The Secret Life Of Lady Gabriella

‘You can read?’ she enquired.

Ellie, rapidly tiring of his attitude, had aimed for polite incredulity. She’d clearly hit the bullseye—with the incredulity, if not the politeness—and as he turned his blue eyes on her she rapidly rethought the colour range.

Steel. Slate…

‘If someone helps me with the long words,’ he assured her, after the longest pause during which her knee, the good one, buckled slightly.

Then, realising what he’d said, it occurred to her that, despite all evidence to the contrary, he possessed a sense of humour, and she waited for the follow-up smile, fully prepared to forgive him and return it with interest, given the slightest encouragement. She wasn’t a woman to hold a grudge.

‘But I only bother if there’s some point to the exercise.’

No smile.

He patted his top pocket. ‘Did you notice what happened to my glasses?’he asked, handing her the book.

Ellie was sorely tempted to use it to biff him up the other side of his head, tell him to find his own damn glasses and leave him to it. But she liked living in this house. Actually, no. She loved living in this house. Especially when the owner was a long way away, out of the country, doing whatever it was that philologists did on research assignments.

There was something special about buffing up the oak handrail on banisters that had been polished by generations of hands. Cleaning a butler’s sink installed not as part of some trendy restoration project but when the house was new, wondering about all the poor women who’d stood in the same spot, up to their elbows in washing soda for a few shillings a week. Sleeping in the little round tower that some upwardly mobile Victorian merchant with delusions of grandeur had added to lend his house a touch of the stately homes.

What a pity Dr Faulkner hadn’t stayed wherever he’d been. Because, while his sister had been totally happy with the mutual benefits the arrangement offered, it was obvious that he was not exactly thrilled to be lumbered with a health hazard living under his feet. Or falling on top of him.

Maybe—please—he was on a flying visit. Here today, gone tomorrow.

Maybe—more likely—he wasn’t, and since the deal had been done on a handshake she didn’t have a contract, or a lease, or anything other than Adele’s word to save her from being thrown onto the street at a moment’s notice.

Belatedly, she held her tongue. And because it was easier—and probably wiser—than attempting to stare him down, she looked around for his glasses, spotting them beneath a library table stacked with academic journals.

They were the kind of ultra-modern spectacles that had no frame, just a few rivets through the lenses to hold them together, and as she scooped them up they fell to bits in her hand.

CHAPTER TWO

BENEDICT FAULKNER said nothing, but instead opened a drawer, extracted an identical pair and tossed them onto his desk.

Were broad shoulders and blue eyes enough? Ellie wondered. Could a man be a true hero if he didn’t possess a sense of humour?

It didn’t look good but, prepared to be fair—Emily B was not, after all, everyone’s cup of tea—she dropped the remains of his spectacles into her apron pocket and, bending over backwards to give him the benefit of the doubt, said, ‘I realize that Emily Bront? is not everyone’s cup of tea.’

‘Heathcliff,’he assured her, confirming this, ‘is psychotic, and Catherine Earnshaw is dimmer than a low energy lightbulb.’

A little harsh, she thought. But, rather than argue with him, she said, ‘But the passion? What about the passion?’

‘He’s psychotically passionate and she’s passionately dim?’ he offered.

Realising that this was a conversation going nowhere, she didn’t bother to answer but turned her attention to the book itself, and in a belated attempt to prove herself a trustworthy and useful addition to his household said, ‘This is a fine early edition, Dr Faulkner. It could be quite valuable.’

He glanced up at the shelf she was supposed to have been dusting, then shrugged.

‘It probably belonged to my great-grandmother.’ He offered no hint as to whether he thought that would make it a treasured possession, or thought as little of his great-grandmother’s taste as he did of hers. ‘The one who ran away with a penniless poet.’

It was odd. While he kept saying things that were certainly meant to crush her, Ellie found herself not only not crushed, but positively stimulated.

‘Like Elizabeth Barrett?’ she enquired. After all, if his great-grandmother had run away from a comfortable home, she’d probably had very good reason. A husband who didn’t have sense of humour, perhaps?

‘Was Robert Browning penniless?’

‘Would it have mattered?’

‘What do you think?’

Oh. Right. He was a cynic.

‘I think that, judging by the depth of dust up there, your great-grandmother was probably the last person to take a duster to the top shelf.’

To prove her point, she opened the book and then banged it shut, producing a small cloud of the stuff. The choking fit was not intentional, but it did go a long way to proving her point.

Dr Faulkner made no move to ease her plight—none of that back-slapping, or rushing for a glass of water nonsense for him. On the contrary, he kept a safe distance, waiting until she’d recovered, before he picked up the duster she’d dropped as she’d vainly sought to save herself and offered it to her.

Ellie used it to give the leather binding a careful wipe.

‘Books,’ she assured him, having clearly demonstrated the necessity, ‘should be dusted at least once a year.’

‘Oh? Is that what you were doing?’

Did his face warm just a little? Not with anything as definite as a smile, but surely there was the slightest shifting of the facial muscles?

‘Dusting?’ he added.

No, not warmth. Just sarcasm. He was a sarcastic cynic.

Without a sense of humour.

Fortunately, before she could say something guaranteed to leave her with a huge empty space where the roof over her head was meant to be, the clock on the mantelpiece began to chime the half-hour, and, genuinely surprised, she exclaimed, ‘Good grief! Is that right?’ She looked at her own wristwatch and saw that it was it fact ten minutes slow. ‘I lose all sense of time when I’m dusting a good book.’

‘Perhaps you should save your energies for something less distracting?’

‘No, it’s okay. I’m prepared to suffer,’ she assured him, wheeling the steps back into place. She didn’t actually feel much like climbing them, but she’d have to do it sooner or later, and it was a bit like falling off a horse—best to get straight back on. Or so she’d heard. ‘I hate to leave a job half done.’

‘Very commendable, but I’d be grateful if you’d save it for another day. I have calls to make.’

Ellie ignored him. She wasn’t about to scuttle off like one of his students put in her place. She’d been there, done that—although not, admittedly, with any lecturer who looked like Benedict Faulkner—and got the degree to prove it. Instead she concentrated on finishing what she’d started.

‘Are you going to be much longer, Miss March?’ he asked, as she worked her way along the shelf.

And that was a way of keeping his distance, too. Whoever called anyone under the age of fifty ‘Miss’ any more? Although, given the choice, she preferred it to ‘madam’.

‘My name is Gabriella,’ she reminded him. Her way of keeping her distance. All her friends, employers, called her Ellie. Gabriella was a special occasion name. Gabriella March was going to look very special embossed in gold on the cover of her first book. Then, having descended the ladder—this time in the conventional manner, one step at a time—she added, ‘And it’s Mrs. Mrs Gabriella March.’

He removed his spectacles and turned to face her. Now she had his attention. ‘Mrs? There are two of you?’