but she employed a water-dripping-on-stone approach to attaining her ends.
‘No, it ceased to be my home over a decade ago, or longer before that, when Grandfather forced our father to break the entail and disowned him for wanting to be a doctor. Let’s not rehash this. I have no intention of mending my ways, as you so quaintly phrase it. I like my ways and they like me. Since I have no intention of ever spawning heirs, the Hall would be wasted on me anyway. Our Hibernian cousins are welcome to the Hall and all things Rothwell. I have to go, Cat. I have some pressing affairs to see to.’
She tilted her head as they approached the stables where his gelding waited.
‘You’re probably wise not to linger with everyone feeling poorly. You wouldn’t want to fall ill.’
‘That’s not why and you know it!’
‘Nicky was feverish last night and woke up with a headache. I’m worried she might also have caught the infection. She begged me to let her see you in Keynsham before you disappear again, but I cannot risk her leaving her bed while she is so poorly.’
‘Blast you, Cat. Very well, I will see her quickly, but I’m not staying. I don’t know why you even stay here after what that old witch put us through.’
‘To be fair, it was mostly Grandfather. Yes, I know you can’t stand it when I defend her and she is a horrid old harpy sometimes, but Nicky actually cares for her and I have her future to think of; I cannot afford to be cut out of the will like you, Alan. It is my responsibility to make my peace with her for Nicky’s sake.’
‘I can provide for you. I have enough to leave you and Nicky comfortable when someone finally puts a bullet through me.’
Cat wrinkled her nose.
‘All from that mill you won gambling.’
He laughed.
‘How the devil is my sister such a prude? My money is quite the same colour as Jezebel’s, believe me.’
‘Even so, who’s to say you might not marry, and then where will Nicky be?’
‘Let’s just say there’s more likelihood of my forgiving Jezebel than of my willingly entering a state of matrimony, Cat.’
‘Oh, good.’
He sighed.
‘I surrender. Come, I will sit with Nicky for a while and then I must leave. But we are entering by the back door.’
* * *
The sight that confronted them when Cat opened the door to Nicky’s bedroom was not entirely that of a sickroom. Nicky was indeed in her bed, propped up against a mountain of pillows, her dark brown hair down about her shoulders and a glass with a viscous liquid on a tray by the bed, but she was laughing and she wasn’t the only occupant of the bed.
‘That’s just silly—’ Nicky stopped when Cat and Alan entered the room, crying out joyously, ‘Uncle Alan, you came!’
Alan directed a wary look at Miss Wallace, who was leaning against the headboard with her feet tucked under her and a book in her lap. He walked around the other side of the bed and bent to kiss his niece on the forehead.
‘Of course I came. Not that there seems to be much wrong with you, pumpkin.’
‘My head feels like I’m wearing a bonnet three sizes too small and I can hardly hold up my book and I had a fever last night and Lily says fevers often worsen in the evening. Are you staying? Please say you are.’
Lily. The name was far too whimsical and delicate for the spoilt heiress who had addressed his harridan of a grandmother so impudently. He sat on the bed and took his niece’s hand, wondering why the heiress was still sitting there. Anyone with the least manners would have removed herself. She didn’t even make way for Cat. Clearly she was used to the world arranging itself to suit her rather than the other way around. He focused his attention on Nicky.
‘I can’t stay, Nicky.’
‘Because of Grandmama? If I ask her, she might let you. Shall I ask her?’
‘You saw me last month when I came by your school.’
‘That was last month. Just for a little while? You must hear this story. It’s called The Mysteries of Udolpho and it is even funnier than The Romance of the Forest.’
‘I didn’t realise Mrs Radcliffe wrote comedies.’
‘Well, they aren’t really, but Lily makes them so. Especially the swooning and the groaning.’
Alan raised his brows and turned to the heiress. Any normal, proper young woman would have been off the bed and out the room like a scalded cat the moment he entered; instead she was curled up like a kitten against the pillows, her fingers tracing the gilded lettering on the leather-bound book, and her honey-brown eyes warm with laughter. The presence of his niece in the bed as well should have made her look less like a very expensive mistress holding court in her boudoir, but his unruly imagination compensated. His mind had already pulled the pins and ribbons from her glossy hair and set it tumbling over her shoulders, cleared the room of his sister and niece, and significantly enlarged the bed. Now he was left to imagine what she might look like under the fine powder-blue sprigged muslin, if the sleek lines of her figure were spare or carried some pliant padding waiting to be warmed, softened.
Cat’s assessment came back to him—unshakeable. It was a sad trait of his that he hadn’t yet met a cage he didn’t want to rattle and right now the thought of shaking this pert heiress out of her amused condescension was adding fuel to an undeniable physical curiosity. He caught her gaze with his.
‘Groaning? Is it that kind of novel?’
If he had expected to finally shock her, the shimmer of laughter in her honey-gold eyes at his suggestive question sent that hope to grass. Here was the same gleam of mischief in her eyes he had glimpsed in Albert’s library and it had the same impact on his hunting instincts. He reined them in reluctantly. This was a game without a prize.
‘I don’t know what novels you are wont to read, Lord Ravenscar, but in this book the groaning and creaking is confined to the castles,’ she answered, and her voice, at least, was prim.
‘Still, hardly suitable reading material for a girl of twelve, don’t you think?’
‘Oh, but everyone reads her novels at school, Uncle Alan,’ Nicky interjected. ‘There’s even a girl who swoons when we read them at night.’
‘I think it is a very healthy sign that a twelve-year-old finds such novels amusing,’ the heiress added.
‘Are you speaking from experience, Miss Wallace? Were you also a voracious novel reader as a schoolgirl, then? That might explain it.’
‘Explain what?’ Nicky asked.
‘I think your uncle is referring to my flair for dramatics, Nicky.’
‘I would amend that to histrionics.’
‘Would you? I believe I was rather calm in the face of a ransacked library and an intruder with a punishing left hook.’
‘If being calm is brandishing a mace at a stranger, then, yes, you qualify. Besides, you didn’t know about my boxing prowess until your burly protector arrived.’
‘That is true. I dare say you would have thought better of me had I shrieked and swooned like a heroine from a novel. Would that have gratified your male pride and preconceptions of proper female behaviour?’
‘It would have certainly been less tiring. Conversing with you is like going ten rounds with Belcher.’
‘Alan,’ Cat admonished, but without much conviction.
‘Who is Belcher?’ Nicky giggled.
‘Belcher is someone who would have given your uncle the black eye he deserves, Nicky.’ Lily laughed and again he found himself wondering