Page 17 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

Of course he was, because Inez was in possession of something very, very valuable that rightly belonged to the lord. And she’d done him a greater wrong than mere thievery.

“I worked in his house for a time,” Inez answered. “When did he ask about me?”

“Oh, several times, well nigh pestered me and Mother for a month, swore he’d seen ye here and said we were hidin’ ye. But you’d kicked off long before and we’d no notion where ye’d gone, and so Mother Vesta told him. Vowed he’d bring the constable down on us, which ye know Mother Vesta won’t like, as she pays the man well to look aside from us and would have to pay him even more if a lord kicks up a fuss. Now he just looks about all keen-like, hunting through the halls where he oughtn’t be, but he pays well and he’s a regular customer, so Mother don’t want to lose a fat cull.”

Inez fumbled with a carrot she was slicing, sending a chunk skittering to the floor. Mother Vesta’s dog, a small greyhound, shot out from under the table to snap it up, then retreated before Ceres would reach for her broom.

“When do you think he’ll be back?”

Ceres shrugged and took up a cloth to turn the roast sizzling on its spit over the hearth. “Usually every few days, when he’s in town. Haven’t seen him in a bit, so maybe he’s done for the season and is headed off to his estate for the summer. Shame he didn’t bring Bess along this time, but I suppose he’s got his bits hidden all over, and it’s too much extra luggage to cart along.”

Inez sliced an onion to arrange over her ingredients in the gravy pan and let that excuse the tears starting to her eyes. If his lordship was gone from town, she was safe.

He couldn’t know enough to accuse her, could he? She’d fled that accursed house as fast as she could. But why else would he be looking for her, unless he knew?

A bell rang along the board hung high on the wall, and Ceres glanced up at it. “That’ll be Queen Bess wanting laced up, I’ll wager. She’ll have had an easy night so I don’t doubt she wants to spend her day in the shops. That means she’ll want her chocolate and a bit of honey on her toast. Will you take it, Inanna? Certain she’ll be pleased to see you.”

The cook grinned as she popped two slices of bread onto the toasting stick and handed it to Inez. “She might invite you to go along with her, but be prepared to look aside if you must. I’d wager our Bessie’ll find another john and take him in the alley outside the milliner’s so she can have a new length of silk ribbon for her hat.”

Inez grazed the bread over the flames of the low fire hearth, lightly toasting both sides. “D’you think Bessie would? She’s such a fear of the pox.”

The pox was a fear rightly held by many in the trade, along with the clap and the itch. More than one former Vestal endured regular treatments of mercury because a john had cheerfully passed on his coin along with a disease he had acquired from previous adventures.

Not everyone died in the festering agony that Inez’s mother had experienced. But that memory alone, separate from her promise, was enough to make Inez shrink from the thought of sharing her body with a stranger.

She turned the toast onto a plate and scooped a dollop of honey into a dish, then poured a cup of chocolate from the pot perched on the hob. “The pan is ready for you to shake some flour in, Mother Ceres, then add the hot water for the gravy. I’ll be back to check on you in a moment.”

“Na, child, take your time for a gossip. The Vestals will be happy to see you again. You’re a favorite here and you ought to know that.” The cook bestowed a fond smile upon her, and it arrowed into Inez’s heart.

It was good to be a favorite somewhere. She’d been accepted in the household at George Court, warmly, at least by the other small servants and staff. But things hadn’t been the same since Miss Amaranthe became a duchess. The servants Inez knew went with her, and a new housekeeper and maid arrived. Joseph, after he had his heart broken by the faithless Miss Pettigrew, grew irritated and distracted. Then he was gone for months, and Inez drifted through the house, dusting and airing, keeping the mice away, hiding like a coward and longing for his return.

Fool of a man. Anyone could have seen at a moment that Miss Pettigrew wasn’t a girl willing to be won. Her face might be soft as fresh dough, but her heart was adamant. She let men woo her because she thought it would be cruel to squash their hopes when doing so was in fact a kindness. She was a girl whose heart ran in train with her convictions, and only a man as devoted to the same morals would be able to soften that heart.

