Free Helen Dickson by Highwayman Husband Page B

small carving of a horse from its surface, she studied it. Even to her inexperienced eye she could see it wasn’t a particularly fine piece of craftsmanship, but it had been lovingly carved by someone.
    Still holding the carving, she moved towards the stone fireplace, recalling the first time she had wandered through these rooms. How captivated she had been by the many aspects of the manor, and the many fine objects and personal effects of Lucas’s forebears that it housed. A portrait of a woman hung above the mantel, and the resemblance she bore to Lucas was unmistakable. The lady was his mother.
    Suddenly, feeling a presence and that someone’s eyes were boring holes into her back, she turned. Her heart gave a leap of surprise and a certain excitement. Lucas was standing in the open doorway, one shoulder resting negligently against the door frame and his arms folded across his chest, casually watching her, still and patient, staring at her with a brooding, sombre gaze. Dressed for the outdoors, from the jacket to the high, trim boots he wore, with his unruly locks of raven-black hair tumbling wildly over hisforehead, he looked impossibly handsome, she thought, feeling her heart quicken at the sight.
    ‘Good heavens! You almost scared the wits out of me!’ she exclaimed, experiencing a rush of emotions, among them pleasure and surprise, wondering how he had managed to appear without being seen or heard, there being no stairway to the upper storey and no outside door in this part of the house. A tingling that she could not explain crept up her spine. ‘Have you got unnatural powers that you can appear unobserved? John said you were out.’
    ‘Why,’ he said, relinquishing his stance in the doorway and approaching her slowly, his eyes sweeping over her dishevelled, rather soiled appearance, and her shining hair that was escaping the confines of its pins, ‘were you looking for me?’
    ‘No. I was curious, that was all,’ she said. He seemed extraordinarily tall as he came nearer. He paused within reach and stood looking down at her, his eyes on her face. He was studying her with those strongly marked eyebrows slightly raised. His clear gaze was penetrating, and Laura felt uncomfortable beneath it.
    ‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he said, ‘nor did I expect to find my wife looking as if she’d just crept out of a dustbin.’
    Vaguely irritated by the intensity of his inspection, Laura glanced down at her soiled apron. ‘I suppose I do look a sight, don’t I?’
    ‘What are you doing?’ he asked, casting a casual glance about the room.
    ‘These rooms have hardly been touched in two years, and I thought that now you’re back you might want them reopening.’
    ‘Why close them in the first place? Did you take exception to cleaning them?’
    Stung by what she mistakenly took to be a reprimand, Laura bristled. ‘Not at all. Why not close them? I didn’tneed them. The house is enormous, and with just myself living here it hardly seemed worth keeping servants to clean empty rooms. Every now and then I see to it that a superficial cleaning is done, and fires lit during winter months to keep them aired.’
    With a look that betrayed a mild degree of amusement he nodded. ‘Since when did ladies of the manor start doing menial chores themselves? We are not exactly in the position where we’re too poor to employ extra servants.’
    ‘I know, but I’m not above or averse to doing housework—or scrubbing floors, even, if I have to. Do you want these rooms reopened?’
    ‘Yes, but from what I’ve seen, you’re going to have your work cut out. Are you sure you’re up to the challenge?’ Lucas asked, but she seemed so eager, and her smile so disarming, that he really believed she was looking forward to the task. He noticed the carving of the horse she held and reached out to take it from her. His long, lean fingers traced its lines. ‘This was a keepsake of my mother’s,’ he murmured distantly. ‘When