The Valet Who Loved Me - Valerie Bowman Page 0,26
the other day. What sort of little girl were you?”
She rolled her eyes but couldn’t keep the smile from her face. “I’ve no idea why ye’d want ta know such a thing, but if ye must…I was a curious one, an adventurous one. I followed me brothers everywhere and did everythin’ they did. They taught me how ta be a lad, essentially. I know how ta climb a tree, tie a rope, and shoot a gun.”
“Do you?” Nicholas whistled. “Why does that not surprise me about you? And I’ve already seen your skill at cards.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than she’d deftly won the next hand. “Yes, they taught me how to play cards, too,” she said with another laugh.
“No sisters, then?” he asked next.
“No, it was just the three of us, and don’t think I didn’t notice ye slipped in another question there.”
“Seems I owe you two answers then,” he replied.
She let the cards drop and stared at him. “Why do ye want ta know about me childhood?”
Nicholas plucked at the cards in front of him. “People’s childhoods are usually the keys to unlocking their secrets. I was hoping to learn from yours why you are so mistrustful.”
She drummed her fingertips along the tabletop. “If childhoods are the keys ta unlockin’ secrets, then that’s me next question fer ye. Wot was yer childhood like?”
His face went blank and his smile disappeared. “My childhood was over quickly,” he bit out.
She sensed he had no intention of telling her more, and the joviality had been sucked from the room. Hoping to restore their camaraderie, she gathered the cards and shuffled them. They quickly sprang to life in her hands.
His smile returned and he whistled again. “Seems your brother taught you how to shuffle as well.”
“Of course,” she replied, dealing the cards quickly to each of them.
He won the next hand.
“Very well,” she said with a sigh, “what’s yer next question for me?”
“What is your dream?”
Her eyes widened. “Dream? Who says I have a dream?” She tried to laugh but no sound came out.
“Oh, come now, Marianne, everyone has a dream.”
She shifted in her seat. For some reason she was tempted to tell him the truth. She thought about it for a few more seconds. Very well. The truth it was. “I used ta dream about marriage and family,” she said, a wistful tone in her voice.
“Did you?” He studied her face with a furrowed brow.
“Yes.” She met his gaze. “But everythin’ changed when my brother was murdered.”
Chapter Thirteen
Late that night, Beau lay on his cot with one arm folded beneath his head, staring at the ceiling. The light from the single candle on the desk next to him formed shadows on the wall. A slight breeze drifted through the window, and the sound of crickets out in the meadow provided a steady drone that accompanied his thoughts.
His card game with Marianne had been interrupted by a pair of footmen who’d come into the storage room to fetch some bags of flour for the cook. Beau hadn’t had much of a chance to ask Marianne anything more about the startling revelation that her brother had been murdered. But it certainly explained some things about her.
A murder could very well make someone mistrustful. But what had happened to her brother? When she’d first mentioned that he was dead, Beau had simply assumed that he’d been a soldier, or had contracted consumption or some equally dreadful illness. He, himself, may never have been on one of the battlefields on the Peninsula, but he’d seen enough death in his business to last a lifetime. War or disease were the usual causes of death for young men in his experience.
Beau hadn’t had a chance today to ask her what precisely had happened, but even though he’d got a bit closer to knowing the truth about her, Marianne was still a mystery to him. She may have let down her guard around him enough to be friendly, but there was no question that she still harbored secrets. He suspected whatever had happened to her brother might be the least of them. He’d listened to her speech closely this afternoon and was convinced that her dialect was affected. Why would she pretend to be less articulate than she truly was?
Despite his misgivings about her, he was attracted to her. Very well— he was ridiculously attracted to her. There was no denying it. There was something about the mixture of how she was so certain