Kasey Michaels - The Passion of an Angel

“ACCORDING TO THE guidebook, and I dare to quote,” Banning told Prudence in a comically pompous tone some two hours later as she perched on a low pile of rubble, contemplating the ruin before her, “‘Cowdray House was erected in approximately 1530 by the Earl of Southampton.’”

“The earl wasn’t much of a housekeeper, was he?” Prudence asked facetiously as she pulled a length of sweet grass from between her teeth, looking up at the roofless structure, half its walls tumbled down, its windowpanes gone, the stone turrets that remained blackened and thick with moss.

They had already visited a stream and wriggled their toes in the water, had discovered a chariot and two white horses in a cloud formation, and she was feeling very much in charity with the world, and with the man who stood close by, reading to her from the guidebook he’d purchased at the inn. “Makes MacAfee Farm, although worlds smaller, seem almost comfortable.”

“Hush, Angel.” Banning scolded in his best imitation of a schoolmaster. “This is vastly educational and adds a modicum of moral tone to our outing. Let’s see, where was I? Oh yes, with the Earl of Southampton. Oh dear. It seems he left the picture in time for one Lord Montagu to take up residence. Lord Montagu? Isn’t he the fellow who drowned somewhere in Germany? Yes, yes, here it is. Montagu drowned only a week after Chowdray House mysteriously burned down in 1793. And all because of an ancient curse.”

“Rotten run of luck, I’d say,” Prudence put in, for she was not one to believe in curses, ancient or otherwise. “Go on, please. Are there ghosties and ghoulies here as well? Should I be making signs against the evil eye, or can we just spread out that blanket now and have our picnic? My belly’s thinking my throat’s been sliced.”

“Gowns, shoes, discovering a lotion that will remove the stain of manure from your fingernails, some ribbons for your hair—and intense lessons in speech and deportment,” Banning said pleasantly, sitting down beside her. “Freddie will certainly be able to keep herself busy. I can’t decide if I am the best or worst of brothers to have discovered for her such a challenging project.”

“Oh stubble it, Daventry,” Prudence groused good-humoredly, then hopped down from her perch, as the marquess was suddenly entirely too close for her comfort. Why couldn’t she keep thinking of him as her guardian, instead of seeing him as a man? “Tell me more about the curse while I unpack the basket.”

She kept her back to him while she worked, painfully aware of his proximity, and the fact that the two of them were distinctly isolated here among the ruins.

What was the matter with her? She couldn’t care less about the man, who was older than God, even if his face gave the lie to his silvered hair. Perhaps he dyed it? No. That was a ridiculous notion. Who would purposely dye more than half their hair a bright, glistening white, leaving the back of it still deeply black, with only a few silver threads layering the top of it, like sweet cream icing dribbling down over the sides of a dark plum pudding?

And would he stop staring at her? She could feel his eyes boring into her back, so that she deliberately sat down on her haunches, aware for the first time that her breeches fit her nearly like a second skin.

“Daventry?” she prompted when the only sound she could hear was the buzzing of some nearby bees. “If you’re still reading, your lips have stopped moving. You were going to tell me more about the curse.”

“Hum? Oh! Oh yes. The curse. Well, it says here that the curse was put upon the family by a monk.”

Prudence swiveled around to look up at him, her hands deep in the basket as she went about unearthing the roasted chicken the marquess had promised her she would find there. “That doesn’t seem very Christian.”

“Neither does Henry VIII’s edict dissolving the monasteries, but that’s what it says here. It seems the monk, who was driven out of Battle Abbey, was ejected quite personally by the first owner of Cowdray House. Obviously the monk wasn’t about to simply forgive the man and turn the other cheek. It took a few centuries, but the curse finally worked.”

“Well, I think that’s stupid,” Prudence declared, un-daintily but effectively ripping the legs off the roasted chicken and placing one on each of the two plates she had spread on the blanket. “More than two hundred years passed between the laying on of the curse and the destruction of this place. That would be the same as blaming the discovery of the American continent for the war that eventually severed the colonists’ ties with England.”

“Logic, from an infant. Angel, I am impressed.” Daventry came to join her on the blanket, kneeling beside her—too close beside her, for she could once again smell the cologne he wore, its scent tickling her nose and doing something extraordinarily strange to her insides.

“Have a chicken leg,” she ordered, picking up his plate and nearly jamming it against his nose. Damn her short-sighted brother! Didn’t he know he’d picked her a rutting old man for a guardian? And how could he have forgotten that she was no longer a child, but a woman, a woman who had seen precious little of handsome, charming men? Why couldn’t her brother have given her over to Wellington or some sympathetic peeress? But no. He had to pick the Marquess of Daventry. A worldly, witty, at times bitingly sarcastic, yards too self-assured man with entirely too-intriguing green eyes and a boyish smile that turned her knees to water…

First he shows up almost nine months too late to be of any help at all, and now he makes noises like he can barely abide me half the time, while he is not only being nice to me but is also near to drooling over me the other half of the time. Let him buy me gowns? Oh yes. But first I want a night rail—one that covers my toes and buttons all the way to my ears!

“Shall I continue to read as we eat?” Banning asked, removing himself and his plate to the far side of the blanket, his expression telling her that he was questioning why he had knelt down beside her in the first place. “I could tell you about the sadly mutilated carving of the arms of King Henry—who actually visited on this spot in 1538—that is still visible above the entrance arch of the hall porch. Or perhaps we could do as is advised on this page, and stroll down to Benbow Pond after our meal—there, to the east, along that footpath—and indulge in partaking of the delightful views visible across the valley of the Rother.”

“I’d rother not, thank you,” Prudence told him cheekily, pleased to see that he, too, was disconcerted by the events of the past few minutes—if she wasn’t totally overreacting to what she believed to be his very unguardian-like behavior. “I’d much prefer to sit here and listen to you tell me how long it will be before we reach London. Lightning is in no danger now that your man has found a mare to feed him, so I figure on three or four days and nights on the road, as the poor little thing still can’t be confined to the wagon for too many hours a day.”

“That’s about right, three days and two nights. We’ll pass the nights in Milford and Epsom, and arrive at Freddie’s by nightfall of the third day. It will be a slow progress, but we’ll get there eventually.”

“Each mile that takes me farther from MacAfee Farm is cause for rejoicing. Goodness, I’m thirsty!” She was feeling slightly more in control of herself now that the marquess was not so close, but watching him eat, delighting in gnawing at the chicken leg as if he were a schoolboy on holiday, was not making her attempts at general conversation easier.

Banning set down the chicken leg, wiped his greasy fingers on a linen serviette, and reached inside the basket for the bottle of wine she had seen there, nestled beside a small jug of lemonade she supposed he expected her to drink. She watched him struggle to uncork the bottle, then she quickly held out both glasses, daring him to deny her what he was taking for himself.