She raised her hand to check that her mobcap was straight and orderly, then caught herself. She balled her hand and let it drop.
Instead she threw back her shoulders.
And strode into the dining room.
VAL WATCHED AS his housekeeper walked toward him down the length of his dining room. It was quite a long length, actually, for he sat at the end of the table nearest the lit fire, but she didn’t seem cowed by either his silence or his stare. She held her head high and she met him stare for stare, her eyes dark and intense and oddly arousing.
Really, she was very self-possessed for a housekeeper when one came to think about it.
And rather young, too.
“Have you ever thought about taking off that incredibly ugly mobcap?” he asked as she drew near.
Was that a flicker of fear in her dark martyr’s eyes?
He watched in interest as he popped a date in his mouth and chewed.
“No, Your Grace,” she replied boringly.
For a moment he considered sending her away again. He was in a strangely melancholy mood after this morning’s meeting with Eve. He’d thought Mrs. Crumb might provide a distraction, but perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps he should call for Cal instead and have a veiled sparring match over which of them his mother had treated worse all those years ago.
But then he licked his lips and her gaze flickered—for just a second—to his mouth and he made his decision. “Come sit, Mrs. Crumb. You’ll give me a crick in the neck, standing there.”
He waited as she pulled out a chair and sat so close to the edge he feared she might tip herself over and land on her nose.
His lips curling at the thought, he asked, “Do you have brothers or sisters?”
She looked at him while he selected another date, waiting.
Finally she seemed to sigh without making any sound at all and said, “Yes, Your Grace. I have two brothers and a sister.”
“Really?” He widened his eyes. “I’d thought you entirely solitary, like a mushroom sprung up alone in the dark. Who are they? What are their names?”
“My brothers are Ian and Tom, my sister is Moira. She is married to the blacksmith in our village. Tom is a farmer. Ian is—”
She stopped because he’d waved his hand hastily at her. This was too much information—and very tedious at that. He told her as much, and got in return a glare. She might try to hide it but he’d lay odds that his housekeeper frankly loathed him.
He felt a sudden fondness for her.
“No, no, no,” he explained. “Not this dull stuff. I want to know which one you don’t talk to, which one is jealous of you, and which one hit you as a child. Oh, and if any of them stole from you or killed your cat or dog when you were but a wee thing.”
This time she outright stared at him for some reason. “I…” Her voice trailed away and stopped. She appeared to think for several minutes, her brows knit over her dark eyes.
Val ate two dates and drank some wine. It was French and quite good.
“Did you see your sister when you were out?” she asked eventually, which didn’t answer his question at all.
“Yes.” He laid his chin in his palm. “Have you ever kissed one of your brothers?”
“No,” she said rather loudly, looking appalled. “Have you kissed your sister?”
“No.” He shrugged. “Well, on the cheek.”
“Is that what you meant?” she asked weakly. She looked a bit flustered, he was pleased to note. It brought some color to her severe alabaster face. This morning her cheeks had burned rose red and he’d wanted to lick them.
And then bite her mouth.
“Not at all,” he said gently. “I meant exactly what you thought—the worst. I’m not entirely sure why you’re surprised. People often do do the worst, you know.”
“Yes,” she said, “I do know.”
And that was the most interesting thing she’d said so far.
He leaned a little forward, but the doors to the dining room opened and a swarm of footmen came in bearing his supper.
She started to rise.
“Sit,” he commanded, and then to Cal, who had swanned in among the rest, “Bring another setting for Mrs. Crumb. She’ll be joining me for supper.”
Her face flamed scarlet—and not becomingly, either. “I can’t join you, Your Grace,” she hissed—strangely without moving her lips—“I’m your housekeeper.”
“So you are,” Val agreed. “And as such you’re supposed to do whatever I command of you.”
“Within reason,” she amended, as if she were negotiating—and still through immobile lips. What a lovely trick!
He arched his eyebrows, amused. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Well, I can’t see”—he half stood in his chair to look over to the last dish being brought in—“how roast beef, while rather dull, is without reason, so perhaps you’ll stay.”
He sat back down and waited to see if she’d argue the point. He couldn’t remember when last he’d had an opponent whose response he couldn’t predict. It was rather refreshing, actually.
She merely nodded and folded her hands in her lap and it came to Val that his housekeeper with her ugly mobcap and plain black woolen dress was as proud in her own way as any duchess.
Cal sailed back in, placing a plate and silverware in front of Mrs. Crumb with lingering care. Val remembered once, long ago, that same lingering care bestowed upon his mother. Did the footman know Mrs. Crumb’s Christian name? Did she have a lover belowstairs? He found he didn’t entirely like the thought.
Val leaned back in his chair and met the footman’s eyes. He lifted his eyebrow slowly and waited, still staring, until the other flushed, bowed, and backed hastily out of the room.
One of the other footmen nervously began to serve the beef, but Val had had enough. He waved his hand. “Begone, the lot of you.”
They nearly dashed from the room.
“You needn’t be rude,” chastised his housekeeper, taking up the carving knife and fork. She neatly sliced two pieces and transferred them to his plate along with carrots and peas and other miscellanea. He filled her wineglass whilst she did so.
