One Night To Be Sinful Page 2

  "It's all right, Margot." Abby saw the other woman's bright eyebrows lift in question and quickly shook her head.

  "Sorry, miss." She whispered, though the younger woman doubted Harold Lloyd could have heard if she shouted. "You'll find someone."

  Abby smiled in return until the study door fell closed. She took a deep breath, filling her cheeks like a chipmunk, and then let the sigh escape her in time with the sinking of her heart. Over her neatly penned descriptions of the men who had applied for the butler position she made a large X.

  Tuttleton had been like a grandfather to her, and his only requirement before taking the position in her home had been that he would be able to bring his son to live with him. She found it hard to believe, however, that the loyalty and work ethic she had appreciated in him had been a creation of her love for the man. She hated to think that when her unfailingly polite butler had left this world to find his place in heaven, he had taken with him the last of the loyal and hardworking men.

  It was not difficult to believe, however, given her recent interviews for the position he had left vacant. She didn't expect anyone to talk to as she had been able to do so easily with Tuttleton, didn't expect anyone to fill her heart as he had. But was it too much to hope for an employee who didn't offer lewd glances or steal one's silver?

  Abby sat back in her chair, reaching absently to rub at her leg through the material of her plumcolored gown and wondering how Margot would fare at controlling more than just the dusting and linens, when the woman again appeared. She popped her head around the small opening she had made at the door to peer at Abby. There was a peculiar glint to her eye.

  "Were you expecting another gent to apply for the position today, miss?"

  "No." Abby frowned. "Why?"

  "Because there is one here." Margot stepped aside and let the door swing completely open.

  Abby did a quick survey of the man who almost filled the doorway, eyes widening as they moved back to Margot. The other woman shrugged.

  "My apologies," the stranger said and stepped into the room. "I know I come unannounced. I thought perhaps you would be so kind as to take a moment for an interview."

  Margot shrugged again, and Abby slowly let her attention move back to the man. She had a feeling she and her maid had shared the thought: This is a butler?

  The man was the youngest yet to apply for the position. Which didn't exactly say much, being that the youngest before him might have walked with the dinosaurs.

  His hair was dark as a starless night, the skin across his broad forehead and cheeks taut and colored from the sun. He was lithe, but his shoulders filled his worn brown coat to the point the seams strained. His fingers were long, their nails clean and clipped. In one hand he held the hat he must have doffed upon entering her home.

  "You are Lady Wolcott, are you not?" ... ... . . . . . . . . .

  Abby blinked and prayed she hadn't been silent for as long as she thought. "Yes. I am Abigail Wolcott."

  "My name is Calvin Garrett." The man crossed the space between the door and Abby's desk in three long strides. He held out a hand, and when Abby tentatively offered hers, he took it in his and bowed.

  Over the straight line of Calvin Garrett's back, Abby saw Margot's cheeks sink inward with her smile. She stepped back into the hall and let the door close.

  Abby did not rise and, for the first time since beginning her interviews, felt ill-mannered because of it.

  "Please, have a seat, Mr. Garrett," she said as he straightened. She watched as he folded himself into the chair she had set before her desk earlier. She thought, in the time it took for him to find his seat, he did his own survey of her.

  His eyes were blue, not like the sky, but the ocean at sunset. Abby felt slightly self-conscious of the tendrils of hair that had lost their place in her chignon and now fell down at her neck and temples. Not unlike an applicant that had come before him, Calvin Garrett's gaze drifted across the front of her bodice, but for only a heartbeat. Just long enough for Abby to register none of the lewdness that wafted off the other applicant like cologne.

  She wondered where the man had heard about her position. Abby had made some inquiries of a placement agency in Town, but they sent her the names of the men they were sending to her for an interview. She was positive she would have remembered this name.

  "Lord Wolcott directed me here."

  Abby winced as if the man had physically poked in her mind before registering his words. "Thomas?"

  Garrett reached into his coat and produced a folded piece of foolscap. "Yes. He gave me a reference.

