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“I don’t pu—”
A sharp knock on the door interrupted her words. A knock she was ridiculously grateful for.
She scrambled upright as he released her arms, untangling her legs from his. Gaining her feet, she smoothed down the front of her rumpled dress as she left the drawing room to answer the door. Theodora jumped up from her spot by the fireplace and was at her bare heels. She didn’t even remember taking off her boots last night. Just one more thing Domnall had taken care of.
She took a breath to steady herself as she reached for the door. With any luck, it was one of Domnall’s men at the door and she could avoid conversation with Domnall for the rest of the morning. The entire day if she was even luckier. Maybe he was needed back at the abbey and she would be granted a reprieve.
She opened the door with far too much haste, not even bothering to glance out the side windows that flanked the door.
No—no, no, no.
Her feet shuffled involuntarily backward, her grip on the door handle the only thing stopping her from backing far across the foyer.
“Karta, what are you doing answering the door? Why is no one tending the stables?” Her eldest stepson, now the current Viscount Leviton, stepped past her, stomping the snow off his boots. Freezing wet droplets landed on her bare toes.
She peeked past her stepson. There wasn’t another soul. He’d travelled here alone?
Karta closed the door and spun back to him, her look shifting between the drawing room entryway and her stepson removing his great coat and shaking it. More frozen droplets on her toes. “George, what are you doing here? And alone?”
“That is the lackluster greeting I get?”
Domnall picked that moment to appear in the doorway of the drawing room.
Panic spiked deep in her gut and her toes curled into the floor in a weak attempt to not leap in front of Domnall and push him back into the drawing room to hide him away from her stepson.
George’s eyes glanced to Domnall, dismissing him before he even saw him. But then his hands on his great coat froze and his look jerked back to Domnall, taking in his size. “Who is this?”
Karta stepped between the two men and Theodora flanked Domnall, her wary big eyes not leaving George. “George, this is Lord Kirkmere of Kirkmere Abbey across the glen. Domnall, this is Lord Leviton, my stepson.”
George’s eyes squinted at Domnall. “And just what, exactly, is Lord Kirkmere doing in my home?”
His home?
Karta bit her tongue. Of course the fop would consider this his house. He considered everything his. He had since the day she’d met him.
A frown captured her face. “Maggie—my maid, do you remember her? She is deathly sick and I went to Lord Kirkmere for assistance two nights past. He had a doctor and Maggie brought to the abbey where she could be taken care of properly.”
George looked around. “Properly? Where is the staff I pay for?”
She bit her tongue harder, nearly drawing blood. It was her thirds that paid for the staff. George had made sure of that fact when he’d kicked her out of the Leviton family home.
She clasped her hands in front of her. “They are with their families for Christmastide. It’s why I had to fetch help. I couldn’t get the stable doors open to get one of the mares out to reach the doctor on my own.”
“You gave the staff Christmastide off while Maggie was sick?”
“She wasn’t sick days ago when they left. I presumed we would be fine, and then the storm hit and trapped us here. I am quite certain Maggie would have died had Lord Kirkmere and his men not helped us.”
The thin set of George’s mouth went tight and he looked past her at Domnall. “So why are you two not at the abbey?”
Karta flipped her hand up into the air between them. “We came back here to fetch some of my and Maggie’s items, as it seems her recovery will take several days.” She spun around to Domnall, the desperate look on her face begging him not to say a word. “Would you please be so kind as to fetch the bag I packed in my room above—the third door on the left—while I gather the rest of Maggie’s items?”
“Of course.” Domnall inclined his head to George then looked to his deerhound. “Stay.” He moved to the staircase, disappearing into the corridor above.
Karta waited until she heard the door of her room creak open and she turned back to George. “What are you doing here, George?”
He’d removed his gloves and hat, and his bare fingers ran across the thick pomade slicking his blond curly hair tight to his scalp. “I’m here for you, Karta.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “What? Here for me?”