She hesitated, then gave herself a meager slice of beef.
He smirked into his wineglass. Did she think she sat at a table of Sodom? Or was it simply her sense of class and their disparate rank that had so outraged her sense of decorum?
He set his glass down at this reminder. “My sister is engaged to the owner of Harte’s Folly.”
She paused in the act of cutting her meat. “Yes, Your Grace.”
He grimaced. “That’s right—you were there this morning when I received the letter. Do you know my sister?”
“She often came to Hermes House to look at your accounting books, Your Grace.” She hesitated, and then said circumspectly, “Miss Dinwoody seems a very nice lady.”
He moodily pushed the carrots off his plate and onto the table. Carrots were always so very orange. Now peas he rather liked—round and green. He picked one up with his fingers and popped it between his teeth. “Do you like carrots?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” she said, eating one neatly.
He frowned at her, but she didn’t seem to mind. “She says she loves him.”
She looked at him and he noticed that her lips were wet and red, an erotic contrast to her immaculate saint’s eyes. What would they look like, those lips, those eyes, were she to take his cock into her mouth?
He threw down his knife and fork with a clatter. “Explain it to me, this thing, love. Why would a perfectly intelligent girl want to marry a man so beneath her? She could take him as a lover if she wanted—I certainly wouldn’t care. Why marry the fellow?”
Mrs. Crumb carefully placed her fork and knife upon her plate and folded her hands in her lap. She turned to face him. “Love is the best of all human emotion. It separates us from the beasts and brings us closer to God and to heaven. There is no greater gift than love between a
man and a woman.”
He looked at her a moment, studying her earnest expression, and then grinned. “You’ve never loved a man, have you?”
She pursed her lips, looking not a little irritated. “No.”
He took up his knife and fork again, feeling more cheerful. “A woman?”
“Pardon, Your Grace?”
He waved his knife, a bit of the beef skewered on the end. “Have you ever loved a woman?”
She pursed her lips and for a moment he thought they’d have another round of tedious prevarication. Then she sighed—audibly this time. “I was fond of my mother but I doubt that is what you mean. I’ve never loved another woman romantically.”
He smiled and ate the bite of beef. She came from the country. Yet she was rather more sophisticated than he’d first thought her.
“Then…” She stared at him very seriously, almost shyly. “You’ve never loved another?”
“Good God, no.”
“Not even your intended fiancée?”
He threw back his head and laughed at the very thought. “No. Oh, no. I think that one must have some essential part to love.”
She knit her black brows again, quite severely, and the resemblance to some stern saint was very strong. “What part?”
He shrugged, twirling his fork in the air as he thought. “I don’t know? A belief in goodness and God? Or maybe godliness? Perhaps innocence?” He smiled and looked at her. “In any case, whatever that essential thing is, I don’t have it in me. I never had it.”
Her brows were level. Her dark eyes intent on him. He might be the only man in the world to her right now. Oh, heady, erotic thought. “Never? Not even when you were a child?”
He shook his head slowly, aware of the soul-deep blackness that had seeped into his skin, been driven through his muscles, and embedded in his very bones. “Not even in the womb.”
He rarely told the truth—why bother? It was so dull—but when he did, most mistook it for jest.
She did not.
She looked at him soberly, and despite her martyr’s eyes, she seemed to make no judgment of him, which, if nothing else, was refreshing.
He leaned a little forward and took her chin, her skin soft and warm under his fingers. Alive. Human. Womanly.
Her dark eyes widened.
“Now, you, Mrs. Crumb, you aren’t like me at all. You have that part, whatever it is. You can love, which raises the question: Why haven’t you?”
She made a movement, like a mare trying to shake a bridle, but he held her, squeezing her face tightly. Perhaps he even left bruises.
He enjoyed that thought, imprinting his fingertips on her face for all to see.
“Why, my gentle housekeeper?”
Her nostrils flared and she stilled, glaring at him. “I like my job. I like doing as I please. Falling in love with a man would inconvenience me, Your Grace.”
He caught his breath in admiration. “How very practical of you, Mrs. Crumb.”
He drew her forward, making her half rise, his gaze fixed on that wet, reddened mouth and her angry dark eyes, his cock beating, bold and insistent, against the placket of his breeches. Perhaps he’d mark her further. Perhaps he’d see to what depths a saint could fall.
The doors to the dining room opened and he turned in irritation to see who it was, opening his mouth to send them away again.
But then he saw it was Alf and changed his mind.
He let go of Mrs. Crumb and sat back. “What have you for me?”
“A letter,” the girl said with a sideways glance at Mrs. Crumb. The housekeeper had resumed her seat breathless and stony-faced. “From that toff you sent me to th’ first time. In a right rage ’e was.”
She gained his side and proffered the missive.
He took it, broke the seal with a bread knife, and, holding it in his right hand, read it while sipping from his wineglass. It was indeed from Mr. Shrugg, who appeared to be quite flustered and begged for more time, et cetera, et cetera.
Val flipped the letter to the table and yawned. Amazing how predictable people were.
Mrs. Crumb made to rise.
He slapped his hand over her arm. “Stay.” Then looked at her and smiled. “If you don’t mind?”
