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Alistair glanced sideways at Mrs. Halifax. A pretty blush was creeping up her cheeks. It had spread down as well; disappearing under a gauze fichu she had wrapped about her neck and tucked into her elegant bodice. She caught his gaze, her eyes wide and blue and a little sad. The sight of those eyes, even more than the tender skin at her throat, caused him a sudden and altogether unwelcome jolt of desire.
Alistair pushed back from the table and surged to his feet. “I’ll give the cook—and you, Mrs. Halifax—a week in which to prove yourselves. One week. If I’m not convinced of the usefulness of cooks and housekeepers by then, you’ll all go. Understand?”
The housekeeper nodded, and for a moment he felt a tiny twinge of guilt when he saw her stricken look. Then his mouth twisted at his own idiocy. “If you’ll excuse me, madam, I have work to do. Come, Lady Grey.”
He slapped his thigh and the dog got slowly to her feet. He strode from the kitchen without a backward glance.
Damnable woman! Coming to his castle and questioning and demanding and taking his time when all he wanted was to be left alone. He took the tower stairs two at a time and then had to pause and wait for Lady Grey. She was climbing the stairs slowly and stiffly as if her legs pained her. The sight made him even angrier. Why? Why did everything have to change? Was it too much to ask to be left to write his books in peace?
He sighed and climbed back down the stairs to Lady Grey. “Come on, lass.” He bent and gently scooped her against his chest. He could feel her heartbeat under his hands and the trembling in her legs. She was heavy, but Alistair held the big dog in his arms as he ascended the tower stairs. Once in the tower, he knelt and set her in her favorite place on the rug before the fire.
“Nothing to be ashamed of,” he whispered as he stroked her ears. “You’re a brave lass, you are, and if you need a bit of help up the stairs, well, I’m glad to oblige.”
Lady Grey sighed and laid her head on the rug.
Alistair stood and walked to the tower window that overlooked the back of the castle grounds. There was an old garden there, terraced in steps that led down to a stream. Beyond, rolling purple and green hills met the horizon. Vegetation overgrew the garden, falling down the buttressing walls and crowding the paths. It hadn’t been tended in years. Not since he’d left for the Colonies.
He’d been born and raised in this castle. He didn’t remember his mother, who had died giving birth to a stillborn baby girl when he wasn’t quite three. His mother’s death might’ve infused the castle with gloom, but though she’d been well loved, it hadn’t. He’d grown up running wild over the hills, fishing with his father in the stream and arguing history and philosophy with Sophia, his older sister. Alistair smiled wryly. Sophia had usually won the arguments, not only because she was the older by five years, but also because she was the better scholar.
Back then, he’d thought that eventually he, too, would marry. He’d bring his bride to the castle and raise another generation of Munroes, just like all his ancestors. But that hadn’t happened. He’d been betrothed at three and twenty to a girl named Sarah, but she’d died of a fever before they could wed. Grief had kept him from forming another alliance for years, and then somehow his studies had taken precedence. He’d traveled to the Colonies when he was eight and twenty and had stayed there three years before returning, a prematurely aged one and thirty.
And after he’d returned from the Colonies . . .
He traced the eye patch on his cheek as he gazed out at his countryside. It’d been too late by then, hadn’t it? He’d lost not only his eye, but also his soul. What remained was not fit for civilized company, and he knew it. He stayed far from other people to protect himself and, perhaps more importantly, to protect them. He’d seen sorrow, smelled death’s rotting breath, and knew that savagery lurked close beneath the thin veil of society. His very face reminded others that the basic animal was very near. That it might pounce on them as well.
He’d been resigned, content if not boisterously joyful. He had his studies; he had the hills and his stream. He had Lady Grey to keep him company.
And then she had arrived.
He didn’t need an officious, too-beautiful housekeeper to barge into his home and life. He didn’t need her changing his retreat. He didn’t need this sudden desire that hardened his muscles and made his skin itch with irritation. She would be appalled—revolted—if she knew what she did to him physically.
Alistair turned from the window in disgust. Soon enough, she’d tire of playing housekeeper and find some other place to hide from whatever—or whoever—she was running from. In the meantime, he would make sure she didn’t keep him from his work.
“IT’S BEEN OVER a fortnight,” Algernon Downey, the Duke of Lister, said in an even, controlled voice. “I ordered you to hire the best men in London. Why can’t they find one woman traveling with two children?”
He swung around on the last syllable and pinned Henderson, his longtime secretary, with a cold stare. They were in Lister’s study, an elegant room newly redecorated in white, black, and dark red. It was a room appropriate for a duke and the fifth richest man in England. At the far end, Henderson sat in a chair before Lister’s spacious desk. Henderson was a dry little man, mainly bones and sinew, with a pair of half-glasses perched on his forehead. He had an open notebook on his knee and a pencil with which to record notes in one shaking hand.
“I admit it is very distressing, Your Grace, and I do apologize,” Henderson said in his whispery voice. He thumbed through his notebook as if to find the answer for his own incompetence there. “But we must remember that Mrs. Fitzwilliam has no doubt chosen to disguise herself and the children. And, after all, England is a very large place.”
“I’m well aware of how large England is, Henderson. I want results, not excuses.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
“My resources—my men, money, contacts—should have found her by now.”
Henderson gave several quick birdlike bobs of his head. “Naturally, Your Grace. Of course, we have been able to trace her as far as the road north.”
Lister made one sharp cutting motion with his hand. “That was nearly a week ago. She may’ve laid a false trail, gone west to Wales or Cornwall, or for all we know, caught a ship for the Colonies. No. This is simply unacceptable. If the men we have on her now can’t find her, then hire new ones. Immediately.”
“Quite, Your Grace.” Henderson licked his lips nervously. “I shall see that it is done at once. Now, as to the duchess’s trip to Bath…”
Henderson droned on about Lister’s wife’s travel plans, but the duke hardly listened. He’d been the Duke of Lister since the age of seven; his title was centuries old. He sat in the House of Lords and owned vast estates, mines, and ships. Gentlemen of all ranks respected and feared him. And yet one woman—the daughter of a quack physician, no less!—thought she could simply leave him, and what was more, take his bastard offspring with her.
Unacceptable. The entire thing was simply unacceptable.
Lister strolled to the tall windows of his study, which were draped in white and black striped silk. He’d have her found, have her and his children brought back, and then he would impress upon her how very, very stupid it was to cross him. No one crossed him and lived to gloat about it.
No one.
