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“Pembroke,” Reina asked, “would you like—that is—shall I show you to the butler’s room and office downstairs? And then perhaps we might go to the kitchen, so I could introduce you to June?”

He didn’t answer immediately, only looked down at her. He was so big and close, so physically imposing, that she would have felt uneasy, except . . . there was something reassuring in those midnight-dark eyes.

“More assertive,” he said. “Don’t ask. Tell me what you want.”

Reina blinked in surprise. After a moment, she brought herself to say, “Come downstairs with me, Pembroke.”

A faint smile touched his lips. “Aye, ma’am.”

Chapter Seven

Bees in a Pitcher

When John was twelve, his mother had given him his first taste of champagne. A ball had been held at the Cardiff estate manor, Galwad-y-Môr, and every servant was required to work through the night until dawn. The supper room had remained open until the last guest had either gone to bed or departed the house. John had been given the task of replacing the used plate, cutlery, and glasses once a guest had vacated a chair at one of the supper tables. Occasionally he’d helped the underbutler or footmen, running up and down stairs to fetch candles or napkins, or deliver messages to the cook.

John had enjoyed the beginning of the evening, his senses stirred by the music played by an orchestra in a recess of the ballroom, and the flicks of light from cut-glass chandeliers, and the glittering finery worn by the guests. After a few hours, however, the incessant chatter and laughter had started to grate. How could they keep talking about nothing for so long? Why didn’t they go to bed? He was bored and hungry, and tired of carrying plates of unfinished food from the table. It hadn’t seemed at all fair that the servants weren’t allowed to eat until the ball was over.

Whenever John had been caught yawning, the underbutler or one of the footmen had cuffed him discreetly. But he hadn’t minded that nearly as much as the way a few of the guests had treated him. Ladies dressed in silk and velvet smiled and touched his hair as if he were a pet. They called him a handsome little croesryw, a word usually applied to horses of mixed stock. One of them had persisted in asking where he was from, even after John had told her he was from Cardiff. “Yes,” the lady had said, “but where originally?” It left him with a strange, bad feeling of unearned shame. To a Welsh boy, there was no insult worse than implying he didn’t belong in Wales.

Finally the music had ended, and the ballroom had started to empty, and his mother had come to find him. She had brought up a plate and fork from the basement, where she’d been helping in the scullery, and had taken him to a little nook beneath the servants’ stairs. John had sat on the floor cross-legged with the plate on his lap and devoured every morsel. Oyster patties, plover’s eggs, slices of ham and duck, boiled asparagus on toast, and a pastry filled with cream.

Mam had knelt beside him, a slim, work-roughened hand coming to rest gently on his back. “You did a fine job tonight, bach,” she murmured. “It’s everyone downstairs is saying so. It’s proud of you I am.”

The praise, and her gentle touch, had soothed the troubled feeling and settled it into something manageable.

Mam’s blue eyes had twinkled as she’d handed him a glass of champagne. “There was some left over,” she told him. “The butler misjudged how many bottles to open, which would make the master angry—so we’re all kindly drinking up the evidence to keep him out of trouble.”

John had stared at the pale liquid, intrigued by the endless stream of tiny bubbles that kept rising to the surface and crackling into silvery foam. “Where do the bubbles come from?” he’d asked.

Mam smiled. “It must be magic.”

He had taken a cautious sip, his eyes widening at the peculiar sensation of cold fizz against his tongue. Like a burn, and yet ticklish.

“Do you like it?” Mam had asked, laughing at his expression.

John nodded and took another icy sip. The flavor was minerally and dry with a tartness that made his inner cheeks tighten.

It was one of the few moments of true happiness he had ever known, sitting there with Mam’s arm safely around him and the glass of champagne in his fingers, a small luxury, something festive and special and sparkling.

God knew how many years it had been since he’d thought of that moment. But for some damn reason he’d felt an echo of it just now, a delight as fragile as champagne bubbles, which he was doing his best to ignore. While he had his faults, being an idiot generally wasn’t one of them. He was here to do a job, and he would do it efficiently.

But he didn’t know what the hell to make of Reina Martin. She wasn’t at all what he’d expected—not a high-and-mighty bitch nor a stern and superior academic. He’d been charmed out of his wits by the sight of her trying to manage a room full of convicted felons like a cheerful tour guide with a group of unruly sightseers. And the way she’d asked, “Do you have a temper?” with such tactful concern, as if it were something that happened to someone, like catching a cold.

As he’d sat with her in the library, the outside world and all its troubles had disappeared, and he’d existed only in that moment. The feeling was surprising and new. He wanted more of it.

He couldn’t believe how beautiful she was, with deep-set hazel eyes and hair the shade of brown pennies, and tawny golden skin. She seemed like the warmest thing in the world, and he’d spent years of his life out in the cold.

They went to the basement, which was technically more of a lower ground floor. As they descended the stairs, the muscles of John’s back and neck tightened uncomfortably at the look and feel of an old house around him. Too many reminders of a childhood that had been far from idyllic. But it also elicited the melancholy yearning of hiraeth, the nostalgia for things lost or forgotten.

It had been a long time since he’d set foot in a place like this, comfortable in its aged bones, showing its years through a hundred coats of plaster and paint. A house that kept the secrets of past joys and sorrows like a trusted grandmother.

The stone basement had been built with Portland cement to keep out the damp. Along the exterior walls, open areaways allowed ventilation and light to reach the house’s foundation. A medicinal whiff of carbolic soap drifted upward from the scrubbed flagstone floor.

Reina stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned toward him with a faint frown. She drew closer and said softly, “There’s something I must tell you.”

As John bent his head to hear, he breathed in her perfume, all sunshine and citrus, so different from powdery English florals. He wanted to follow the scent down to the tender skin of her neck where it emerged from the lace trim of her collar. His mind swam with the details of her silky hair, the soft sound of her breath, the little gold hoop dangling from her ear, its filigreed surface set with tiny pearls and colored stones.

“Our housekeeper, Tuppence Higget,” he heard Reina say, “is with child. At her last place of employment, one of the family’s sons forced himself on her quite brutally. As a result, she’s uneasy in the company of men. If she seems fearful of you, well, that’s the reason.”