flicker of her sister’s long yellow lashes.
“Oh! Prudence, say it isn’t so! Mr. Penhurst…”
“No doubt it is not so,” Prudence assured her sister. “I suspect that Mr. Penhurst has simply gone to cool off for a while, and shall soon return.”
“Humph!” Mrs. Bates made a noise that resembled nothing so much as a porcine snort. “And what do you know of it, Prudence, I might ask?”
Prudence was surprised to find herself more than mildly annoyed with the matron. Not given to fits of temper, she quelled her irritation and gazed at the woman calmly. “I am sure that the earl of Ravenscar is not quite so dull-witted as to murder his brother in front of the housekeeper and then hurry out into a raging storm to scramble along the slippery cliffs in an effort to toss him off.”
Mrs. Bates frowned and sniffed. “Wits have nothing to do with it, miss. It is the bad blood of the Ravenscars, running true.” She sent a swift, sour glance toward Phoebe. “For your information, young Penhurst had but recently been sent down from Oxford and was deeply in debt, which, no doubt, precipitated the argument.”
Phoebe moaned softly, but Prudence ignored it, turning instead to face their guest in a pensive pose. “But killing the boy would not solve anything. It makes no sense,” she argued. Pausing momentarily in consideration, she added firmly, “I simply do not believe it.”
“It is not supposed to make sense, gel! It is—” Mrs. Bates hesitated before rushing on. “Passion—plain and simple!”
Prudence blinked at the bold speech, Phoebe made a strangled sound, and even Mrs. Bates looked as if she thought she might have said too much. With a gravelly noise, she lifted her bulk from the chair.
“Well, I have lingered long enough. I must be about,” she said. Waving away Prudence’s gesture of help, she headed toward the door that Mary hastened to open for her. She stopped on the threshold, however, to catch her breath and to have the final say in the matter.
“Mark my words, Ravenscar will not get away with it,” she said, brandishing a lacy handkerchief. “The days of the Devil Earl are past. When the boy’s body washes up, as it must eventually, he’ll pay for his crimes. And it will be a payment long overdue.”
With that Gothic pronouncement, the matron took her leave in a swish of dark skirts, leaving Prudence to stare after her, still clutching the borrowed fan. “Well,” she said, half to herself, “Mrs. Bates must be in a hurry to spread the story throughout the parish. It is not every day that she has such a juicy bit of gossip.”
A soft sound from Phoebe made Prudence pat her sister’s hand in a comforting gesture. “There, there,” she whispered, although she was inclined to believe that her tenderhearted sister was reacting to the news with an excessive display of distress.
It seemed to Prudence as if the day were destined to be a disaster. First, she had been forced to listen to Mrs. Bates, and then she had spent precious hours caring for Phoebe, who was taking Mr. Penhurst’s disappearance more grievously than Prudence thought warranted. And now, when she was finally fully immersed in her work, Mary was harrying her again.
With a sigh, Prudence laid down her pen and turned away from her writing desk, where her new villain was wreaking havoc among her pages of foolscap. “Yes, what is it, Mary?” she asked.
The young maid’s eyes were as wide as saucers, reminding Prudence instantly of one of her put-upon heroines. In fact, Mary looked as if she had seen a specter herself and could hardly bear to describe it, for her mouth trembled and she stumbled over her words.
“That…that…Oh, miss, he is here. At the door…in the parlor…wanting to see Miss Phoebe,” Mary said, wringing her sturdy hands in front of her and peering over her shoulder, for all the world as if the devil himself were behind her.
“Well, whoever it is, simply tell him that Miss Phoebe is unwell. I put her to bed, and I do not think she should be disturbed,” Prudence answered. She would have turned back to her work, were it not for the alarm evidenced on the maid’s plain features.
“Oh, but, miss, he will not take no for answer, and I… Come, miss, you talk to him, for I cannot bear to!” she wailed.
Mary had all her attention now. “Who the dickens is it?” Prudence asked, intrigued.
“It is…it is him, miss,” Mary said in a hushed tone. Looking about her furtively, she leaned close to whisper, “The one what murdered his brother.”
For a moment, Prudence could only stare in astonishment. Then she spoke the revered name in a rush. “Ravenscar! Are you telling me that the earl is here…in our parlor?” Prudence asked, with no little amazement. At Mary’s nod, she nearly clapped her hands in delight. “Oh, but this is wonderful!” she said, rising from her chair.
“If you say so, miss,” Mary replied skeptically. And with that she disappeared hastily into the kitchen, while Prudence stood, straightened her gown as best she could, and hurried off to meet the man of her dreams.
He was standing with his back to her, staring out the window, and Prudence took advantage of the opportunity to study him. She noted again how tall he was, well above six feet, and lean, but broad-shouldered. No need for padding in his coats or his hose, she decided, as her gaze traveled down well-muscled thighs encased in doeskin to the tops of his shining Hessians. He wore a coat as simple and black as the straight hair that trailed along his collar. No dandy, this one, she mused with approval.
Just as her gaze moved up his body, Ravenscar turned his head to pin her with a cold gray stare so intense that Prudence nearly took a step back. Her blood, already stirred by the mere sight of him, roused further to flow through her with alarming speed. Here was a man to reckon with, she thought giddily. Here was a man.
“Where is she?” he asked suddenly. And Prudence, for the first time in her life, felt strangely stupid.
“Who?” she whispered.
His scowl was positively ferocious, and she could see a small muscle working in his jaw. Unleashed fury, she realized, was held in check within that composed exterior, though why he should be angry at her, Prudence had no idea.
“Your…sister,” Ravenscar said, investing the word with both derision and skepticism.
“Phoebe?” Prudence asked. Her brain was still working sluggishly, though the rest of her insides seemed to be moving at a remarkable pace.
“That is the name the maid gave me,” Ravenscar said, his face a dark mask of disdain.
Prudence quelled a tiny shiver of excitement at his unyielding manner. She wondered where he had gotten the scar under his eye. A duel, perhaps? He overwhelmed the room with a personal presence far stronger than anything she had ever seen before, and for an instant, she felt as though she were one of her own heroines, struggling against the compelling force of a mysterious villain.
Rather reluctantly, Prudence gave herself a shake and returned to reality. She was, after all, not Millicent, and the man before her, whatever his reputation, was no fiend, but an earl, and she had yet to greet him properly.
“Please, sit down, my lord,” she said evenly. “I had sent Phoebe off to rest, but if you wish to see her, then I shall, of course,
