Rupert suggested sarcastically as he stepped down beside her and placed his hat upon his head.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Pandora shot him an irritated glance when he took a proprietary hold of her elbow as they walked up the steps to the front door of the house.
He frowned darkly. ‘That’s the second time you have called me such today.’
‘You deserved it,’ Pandora snapped.
No doubt, Rupert acknowledged ruefully, and yet, apart from Dante and Benedict, he knew no one else of his acquaintance who would have dared to speak to the Duke of Stratton in such familiar and dismissive terms.
It seemed that his respect and admiration for Pandora Maybury grew exponentially. ‘You are—’ Rupert broke off his comment as the front door of the house was opened by the butler, and in doing so allowing the sounds to be heard from within the house—primarily a wailing Rupert found almost as painful to his ears as he had the singing at the opera earlier! ‘What on earth …?’
All was pandemonium as Rupert put Pandora aside in safety before stepping into the small entrance hall of her home, the servants—dozens of them, it seemed, although Rupert doubted that Pandora actually needed to employ dozens of servants in this small mansion—milling about in what appeared to be unproductive disarray. The loud wailing was coming from a thin woman of middle years as she sat upon the bottom step of the staircase.
Rupert glared his disapproval. ‘Cease that infernal racket, woman!’ He nodded with grim satisfaction as the wailing, all noise, instantly ceased as everyone in the crowded hallway turned to look at him wide-eyed.
Rupert could now see that there were actually only six other people in the hallway besides himself: the elderly gentleman he knew to be the butler, two flighty-looking girls who were no doubts the upstairs and downstairs maids, a lady of middle years whom he presumed was the cook by her plumpness and the pinafore she wore over her beige gown and a bedraggled child of twelve or thirteen years, who might or might not be her kitchen maid. A motley crew, to be sure, none of whom Rupert would have seen employed in any of his own homes.
The woman seated upon the stairs started up her wailing again the moment Pandora stepped inside the house behind him. ‘I’m so sorry, your Grace!’ Tears now streamed down the woman’s thin cheeks as she stood up to rush over to look at her mistress with appealing, if reddened, eyes. ‘We none of us knew—we were all downstairs enjoying a late supper—I only discovered it when I went up to lay out your night things—all the beautiful things in your bedchamber …!’ She began to wail once again.
Rupert gave a pained wince as the return of that screeching seemed to go straight through him and succeeded in giving him a headache. ‘I will physically remove you from my presence if you don’t stop that noise instantly,’ he warned the woman coldly.
‘Stop it, Rupert.’ Pandora turned to give him a reproving frown. ‘Can you not see how upset she is?’ she admonished. ‘Try and calm yourself, Henley.’ Her voice softened into kindness as she crossed to the distraught woman. ‘Enough to tell me what has happened, at least.’ She took the older lady’s hands in hers and gave them a reassuring squeeze.
Rupert, having absolutely no patience for the woman’s sobbing and wailing, let alone her garbled explanation, turned instead to the butler who still hovered at his side. ‘Explain, if you please?’ he prompted quietly.
‘It’s just as Henley said, your Grace.’ The elderly man frowned. ‘Whilst we were all downstairs, partaking of a late supper, someone must have entered the house and gone up to her Grace’s bedchamber.’
‘And?’
The older man winced. ‘And the room is in great disarray, your Grace.’
Rupert’s arrogant brows rose. ‘Have the authorities been called?’
The butler looked uncomfortable now. ‘Not as yet, your Grace.’
Rupert scowled darkly. ‘Why on earth not?’
‘Well, I—’ The man glanced briefly, uncomfortably, to where Pandora was still in quiet conversation with her maid. ‘We only discovered what had occurred a few minutes ago, your Grace, and anyway, I was not absolutely sure that—’
‘I think there has been quite enough chatter for one night,’ Pandora stated. Having now learnt from Henley exactly what had occurred—in lurid detail!—in her absence, she had no wish to discuss it further in front of Rupert Stirling; he already knew far too much about her personal business for her comfort.
She certainly didn’t need Bentley to tell the overly curious and shrewdly intelligent nobleman that the reason he had not called the authorities as yet was because he had been unsure of whether or not she would want him to bring this to their attention.
Pandora turned to the butler. ‘Bentley, take everyone back down to the kitchen and see that they are all given a little brandy to calm their nerves—’
‘But first bring a decanter of the same and two glasses to her Grace’s blue salon,’ Rupert instructed the elderly man imperiously even as he took a firm hold upon Pandora’s elbow.
‘You are white as a sheet, madam,’ he added sternly as Pandora would have protested the need for strong alcohol.
Well … yes, she probably was. But she had thought—hoped— What did it matter what she had thought or hoped, when tonight’s events had so obviously proved her wrong?
‘Do as his Grace suggests, Bentley,’ she instructed wearily, knowing that there would now be no persuading Rupert to leave her or her home until she had offered him some sort of reasonable explanation for what had happened here this evening.
Although quite how much of an explanation Pandora wanted, or indeed, intended to give him, she was as yet uncertain …
‘I am still waiting, Pandora,’ Rupert prompted.
‘What exactly are you waiting for?’ A frown creased her ivory brow as she looked up from where she was seated upon the sofa on the other side of the unlit fireplace from where Rupert was standing, the glass of brandy he had poured for her minutes ago remaining untouched in her gloved hand. They had both dispensed with their evening cloaks and hats upon entering the salon, Bentley having quietly removed them after delivering the silver tray containing the decanter of brandy and two glasses.
Rupert moved to refill his own empty glass before answering Pandora in measured tones. ‘I’m waiting for an explanation, of course.’
She raised fair brows. ‘I’m not sure I understand—’
‘A word of caution, Pandora,’ he cut in grimly, instantly causing her expression to turn wary. ‘I have never appreciated being lied to.’
‘Very few people do,’ she returned lightly as she took a tentative sip from the brandy in her glass before instantly making an expression of distaste.
‘I especially don’t appreciate being lied to by a woman,’ he added.
‘Does that include all women, or do you have a specific preference
