reached into the mud room and unhooked a coat. ‘Her last nanny always packed everything she needed.’ The criticism was unspoken, but it was scarcely veiled.
‘I didn’t have that luxury. I’m having to manage with what I was given. Pink taffeta and wellington boots it’s going to have to be.’
‘I suppose you could take a look in the old nursery,’ Susan said, relenting as she took a headscarf from her pinafore pocket. ‘You might find something of Miss Sally’s in there. It’s up the stairs, and…’ she thought for a moment ‘…five doors down.’
‘Thank you, Susan.’ She smiled. ‘I expect you’ll be ready for a bacon sandwich when you’ve sorted the hens. To go with your tea.’
The woman grinned. ‘Go on, then. If you insist. I’ll be about half an hour.’
Which gave her plenty of time to scout the ‘old nursery’.
She climbed the first flight of stairs and, as instructed, turned right through an arch and immediately found herself in a wide corridor, lit on one side by a series of windows that must have offered a fine view when it wasn’t obscured by ground-level cloud.
The polished floor was bisected by a Turkey runner and the inner wall furnished with antique chests and some fine pictures, serving to remind her that, despite her first impressions, this was a substantial house. Slightly shabby on the outside, maybe, but very much what had once been called a ‘gentleman’s residence’.
Shame about the gentleman in residence she thought, counting the doors until she came to the fifth. It was near the top of a fine flight of stairs. The premier position in the house and scarcely where she’d have expected to find the nursery, but she shrugged and, opening the door, walked in. Since it was early and the hill fog, still clinging close to the house, made the rooms dark, she reached for the light switch.
An ornate overhead light fitting sprang into life and she immediately realised that she’d been right. This wasn’t a nursery, but the master bedroom and furnished in high style by the ‘gentleman’ whose residence this had been some time back in the Regency. Elegant, expensive and with an impressive four-poster bed dominating the room.
She turned, her intention to immediately withdraw. And found herself face to face with Harry Talbot, standing in front of a chest of drawers, apparently looking for underwear.
Bad enough that she’d walked into his room without even knocking, but then there was the small fact that he’d just stepped out of the shower and was naked but for a towel slung carelessly about his hips.
As he spun to face her it lost its battle with gravity.
He made no move to retrieve it and, despite opening her mouth with every intention of apologising for having blundered into his room, she found herself quite unable to speak.
He was beautiful.
Lean to the bone, hard, sculptured, his was the kind of body artists loved for their life classes. Even his hair, thick and heavy, had sprung into thick curls down which droplets of water ran in a slow, sensuous trickle. She watched one fall onto his shoulder, run down his chest until it became part of him.
He represented the perfection of Michelangelo’s David.
Which made the scars lacerating his back, scars which he hadn’t moved quickly enough to hide from her, all the more terrible.
Without thinking, she reached out, as if to touch him, take the pain into her own body. Before her fingers made contact, he seized her wrist and in one swift, savage movement thrust her out of the room.
Then he said, ‘Stay there. Don’t move.’ He didn’t wait to see if she obeyed him, but shut the door in her face.
She didn’t need him to tell her to stay put.
While all her instincts were to run, hide, her legs were beyond movement. Her entire body was trembling and she covered her mouth with her hand as if to stop herself from screaming.
What had happened to him? The ridges of scar tissue where his flesh had been ripped and torn were like nothing she had ever seen. Nothing she ever wanted to see again.
She groaned and leaned against the door arch, almost falling in on him as he opened the door, this time wrapped in a thick towelling robe.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, catching her, holding her arms so tightly to keep her at a distance that his fingers dug into her flesh. She didn’t complain. She didn’t for one moment believe it was intentional.
She didn’t ask what he meant, either. She just nod-ded and he relaxed his grip sufficiently for her circulation to be restored. But he didn’t let go.
Maybe, she thought, close enough now to see that the beginnings of a beard disguised just how gaunt he looked—as if he hadn’t slept in a long time—he’s the one who needs a prop.
‘So what did you want that couldn’t wait? Has Sally been in touch?’
So cool. So matter-of-fact. So do-not-even-think-about-mentioning-what-you-saw. But for the painful pressure points in her arms, she might actually have been fooled.
‘No. It’s too early to call the agency…’ Then, be-cause he wasn’t interested in what she hadn’t done, just what the devil she was doing bursting into his room unannounced, she took a rather shaky breath and did her best to match his tone as she continued, ‘I wasn’t actually looking for you. I was looking for the old nursery. S-Susan said there might be something more suitable for Maisie to wear. Up the s-stairs, fifth door along, she said…’
As if it mattered what Susan had said. Or whether Maisie played in the stables wearing a party frock, as long as she was warm enough. She had to know…
‘Harry—’
‘She assumed you’d be coming up the front stairs,’ he said, cutting her off before she could ask the question. ‘It’s this way.’ And he walked her back down the corridor, his hand gripping her firmly beneath her elbow as if to stop her bolting, or fainting, or saying one word about what she’d seen. ‘Help yourself,’ he said, opening a door. Then turned abruptly and walked away.
‘Harry!’
He stopped at the entrance to his room, not looking at her. ‘Don’t ask,’ he warned.
For a moment neither of them moved, neither of them spoke. Then, apparently satisfied that he’d made his point, he stepped inside and closed the door.
CHAPTER SIX
MAISIE, having finally settled on pink taffeta, was not impressed with the alternatives Jacqui had found.
‘They smell,’ she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
‘Only because they haven’t been worn in a long time. I’m not asking you to put them on until they’ve been washed. I just want to make sure they fit.’
‘They won’t.’
‘Probably not,’ she agreed. ‘I think your mother must have been taller than you.’
‘No, she wasn’t. I’m exactly the same height as she was, she told me.’
Pride…so predictable.
‘Oh, well, these were hers, so that’s all right.’
‘Oh, please.’ Maisie, quickly recovering from her mistake, picked up a sweatshirt featuring a cartoon character and held it at arm’s length. ‘My mother wouldn’t ever have been seen dead wearing something like this.’
Having anticipated this reaction, Jacqui produced a photograph that she’d found pinned to a display board in the nursery. It was curling at the edges, very faded and had doubtless been pinned up because of the puppy a very young Selina Talbot was cuddling, rather than for any aesthetic reason.
Or maybe it was because, behind her, an older, taller, protective