Twice Tempted by a Rogue (Stud Club #2)(105)

Damn Gideon Myles and his scene-stealing. Rhys wanted his own happy reunion. “Where the devil is Meredith?”

“Would you hand me the scissors, please?” From her perch atop the crate, Meredith braced her weight on the window frame and leaned sideways, extending an arm. “They’re just there, over by the lace.”

“Here?” Riffling his sandy hair with one hand, Darryl scouted the heaps of fabric and thread until he located the missing sewing shears. Then he loped across the cottage loft and delivered them to her hand with a gallant flourish. “There you are.” “Thank you, Darryl.”

The youth smiled. “Anything for you, Mrs. Maddox.”

Meredith returned to her task. She stretched a length of twine from the top of the window to the sill, then cut it to the exact length. Looping that strand around her neck for safekeeping, she started another measurement crossways.

“What are these?” Darryl asked.

“What are what?”

“These.”

Craning her neck, she glimpsed him holding a misshapen lump of wood in his hand, turning it this way and that for examination.

“They’re flowers,” she said.

“Are you certain? Look like vegetables to me. Aren’t these cabbages over here? And this one has the look of celery.”

“It’s a tulip. They’re flowers.” She smiled to herself as she turned back to her measurements.

“If you say so.”

She heard a dull thunk as Darryl tossed the tulip finial aside.

“You surely are anxious to make these curtains,” he said. “What’s the hurry, Mrs. Maddox? I thought you’d be more concerned about repairing the tavern.”

“That tavern is perpetually in need of something.” Frowning with concentration, she folded her lip under her teeth. “There,” she said, cutting off the final window measurement. To Darryl, she continued, “I just want this place looking nice by the time Rhys comes back. Looking like a home.”

Darryl chuckled. “Mrs. Maddox, Lord Ashworth’s not coming back.”

“He is,” Meredith said. “I know he left, but he’ll be back. Eventually.” Hopefully before another fourteen years passed. But no matter how long it took, she’d be waiting. Call it destiny. Call it faith. Whatever it was, she seemed to have caught the brain-addling contagion from Rhys, and she didn’t want to be cured.

“No, Mrs. Maddox.” Darryl’s voice was strangely confident. “He isn’t coming back.”

Meredith turned her neck slowly. “What do you mean?”

His left eye twitched as he gave her a placid smile. “He won’t trouble this place anymore. I’ve made certain of it. Buckleigh-in-the-Moor is free of the Ashworth line. Forever.”

Her heart began to beat a little faster, though she bade herself to stay calm. This was Darryl Tewkes talking. Surely this was just another of his wild, imagined tales. She stepped down from the crate, and her feet hit the floor with a hollow thud. “Darryl, what are you saying?”

“I fixed matters for you. For everyone.” He picked up a length of lace and began folding it. “Aren’t you pleased?”

“No. No, I’m not pleased.”

“Now, now. I know you’re an independent woman and you like to do things your way, but you mustn’t be angry with me, Mrs. Maddox. He left me no choice. We tried to give him the suggestion to leave, but the man can’t take a hint. First the torches didn’t work, and neither did moving his rocks about. Tried pitching a stone at him, and that didn’t work either.”

“That was you?”

Meredith was aghast. When Gideon had awoken this afternoon, the two of them had shared a pot of tea and a lengthy conversation. Among other things, he’d sworn he wasn’t responsible for Rhys’s injury that night at the ruins. Since he had no reason to lie about it now, she’d concluded the whole thing must have been an accident.

Evidently she’d concluded wrong.

Through sheer force of will, she kept her voice even. “Darryl, what did you do to Lord Ashworth? Tell me this instant.”

“I didn’t do anything to him. Let’s just say I gave Mr. Bellamy’s carriage a bit of special attention.”

Meredith gasped. “Mr. Bellamy’s carriage? But … but Cora went with them!” Hadn’t Darryl been half in love with the girl? Every male in the village was half in love with the girl.

“Oh, you mean the harlot?” He shook his head, tsking softly. “She seemed nice enough at the beginning, but she showed her true colors in the end. We’re better off without her, Mrs. Maddox. The Three Hounds isn’t that sort of inn.”

She could only stare at him, transfixed with disbelief.

“Do you know what I wonder?” His little smile crawled over her skin. “I wonder if he’ll truly haunt us when he’s dead. I hope he does. The travelers would like that. I’ll have to change my story a bit, but that’s all right. What do you think, Mrs. Maddox?” he asked, moving toward her. “Which sounds better? ‘The Phantom Lord’? Or ‘The Ghostly Baron’?”

“Neither,” she said, stepping back. A floorboard creaked. Her fingers tightened around the sewing scissors in her hand. “Don’t come any closer. You’re frightening me.”