Louise Allen - Innocent Courtesan to Adventurer's Bride

The adjoining chambers, last occupied by the late Lady Dreycott until her death forty years past, now held motheaten examples of the taxidermist’s art, vases with erotic scenes and dangerous-looking bottles of chemicals.

‘My idea of comfort is also eccentric. I can sleep on a plank, Miss Haddon, and frequently have,’ the amused voice drawled. ‘You will join me for dinner this evening?’

‘My lord, I am the housekeeper. It is hardly suitable—’

‘You were my great-uncle’s guest, were you not, Miss Haddon? And now you are mine. That appears to make it eminently suitable.’ He was quite clearly not used to being gainsaid.

‘Thank you, my lord.’ What else was there to say? And now you are mine. Was it her imagination that shaded that statement with a possessive edge? She needed him, needed his tolerance, his acceptance of her presence in the house until she heard from Aunt Clara that it was safe to return. And there had been no word, even though the announcement of Lord Dreycott’s death must have been in all the London news sheets days before. She dare not write herself; if Makepeace intercepted the letter, he would know where she was from the post-office stamps.

Soon she must establish herself as something more than a housekeeper, to be dismissed or kept at his whim, Lina realised. But as what? Somehow she must make the new Lord Dreycott decide to continue to shelter her as though he had an obligation to his great-uncle’s guest, and this invitation to dine was a step along that path.

Her conscience pricked her; he would be harbouring a fugitive from the law, however unwittingly. The old baron had at least a sentimental attachment to her aunt to motivate him to offer his protection—and he had known the truth. This man had no reason to allow her so much as a bed in the hayloft and every incentive to call the local magistrate if he discovered who she was.

But the alternatives were to give herself up to imprisonment, trial and probable hanging or to flee into the unknown with no way of her aunt contacting her and only a few guineas to live on. Set against those choices a troubled conscience seemed a small price to pay for tenuous safety.

Quinn studied the young woman’s averted face with a stirring of interest. What was his great-uncle doing housing this little nun? Her hair was scraped back into a tight knot at her nape and her body was shrouded in dull black from throat to toes. Old Simon was not known for his acts of charity; he had a well-earned reputation for scandal and he had kept a string of expensive birds of paradise well into his seventies. Was this girl his daughter, the product of his last fling before he returned to scholarly isolation in the country?

Surely not. No Ashley had anything but the arrogant nose that he saw in the glass whenever he bothered to look in one. No child of Simon’s would have a straight little nose like this young woman’s. The firm chin might be his, but not the blue eyes and blonde hair. This was not Simon’s natural daughter. ‘I look forward to dinner, Miss Haddon,’ he said.

In answer she dropped a bob of a curtsy, her eyes fixed firmly on his collarbone. It was a perfectly ordinary collarbone as far as he was concerned, certainly not one to attract such careful study. ‘At what hour would you care to dine, my lord?’

‘Seven, if that is convenient, Miss Haddon.’ Something rustled seductively as she moved and he frowned. He had just spent a year in the Near East, a region where silk was a commodity that all understood. That had been the whisper of expensive fine fabric and, now that he looked at the drab black gown with its dove-grey collar and cuffs, he saw the unmistakable gleam of pure silk. The modest gown was cut with elegance and made out of cloth more suited to a ballroom than a country-house hallway.

Quinn sharpened his focus on the smooth sweep of hair the colour of honey in the sun, the long lashes veiling the startling blue eyes. She moved again and a complex hint of spice and oranges flirted with his senses, subtle yet insistent. No nun, this, and no conventional housekeeper either. She was nervous of him, fearful almost. He could read her wariness as easily as he could that of a half-broken filly. It was puzzling—and arousing.

‘My lord?’ Trimble stood waiting for him. Quinn turned on his heel and strode across the polished marble to the staircase. At the foot of the stairs he turned and looked back. Miss Haddon was walking through an open doorway and he realised that the gown was not the dull garment he had thought it, not when its wearer was in motion. She swayed as she walked, her movements as subtle as her scent, and the silken skirts clung for a tantalising moment to the curve of her hip, the dip of her waist. This enforced return to England was going to be more interesting than he had expected, Quinn decided as he took the stairs two at a time in the wake of the butler.

‘That heathen servant has been in here, sniffing around.’ Mrs Bishop, the cook, pounced on Lina the moment she appeared in the kitchen at half past six to make sure everything was going smoothly.

‘I am sure he is not a heathen,’ Lina soothed. ‘Gregor sounds like an Eastern European name to me. Perhaps he is of the Orthodox faith, but a Christian nevertheless.’

Mrs Bishop had perforce been acting as housekeeper for eighteen months, ever since the last one had been driven out by the late Lord Dreycott’s robust language, and she had welcomed Lina with open arms. Now she settled down to unload her worries.

‘I can hardly understand a word he says,’ she complained, not at all mollified. ‘Accent that thick you could cut it with a knife.’ As she had a north Norfolk accent that had taken Lina a week to comprehend, some mutual misunderstanding with the newcomer was only to be expected.

‘Perhaps he just wanted some supper,’ Lina suggested. ‘Where has Trimble lodged him? I do not think he is a servant, precisely. Lord Dreycott called him a travelling companion.’

‘Well, Mr Trimble’s given him a room in the attic, but he looked at it a bit sideways, so Michael says.’ Cook’s nephew was first footman and an unfailing source of backstairs information on everything.

‘It is the best he’s going to get at the moment if he does not want to live in a lumber room,’ Lina said. ‘It is uncluttered, which is more than can be said for the family and guest chambers in this house. Was hot water sent up?’

‘Hot water!’ Cook went red in the face and banged down her ladle. ‘Don’t talk to me about hot water, Miss Lina. They’ve drained the copper! His lordship saw that sarco-whatsit in my late lord’s chamber and said it would do as a bath and had the whole thing filled up with hot water, would you believe? And they both got in it, so Michael says—after they’d stripped off, mother naked, and got under the pump in the stable yard!’

‘That is outside of enough!’ Lina stared at the other woman. ‘What if one of the maids had seen them? Or you or I?’ The thought of Lord Dreycott, stripped naked and dripping with water, was outrageous. Yes, that was the word. She was…shocked.

‘All the footmen were up and down stairs with water cans for an age. They told Trimble to keep the female staff out of the way and then traipsed through the house dripping and got into the sarco-whatsit.’

‘Sarcophagus,’ Lina murmured. Trust his late lordship to keep a vast marble coffin in his bedchamber. It was a miracle he had not insisted on being buried in it. ‘Both of them together?’ It was certainly big enough to bathe two large men in.

‘Yes. Funny way to go on if you ask me,’ Cook said darkly. ‘You don’t think he’s one of them, you know— mollies —do you?’