  "Oh?" Abby unfolded the letter and found the almost-illegible male script warmly familiar.

  Abby,

  Forgive me for interfering in your search for a suitable butler to replace your last. It just so happened that Mr. Garrett, who has been under my employ for the past year, has decided he wishes to leave 'T'own. I thought you might be able to give him a position there.

  Garrett has always proved a trustworthy and tireless worker. He tends to seem a bit arrogant, but is a decent man at heart. I would not have directed him there did I think anything less.

  Thomas

  Abby's gaze lifted from the letter. Garrett met her eye evenly, but she wouldn't call his look arrogant.

  "Have you ever overseen an estate before, Mr. Garrett?"

  "Yes."

  Abby waited and, when he did not go into detail, mentally found the list of inquiries she had made for her applicants. "Can you safely maneuver a carriage or like conveyance on stone as well as dirt paths?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you have any objection to having a female overseeing your work?"

  It took him a moment, Garrett holding her stare the entire time before answering, "I have never had a woman oversee my work before." Abby thought she saw his right eye twitch slightly. "I should think not."

  "Can you lift large amounts of weight?" Though it hadn't occurred when she had asked the question of prior applicants, Abby began to feel uncomfortable. "Say, ten stones?"

  "Yes," he returned rather thoughtfully, his gaze taking on a questioning gleam.

  "So, sir." Abby felt her neck and cheeks warm. "If need be, you could bear the weight of a fullgrown woman like myself?"

  His gaze flashed over her again. Though she was only visible from the waist up, Abby felt like she was being inspected from head to toe. There was a slight curl to Garrett's mouth when he replied, "Easily. "

  Abby cleared her throat and lifted her chin. "Do you have any objections to answering doors?"

  "No."

  "Helping in the stables if need be?"

  "No."

  "Going up and down the stairs several times in one day?"

  "No."

  "Helping the house staff'-it sounded more impressive than simply saying Margot-"with rudimentary cleaning if need be?"

  There was that brief eye twitch again. "No."

  "Well, then," Abby said, because she had run out of questions. She looked down at the list of nearriffraff on her desk. Her eyes moved to the creased letter from her brother in London, then back up to Garrett. He was quietly, patiently, watching her.

  "I suppose that is all there is, Mr. Garrett. " She folded her hands together atop her now-unnecessary list. "The butler position is yours, if you'll have it."

  Now Garrett blinked at her as if surprised. He quickly recovered to nod.

  "I'll just have Margot-"

  "Yes?" The door swung open the moment Abby said her name.

  She gazed at the woman knowingly. "Please show Mr. Garrett the room that is to be his." Abby turned back to the man now rising. "Feel free to collect your things and tidy up any loose ends that may need it. I'd appreciate it if you could be back by the end of the week."

  "I have my things." Garrett looked down at her. "In the hall by the door. I can begin now."

  "Oh?" Abby nodded. "Oh. Well, then, Margot will just show you your room. I'll let you settle in and be by directly to give you a brief
tour before it gets too dark. I hope you are comfortable here, Mr. Garrett."

  "I'm sure I will be, madam." In his tone, Abby was vaguely reminded of a term her brother had used for the man in his reference. He halted at the door, glanced back over one broad shoulder. "And it's Calvin."

  Abby lifted her brows at the closed door.

  Chapter 3

  Calvin had decided, upon agreeing to his best friend's plot, that he would not even attempt to imagine the conditions he would be forced to endure. Despite his efforts not to do so, however, two grim ideas had forged their way into his thoughts. The second had been his certainty that he would be in a small square room with low ceilings, cold floors, and a cot for a bed, perhaps located in the lower floor of the house or in the stables.

  The bedchamber to which the maid with the painfully orange hair led him was large, almost as much so as that in his home in London. There was a large rug directly before the door with a fulllength settee and two leather chairs. Calvin deposited the single valise he had brought in one of the latter as he moved across the room.

