My Lord Savage by Elizabeth Lane

Author:Elizabeth Lane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

The tension-filled days had blurred into weeks—each one so fraught with uncertainty that Rowena’s nerves had become like frayed bowstrings, constantly on the brink of snapping.

The day after the funeral, Bosley had demanded to see Sir Christopher’s accounts. These she had readily handed over. Like many men whose intellect functioned on a higher plane, her father had possessed no head for practical matters. His bookkeeping methods had been so haphazard that Rowena had quietly kept her own, more accurate, accounts.

It had, at least, given her some wry amusement to see Bosley sweating over the heavy ledgers, cursing as he struggled to decipher Sir Christopher’s jumbled logic and arcane script. It was only after many days that he’d concluded the same thing Rowena had known all along—there was little money left in the manor’s coffers, and almost none coming in. Much of the farmland lay fallow, long since played out. And the income from the tenant farms was so meager that Sir Christopher had not even bothered to collect what he was owed. The good man had cared for little else but his work, which in his old age had brought in nothing.

Bosley had proposed to sell off parcels of the land, but swiftly discovered he could not do so without Rowena’s consent, which she steadfastly refused to give. Now matters stood at an impasse while Bosley maneuvered for more power.

And how did he plan to get that power? The answer to that question, Rowena surmised, was evident every time he looked at her. She lived in a state of nervous exhaustion, wondering when his next move would come—surprised, even, that it hadn’t come already.

In these days of darkness she had only one corner of warmth and light. She fled there as often as she could escape the confines of the house.

The early dawn sky was opalescent, like dark mother-of-pearl, as she opened the kitchen door, closed it behind her and ran lightly across the yard. The fresh, cool air filled her lungs. She inhaled, savoring the fragrance of summer flowers on the moor and the tang of the sea. Early mornings were her only time of freedom—the only time she could be with John Savage.

He was waiting for her under the eave of the stable, his costume of common russet made elegant by his stature and easy grace. His hair, which despite Rowena’s urging he had refused to cut, was tied back with a thong of knotted leather. His skin gleamed like polished mahogany in the pale morning light, the line of birds a brilliant blue across his forehead. Even starved and ill he had been a fine-looking man. Now, in full possession of his health, he was a kingly figure, as handsome as a blooded stallion.

My Lord Savage. The phrase slipped through her mind, even though she had long since ceased to call him by that title.

“Good morrow, Rowena.” John Savage’s swift mastery of English had earned his young tutor a princely sum. He still spoke haltingly, with

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