Part 8 (1/2)

Stanbridge cleared his throat. 'His late lords.h.i.+p professed himself uncaring about the state of the house, my lord. He refused to waste money, as he put it, on upkeep or even thorough cleaning and, with a skeleton staff, I regret...'

'I understand. But he lived here?'

'Most of the time, my lord. This is where he mainly, er, entertained.' The butler's face was so expressionless that he might as well have shouted his disapproval.

'Entertained? In this?' Ashe opened a door into what must once have been an elegant salon.

'His lords.h.i.+p's company was more concerned with drinking, hunting and the young female persons who were hired than with the amenities of the house, my lord.'

'So I see. Well, there is no way that my mother and sister are going to come and live in this.' The picture over the mantel was enough to make even Ashe, inured to erotic carving, raise his eyebrows.

'Quite so, my lord,' Perrott agreed. 'However, even the more objectionable items appear to be of some value and I could not undertake to dispose of them on my own initiative. I understand you have brought an expert to a.s.sess things?'

'Miss Hurst, who is coming on from the Dower House with Lady Charlotte. We will start work in the morning. Have bedchambers prepared for the ladies, Stanbridge.'

'Certainly, my lord. One of the footmen will attend you in the Garden Suite, the traditional rooms for the heir.' He regarded Lucifer through narrowed lids. 'I will have a large bird cage sent up, my lord. Dinner will be ready in an hour, if that is acceptable?'

Ashe climbed to the first floor, wondering if the best thing would be to set a match to the entire edifice. And yet... He paused on the landing and looked down the sweep of stairs, the proportions of the hallway. This was an elegant, well-made house that had been ravished and neglected. It could be saved, it could become a home if the ghosts that haunted it could be exorcised.

'I am glad I came and not my father,' Ashe said as Phyllida stood beside him in the hall the next morning and stared about her. 'He will have some concept of it as it should be.'

'It needs a platoon of scrubbing women, a good clear-out and a family living in it again and then it will be a lovely house,' she said stoutly, trying not to feel daunted by the gloom, the neglect and the clutter. 'Where shall we start?'

'Here and the drawing room, I thought-then it will at least appear more welcoming. Then the master suite and rooms for my sister. I should warn you, some of the artwork is of an indecent nature.'

'I will avert my gaze,' Phyllida said and Ashe smiled for the first time that morning. 'You will trust my judgement?' Three days to start to bring some order to this was a significant challenge. 'May I direct the staff to clean and move things?'

'I leave it entirely to you,' he a.s.sured her. 'Stanbridge, place everyone at Miss Hurst's disposal and hire additional cleaning women as she directs. She will doubtless need footmen to help her move things. I will go and inspect the stables.'

Three hours after breakfast the next morning Phyllida felt she was beginning to make progress. She had commandeered a long chamber as a sorting room, had directed the footmen to set up trestle tables and was dividing up items from the hall and drawing room into things which just required cleaning and which could then go back, things that seemed beyond repair, items of poor quality and, forming a dauntingly large section, items of some value, but in dubious taste or of an indecent nature.

The tapestries in the hall were fine Flemish work and were being lowered and rolled to go off for cleaning, maids were scouring the marble floors and was.h.i.+ng down the walls and she had found some unexceptional pictures to hang.

Phyllida pushed up the sleeves of her cambric morning gown and rummaged in one of the chests brought in from the hallway. It was a good thing, she decided, swiping dust from her nose with the back of one hand, that she had not come here hoping to seduce Ashe Herriard. Not only had she hardly seen him since yesterday, but she must look a complete fright with her hair wrapped up in a linen towel, a copious ap.r.o.n borrowed from Cook and dust everywhere.

A wrapped object proved to be a charming porcelain figure of a lady, caught in the middle of executing a dance step, her hand raised as though to take her partner's hand. 'And where are you, young man?' Phyllida muttered, delving again. 'There you are!' She emerged triumphant and unwrapped the male dancer, tipped him up and studied the base. 'Meissen. Lovely.'

She set them carefully on the table of items to keep and caught her own skirts up with one hand as she raised her other arm in imitation of the lady. 'Exquisite.'

'Indeed.' Fingers interlaced with hers and she found herself turned to face Ashe. 'Shall we dance?'

He was teasing her, of course. There was no need for her heart to pound or her cheeks to colour and no excuse at all for letting her fingers curl into his as he kept their hands raised in the graceful hold. 'A minuet? Sadly dated, I fear, my lord.'

'You forget, I am lamentably behind the times, Miss Hurst. It might be just the dance for me. Shall we try?' He turned her under his arm and she found herself toe to toe with him. A little panicky tug and her hand was free, only to find that allowed him to put both arms around her, drawing her close. 'There are other dances we could enjoy together,' Ashe suggested, his voice husky.