  The chamber was fully illuminated with afternoon sunlight from two open windows, but several lanterns and a hearth in the wall insured he would have an equal amount of light at sunset. There was a writing table in one corner, and in the opposite angle a ceramic washbasin and water pitcher. A bed covered with a well-worn but distinctly inviting coverlet took up a good deal of the room. Across from it was a table laden with decanters. Calvin went to the table, removed the heavy stopper from one of the crystal decanters, and inhaled.

  When the knock sounded from the bedchamber door, he quickly assumed the maid, Margot, had returned to rectify her mistake of putting a butler in a room filled with niceties and liquors no servant could afford.

  The maid was, in fact, there in the hall when he opened the door. She looked up at him, her smile neither sheepish nor apologetic. "Abby-" She shook her head, pale face turning pink. "Lady Wolcott will show you around now."

  Calvin stepped past Margot and directly to his right, where the carpeted stairs reached the second floor of the house. From here he could see down the stairs and the silhouette of Abigail Wolcott as she tugged a wide-brimmed bonnet over her hair. In his mind, Calvin replayed his first encounter with Thomas's sister and silently conceded that he had been incorrect in not only his second preconceived notion concerning his stay at the country estate. His first had been Lady Abigail-Abby to her maid-Wolcott.

  It only stood to reason that, after the description offered by the woman's brother, she would be old ... or at least older. There was no gray in her hair, as Calvin had fully expected, not even hints at the temples or brow. The vaguely shimmering stuff was dark with the faintest touch of red. The peachcolored skin of her face was unlined and, whereas Thomas's face was a mosaic of freckles, only a few scattered across the bridge of his sister's nose and the tops of her cheeks. Her eyes were unusual compared to those of her brother and sister, Jeanette. While her siblings had pale green eyes, hers came from the opposite end of the color spectrum. An interesting shade of bay, they gleamed with intelligence and genuine congeniality.

  As he neared her, moving silently down the staircase, Calvin also noted that she did not dress like he had anticipated. The idea of a lonely spinster brought to mind dark gowns of black and gray. Abigail's gown was white with a plum print. The coat she had donned, for what he suspected to be a tour of the grounds, was the palest of violets. Calvin also observed, as his boot heel hit the last step, that both the gown and the coat were cut shorter than most. He could clearly see the laces of her walking boots.

  He blinked then, when he caught the gleam of steel wrapped about one.

  "Have you seen Harry?" Abigail asked absently, not looking up from her gloves.

  "Who is Harry?" Calvin returned and immediately realized the woman had not expected him so quickly.

  She jerked, a slight jump that would have affected her little was she not precariously balanced on that bit of metal wrapped around her right boot and disappearing up under her skirts. Abigail's head shot upward, eyes wide with surprise then horrified understanding as she tipped backward. She tried to catch herself on her good leg, frantically reaching for something that had been set in the shadows against the hall table. The wooden forearm crutch clattered to the floor at the same time her left leg gave out under the sudden weight put upon it.

  She gasped, but before she toppled to the floor, Calvin reached for her.

  He caught her elbow in one hand, crushing the soft material of her coat in his grip, and put another steadying arm around her back. Under the pressure of his forearm, Abigail's weight shifted forward and she fell into the wall of his chest. There was something about the soft press of her breasts against him that further corrupted his idea of a matronly old spinster.

  Even as Calvin was trying to steady her back on her feet, Abigail had grasped the edge of the hall table for extra support.

  "Excuse me," she said quickly. She was not looking at him, but fixed her gaze on the crutch lying on the floor. In the shadows of the hall, Calvin still caught the slightly upward tilt of her chin.

  Calvin knelt, his gaze inadvertently moving to the heavy metal bracketing her ankle, and reached for the crutch.

  "I thought you were Margot." Abigail accepted the crutch the moment it was offered, slipping her arm into the wooden cup and wrapping her fingers about the grip.

  "I didn't know," he said almost to himself. Not responding to Abby's comment, but speaking of a different matter entirely.

