Paying the Virgin's Price (Regency Silk & Scandal #2)(57)

He thought the house was hers? She had wanted a house, of course. A cottage. A small place where she could live in security, answering to no one. But this house? It was nearly a mansion. Far too large for a single person. Even when she was small, she had heard her parents say it was far too much to keep for two people with a single daughter. With all the bedrooms, it was a better space for a much larger family.

A family she would never have. She looked helplessly at the butler. 'I cannot do this, Benton. It is too much. The size of the house. The servants. I cannot afford to keep you. I am little better than a servant myself.'

He patted her hand. 'Do not worry on that account. Mr Wardale set the place up, from the first, so that it very nearly runs itself. The household accounts are so well stocked that we have run for years at a time without the master present. I suspect we can go even longer for you. Your needs are likely to be simpler than his. In any case, do not worry. For now we are all safe and warm, and I have a better knowledge of what it takes to maintain the house and staff than you do. Even without cash in hand, there are things left, from your father's time, that are worth a pretty penny and would have been sold to keep the place afloat, had not the old master gambled them away to Wardale. But they are yours again, to do with as you please. You will find a way. And I will help you.'

She smiled sadly. 'But I cannot keep it, Benton. I simply cannot. It is too much, too soon, and I do not understand Nathan's gift, nor do I wish to take the house back from him. It would be like admitting...' She shook her head, and tried to rise, but it was as though all the stress of the week had hit her; she might as well have been asleep and dreaming, as sitting on a bench in a hall in the middle of the day. 'But for now, I need someone to go back to my old place of employment and fetch my things. I will stay here until it can all be sorted out. It has been a most trying day, and I simply do not have the strength.'

'Ma'am.' He gave a curt nod. 'I will send a footman to get them, and they shall be brought to your old room. You must have some tea, I think. And a light lunch and a nice dinner to celebrate your return. I am sure that Cook still has the menus from when you were a girl. If your tastes have not changed, she knows what you will enjoy.'

'Cook? Still here?' A wave of warmth and comfort swept over her, as her happier childhood memories returned.

'You will find many familiar faces, miss, once you have become used to the place. Mr Wardale was not with us much.' Benton cleared his throat, as though making a final effort to protect his master's secrets. 'Travelling, I think. And even when he was here, he was often away from the house. During that time, the running of the place was left to his man of business, who did not see fit to change the staff any more than was necessary. But now? I shall bring the tea. There is a fire laid in the sitting room.' He moved to open the door for her.

'Benton.' She called him back. 'What was he like?'

'Mr Wardale?' The butler seemed surprised that she would ask.

'Yes. I knew him for such a short time. It was all very confusing. What was he like?'

The older man gave her a thoughtful look as though trying to decide what he owed to a man who no longer employed him. 'He paid regularly. He was courteous to the staff. Although he kept irregular hours, he did not require that we do the same. In food and drink he was temperate, as he was in dress and decorum.'

'That is what he was like as a master. But what kind of man was he?'

'He was--' Benton frowned. 'Not what I expected. I have met men in his line of business before.' He cleared his throat softly. 'When working for your father.'

'My father had other enemies?' She did not remember any. But she had been young, and he had sheltered her from the worst of it.

'Yes, Miss Diana. For he lost more than he won. There were questionable gentlemen who gamed as a diversion, who would come to the house and take a note, or a ring, and then leave him in peace. But the men who took gambling as their sole occupation? They were the sort that would just as soon take a pound of flesh as let a debt go uncollected. Rum 'uns, to the last man. Coarse. Hard. Not fit to come in by the front door of a house such as this, much less to live here. They were men without honour. And I saw them too frequently at the end, for--you will forgive me for saying it, miss--your father was not one to let common sense stand between him and the gaming table.'

She had forgotten the truth, but truth it was. She had put the blame for her father's ruin squarely on Nathan Wardale's shoulders for so long, it had never occurred to her that he was not the first to threaten her father with the poorhouse. Nor could she accuse him of using underhanded means to lure her father into the game that had finally ruined him. He had gone willingly at any opportunity.

Benton's frown deepened. 'But Mr Wardale was different. Perhaps it was because he was brought up as a gentleman before his family's troubles, which were no fault of his own. He knew life from both sides. He was deeply conscious of the effect his gaming had on others, and it troubled him. I doubt he spent an easy night in this house, knowing how he had gotten it. In a word Miss Diana? He was unhappy. He had no friends and many enemies. He did not seem to take satisfaction in his endeavours, but it was the only life he'd found that would suit him. It is only recently that I have seen a change in him. Of late, he seemed lighter of spirit.'

Because of me? She thought of the walks in the park and the way her heart had quickened from the first moment she'd seen him. And she wondered: had it been the same for him? Or had it been harder? For if there had been true feeling on his part, he had been forced to sit opposite her in the White Salon at the Carlow house and in the carriage, knowing who she was and what she would think of him should she learn his true identity. And now, she understood the awkwardness of their first meetings and the reason for the curious way he had behaved. He had treated her with the utmost care and concern for her welfare, without giving anything away. He'd opened himself to her gradually, knowing how it would most likely end.