“I promise I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
She nodded. He’d misunderstood. She didn’t doubt his sincerity. She had every faith he’d leave in the morning. He had the look of a man who was ready to get on with his life. To sort out his new estate and get back to St. Petersburg. Marrying the “right sort of girl” along the way.
“Are you expecting the Bloody Abbot to come again?” she asked quietly. She didn’t want the children to hear.
He shrugged. “I dare not risk it.”
“It’s my home,” she reminded him. “You don’t have to stay and protect me. I’ll manage. I always do.”
“I’m your landlord,” he countered. “Your safety is my responsibility.”
It wasn’t true, but if he wanted to pretend, Maddy didn’t mind. Truth to tell, she was glad he was staying another night. There was so much more she wanted to know about him before he left forever. She was under no illusions about neighborly popping in and such in the future.
Even if he did come to Whitethorn Manor, she wouldn’t be living here. She’d be at Fyfield Hall.
“You don’t mind another night on the floor?” She needed to make it clear that was all she was offering.
She might wonder, and wish, and maybe even dream about having a last night together in her bed, but she couldn’t bring herself to offer.
If he tried to seduce her . . . well, she’d face that then, see if there was any resistance in her. She doubted it. What virtue mattered now?
Maddy had promised the children a story before bed, but instead, Mr. Renfrew ended up telling them about some of the places he’d visited: St. Petersburg, Venice, Zindaria, Vienna, where the waltz had been invented.
He told them of traveling in a coach without wheels, zigzagging across great, frozen lakes, feeling the ice shift beneath them. He told a story about a journey through a still, dark, snow-covered forest, with a pack of wolves baying at their heels, of wild Cossacks who rode like the veriest daredevils and danced squatting down and leaping up with whoops and shouts, of peasant women who wore as many as sixteen skirts, one on top of another—Maddy wondered dryly how he’d learned that last little fact.
They were all enthralled; it was like another world.
Itwasanother world. His world.
At bedtime the children said their good nights with somber little faces. They knew he was leaving. Lucy, of course, wanted Mr. Rider—she refused to use his real name—to carry her up to bed, but Maddy vetoed it, saying his leg was too sore, but really, she knew it would just stretch things out.
She stayed with the children until they drifted off to sleep.
By the time she came down, he’d banked the fire for the night, placed the screen in front of it, and was stretched out in the makeshift bed in front of the hearth.
That was one question answered. There’d be no need to battle with her conscience and resist seduction tonight. It was probably just as well.
Probably.
She bathed quickly in the scullery, changed into her nightgown, and wrapped a warm shawl around her. She set her candle on the table and blew it out. The wick was still smoking by the time she was in bed.
She lay on her side with the curtains open, watching the glow of the fire and the silhouette of the man who lay before it. Despite the long day and the disturbed previous night, she wasn’t the slightest bit sleepy.
Outside the wind soughed through the branches of the trees, reminding her of when she was a little girl listening to the wind, imagining she was on a boat at sea.
“Will you sail from England direct to St. Petersburg?” She spoke softly in case he was asleep.
“Yes. It’ll be summer when I return. In winter it’s a different story. The Baltic Sea is often locked with ice.”
Some coals fell in the fire, sending a twirl of sparks up the chimney. The rain beat steadily down.
“I’ve been thinking about the rent,” she said after a while.
He shifted, turning on his side to face her. “I suspect Harris has been fiddling the books for some time. I’ll wager he planned to grab what he could and disappear before anyone found him out. He didn’t expect me until the summer.”
Maddy pondered that. There was more to it, she was sure. “He was quite taken aback when I produced the note you gave me. He didn’t expect me to pay. I think that’s what made him so angry.”
“That you paid?”
