hoped were a few pithy sentences he wouldn’t be able to argue with.
‘You’re not my brother and I’m not obliged to explain myself to you, Sir Charles. I absolve you from any promise you made him and beg you won’t give me another thought. I have many plans for the future, but none of them are any concern of yours. You’ll have most of your staff back by nightfall, so I suggest you put your own house in order and leave me to manage mine.’
‘You’re the sister of a good friend as well as my cousin Tom Varleigh’s sister-in-law, so do you honestly think I’ll stand by and watch you ruin yourself in the eyes of your own kind when I’ve any power to stop you, ma’am?’
She’d been wavering until he added that ‘ma’am’—such a world of impatience and frustration as it contained, and such an awful promise of what she might become: a mere ma’am, a superannuated spinster with too much money and too little sense to find herself a husband. Now she was no longer the mistress of Hollowhurst, would she be seen by local society as another annoying female with no male to guide and centre her, a dangerous woman contained by their disapproval and then, when the years passed and she’d become a quiz, maybe their laughter? Roxanne shuddered and did her best to hide her misgivings from the abominable man.
‘I’m very pleased to say you possess no power over me, Sir Charles,’ she informed him haughtily and enjoyed the frustration in his eyes.
‘Mrs Lavender has arrived, Miss Roxanne,’ Mereson intoned from the doorway, which called an abrupt halt to their argument and made it annoyingly plain she’d already listened to him and found herself a chaperone.
‘Stella!’ Roxanne gasped and ran out into the hall to welcome her visitor, genuinely pleased to see her, but also glad Stella’s arrival gave her the excuse to ignore the wretched man for a few precious moments. Her letter asking Tom Varleigh’s sister to lend her countenance, if she could tolerate the task, had met with a very ready response, considering it must have got to Varleigh only hours before Stella set out.
‘Oh, Roxanne, how lovely to see you again, and if you’re quite sure I won’t be in the way, I’d really love to stay,’ Mrs Stella Lavender greeted her.
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