Free Drake's Lair by Dawn Thompson

It should be a mutually advantageous venture.”
    “I beg your pardon, is this to your satisfaction, my lord?” Mills interrupted, nodding toward the parchment he’d drafted.
    Drake glanced over it carefully. “Yes, Mr. Mills. It will do quite admirably,” he said. “When you get back to Truro, look up the deed at the registry office. When I post you the signed contract, you may make the necessary arrangements to have it registered in my name, and the original filed with my other accounts. Under the circumstances, I prefer that it not be kept at Drake’s Lair. You may send on any documents that require my signature, however.”
    “Of course, my lord,” Mills replied. “I will send you confirmation immediately after the transfer.”
    “Will you gentlemen be staying to dinner?” Drake inquired. “The storm seems to be getting worse instead of better. Perhaps you ought to stay the night. You’re more than welcome, and rooms are prepared. I took the liberty.”
    “Is Mr. Ellery returning, my lord?” Bradshaw asked him.
    “I expected him before this, actually. Why?”
    “In that case, I believe it’s best that we take out leave, my lord,” said Bradshaw. “I cannot speak for Elias here, but, while I admire your ability to cloak your emotions, I do not possess such a talent. I could not sit at table with your steward, I’m afraid, without betraying my true feelings. It is best, I think, that we press on.”
    “Best, indeed,” Mills put in. “I’m hardly skilled at play acting. We shall leave at once.”
    “As you wish, gentlemen,” Drake responded. “I trust I can count upon your confidentiality? Much depends upon it.”
    *
    Melly sat curled up on the window seat of her sitting room, gazing absently toward the storm through the mullioned panes. Her apartments overlooked the sculptured gardens and rolling green at the rear of the estate, and the dovecote, which had blown over in the gale.
    It was nearly dark, and difficult to see below her. The rain, sheeting on the windowpanes, distorted the view when the lightning streaked across the rolling green and let her glimpse it. She was preoccupied. While her eyes were fixed on the row of young rowan trees bent to the ground by the wind, and flower heads and petals strewn like confetti over the neatly scythed lawn, her mind was on the bargain she had just struck with the Earl of Shelldrake.
    She hadn’t gone down to nuncheon, but she would have to appear at the dinner hour. It wasn’t fair to inconvenience the servants in the understaffed household by making them carry food up three flights, when she was perfectly capable of descending to the dining hall. And she was wrestling with that decision when Mrs. Laity knocked and entered laden down with hemmed frocks.
    “‘Tis only half, but it’ll do you ‘till we can take up the rest,” she said, waddling through to the dressing room, where she hung them neatly in the armoire.
    “I wish you wouldn’t bother with the rest,” Melly said, as the housekeeper joined her. “I don’t wish to wear the countess’s things. I know his lordship offered them, but it must be painful for him… seeing them again on someone else, and I know it’s awkward for me.”
    “Pshaw! Men never notice women’s frocks, Miss Melly… I mean, m’lady.”
    “Oh, please, you needn’t be so formal with me, Mrs. Laity. I’m still the same ‘Miss Melly’ I have always been, and always will be to you. It’s been so long since anyone has called me ‘my lady’ I can’t even remember.”
    “Well… only in private then, miss,” the housekeeper conceded. “It wouldn’t be proper otherwise. And don’t you worry about the frocks. His lordship wouldn’t have offered unless he wanted you to have them. He’d have done you up in one of the maid’s rigs otherwise. Have you decided what you’re going to do?”
    “It’s been decided for me,” Melly said emptily. “I’ve consented to sell the land to his lordship. I had no