Huddling deeper in her cloak, Rachel remembered how her little brother had slowly eaten the thin gruel she’d given him at suppertime the night before. He’d left the table with a smile on his face, but she knew that smile lied, as did her own. They were both hungry, and she couldn’t, wouldn’t, let Geordie go without. She was all he had.
At last she reached the drive that wound up to the earl’s imposing home. As she let herself through the tall, wrought iron gate, she wondered how she would be received. For all his taunts, the earl had not been happy at their last meeting. But that was before, when she’d still had some confidence and a great deal of pride. Since then, the unionizers had turned on her and stripped her of both. Now she was desperate—and desperation was an unkind bedfellow to pride.
When she sounded the brass knocker, Linley opened the door. She told him she had something of importance to discuss with the earl and, this time, she wasn’t treated unkindly. He asked only if he could take her cloak. When she refused, he bowed before showing her into the same drawing room she’d seen before.
“It will be just a moment,” he told her and disappeared.
Rachel faced the well-stoked fire in an attempt to absorb its heat. But when she heard the door open behind her, her fingers were every bit as cold as when she’d just arrived.
It was the earl. She could sense his presence even before she turned to see who it was. No servant could cause her stomach to flutter the way it did now, or bring visions of intimacy that turned her knees to jelly.…
“Miss McTavish.”
Squaring her shoulders, Rachel turned. She had been determined to look Druridge in the eye, but somehow she couldn’t quite meet his probing gaze. “My lord.”
He paused as he reached the rug, studying her. “Are you ill?”
She shook her head.
His eyebrows drew together as though he didn’t quite believe her. Then he poked his head outside the room and ordered food and drink to be brought immediately.
Rachel nearly groaned aloud. She must look a sight to give her hunger away so easily. Shame caused her cheeks to burn despite the coldness in her limbs.
She turned back to the fire and stared at its orange flames, wishing, somehow, she were the log it consumed.
“Won’t you sit down?” Druridge asked, suddenly beside her.
With a stiff nod, Rachel took the seat closest to the fire, but she couldn’t keep her hands still. Her fingers plucked nervously at the fabric of her cloak as he sat opposite her.
“I am sorry to disturb you,” she began. “I—” As closed and hard as she had always assumed him to be, the look on his face was almost hopeful. It nearly caused her to falter from her course, but only until she remembered Geordie. “I came because I have something to tell you.”
“And I have something to tell you.” He cleared his throat. “I owe you an apology, for the other night. I don’t know what came over me. I am certainly not in the habit of paying for a woman’s favors. Neither do I typically seduce young virgins.”
“Perhaps it was an act of anger,” she said, unsure how to classify what, exactly, had happened to transform the two of them into such passionate, if temporary, lovers. “We… we have not exactly been the best of friends.”
“Is that what you think?” he asked softly. “That I was trying to hurt you?”
She closed her eyes against the memory of his gentleness. “No.”
“What I felt had nothing to do with anger, but I still owe you an apology, and perhaps an explanation—”
“Please, don’t,” she broke in. “It was Wythe’s fault. I provoked him. Let’s just forget it ever happened.”
His mouth quirked to one side. “A truly generous response. Won’t you at least allow me to make some sort of reparation?”
Reparation? How could he ever replace what he’d taken? She hoped he wasn’t going to offer her money again. This time she feared she might take it, grab Geordie and run far away from Creswell. Far away from the earl and the miners.
If only she could run from herself.
“I am not that kind of woman,” she said.
“I know.”
There was a knock. At the earl’s bidding, a servant Rachel didn’t recognize carried in a tray very similar to the one Mrs. Poulson had delivered before. Rachel’s gaze lingered on the clotted cream, scones, preserves and small sandwiches, but she didn’t want to eat anything, not with Geordie hungry at home. Besides, she couldn’t accept Druridge’s hospitality and then purposely mislead him.…
“Won’t you eat something?” he encouraged.
She forced her attention away from the tray, hoping he hadn’t noticed her preoccupation with it. “No, thank you. I-I’m fine.”
“You don’t look well.”
“I am.”
“You have lost weight.”
“I’m wearing a cloak. How can you possibly tell?”
“I can see it in your face.”
“I’ve been… busy, working.”
“Books are selling well, then?”
“Very well, yes. Business has never been better.” She forced a bright smile.
He nodded. “I am glad to hear that. Some tea, perhaps?”
This time Rachel didn’t refuse. Certainly there was nothing wrong with accepting something so minimal as a spot of tea. She took a sip of the warm brew and felt its bolstering effects within seconds.
“You have something to tell me,” the earl reminded her when she finished and set her cup on the tray.
For her father’s sake, even for the earl’s sake, she winced at what she was about to do. But the miners had won. Or maybe it was the hunger caused by their withdrawal from her life. Regardless, she tried to find some peace in knowing she wouldn’t tarnish her father’s reputation for nothing. What she was doing here at Blackmoor Hall should, as Elspeth and Mr. Cutberth said, help the labor movement.
“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “About the fire.”
“You know more than you have shared?”
Rachel took a deep breath and launched into the lie she’d prepared for him, the one about finding her mother’s diary and reading all about how her father set the blaze. She had thought about forging a diary and bringing it to him but hadn’t been willing to carry the lie quite that far.
He listened without interrupting, showing no emotion beyond the rigid set of his shoulders. Then he asked one simple question. “Are you familiar with Pieter Bruegel?”