Kasey Michaels - The Passion of an Angel

Rexford had, of course, cried off from the actual digging of the grave, citing his frail constitution, his propensity to sneeze when near straw, and his firm declaration that returning to the vicinity of MacAfee’s dirt bath would doubtless reduce him to another debilitating bout of intestinal distress.

That had left Banning, the coachman, Hatcher (who had been bribed into silence and compliance with a single gold piece), and—although he did his best to dissuade her—Miss Prudence MacAfee to act as both grave diggers and witnesses to Molly’s rather ignoble “roll” into the pit and subsequent interment.

Prudence hadn’t shed a single tear, nor spoken a single word, until the last shovelful of dirt had been tamped down, but worked quietly, and rather competently, side by side with the men. Only when Banning had been about to turn away, exhausted by his exertions and badly craving a private interlude with some soap and water, did she falter.

“I’m going to miss you so much, Molly,” he heard her whisper brokenly. “You were my only friend, after my brother. I’ll take good care of your baby, I promise, and I’ll tell him all about you. One day we’ll ride the fields together, and I’ll show him all our favorite places…and let him drink from that fresh stream you liked so well…and…and…oh, Molly, I love you!”

Banning was so affected by this simple speech, this acknowledgment that a horse had been Prudence’s only friend since her brother had died, that he forgot himself to the point of placing an avuncular, comforting arm around the young woman’s shoulders, murmuring, “There, there,” or some such drivel articulate men of the world such as he were invariably reduced to when presented with a weeping female.

The memory of the fact that this sympathetic gesture had earned him a swift punch in the stomach before Prudence ran off across the fields did nothing to improve Banning’s mood as he dressed himself in the clothes Rexford had laid out for him, pushed the chair to one side, and exited his chamber, intent on locating some sort of late supper and his ward, not necessarily in that order.

He walked down the hallway, past the faded, peeling wallpaper, skirting a small collection of pots sitting beneath a damp patch on the ceiling above them, and was just at the stairs when he espied a sliver of light beneath a door just to his left. Already knowing the location of MacAfee’s chamber, Banning deduced that his ward was secreted behind this particular door, probably plotting some way to make his life even more miserable than it was at this moment—if such a feat were actually possible, for the Marquess of Daventry was not a happy man.

His knock ignored, he impatiently counted to ten, then pushed open the door that lacked not only a lock, but a handle as well. He cautiously stepped into the room, on his guard against flying knickknacks, and espied Prudence MacAfee sitting, her back to him, at a small desk pushed up against the single window in the small chamber.

“Love notes from some local swain, I sincerely hope not?” he inquired as he approached the desk to see that she was reading a letter, a fairly thick stack of folded letters at her left elbow. “Freddie has visions of someday making you a spectacular, society-tweaking match with one of the finest families in England. But then, my sister was always one for dreaming.”

Prudence swiftly folded the single page she was reading and slipped it back inside the blue ribbon that held the rest of the letters. “Knocking is then not a part of proper social behavior, my lord?” she asked, turning to him with a sneer marring her rather lovely, golden features. “My late Grandmother MacAfee, who all but beat the social graces into my head until the day she died, would have most vigorously disagreed.”

“I did knock, Miss MacAfee,” he corrected her with a smile, then added, “but as my tutor’s teachings of etiquette did not extend to dealing with bad-tempered, rude termagants foisted upon one by conniving, opportunistic brothers, I then just pushed on, guided more by my inclinations than any notions of what is polite. Now, tell me, if you please. Does anyone in this household eat?”

Prudence opened the top drawer of the small writing desk and slid the packet of letters inside before turning back to Banning, a mischievous grin he had already learned to distrust lighting her features. “Grandfather eats nothing but goat’s milk pudding and mutton, my lord. If you are interested, I am sure Hatcher can serve you in the kitchens. As you may have noticed as you barged into the house, there is no longer any furniture in either the drawing or dining rooms. For myself, I have no appetite tonight, having just buried my horse.”

“You’re enjoying yourself immensely at my expense, aren’t you, Miss MacAfee?” Banning asked, not really needing her to answer. “Perhaps another visit from the redoubtable Miss Prentice is in order. She is most anxious to mount an inspection of your wardrobe before we depart for London in the morning.”

“Let her in here again and I’ll probably shoot her. Besides, I’m not going,” Prudence stated flatly, turning her back on him once more.

Resisting the impulse to grab hold of the young woman by her shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled, Banning retrained himself enough to utter through his own tightly clenched teeth, “Then, Miss MacAfee, may I presume we may number lying among your other vices? Or was I incorrect in assuming that when you gave me your word you would leave with me after Molly was settled, you were intending to keep true to that word?”

She jumped up from her chair, still most distressingly, disturbingly dressed in a man’s shirt and a patched pair of breeches that clung much too closely to her hips, and rounded on him in a fury.

“You ignorant jackanapes!” she exploded. “Do you really believe I would want to stay here? That anyone with more brains than a doorstop would want to stay here? My God, man, I detest the place! This damned pile is falling down around my ears, I haven’t a penny for repairs to either the house or the land, my grandfather is a mean, miserly, to-let-in-the-attic nincompoop who hasn’t bathed since the day I was able to lock him outside in the rain two years ago. He picks his teeth with a penknife, sleeps on a mattress stuffed with receipts from his deposits in London banks, saves the clippings from his fingers and toes for luck, and bays at full moons. My brother swore he’d get me out of here since the day we first arrived after our parents’ funeral—get us both out of here—and by damn, Daventry, I would have to be a candidate for Bedlam myself to refuse to go. But I can’t. Not yet.”

Banning sat himself down in the chair Prudence had just vacated, pressed his elbows onto the desktop while making a steeple of his fingers, and looked out over the run-down grounds of MacAfee Farm, giving out with an occasional self-depreciating, closemouthed chuckle as he considered all that his new ward had just said.

“It’s the foal, isn’t it, Angel?” he remarked at last, slowly swiveling on the chair to look up at Prudence, who was still standing close beside him, her fists jammed onto her hips, her wild tangle of honey-dark blond hair giving her the appearance of a lioness with her fur ruffled. “You won’t leave without Molly’s foal.”

“Well, you can think! And here I was beginning to believe you were slow, as well as arrogant and supercilious and domineering and—”

“Yes, yes,” Banning interrupted, “I believe we both know how you view me. But remember. I am also your brother’s choice of savior. Thinking back on that evening, I begin to see why he would have traveled to such lengths to insure your future. You and Henry might have been your grandfather’s only heirs, but the scoundrel might live for years and years yet, a prospect Henry—and in his place, I myself—could not look to with much forbearance.”