The Viscount’s Veiled Lady. Jenni Fletcher
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port of Sandsend, half a mile from the shore and accessible along a gorse-lined path from the beach.
She made her way along it, skirting around the perimeter of the village to join a dirt track on the other side. It was steeper than she’d expected and rutted with holes that made walking difficult, so that she was panting by the time she reached the edge of the Moors, where lush green fields gave way to brown heathland. Breathless, she stopped at a wooden gate, taking a few moments to admire the view. From this vantage point, she could see the sea spreading out like a shimmering turquoise carpet all the way to the horizon beyond. It was a beautiful position for any dwelling, even a ‘woebegone, old farmhouse’, though as she trudged on through the gate and around the side of a small woodland copse, she could see that it was anything but.
Far from dilapidated, it was clearly a working farm, a scene of well-organised chaos with giant bales of hay stacked along one side of a three-storey stone house and what looked like a newly built log store on the other. It was hardly deserted either. On the contrary, there seemed to be animals everywhere: pigs in a sty, goats and sheep in two separate pens, at least two dozen chickens and five lazy-looking cats roaming wild, not to mention a pair of horses peering out from over the top of a stable door.
Frances stopped in the centre of the yard and turned around slowly, searching for any sign of a human in the midst of so many animals, but there seemed to be no one, just a brown-and-white speckled dog sitting by the front door of the farmhouse, its head tipped to one side as if it were the one in charge. Judging by its short coat and piercing blue eyes, she guessed it was a sheepdog, though fortunately it seemed to be friendly as well.
She bent down to ruffle its ears, struck anew by the impropriety of her situation. She was an unmarried, unchaperoned, uninvited lady, trespassing on behalf of her widowed sister in order to persuade a single gentleman—a viscount, no less!—to accept a request that he’d already refused! Only Lydia would ask such a thing. Only Lydia would expect it to work!
But she was there now and she might as well get the whole mortifying scene over with. Lydia was more than capable of carrying out her threat and telling their parents about her fledgling business if she didn’t do what she wanted and her work was too important for her to risk that. She’d tell them about it herself eventually, once she’d earned enough to stand on her own two feet if necessary, but not yet. She had her own plans for the future and she’d reveal them when she was good and ready.
Bolstered by that conviction, she lifted her hand to the front door and knocked. There was no answer, though the door swung open on its hinges with a loud creak.
‘Lord Scorborough?’
She called out his name, but there was still no answer. No sound at all, in fact. Tentatively, she took a few steps inside and along a darkened hallway, poking her head around another door into what looked like the kitchen. That was empty, too, though there was a large iron kettle steaming on the range. Perplexed, she lifted her veil and pulled it back over her bonnet for a clearer view. Clearly somebody was nearby, but why weren’t they answering?
She felt a tremor of unease, resolving to go back outside to search the yard again, when she heard the click of a door opening further down the hallway. Quickly, she turned around, ready to explain her intrusion, only to find herself face to face with a complete stranger wearing nothing more than a pair of short, cotton under-drawers.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed aloud, sucking in a breath of panic as the stranger came to an abrupt halt, uttering a series of vividly descriptive expletives whose meanings she could only imagine. His legs and upper body were completely exposed so that, in the time it took for her to recover her wits, she had a close-up view of powerful calves, a muscular chest and arms that looked to be around the same circumference as her waist.
‘Oh!’ She wasn’t sure why she repeated the exclamation, only that it seemed appropriate as she dragged her gaze to his face. His rugged appearance was almost as alarming as his lack of apparel. Close-cropped hair and dark stubble gave him the look of a convict. Was he a convict? His colourful language certainly wasn’t that of a gentleman. She felt her palms break into a cold sweat, panic mounting as her heartbeat started to hammer erratically. The wrong farm! She must have come to the wrong farm, she realised, berating herself for the mistake in the split second before their eyes met and she spun on her heel and fled...
* * *
Arthur Amberton, the Fourteenth Viscount Scorborough, had just finished bathing. He’d just stepped out of his bathtub, rubbed himself down with a sheet and pulled on a pair of under-breeches as an afterthought—an impulse for which he was now extremely grateful. Since he didn’t keep servants and rarely had any visitors, he generally had no qualms about wandering around his own house completely naked, especially during the hot summer months, so that to find a black-clad woman standing in the corridor in front of him had come as an equal, and in his case somewhat uncanny, surprise to both of them.
She’d run away at the sight of him. Fled for dear life, more like... Which at least proved she wasn’t a ghost, though now he supposed he’d have to go after her. Much as he resented any intrusion into his privacy, he really ought to find out who she was and what she was doing there, not to mention apologise for his less-than-enthusiastic greeting. Her end of the corridor had been dark, casting her face into shadow, but judging by the style of her clothes she was a lady.
He mounted the stairs to his bedchamber three at a time and pulled on the shirt and trousers he’d laid out earlier. He was supposed to be dining with his brother and sister-in-law that evening, though he would have preferred going to bed early instead. Working ten acres of land on his own meant he was usually exhausted by late afternoon, but at least it meant he was mostly too tired to think.
Dinner at Amberton Castle, however, was a standing weekly appointment, a compromise he’d made to stop Violet from worrying about him. His tiny sister-in-law’s refusal to accept that he wasn’t unhappy or lonely was more than a little irritating. He wasn’t depressed, he didn’t want or need companionship, and he especially didn’t care for intruders.
He ran back down the stairs, jamming his boots on at the front door before charging out into the farmyard. He’d only been gone a couple of minutes, but already there was no sign of his mysterious visitor.
‘Some guard dog you are.’ He glared at Meg, his sheepdog-in-training, but she only wagged her tail enthusiastically. ‘Which way did she go?’
It was a rhetorical question, of course. There was only way she could have gone, back along the track that led to the village, unless she’d decided to take refuge in the pigsty. Quickly, he made his way towards the path, splashing his newly polished boots in the process, though he’d barely rounded the corner of the copse before he found her again, sitting in a muddy patch on the ground and clutching her leg.
‘Are you hurt?’
She seemed to leap halfway into the air at the sound of his voice, twisting her head away to fiddle with something at the front of her straw bonnet. He slowed his pace, not wanting to alarm her any further, though she kept her face averted as if she were too embarrassed to look at him. Oddly enough, there was something familiar about that bonnet.
‘I slipped on the mud.’ Her voice sounded muffled.
‘Farms have mud. You shouldn’t have run away.’
‘You shouldn’t have scared me, walking around half-naked!’
‘You ought to be glad it was only half.’ He glowered at the back of her head, her refusal to look at him only increasing his irritation. ‘And I don’t believe there’s a law against it in the privacy of your own home. Unlike trespassing, I might add.’
‘Well, you should answer your door when somebody knocks!’
‘For the record, I didn’t hear you knock and that doesn’t excuse you just walking in. It’s my house!’
She swung back towards him at that, her face obscured by a black veil that appeared to be pinned to the hair beneath her bonnet. Was that what she’d been fiddling with? He grunted with exasperation. For pity’s sake,