Inez was the opposite, she supposed as she lifted the wooden tray and set out. She had no convictions to guide her, and a soft heart that spilled everywhere, nothing to contain it. She felt like a great pulsing vein exposed to the world, and every little cut made her bleed.

Certainly she was soft in the head to fall as she had for Joseph Illingworth. What did the man have to recommend him? The son of a vicar in one of the poorest corners of Britain. A man whose head was filled with old languages and book lore and not enough common sense to keep him out of the cold when he had a new thought to occupy him.

The first time she took shelter there, over two years ago now, Inez had been at George Court a week before she saw the man of the house. She’d been told on her arrival that he was traveling with the family he tutored but wouldn’t be much bother when he returned. Miss Amaranthe promised that Joseph was easy to please but must be looked after as he would forget to eat or trim his candle, and then he would come to the kitchens in a huff looking for hot soup and a new candlestick, and at such times he could be a bother to everyone, so it was best to anticipate his needs.

And so Inez had been sent to his study when he first returned, this brother Miss Amaranthe spoke of with equal parts admiration for his intelligence and exasperated affection for his absent-mindedness. Inez had the duty of bringing tea to both the Illingworths, each of them absorbed in their separate tasks, Miss Amaranthe in the parlor making a copy of some unreadable ancient manuscript, Mr. Illingworth in the smaller study mewed up with his books.

The study lay at the back of the small house, catching the light from the open yard beyond. The wind that day was blowing all the smoke from the coal fires away to the west, and the sun was golden and clear as it fell through the panes of windows. Inez crept softly, not sure yet what sort of creature this brother of Miss Amaranthe’s would turn out to be, and far too accustomed to the predations of men to expect he would be much different.

Sunlight, sprinkled with sparkles of dust, fell on the dark brown curls of a man bent over a desk. At ease in his home, he wore his hair pulled back in a queue and had hung his morning coat over the ladder back of his chair. His waistcoat, plain linen in the back, hugged a strong chest and broad shoulders. He’d rolled up the billowing sleeves of his white shirt to keep them free of ink as he jotted notes on papers spread over the desk.

He was left-handed, thus the need to keep his sleeves rolled and out of the fresh ink. That he would use his preferred hand in his own home told Inez he was the kind of man who might conform to outward convention to keep the peace, but in privacy, he could easily set convention aside.

His right hand he held splayed over the pages of the book he was reading, and Inez stared, struck by how a man’s hand could seem so strong and forceful at the end of a bared forearm, where the cord of a tendon stood in outline. He had the same faint tint to his skin as Miss Amaranthe, not as brown as Inez, but not the pale milk of the other English.

He lifted his head to look out the window, a muttered word on his lips, and Inez paused with tray in the air at the sight of his profile. Then he turned his head to look at her, as if he had sensed her silent approach, and Inez couldn’t breathe.

She’d never been struck breathless by the sight of a man, not even when her father appeared after months or years abroad. What she’d felt, she assumed later, must be fear and the nervous need to please. He had a wide mouth that didn’t belong on a man and lips with a steep curve on top and bottom, a mesmerizing mouth. A bold nose arrowed between jutting cheekbones, and his dark eyes were deep set beneath a prominent brow from which the dark curls fell away as if he’d been tugging his hands through them.

His direct gaze held hers, then shuttered with a slow blink, and Inez wondered—hoped, for a brief, wild moment—that he felt the same bedazzled sensation she did, as if she’d stepped from shadow into full sunlight.

“He’s done it,” the man said to Inez as if picking up a conversation they’d left off. “He’s made Hartley’s observations intelligible. Captured them quite brilliantly, in fact. Better than I could have done myself.”

“Who?” Inez stepped forward cautiously, testing that the floor beneath her feet wouldn’t tip or sway. She wasn’t certain she had recovered her balance.