Whisper of Magic Read Online Free PDF Page B

her . . . charms . . .
seemed especially risky.
    Jamar would not understand that she needed every little bit
of control she possessed to hold herself together. If she could not influence
this powerful gentleman by using her voice—as she did everyone else—she would
never be rid of him until he had what he wanted. Without her shield, she had no
backbone at all. A man like this would walk right over her.
    She craved the influence and security she had lost with her
father’s death. Still, a man who knew a marquess and who had relations who
might be distant family . . . offered some small hope.
    Crushing her terror at trusting the unknown for the
millionth time these past months, she opened the gate and allowed him inside. A
wind greeted them as if recognizing an invader, and she shivered with the
rustle of her petticoats.
    Dusk had fallen, and the air was exceedingly damp. She could
not, in all good conscience, leave a gentleman standing in the overgrown
garden. Reluctantly, Celeste led him to the kitchen door. She wasn’t about to
lead him into their lives.
    His Arrogance raised a noble brow as she passed by the
ground floor door, but he did not comment when she led him down the mossy stone
stairs instead. Inside the kitchen the fire blazed, eradicating any lingering
cold and damp from outdoors. She might never become used to England’s gray
fogs, but the lovely hearth with its crackling flames helped immensely.
    Nana had apparently been watching from the upper story and
hurried to join them—fortunately, without Trevor and Sylvia. Garbed in the
printed red and blue cottons of home—not the dull black uniforms of English
servants—the cook and kitchen maid they’d brought with them glanced up, but
accustomed to Celeste’s ways, they returned to their chopping and stirring on
the far end of the large cellar.
    Celeste was too nervous to care how her colorful company
looked in the eyes of a dignified London aristocrat. They were Jamaican, not
English. He’d have to accept them as they were.
    At least by bringing these few servants with her, she’d been
able to save them from the earl’s greed—for now. She prayed the dastard didn’t
know of their presence here, which was why she had insisted that Jamar stay
inside. But in his male arrogance, he had refused, time and again.
    She slipped off the cloak’s hood and waited for the
gentleman to introduce himself. To her surprise, Jamar performed the courtesy.
    “Lord Erran Ives, brother to the Marquess of Ashford, our
landlord,” the majordomo intoned. “Miss Celeste Rochester, daughter of the late
Baron Rochester.” He nodded at Nana. “Miss Delphinia, our housekeeper. I am
Jamar, the baron’s estate manager in better times.”
    Brother of a marquess! This was even worse than she feared.
    “Delphinia and Jamar are family to us,” Celeste said
stiffly. “They were given the name Rochester when they were given their
freedom, as were all our people, unless they had names of their own already. If
you’ll have a seat, we can have coffee. We have not yet learned your custom of
tea.”
    To his credit, his lordship pulled out chairs for both her and
Nana and gestured for them to sit first. She rather missed such niceties. With
a sigh of resignation, she hung up her concealing cloak. She knew her mourning
gown wasn’t the latest fashion and that she hadn’t the buxom hourglass figure
so admired by handsome gentlemen like this one. Those things no longer
mattered. Survival did.
    She waited until the kitchen maid set out cups and saucers
and brought the coffee. It wasn’t as if she knew where to start.
    “Your father is deceased?” Lord Ives asked as she poured the
steaming beverage and before she could summon a single opening sentence.
    Her tears of grief at any mention of her beloved father had
become those of self-pity, so she fought them. “On the voyage here,” she
acknowledged, adding cream to her coffee but not the expensive sugar. “There
was a