Elizabeth Beacon - The Regency Season - Scandalous Awakening - The Viscount's Frozen Heart / The Marquis's Awakening

‘Did you? I doubt it,’ he replied dourly.

‘You believe me so ill mannered I wouldn’t say a simple “thank you” that you ordered my daughter to be fetched from school tonight?’ Chloe Wheaton asked and surely that wasn’t hurt in her necessarily soft tones as they murmured in the corridor where anyone might overhear them?

‘I wasn’t casting aspersions on your manners, but on your pride, madam,’ he said shortly, secretly shocked he was being so disagreeable yet not quite able to stop himself being so somehow.

‘You believe housekeepers are not entitled to that commodity, my lord?’

‘I believe you have a superfluity of it, entitled or not.’

‘How revolutionary of me,’ she said blandly and turned to go, presumably before she said something she regretted.

‘Stop, I’m sorry. That was ill-mannered of me and now I owe you another apology,’ he said and grasped her hand to stop her leaving then felt as if he’d been struck down by lightning from the mere feel of her bare wrist under his hand.

‘You owe me nothing,’ she said stiffly and glared at him before wrenching her hand away then stalking off as if she could imagine nothing more repulsive.

He entered the study he still considered the domain of his predecessor and glared moodily into the fire. Just when he had been feeling calmer and altogether more able to resist the charms of women who clearly didn’t like him, she loomed out of the semi-darkness to throw him into turmoil. It wasn’t as if it cost him anything to order Virginia’s coachman to fetch the housekeeper’s daughter. Her manners were better than his today and he only just muffled an impatient groan when someone else loomed out of the shadows to disturb his evening.

‘What is it, man?’ he demanded as he met his own coachman’s sharp gaze.

‘Just thought you ought to know, m’lord,’ the man said stoically.

‘Know what?’

‘I drove the carriage to Bath and back.’

Luke cursed as he would never dream of doing in front of a lady and felt no better. ‘What the devil for? I ordered Binns out, as you drove here from Northumberland.’

‘He don’t see well in the dark,’ Josiah admitted uncomfortably and Luke wondered if the old coachman could see much at all. Josiah wasn’t a man to betray any man’s secrets lightly, though, and Luke sensed there was more to come.

‘It’s high time I pensioned him off, he must be nigh seventy,’ he said anyway.

‘Likely a bit more if you ask me, but that ain’t what I came to tell you.’

‘What was it then? That you’re a disobedient ruffian who should be abed rather than dashing about the countryside? The head groom could have gone, man, he’s no top sawyer, but even he could keep Lady Virginia’s ancient team up to their bridles.’

‘I knew it would be black dark long before they could stumble home, so I ordered the bays harnessed instead. I couldn’t have Miss Verity careering about the country with a whipster holding the reins.’

Luke struggled to be fair. Chloe would hate him if her precious child was involved in a carriage accident because he had an urge to please her and he deserved censure for not thinking his impulsive scheme out better, not Josiah.

‘You did the right thing,’ he conceded reluctantly. ‘I should have told you to wait until morning for all the difference it will make.’

‘The little wench was that happy to know she wasn’t forgotten I’d go twice as far in the dark to see her face light up when she realised I was there to fetch her home.’

Since he was about to evict her from that home, Luke felt the goad of his own weakness bite. ‘Then what did you want to say?’ he asked brusquely.

‘That we was followed back,’ Josiah told him with a straight look that told his master there was no point saying he might have imagined it.

‘Who by and why the devil would anyone trail you home?’

‘Don’t know, m’lord, all I cared about was if he had a gun and if we was about to be held up.’

‘Why didn’t you inform the authorities in Bath?’

‘Because he wasn’t nowhere in sight when I got there. Nearly caught us up about a mile this side of Bath, then stayed on our tail all the way back.’

‘Why didn’t you challenge him then?’

‘Because he never got close enough to answer me, nor take a clean shot. I drove as fast as I dared and Miss Verity thought it was a great lark to go like the devil was on our tail.’

‘She’s well plucked?’

‘Game for any lark going if you ask me,’ Josiah agreed with a grin that told Luke to be glad Eve was five or six years older than Verity Wheaton, or they might set the countryside by the ears with misdeeds.

‘Do your best to keep an eye on her over the next few days for me then, Josh. I don’t like the idea of anyone wasting time in such a fashion and he’s more likely to have a grudge against me than a child from a Bath seminary, but it won’t hurt to make sure the girl’s kept safe. We’ve trouble enough without the girl tumbling into more.’

‘You think she’s like Miss Eve was at her age, m’lord?’

‘Very like from the sound of things. You know as well as I do what mischief a reckless girl can find if left to her own devices too often.’

‘Aye, well, girls will be girls,’ the coachman said with a reminiscent grin. ‘I’ll keep an eye on her when she’s out, or get young Seth to if I’m busy. When she’s in the house you’re far better placed to keep watch over her than me, my lord.’

Josiah’s tone was so bland Luke wondered if the old villain knew how much he needed to avoid the girl’s mother over the next few days. He truly hoped not.

‘Oakham will tell me if anyone breathes on her the wrong way,’ Luke informed his childhood ally in the hope he’d stop making bricks without straw.

‘Then we don’t need to worry ourselves, do we?’

‘I’d still like to know who our curious stranger is, though,’ Luke mused and at least it gave him a problem to consider for the rest of the evening, instead of wondering how he’d get through the next days and weeks without disaster befalling himself and Mrs Chloe Wheaton.

Chapter Six

When the household was settled at last, Chloe made her weary way to Lady Farenze’s bedchamber ready to take over the night vigil from Culdrose. She braced herself to try to appear as awake and cheerful as any of them could be tonight. She couldn’t let the elderly maid know she felt tired to the bone, even after her ill-advised nap this afternoon.

Especially not after that; she shuddered at the very idea of what she might have given away in those unguarded moments while she gazed into Lord Farenze’s hot grey eyes like a besotted schoolgirl. At the time a strange sort of exhilaration had buoyed her up, as if a wicked part of her was whispering she should stop fighting and give in to fiery attraction. Except he was a lord and she an upper servant and in a few weeks they would part, never to meet again.

The notion of such heady freedom stretching ahead of her made it an effort to set one foot in front of the other. The notion of all those empty years to come without even the occasional sight of him pressed down on her like a ton weight. She stopped outside the door to put on a suitably serene expression before she met Cully’s shrewd gaze, then walked in.

‘Oh, there you are, my dear. There’s no need for you to stay with her ladyship tonight,’ the elderly maid said with a nod to the other side of the bed where the new master of the house sat. ‘Master Luke won’t hear of anyone else keeping vigil.’

‘No, I won’t,’ he said in a flatly emotionless voice that told her there was no point arguing.

‘Quite right too,’ Cully said with an approving nod. ‘You need a good night’s sleep and no argument, Mrs Wheaton. If you spend one more day trying to fit a month’s worth of work into twenty-four hours, you’ll collapse. Your little miss is home now and we don’t want her more upset than she is already.’