Highwayman Husband. Helen Dickson
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black smudge that was there into a long streak.
The room, with ghostly shapes of furniture spread with dust covers, was wanly lit by the faint October light. With her hands on her hips she paused in the centre and looked about her. Bookshelves lined the walls and a handsome, heavily carved desk made in the reign of the Stuarts stood near the window. Picking up a small carving of a horse from its surface, she studied it. Even to her inexperienced eye she could see it wasn’t a particularly fine piece of craftsmanship, but it had been lovingly carved by someone.
Still holding the carving, she moved towards the stone fireplace, recalling the first time she had wandered through these rooms. How captivated she had been by the many aspects of the manor, and the many fine objects and personal effects of Lucas’s forebears that it housed. A portrait of a woman hung above the mantel, and the resemblance she bore to Lucas was unmistakable. The lady was his mother.
Suddenly, feeling a presence and that someone’s eyes were boring holes into her back, she turned. Her heart gave a leap of surprise and a certain excitement. Lucas was standing in the open doorway, one shoulder resting negligently against the door frame and his arms folded across his chest, casually watching her, still and patient, staring at her with a brooding, sombre gaze. Dressed for the outdoors, from the jacket to the high, trim boots he wore, with his unruly locks of raven-black hair tumbling wildly over his forehead, he looked impossibly handsome, she thought, feeling her heart quicken at the sight.
‘Good heavens! You almost scared the wits out of me!’ she exclaimed, experiencing a rush of emotions, among them pleasure and surprise, wondering how he had managed to appear without being seen or heard, there being no stairway to the upper storey and no outside door in this part of the house. A tingling that she could not explain crept up her spine. ‘Have you got unnatural powers that you can appear unobserved? John said you were out.’
‘Why,’ he said, relinquishing his stance in the doorway and approaching her slowly, his eyes sweeping over her dishevelled, rather soiled appearance, and her shining hair that was escaping the confines of its pins, ‘were you looking for me?’
‘No. I was curious, that was all,’ she said. He seemed extraordinarily tall as he came nearer. He paused within reach and stood looking down at her, his eyes on her face. He was studying her with those strongly marked eyebrows slightly raised. His clear gaze was penetrating, and Laura felt uncomfortable beneath it.
‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he said, ‘nor did I expect to find my wife looking as if she’d just crept out of a dustbin.’
Vaguely irritated by the intensity of his inspection, Laura glanced down at her soiled apron. ‘I suppose I do look a sight, don’t I?’
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, casting a casual glance about the room.
‘These rooms have hardly been touched in two years, and I thought that now you’re back you might want them reopening.’
‘Why close them in the first place? Did you take exception to cleaning them?’
Stung by what she mistakenly took to be a reprimand, Laura bristled. ‘Not at all. Why not close them? I didn’t need them. The house is enormous, and with just myself living here it hardly seemed worth keeping servants to clean empty rooms. Every now and then I see to it that a superficial cleaning is done, and fires lit during winter months to keep them aired.’
With a look that betrayed a mild degree of amusement he nodded. ‘Since when did ladies of the manor start doing menial chores themselves? We are not exactly in the position where we’re too poor to employ extra servants.’
‘I know, but I’m not above or averse to doing housework—or scrubbing floors, even, if I have to. Do you want these rooms reopened?’
‘Yes, but from what I’ve seen, you’re going to have your work cut out. Are you sure you’re up to the challenge?’ Lucas asked, but she seemed so eager, and her smile so disarming, that he really believed she was looking forward to the task. He noticed the carving of the horse she held and reached out to take it from her. His long, lean fingers traced its lines. ‘This was a keepsake of my mother’s,’ he murmured distantly. ‘When her horse died, my father carved its likeness and gave it to her one Christmas.’
‘It—it’s beautiful. Your father must have been extremely talented,’ Laura remarked generously.
‘No, he wasn’t,’ Lucas countered. ‘You’re being too kind. He would be the first to tell you that he was no craftsman. It’s a poor likeness, but Mother loved it.’
After placing the carving on the mantel beneath the portrait he turned, folding his hands behind his back and looking thoughtfully about the room with deceptively lazy eyes.
‘This is one room in particular I would like to make use of. It was my father’s study. We spent many an hour discussing matters that were of import at the time—issues from as far afield as India and America, to what was happening here at Roslyn. Sometimes Mother would be seated by the fire, quietly occupied with her sewing—listening.’
‘Why did you go away?’ Laura found herself asking, for it puzzled her, when he had so much here in Cornwall, why he would want to leave it.
Lucas shrugged absently. ‘That is a question I have asked myself countless times during my imprisonment. My parents didn’t want me to leave Roslyn, but they didn’t try to dissuade me, either. I was young and restless, with a sense of adventure and a yearning to see foreign places. I wanted more than what Cornwall had to offer, so I went to work for the government. I suddenly found myself surrounded by intrigue—danger. It appealed to me. But in the end I always knew I would come back to what I know and understand. My father knew it, too. Roslyn is my home—my life,’ he finished quietly, as if speaking his private thoughts aloud.
Uncertain of his mood, and with a sense that he had momentarily forgotten she was there, Laura remained still, watching him.
After a moment Lucas’s gaze came to rest on her once more. A shaft of light slanting through the window fell on her small proud head with its crown of shining curls. With her delicate hands clasped in front of her, her dark eyes were watching him intently, causing something to stir within his heart.
She was completely female, not just feminine but womanly, lovely, and she also had the softest, most inviting mouth he had ever seen. There was a vulnerability about her, a sweet, wild essence that still belonged to the girl he had married, and he remembered how these qualities had appealed to him as much then as they did now. Despite the unpleasant circumstances which had led to their marriage, he had felt proud to have her at his side on their wedding day.
Unconsciously she reached up a hand to brush away a wisp of hair, and the movement of her arm lifted the rounded fullness of her young breast. Lucas’s eyes narrowed in appreciation and he felt his blood run warm in his veins and the heat of it move to his belly.
He didn’t understand why Laura had such a volatile effect on him, but he understood that he wanted her, wanted her soft and willing in his arms. He tried to tell himself that this growing fascination with his wife was merely lust caused by two long years of abstinence, but he knew it was more than lust that held him enthralled.
Shoving his hands into his pockets, he moved closer to where she stood and looked down at her. His expression was grave and serious, at the same time inquiring. ‘Do you enjoy your life at the manor, Laura?’ he asked unexpectedly. ‘A young woman—alone in this great house without company?’
‘I—I have John and his wife.’
‘They’re good, loyal people, I grant you, but they are servants.’
‘Their position has nothing to do with it. I have become extremely fond of them both, and class them as my friends.’
‘Do you not long for the gaieties of city life?’ he asked, watching her closely. ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you had chosen to seek the social whirl. Do you regret not doing so?’
‘Do I look regretful? I don’t long for any kind of social whirl,’