Free Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Casebook of Barnaby Adair) by Stephanie Laurens Page B

laughed, a spontaneous sound of pleasure, and while he managed to maintain an expression of nonchalant ease, something in him stilled.
    When, after sharing a smile with the children, she shifted her gaze to him, he inclined his head, forcing himself to let his lips curve in gentle acknowledgment, making sure his lids and lashes veiled the leaping hunger in his eyes.

 
     
    Chapter
    3
     
    D ays passed, then weeks. A month after he arrived at the manor, Thomas sat in the library, his financial work for the day not yet commenced; his admiral’s chair swiveled so his back was to his desk, to the letters and news sheets waiting piled upon it, he stared broodingly out of the window.
    The impatience in his soul remained, yet, even now, he felt a measure of calm, the soothing influence of the simple pleasures he was exposed to every day. Each and every day that he spent at the manor, an accepted part of the small household.
    He wasn’t sure he was supposed to be enjoying himself quite so much. So . . . effortlessly.
    The man he once had been would have listened to his welling impatience, would have surrendered to it and found some way to press ahead; the man he’d once been would have had no hesitation in going forth and forcing the world to his bidding—forcing even Fate to his self-determined timetable.
    Yet the man he now was had learned something of humility, had accepted that he was not the person about whom his world revolved. His destiny would, without doubt, be low on Fate’s—or God’s—list of matters to be settled.
    She—or he—would get to him in due course.
    Patience. That, too, seemed to be a virtue he needed to acquire.
    Perhaps that was the lesson of this time.
    He weighed that conclusion; in some ways it was self-serving, yet he could see no viable argument against it. He had to wait for Fate’s summons, and Breage Manor, he was increasingly certain, was the place in which he was supposed to bide his time. Patching up the manor so Mrs. Sheridan and her children would be safe and secure once he left. Teaching Homer, and broadening Pippin’s horizons as well.
    And continuing his work as Thomas Glendower.
    Accepting that verdict, he pushed his chair around and refocused on the various documents piled in readiness. Picking up the letters, he sorted them, then drew out a ledger and plunged into the work. Into taking funds and legally expanding them, then using the proceeds to support those who couldn’t support themselves, the weak, the helpless, those most in need.
    In atonement for the sins of his previous life, he’d devoted himself to that task.
    And entirely unexpectedly had found a measure of balance, and of succor, and of guilt-free peace.
    T he following day rolled on much as those preceding it. Thomas spent his morning in the library analyzing the financial information culled from the previous day’s London news sheets and any communication from Drayton or any of his other sources, and reassessed and decided on any necessary adjustments to the numerous portfolios he managed, after which he wrote to Drayton with instructions to execute those decisions.
    But the investment world generally moved slowly; most days he had no letters to write.
    Today was one of those days. Satisfied with the current state of all his funds, he tidied his papers, then sat back in his admiral’s chair. After a moment of staring blankly at his desk, he swiveled the chair and stared, equally unseeing, out of the window.
    Freed from the rigors of analyzing investments, his mind, predictably, turned to the next most intriguing and most immediate puzzle—his housekeeper and her children.
    Mrs. Sheridan was far removed from the average housekeeper of a country manor, or a stately home, or even a London mansion. There was steel within her, and a directness and quickness of mind that did not sit well within any construct of servitude.
    Rose . Pippin had let fall that that was Mrs. Sheridan’s name. Both children usually