  Abigail's gaze slowly lifted to meet his. She was standing so close, her breath fanned his neck. Calvin felt a curious stirring inside him.

  "I am not an invalid, Mr. Garrett."

  Her barely audible words brushed his skin like a caress, and Calvin had to struggle beyond the feeling of every hair on his scalp lifting to register her words. His brows drew slowly together as he watched her take a step backward. He ignored the desire to again cross the space between them as he met her russet gaze. Void of the warmth it had maintained even when he arrived unannounced on her doorstep, it was filled with determination and more than a hint of defensiveness.

  "It has been two months since Tuttleton passed on. There was nothing I could not attend to. Margot, Cook, and I managed fine." Her tone implied they could easily manage fine again.

  "I am certain you did, Lady Abigail," Calvin said, for lack of a better reply. He wasn't certain what she was looking for as she continued to gaze up at him in the shadows of the foyer.

  "Now, Mr. Garrett"-she took a deep breath and turned on her bracketed leg for the door, resting between steps on her crutch-"let us be on with the tour."

  "Lady Wolcott?"

  She was forced to look back over a shoulder when he didn't follow her. "Yes?"

  He rubbed a hand through his hair, where the vague tingling sensation at the touch of her breath had subsided. "Calvin. Call me Calvin."

  He tried not to wonder, as he was led down the path from the house to the stables, about the slightly uneven gait of Abigail Wolcott. Calvin couldn't imagine why her brother hadn't told him, unless he reflected on the inflexible lift of Abby's chin when she stumbled in the hall-he feared the same amount of prejudice that his sister was so defiant toward. For the first time since sharing a table with the man at Justin's, he recalled Thomas talking of an engagement and considered the idea that Lady Abigail's defensiveness had to do with its ending. Walking not far behind her, able to see the woman's gentle profile from the corner of his eye, his brows drew slightly together.

  His thoughts were brought to an abrupt halt when he realized Abigail had stopped walking. He caught himself, as she lifted one hand to the closed door of the stables, before he crashed into the straight line of her back.

  "We have only a few horses." Abby glanced back over her shoulder and frowned a little when she had to look up to meet his eye. "I have but one man who cares for them."

  He met her gaze evenly before stepping to the side. Cal
vin lifted a hand to press at the wood over hers and aided her in a shove. He caught her brows snap together before she faced forward again. As the stable door swung inward and his guide stepped inside, he internally noted he would have to be careful if he wanted to remain at Lady Abigail's home. Then he realized, for the first time since taking on the role of her secret guardian, that the idea of staying did not strike him as unpleasant.

  "How many?" He finally focused on the stable they had entered, and his eyes widened.

  "Three. Two geldings and a mare." Abigail had moved on ahead, her steps fluid despite the crutch she used.

  Only three horses, Calvin thought as he surveyed his surroundings, and the stable is larger than many of the townhouses in London. It was a remarkable structure, really. Lou-, with rectangular windows running the length of the walls near the ceiling, the stable was bright, with only the vaguest scent of hay and oats. The straw that lightly carpeted the floor was clean, as if it had just been laid out.

  "Tuttleton did an excellent job of rebuilding the place." Abigail's voice was touched with a slight sadness, and Calvin imagined there were few in the gentry that would speak longingly of a deceased servant. "He didn't do it alone, of course. Mainly oversaw the work of some carpenters we obtained from the village."

  Calvin turned toward Abby and found that while he inspected the stables, she had moved to one of the horses that had poked his head out of a stall at her arrival. She ran an open palm up and down the animal's broad nose with such deliberate lingering that the man watching her started to feel a tightening in his lower body. He looked away.

  "Your butler designed this place?"

  "No, he handled all the labor. I made the design.

  "You?" One of Calvin's brows lifted before he thought about the insult he may have mistakenly conveyed.

  Abby didn't appear affronted in the least, however; her eyes gazed steadily into eyes of a darker hue, as if she shared some form of silent communication with the horse. She said absently, "The skeleton of the building was there already. I just made a few modifications."