Her eyes narrowed, but really, she was a housekeeper.
She sat.
“Thank you.” And to Alf, “Bring me pen and paper and sand from that cupboard there.” He pointed out the pertinent piece of furniture to Alf.
The girl brought over the accouterments of letter writing and he bent to his task under the watchful eye of his housekeeper.
“I thought you were left-handed, Your Grace?” she asked, her tone abrupt. Oh, she hadn’t forgiven him, had she? How delightful.
He smiled and continued to write, gracefully and deftly. “You are sharp-eyed, Mrs. Crumb. My father thought being left-handed an unpardonable fault. Perhaps he considered it too sinister.”
He waited, wondering if she’d ask the question, probe into how he was made properly right-handed in his writing, but he was apparently to be disappointed.
Five minutes later he sealed the second of two letters and held it out to Alf. “Please deliver this letter to Mr. Ferguson, the proprietor of the Daily Review, and this one to Mr. Shrugg.”
Alf, who had been gazing longingly at the roast beef, took the letters and the guinea he gave her as well. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“And Alf?”
“Aye?”
He smiled gently. “Mind you don’t peek.”
The girl paled and backed quickly from the room.
He looked at Mrs. Crumb and realized that she’d been reading the letter from Shrugg, which had landed face-up. How very rude.
She glanced up at him, her expression appalled. “You’re blackmailing the King?”
HUGH HAD FORGOTTEN how cold London’s nights were. He’d seen more snow in the Colonies and in the Alps, but the air itself was damp here. Damp and chill, so that the wind seemed to carry the cold through the layers of leather, wool, and linen he wore, to penetrate to his very bones.
He pulled his cloak closer about his chin, keeping his eyes on the house. He stood in the mews, behind the great house, mostly deserted now that the stable hands were at their dinners. A carriage rumbled by now and again, summoned by the residents of the other, smaller houses on the square.
There.
The boy slid silently from the gate that led from the back garden into the mews, a slim shadow. Hugh would’ve missed him had he not been watching for him for the last half hour.
“Boy,” he called in a low voice, meaning to offer coin for information—messengers were usually ripe for bribery—but the lad immediately took to his heels.
Hugh cursed and raced after him. He had a longer stride but the urchin was swift and small. If he lost sight of him in the dark mews he’d never find the lad again.
He was gaining on the lad when the boy darted around a corner. There was a cry and a curse. Hugh rounded the corner to see, in the light of a nearby shop lantern, the boy cowering before a large man in a bloodstained leather apron. The butcher held the boy by one arm and had his fist drawn back.
Hugh stepped forward and caught the massive fist.
The butcher swung around when he felt the impediment, his reddened, doughy face twisted in a scowl. “Wotcher?”
Hugh smiled. “That’s my boy you’ve got there.”
At the sound of his accent—or perhaps because of his size—the butcher lowered his fist with a curse, spit, and walked away.
Fortunately Hugh had taken the precaution of securing the boy first.
He turned to examine his prize, such as it was.
The top of the boy’s battered hat came only to Hugh’s shoulder. He wore a threadbare coat and waistcoat and patched hose. His breeches were dirty. The lad made no move to pull away, but he looked at Hugh with such open defiance in his huge brown eyes that Hugh knew that if he let go of the boy he’d be out of sight within seconds.
> He sighed. “Hungry?”
The boy scowled and for a moment Hugh thought he wouldn’t answer. Then the boy nodded once and said gruffly, “Yes.”
“Come with me, then.” Hugh turned but found a dead weight at the end of his arm. He looked back, eyebrows raised.
“Where we goin’?”
Ah. So that was the problem. Hugh mentally winced. The boy had obviously grown up on the streets and knew well the dangers posed by grown men.
But all he said was, “There’s an alehouse not far from here. The White Hare.”
A specific, public destination seemed to relieve the boy a bit and they set off. Hugh was sure to keep a firm grip on his charge, though. He’d already lost one gamble—a footman named George who had turned out to be a singularly inept spy. The man had been caught and dismissed his first time searching for the blackmail evidence—and then had the effrontery to demand payment from Hugh without anything to show for it. That left him only one contact within Hermes House—a figure too low for Hugh’s peace of mind.
They made their way rapidly through the streets, not talking, though Hugh looked at his charge several times, assessing the boy.
Finally, as they neared the White Hare, he asked, “What’s your name?”
The boy in turn gave him a look. “Alf. What’s yours, then?”
A corner of Hugh’s mouth kicked up at the cocky tone. “You may call me Kyle.”
The boy grinned, flashing surprisingly white and even teeth. “Right you are, guv.”
Hugh pushed open the alehouse door and the warmth of the inner room rushed out. The place was loud and swarmed with the smells of beer and roasted meat. He shouldered his way through the crowd and found a small table in a corner. It wasn’t near the fire, but it offered a bit of privacy, which was better under the circumstances.
A woman with a pockmarked face and stained leather stays over red flannel petticoats swung their way. “What’ll ye ’ave, luv?”
Hugh deliberately roughened his accent. “Beer for my friend an’ me, an’ some o’ yer beef with all the fixin’s.”