Chapter One
“You’reCollins?”
Miss Edwina Collins clasped her hands before her and took in the imposing gentleman behind the desk. “I am, Lord Bascomb.”
She brushed away a strand of her hair stuck to her cheek. The smells of her traveling clothes, wet wool, and dirt filled her nostrils. Mud clung to the hem of her skirts. The trip to this remote estate a stone’s throw away from the Scottish border had not been achieved without some difficulty. She was not at her best.
“The Collins I hired to serve as my secretary?” A snort. “You are supposed to be male.”
Under normal circumstances, when she didn’t look like a bedraggled rat, Edwina’s usual rigid politeness would come to the forefront and serve her well in dealing with Lord Bascomb. She’d known him less than an hour and already found him to be the rudest human being she’d ever encountered.
“As you can see, I am not. Nonetheless, you extended an offer of employment and I accepted,” she said in a tart, no-nonsense tone.
Bascomb had massive shoulders. Big hands. Edwina supposed if he had bothered to stand when she entered the study, he would tower over her by at least a foot or more. He narrowed his eyes at her, an arresting combination of grayish green, the same hue as the lichen-strewn boulders bordering the hole-ridden road up from Portsmith where the coach had dropped her. She’d counted the immense boulders on the journey while clinging to the edge of the pony cart as it labored up the hill to Rose Abbey.
“And your cousin is the Earl of Southwell?” Bascomb possessed a rather wicked-looking scar, which neatly divided the left side of his face. The puckered flesh snaked from the corner of his eye down to the edge of his lip.
His very full bottom lip. Oddly sensual for such a boorish man.
What a thing to notice at the moment, Edwina.
“Lord Southwell is indeed my cousin.”
Edwina wasn’t about to add that South had written the recommendation for his spinster cousin under duress. Or that he was now halfway to Egypt with his new bride and unavailable to answer any more of Lord Bascomb’s irritating questions. All she’d asked of South was that the recommendation make no mention of her sex so that she might secure a position based on her abilities. She may also have asked him to accidentally omit the ‘a’ after her name, which had given Bascomb the impression she was Edwin and not Edwina. A small mistake that may have continued throughout her correspondence with Bascomb. It was no one’s fault really.
“I’m happy to know the truth was not stretched on that pertinent fact,” he growled from behind the desk. “But I seem to recall the recommendation was forEdwinCollins.”
Bascomb, or any gentleman, was unlikely to hire a woman. The salary he offered was far more than what a lady’s companion or governess could earn, two positions Edwina was not remotely suitable for. She was, however, quite capable at ledgers, correspondence, and organization.
“I cannot speak for Lord Southwell, but mistakes happen. I’m sure it was merely an oversight.”
“Which you allowed to continue.”
Edwina cleared her throat. Really, wouldn’t it be polite if Bascomb asked her to sit instead of continuing to allow her to stand before him with mud dripping off her skirts? “My skills are exemplary, my lord.”
“You’ve wasted your time in coming here, Collins,” Bascomb snarled, sounding very much like the grumpy, elderly curmudgeon Edwina had pictured him to be. During their short correspondence, she had the impression he was an older gentleman. Gray-haired, of course. Perhaps slightly addled. Bascomb admitted to her in his letters that he’d had enormous trouble keeping a secretary. She’d wrongly assumed his failure in keeping the position filled was due to the remote location of Rose Abbey.
Now Edwina had a suspicion the cause was Bascomb’s personality. Or lack thereof.
“You don’t seem to be in a position to be picky,” she replied. “Or have you another candidate?”
A second growl came from Bascomb. His eyes traveled over her bedraggled form dressed in the damp wool, frowning as a small clod of dirt fell with a plop from the edge of her hem.
“And I’mhere.” Edwina bristled under his assessment. “Ready to take on the task of organizing your affairs.”
“Prickly, aren’t you, Collins?” There was just the tiniest glint of amusement in those unusual eyes.
“It has been a long journey.” Edwina had been jostled across half of England for two full days. Trapped with strangers in a coach, none of whom believed in the most basic principles of hygiene. She’d gasped for air at every stop. She was tired. Hungry. Dirty. And she hadn’t come all this way to have Bascomb turn her out without at least giving her a chance to prove herself.
“I should send you back to Portsmith so you can return you from whence you came. Outside London somewhere, I assume.” Bascomb waved a large hand.
Edwina looked out the window as thunder rattled the ancient panes of glass, and waited. She stretched her fingers, bruised from clutching the seat of the pony cart. “Hampshire,” she answered. Bascomb knew perfectly well where she’d traveled from. He’d sent her the money for the journey here.
Bascomb shrugged his pair of mountainous shoulders as if Hampshire and the environs of London were one and the same. The green-gray gaze flicked over her, settling somewhere in the region of her bosom, before returning to her face.
A small sensation of heat curled down the length of Edwina’s body. A wholly unexpected reaction and one that made her unsure if she’d done the right thing in coming to Rose Abbey.
Rose Abbey—once a haven for a group of Benedictine nuns, when convents and monasteries dotted England—was a dark, imposing place. The estate lay at the very end of a long road, all uphill, through woods so dense little sunlight filtered through the trees. Midway up the rise of the hill, Edwina had thought night had fallen. Her first sight of Rose Abbey had not reassured her.
