My Lord Wicked (Historical Regency Romance) Read Free Page B

her, but it did.
    Without being told by her stone-faced companion, Freddie knew when the abbey came into view. From her coach window she saw its gray mass rising from the top of a rocky hill. The ancient fortress-like structure had to be Marshbanks Abbey.
    The building did not seem to be unmanageably large — just two stories with small, gothic windows punctuating solid stone walls that had undoubtedly remained unchanged for centuries. A clock tower with medieval spires marked the midpoint of the front of the building.
    As the coach came to a stop on the abbey's gravel drive and the coachman let down the steps, Lord Stacks departed the chaise first, then turned back to take Freddie's hand. He led her up the steps, through a timbered doorway held open by a footman in lime green livery, then into a vestibule constructed of huge blocks of gray stone.
    "This is the great hall," he informed her as they entered a room twice as large as Freddie's home chapel.
    "Before the Dissolution it was a church, but one of my ancestors persuaded the king to give him the abbey in exchange for services rendered. I expect that's how it escaped being destroyed. My kinsman removed all the ecclesiastical trappings. In former times the present clock tower held a church bell."
    She had always thought great halls to be banqueting rooms, but this was a reception area, with various furniture groupings scattered within the room. Here a pair of Jacobean sofas on a Turkey rug. Over there a game table of fine oak turned nearly black with the patina of age. A lovely three-legged pianoforte hugged a wall. A pair of large, throne-like chairs faced the chimney. She could almost imagine a whole ox roasting in its huge pit.
    A lady in black servant's garb noiselessly entered the vast room. The slightly built woman had brown hair generously threaded with gray.
    Lord Stacks’s gaze swung from her to Freddie. "Miss Lambeth, I should like to present my housekeeper, Mrs. Greenwood."
    The woman curtsied but did not smile either at her employer or at Freddie. The expression on her face was more akin to scorn than to welcome.
    "I will show my ward to her rooms," Stacks informed Mrs. Greenwood, who merely inclined her head.
    The two of them walked across the chilly room, her guardian’s boots tapping on the cold stone floors like a blacksmith striking an anvil.
    "We'll pass through the tapestry room on the way to the library," Stacks said.
    The walls there were almost entirely covered with tapestries, each of which was large enough to roof her entire cottage back in Chelseymeade. They depicted hunt scenes and the Nativity and celestial celebrations.
    Next, Lord Stacks led her to the library, another room of massive proportions, but this one less chilly due to the red carpet which stretched from wall to wall. Like in the great hall, the ceilings here reached the full two stories, but the rich wood bookcases lined with leather volumes gave the room warmth. A spiraled ladder curved up to a catwalk that ran along an upper gallery of books. The room itself had two fireplaces, a game table, several sofas and a large rococo desk.
    Freddie thought Lord Stacks would stop here for the room looked lived in, but he kept walking. Beyond the library they entered the outdoors where cloisters formed a square surrounding the quadrangle.
    Marshbanks Abbey was much larger than it appeared from the front.
    Lord Stacks pointed out the heavily vegetated quadrangle. "That is where I spend most of my time. Botany holds great interest for me."
    She recalled her father's words: "Stacks is the most intelligent man I have ever known."
    They walked under the timber-roofed cloister and past several doors. "I fear you will find Marshbanks Abbey hopelessly out of date," Lord Stacks said. "The rooms are much the same as they were when this was an abbey. Your room is a former Cistercian monk's." He came to a stop and grasped the old black iron handle on a door. "These are your chambers, Miss