Deborah Hale - A Gentleman Of Substance

The overseer looked genuinely shocked. “Can’t think who’d be spreading malicious lies like that, your lordship. High Head colliery is as safe as any in Britain.”

No great boast, Drake mused. He’d heard of atrocities in the Welsh mines that made his hair stand on end. “If it’s all the same to you, Mr. Crook, I’ll judge that for myself.”

“As you wish, your lordship. Always at your service.”

To his surprise, Drake found little fault with the operation. Some of the equipment was not in top repair, but otherwise he was fairly well pleased at the end of his tour. The morose silence of the miners made him uneasy, though. They went about their work listlessly, almost tentatively, as though used to getting away with doing as little as possible. Perhaps Janus Crook was right about the people of High Head after all.

Late in the afternoon, following a brief inspection of the accounts, Drake took his leave, promising to return for a more thorough scrutiny later in the week. He rode back to Nicholthwait, preoccupied with plans for putting High Head on a more profitable footing. Remembering his intention not to return to Silverthorne for dinner, he stopped to eat at a small inn outside Eastmere.

As he ate, Drake contemplated his mistake in marrying Lucy Rushton. Alienating his servants, clinging to the detestable Phyllipa, angling for an excursion to London-she was no longer the sweet, unspoiled creature he’d once thought her. Perhaps she never had been. With a shudder of distaste, Drake ordered another tankard of ale.

What he resented most was the mysterious, potent power she exerted over him. Though he’d tried to shut her out during the past weeks, Lucy drew his eyes at every opportunity, intruded upon his private thoughts, and boldly invaded his dreams. How dare she hold his body and his emotions in such thrall, when she obviously held his most cherished ideals in contempt!

Darkness had fallen by the time Drake reached Nicholthwait. He rode silently through the village, aware of hearth light shining through chinks in the window shutters, hearing snippets of talk and laughter. Thinking of what awaited him back at Silverthorne manor, his hackles raised in a chill of aversion.

Absently drawing the brush through her unbound hair, Lucy sat by her bedroom window watching the well-lit drive for some sign of her husband’s return. After pondering her choices all day, she had finally come to a decision. She would take her trip to London, like a dose of castor oil—unpleasant, but necessary to purge Lady Phyllipa from Silverthorne.

Ever since dinner she had been nerving herself to broach the subject with Drake. The wait for his return from High Head was becoming intolerable. Just as Lucy was beginning to fear the brush had rubbed her scalp raw, she caught a glimpse of a tall erect figure riding up the drive. As Drake passed beneath her window, illuminated by the bright lamps of the main entry, she saw his mouth grimly set Somehow he looked weary, too. And sad. Perhaps a few weeks’ diversion in London would be just the tonic for him. An opportunity to forget about business and indulge in a little enjoyment for a change.

As she waited by her chamber door, held open a crack, listening for the sound of Drake’s brisk step, Lucy rehearsed her speech. Her nerves had worked themselves up to a tense pitch by the time she finally heard him approaching.

“Your lordship…” She swung the door wide to block his path, but affected mild surprise at seeing him. “I am pleased to see you home at last. I was hoping to have a word with you.”

He said nothing, but swept her with a scornful glance. Lucy wondered if she had neglected something in her evening toilette.

“Will you…that is…won’t you come in?”

She stepped back into the room and Drake followed her just past the threshold. He drew the door closed behind him, but not tightly enough to latch.

“Do I take it this is an official invitation into your bedchamber, madam?” he asked coolly. “To what do I owe this unexpected honor?”

His tone stung Lucy like gust of cold wind. Just once she wanted to put him on the defensive. “I thought it wise, your lordship. I fear your servants might grow suspicious of an infant bred from a single act.”

“I have your word that my brother got you with child on his first try.”

Lucy flinched as though he had struck her.

“Was there anything else you required of me, your ladyship?”

She grasped for one of her rehearsed speeches, but her mind was suddenly a blank. “London,” she blurted out. “It would do us both a power of good to make the journey to London.”

A spark of antagonism blazed in the depths of Drake’s dark eyes. “London again?” he growled. “I grow tired of hearing about your longing for London. I have urgent business that keeps me here. Let me hear no more talk of London.”

“So, it is true. You are too ashamed of your wife to introduce her in society.”

Drake’s lip curled in disdain. “You can quit this pity mongering, woman. I assure you my heart is quite impervious.”

His words and his manner fanned a month’s worth of smoldering resentment in Lucy. It flared into a blistering blaze. “If you have a heart, Drake Strickland, I do not doubt it is impervious to any tender emotion.” She trembled in an effort to contain the power of her rage. “I don’t care if you are ashamed of me. I am who I am, and I will not change—least of all for you.”

“When have I ever asked you to change?” In response to the heat of her anger, Drake became colder and more restrained. His voice sounded menacingly quiet, his words clipped and precise.

There he stood, as hard and uncaring as an effigy of cold black marble. It goaded Lucy beyond bearing that he should provoke her to such a pitch of turbulent rage, while remaining so aloof and impregnable himself. She longed to throw herself at him, pounding on his chest, battering him into some answering flicker of feeling.

“You needn’t condescend to ask.” Her voice sounded ragged and breathless. “You have others to issue your edicts. Besides, your lordship underestimates what he can convey with a haughty look. I know just what you would mold me into.”

“If you are so aware of my displeasure, I wonder that you made no effort to win my approval.” All that displeasure and more was etched plainly on his arrogant features.

“No effort!” Lucy fairly shrieked. “You have no idea of the effort I have made, without receiving the least sign of encouragement or appreciation from you.”

Drake’s black brows knit in a frown of cold vexation. He folded his arms across his chest. “If you think I mean to encourage your recent behavior, madam, you are mistaken.”

Years of ingrained propriety fell before Lucy’s consuming anger. “Then to hell with you! I don’t care twopence what you think of me.” She snapped her fingers beneath his nose.

His hand shot up, gripping her wrist in a hold that brought tears of pain and rage to her eyes. “Remember your promise, my dear,” he urged her in a grating whisper. “You vowed to treat me with the respect and honor due a husband.”

A thrill of victory blossomed momentarily in Lucy’s heart. As he crushed her arm in his forceful hold, she could feel the answering waves of wrath pulse through Drake. His nostrils flared as his breath came fast and shallow. He wanted to toss her over his knee and thrash her within an inch of her life, and she had the satisfaction of knowing it. She’d lured him out of the fastness of his granite citadel into open combat.

“For a time, I thought I might have been mistaken about your character, Viscount Silverthorne.” She willed her voice not to break. “Now I see I was right in the first place.”