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But he had never been destituted. He wasn’t at risk of losing the roof over his head. His problem was that he possessed too many roofs that he couldn’t get out from under due to the entailment.

Miss Ballard ducked her chin. “Yes.”

A simple admission. He could sense what it cost her from the stiff line of her shoulders and the terse way she bit out her answer. No wonder she had driven such a hard bargain for her labor.

“I think we should come back with a lamp. We can’t see well enough to find anything of value,” she said, changing the subject.

“Agreed. I’ll have Cogswell clear out whatever dead thing is rotting in here before we come back. Speaking of whom, he ought to be back from town by now. We’ll take the galley back.”

They made their way back through the dining room and into the long, narrow corridor overlooking the garden, which ran on the opposite side of the great hall. His headache throbbed with each step. A dark spot had crept into his vision. Surely, it was a bad sign.

“What happened to the paintings?” Miss Ballard asked, scanning the long wall of shattered silk wallpaper with large darker rectangles where pictures had hung.

“Sold them off,” he grunted.

She was quiet for a while, until they reached the kitchen. “All nineteen must have been worth a fortune.”

“You counted the empty squares?”

“Yes. I did.” A tight smile crossed her pretty lips. “It isn’t as if we had a stimulating conversation to carry on.”

Something about the way she said the word stimulating had an instant effect on his lower regions. It was confusing how his head could ache so abominably and yet his cock perked with interest. “Am I boring you, Miss Ballard?”

“I’ve had better company.”

He heard this as an insinuation that did nothing to ease his state of extreme discomfort. “Have you, now? At Girton?”

“Anywhere, really.”

Brat. She was giving him a hard time and the worst part was that he almost liked it. She was clearly too innocent to understand what kind of effect she was having on him.

Unless she did know, and she was doing it on purpose.

“That you, yer lordship?” Cogswell’s reedy voice called out.

“Yes it is.”

They trouped into the kitchen where Cogswell had placed a ham, fresh bread, eggs, flour, and a basket of vegetables on the counter. “I see you’ve met our new tenant,” the servant said disapprovingly.

“There’s a dead animal rotting in the parlor. Go and clear it out, will you.” It wasn’t a request. He was in no mood to tolerate a servant’s reprimands. There was nothing untoward between him and Miss Ballard, no matter how ridiculous his body was being. He wasn’t a lad who’d just discovered girls, for God’s sake.

While it wasn’t a defense by any means, Gareth knew he had a bad habit of being attracted to pretty women who would never give him the time of day. They took one look at his scars and their expressions turned from interest to pity, mixed with revulsion. He would take his self-hatred to a courtesan who could pretend not to be disgusted by his appearance for an hour, for the right sum of money, rut himself—and her—to the point of exhaustion, and then slink back home as if nothing had transpired.

Any respite he found in the arms of a stranger was inevitably dashed when she had completed her end of the bargain and no longer had an incentive to conceal her contempt for his hideous face.

Miss Ballard, however, was an unusual woman who did not look at him with scorn and disgust. She had been perfectly ordinary in her treatment of him, her stare never lingering too long nor shying away. Refreshing.

I can see how much this must have hurt.

Her empathy was downright magnetic. A cold rush of spring water to a man who had been parched of feminine affection for nearly his entire adult life. When he factored in her gleaming sable hair and interesting eyes that changed color depending upon the light, she was dangerously compelling. They were teal sometimes; mint-green in a certain light; or even ocean-blue.

But none of it was real. She was only here for the same reason he was. They both needed money. He had best remember that, lest he make a fool of himself imagining a romantic attachment.

Gareth took out an enormous knife and began hacking into the ham.

“It’s already dead. You needn’t kill it again,” Miss Ballard said.

A ghost of a chuckle escaped him.