Page 7 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

“You will suffer me to stay,” she said again.

“Indeed I shall.” Had he not been clear? Baffled by her sudden guard, and the fulminating fire in her eyes, he searched back through his words for the insult. What had he done?

She planted her hands on her hips, and the belligerent gesture was so at odds with her natural grace that Joseph smothered a smile.

She saw the smile and her eyes snapped into slits. He might have detected a flare of hurt first, but it was gone so quickly, the feeling mastered in a flash, that he might have imagined it.

“Thank you ever so much for your kindness, Master Illingworth. I don’t know how I shall ever repay you for condescending to notice me, poor creature that I am. But be assured I will not linger to trouble your household.” She wiped her hands on her apron and then swept up the tray with its bread and butter and half-drunk coffee.

Joseph leapt to secure the pot before she could remove it and only then, when he stepped back and saw the real hurt in her eyes, did he realize what he’d done. She’d more or less given him notice, and he’d made sure to collect the coffee before she left.

“You won’t be going anywhere,” he snapped. It was his regrettable habit to become defensive when he knew he’d done something wrong. “You shall stay here, where you are safe and I can look after you.”

Her snort, too, was a complete contrast to the delicate lines of her face, her beauty that somehow became more intense, and more aggravating, the longer one stood in a room with her. A man could only take so much beating about the head, for God’s sake.

“Look after me. As if you ever have.” She whirled, her skirts flaring to reveal white stockings with cunning little clocks, an absurd point of luxury on a woman dressed like a servant. “Fare thee well, Master Illingworth.”

Master, as if he were a small arrogant boy and not a Mister, lord and head of his own household. Such as it was. He looked about for a place to set the coffee pot.

“He’s in the parlor.” Outside the room, Inez’s impatient voice drifted down the short hall that led to the servants’ stair and below to the kitchen. “Mind your manners, he’s in a temper today. World not bowing to his wishes, per the usual.”

Temper? Joseph barely restrained himself from bellowing a response. He would not let the minx rile him, though she was the most provoking creature alive. So many of their interactions ended like this: she flew up in the boughs over some imagined slight when he hadn’t committed the least offense against her. Then she threatened to leave, Mrs. Frost soothed, and Inez sulked and flounced for a while, throwing him dark looks to ensure he knew she was out of charity with him. And one day he’d look about and she’d be absent.

She never cared enough to say goodbye. She set him aside like an old hat. Then, when she wanted a roof and a bed and a place to bake her Portuguese bread, she scratched at the kitchen door and Mrs. Frost let her in and the whole merry round began again.

“Not this time,” Joseph said aloud. “D’ye hear me?” He had no idea who he was speaking to, but a solemn vow must be witnessed, even if only by empty air. “By Gad, things are going to change around here.”

He set the coffee pot on a side table with great emphasis, and gritted his teeth when hot liquid splashed onto his hand. Dash it, that had held the temperature. One sturdy serving pot, that.

“Mr. Joseph?”

He looked up, assembling a reproof. Inez never returned so quickly, and never to apologize, but there was a first time for everything, wasn’t there?

“I did not hear the front door,” he said sternly, as if he might blame the girl who stood there for giving him a turn.

“I doesn’t use th’ front door, does I?”

It wasn’t Inez in the door frame but Tamara, the young costermonger whom his sister had befriended and occasionally hired to run errands. Amaranthe was always finding people in distress and plucking them off the streets. All of the servants she’d hired into this house had come from some doleful and difficult circumstance. Who knew how many dozens she’d saved from want or debtor’s prison or abject poverty, how many burdened women she’d offered sanctuary from whatever tragedy dogged their heels.

Like Inez. For whom he was supposed to be providing refuge, and who now meant to turn herself back into the street because she was in a pet with him, and he already knew she had no one to provide for her, shelter her, ensure she was not accosted as a young woman alone⁠—

The girl cleared her throat impatiently, and Joseph scowled at her. “What do you require?”

“The Duchess said you mun see this.” The girl held out a scrawny hand. In it was a vellum envelope, the seal broken, the edges inked black.

A black edge meant mourning. Someone had died.

Joseph’s throat closed with panic. Anth—one of the children—not that robust, arrogant, aggravating Duke— “Who?” he croaked.

“A cousin, she said?” The girl waited.

A cousin…but they had no family. It had been him and Amaranthe, on their own, the last ten years. No one but…

Dash it all. “Reuben.”

Joseph took the vellum and fumbled it open. Indignation surged first. The letter, while its news might concern both the remaining Illingworth relations, involved mainly Joseph, and yet the Illingworth solicitor had sent it first to Hunsdon House, because Amaranthe was a Duchess and Joseph was a nobody.

Or, had been a nobody up until this moment.