She could not breathe. There was no mistaking his intent. But was he asking her to be his mistress or simply to indulge in a liaison here for a few days? Either of those possibilities should have sent her fleeing from the room and yet, in the fleeting seconds before he bent his dark head and captured her lips, she could not feel outrage or fear or anything she should have experienced. Only desire. Desire mercifully untainted by fear or apprehension.

Phyllida closed her eyes as Ashe drew her close against him. It was not from modesty, but simply for the sheer pleasure of his hard body against hers, the strength of him, the male heat and scent, the deliciously contradictory sensations of safety and danger. Ashe's kiss on the quayside had fuelled arousing dreams, but that had been the merest caress, she realised as her lips parted under his and he took possession of her mouth. Then his attention had been half on the man who had made her so afraid, now he was focusing every iota of his formidable expertise on reducing her to quivering surrender.

Did he expect her to respond? She had no idea how to answer this onslaught, although her hands had curled instinctively around his neck, her lips had parted and her tongue seemed to be doing daringly wicked things without her conscious direction. He believes me to be a virgin, to be innocent, she rea.s.sured herself as she wondered dizzily if she was about to faint from lack of air, or simple l.u.s.t.

Ashe seemed to sense her weakness even as her legs began to give way. He broke the kiss and she opened her eyes to find herself still held in his arms. His heavy-lidded gaze studied her face. 'I thought I was not wrong,' he murmured.

Arrogant man. The thought flashed into her head as a deep indrawn breath steadied her. What had she been thinking of? This was madness. Delicious, exciting, infinitely tempting, but completely wrong. Besides, it could come to nothing. She liked Ashe, he took the trouble to kiss with finesse and consideration for her pleasure, but she could not pretend to herself that the delight would last were matters to go any further.

'You thought me a lightskirt?' she flashed at him. She would not back away. Phyllida stiffened her spine and her quaking knees and did her best to ignore the clamouring instinct to throw herself back into Ashe Herriard's embrace and find out if he could, after all, work magic and banish her memories and her nightmares.

'No. I thought you a pa.s.sionate woman it would be a pleasure to kiss and I judged you would respond if I did.' He was watching her like a man confronted by an unpredictable danger, calm but poised to evade both a slap on the cheek or a las.h.i.+ng from her tongue.

'And now what?' Phyllida demanded.

'We could do it again?' That wicked mouth was serious, but his eyes were filled with laughter.

'That is not what I meant! Am I to expect kisses whenever you find me alone-or do you have the intention of taking me to your bed, my lord?'

'My lord,' he echoed. 'Am I so in disgrace? Would you come to my bed if I asked you? It is what I hope.'

Chapter Ten.

Phyllida hesitated a betraying second too long. 'No! Of course I will not come to your bed!' Her hands were knotted in her ap.r.o.n and she made herself release it, smooth out the creases.

Ashe half-turned and moved to examine the Meissen figures as though to soothe her by putting a little distance between them. 'A pity. I am very attracted to you.'

His long fingers caressed down the bare arm of the dancing lady and Phyllida s.h.i.+vered as though they touched her own naked flesh.

'You told me you wanted to be friends,' she accused.

'I have always been friends with my lovers,' he countered.

'How pleasant for you! I am very conveniently here, am I not?' And I am a weak-willed woman who has been dreaming of the touch of your lips, the pressure of your hands, the hardness of your body and I am not sophisticated enough in these matters to hide that. 'And there are no other distractions to entertain you.'

'There are plenty of distractions, Phyllida. Not that any of them are very entertaining,' Ashe said wryly. 'But are you telling me that you feel nothing for me? That I am so far adrift in my reading of you?'

She moved round the packing case, glad of its bulk between them, and reached in for another wrapped object. 'I am a respectable woman, my lord.' Liar. 'I cannot afford to allow my feelings to dictate my actions.' The wrappings fell away to reveal a pot-pourri bowl. She set it down on the table too hard and the fragile pierced lid rattled like her nerves.

'Then you do have feelings for me?'

'Only the realisation that you kiss very well.' She wiped her hands on her ap.r.o.n and dug into the chest again. If she fled from the room, she would never have the nerve to return and the work steadied her hands. 'I expect you have had a great deal of practice. Or perhaps it is simply that I have had very little and you are actually quite mediocre at it.'

That surprised a chuckle of laughter from him. 'Should I be suffering from any excess of masculine conceit, you, Phyllida, are a most certain cure for it.'

She removed the paper from around a stack of delicate Worcester fruit plates, lips tight on a thoroughly unladylike retort. After an interval when he said nothing, made no move to touch her, she asked, 'You expect feelings in your liaisons, do you?' His face went very still. 'You charm your mistresses with talk of love, perhaps?' She had meant to be sarcastic, to show her scorn for his talk of feelings when all he wanted was to bed her, but the expressionless face was suddenly vulnerable. For a second she thought he flinched.

'Ashe? What did I say?' Phyllida realised she had blundered into something she did not understand.

'I no longer make that mistake,' he said tightly.