glittering map of the ton, but he had grown up in a substantial house and knew the kind of activity required to run it. The lack was somehow unnerving, and lent the house a stale, unused air. Somehow it felt more like an unkempt museum than a home.
Eventually they arrived on the first floor, and the housekeeper stopped before a richly panelled door. She pushed it open without preamble, stood aside and said, ‘In here.’ Without even waiting to see him cross the threshold, she shuffled off towards the back of the house.
Trey entered to find yet another room filled with the inanimate detritus of a well-travelled collector. And one animate specimen.
It was a child, of perhaps two or three years. Trey blanched. The only thing more inherently threatening than a respectable female was a child, and this one was both. She was very pretty, with long chestnut curls, but her heart-shaped face was smeared and her grubby little hands were leaving marks on the sofa she stood upon.
‘Livvie do it,’ she said, pointing down behind the piece of furniture.
Why the devil would a child be left alone in the parlour? Suppressing a sigh, Trey crossed the room to peer into the narrow space she indicated. The wall behind the sofa was smudged with what looked to be honey and a crumbled mess lay on the floor below. ‘Yes,’ he agreed with the solemn-faced sprite. ‘You did do it, didn’t you?’
She sighed and abruptly lifted both hands towards him.
Trey grimaced. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, shaking his head.
She only grunted and lifted her demanding little arms again.
Trey decided to take charge. Children responded to authority, did they not? ‘Come down from there,’ he said firmly. ‘We shall find the irresponsible creature meant to be in charge of you.’ He snapped his fingers and pointed to the floor.
The child’s lower lip poked out and started to tremble. Great, fat tears welled in her brown eyes. ‘Up,’ she whimpered.
Hell and high water, were females born knowing how to manipulate? It must be a skill transferred from mother to daughter in the womb. Well, stubbornness was the gift his mother has passed to him, or so he’d been told many times in his own childhood. ‘No,’ he said more firmly still. ‘Now hop down from there at once.’
The tears swelled and ran over, making tracks on her dirty cheeks. ‘Uuuuuppp!’ she wailed, and her little body began to shake with the force of her sobs.
Oh, Lord, no. ‘Don’t do that,’ Trey commanded. ‘I’m picking you up.’ Grimacing in distaste, he plucked her off the sofa, trying to keep her at arm’s length. Quicker than a flash, more subtly done than the most precise of military manoeuvres, she foiled his effort and nestled up tightly against him.
Trey was suddenly and fiercely glad of the borrowed coat he wore. Underneath the chit’s sweet honey smell lurked a more suspicious odour. ‘Let’s go, then,’ he said, ‘and find your keeper.’
The door opened with a bang and a distracted Miss Latimer rushed in. ‘Oh, no,’ she gasped, rushing forward to take the child.
‘Shone!’ cried the little girl. ‘She-own! Livvie do it.’
‘I do beg your pardon, my lord.’ Miss Latimer strode back to the doorway and shouted in a most unladylike fashion, ‘I’ve found her!’
The dour housekeeper arrived a moment later. She never glanced at Trey, but took the child and scowled at her young mistress. ‘She’s taken a plate of bannocks with her,’ she said with a roll of her eyes, ‘so there’s no tellin’ where we’ll find the mess later.’
Miss Latimer shot an inquiring look at him. Trey had not the smallest desire to witness the fuss created should that discovery be made. He shrugged and maintained an air of innocence, and the young lady soon bundled the girl and the older woman out of the door.
Miss Latimer winced. ‘I must apologise, my lord. Our household has been greatly diminished since Richard’s death and Olivia will wander.’ She continued on, but Trey was not listening. He knew he was glowering at her, but he could not help himself.
God’s teeth, but he could not get over how beautiful she was. Her heavy, black tresses shone, as black as the moods that plagued him, as dark as any he had seen in his travels to the east. It was the perfect foil for her exotic skin, just exactly the tawny colour of moonlight on the desert sands.
Her eyes, framed by those lush lashes, agitated him. They were too old for her young and beautiful face. It was as if she had experienced too much sorrow, too much of the dark side of life, and it could not be contained. It spilled out of her, tinting her gaze with mystery, with knowing.
He realised most men would find her beauty fascinating, but damn it, this was exactly the sort of situation in which a man couldn’t afford to give in to attraction. Women like this came with a multitude of strings attached, and Trey hadn’t thrown off his own yoke of responsibility so he could take on someone else’s.
He could see that his glare was unsettling her. He knew that she was at best unnerved, and at worst unhappy, at his presence. He did not care. He was unnerved and unhappy, damn it, so she might as well be, too.
He had come to England to aid an ageing spinster facing an undefined danger. He had been fully prepared to root out the trouble, deliver the damned scarab, and then quickly return to Egypt. There had been no mention of thick eyelashes and long ebony hair. He was not supposed to be dealing with children, and their flying joints of meat and their artful tears. In fact, the only danger here appeared to be to his wardrobe.
And the girl was still talking. Trey had the sudden, nearly irresistible urge to get up and walk out, to drop the scarab in her lap and to never look back. He suppressed a sigh at the thought, for he knew he could not do it. But damn Richard for getting himself killed and thrusting his responsibilities in his lap! He rubbed his temple and wished the girl would stop talking. He wanted to get this over with and get back to his work as quickly as possible.
Miss Latimer did stop, at last, as the door opened again and young Will, freshly scrubbed, bounded into the room, the dog at his heel. The boy dutifully made his bow and went to kiss her. The dog made a beeline for Trey, collapsed upon his Hessians, and gazed adoringly at him, tongue lolling.
‘Oh, dear, I am sorry,’ Miss Latimer said yet again. ‘She has a hopeless passion for gentlemen.’
‘Mrs Ferguson says she likes their accessories—particularly the ones made of hide or leather.’ Will grinned.
‘Will—take the dog outside.’
‘She will howl,’ warned Will. He turned to Trey. ‘Morty likes you, Lord Treyford. Do you like dogs?’ he asked ingenuously.
‘For the most part,’ Trey said, reaching down to scratch behind the beast’s ears and lift her drooling head off of his boots. ‘Morty?’ he asked.
‘Her real name is Mortification,’ Will explained. ‘Squire named her because he said he was mortified that such an ugly pup came from his prize bitch. I shortened it to Morty so her feelings wouldn’t get hurt.’
‘Will saved her life,’ Miss Latimer explained. ‘Squire was going to have her destroyed.’
‘I gave my last guinea for her,’ said Will. ‘She’s my best friend.’
