Page 5 of Beguiling the Baron

“I assume you are Miss Mary Pelham.” Tia tried to keep her tone light, encouraging. “Although I hope I may call you Polly.”

Polly merely shrugged.

Goodness, in Miss Gates’ Academy, anyone who made such a rude, dismissive gesture would be put on bread and water for a week. Even the poorhouse children had such behavior beaten out of them—and none of them would ever be in the same social circles Polly Pelham was likely to frequent.

Was the child truly sullen, or simply shy?

An image of her deceased sister Phoebe’s face swam before Tia’s eyes. Though Phoebe had been gone many years, her loss continued to cut Tia like a knife. And made her castigate herself about things she should have said to her sibling while Phoebe was alive, the small acts of kindness she could have performed.

It stiffened her resolve not to be put off by Polly’s manner. The child needed encouragement, understanding, and love. Tia would do her best to provide all three.

“I can see I’ve caught you at a bad moment. We will no doubt meet later.” She backed out of the room.

Rather than be dispirited by this inauspicious beginning, Tia vowed to talk to the nurse as well as the girl’s father and find out how best to deal with a child who preferred talking to toys than to real people.

Closing the door softly on her new charge, Tia proceeded to the end of the passageway where a large crown glass window afforded a view across what must surely be the original abbey cloisters.

This window, too, she opened, to suck in a bracing breath of air and dispel the unease that had stolen upon her during her eavesdropping on Polly and their subsequent meeting.

Her hand flew to her throat.

He was there, the hermit, right below the window, staring up at her. She swallowed hard. What did one do with a hermit? Nod, wave, say, “Good afternoon?” Completely at a loss, she simply gazed at the fearsome creature, with his lank, dark gold locks and his black slashes of eyebrows. Fortunately, he had now donned his shirt, saving her blushes, but it was damp enough to cling to his frame.

She’d expected a hermit’s body to be all skin and bone, but this man was sinewy and slim, although the clinging black shirt revealed the well-developed muscles of someone who exercised religiously.

Tia was struck forcibly by an image she recalled from Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, that of Sir Lancelot run mad and lost in the wilderness, unkempt, long-haired; wild-eyed.

She suppressed a shiver. Yes, Lord Ansford’s hermit was definitely frightful, not only to children but to adults as well.

She’d made up her mind to show her disapproval of him by shutting the window with no sign of acknowledgement, when he turned his back on her and stalked off into the cloisters.

What odd behavior.

If it weren’t for the relative normality of Mrs. Dunne, Tia might imagine she’d wandered into a chapter of Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto.

“Ah, Miss Wyndham, your tea has arrived.” The voice spoke so close to her ear, it made her jump. Tia turned, to find Mrs. Dunne right by her elbow, carrying an ancient cow-shaped creamer.

Yet another thing to unnerve her today—servants who crept up on one in complete silence.

She was about to thank the housekeeper when Mrs. Dunne added, “I see you have been making the acquaintance of Lord Ansford.”

Tia froze. That disheveled, manner-less creature was Lord Ansford? Her distant cousin, her new employer, her benefactor, and the owner of Foxleaze?

If that were truly so, it was possible the stories of him as a madman who’d murdered his wife in a jealous rage . . .

Might not be rumors after all.