gave his irritation full reign with her. “I sent him ahead of me. I hate being looked after by strangers. This is an unforgivable lapse.”
A sheltered young lady might have been shocked and intimidated by his anger, but Cosy was used to the rough ways of fighting men. Her father and brothers all drank and smoked and swore routinely in her presence. Compared to them, Sir Benedict was the consummate gentleman. She went to the table and fumbled in the drawer for matches. “That’s the trouble with sending a man ahead of you,” she said in her creamy Irish voice. “Sure they don’t always wait for you to catch up.”
Benedict preferred to be served in silent awe by his subordinates. “I sent my valet ahead of me to Bath with my baggage,” he explained coldly and ponderously, as if addressing an idiot. “I take it he has not yet arrived in Camden Place. He must have been delayed by the weather.”
Miss Cosy’s cheekiness was not quelled in the least. “You weren’t delayed yourself,” she pointed out as she lit the three candles in a branched candlestick. “If he left before you, and he’s going at the same rate, I’d say your man is in Bristol this night.”
She held the candlestick up and, for the first time, he saw her face.
His worst fear was confirmed in spades. Miss Cosy was a stunning beauty. How men must fawn over you, he thought. In the dull, orange light he could not tell the true color of her eyes or hair, but there was no denying that satiny smooth skin, that heart-shaped face, that cupid’s bow mouth. True, her nose was a trifle short, but this only served to take the edge off a beauty that might otherwise have been intimidating.
Benedict searched in vain for some other flaw that might give him a disgust for her. Her impertinent little chin had a hint of a cleft in it, but he liked that. Her breasts were small, but, unfortunately, he had always preferred females with light, youthful figures, while at the same time deploring the light, youthful minds that usually went with such females. In desperation, he noted that her hair was a tangled mess, carroty in the candlelight, but who knew what color in the sunlight; her clothes were ugly, cheap, and wrinkled and she looked like an unmade bed.
Ah, bed…What would it be like to share the bed of a beautiful young woman? To kiss that plump, saucy, little mouth, to feel those long silken legs wrapped around one’s waist, and to hear that soft, creamy voice sighing exquisite nothings in one’s ear?
One was appalled by one’s thoughts. One savagely set them aside.
Housekeeper, my arse, he thought. She looks more like a homewrecker.
Miss Cosy, if that was her real name, would have to be dismissed, of course. His sole purpose in coming to Bath was to make a respectable marriage. There could be no convincing the rude minds of the polite world that the ravishing Miss Cosy was not warming his bed as well as ordering his coal, and the inevitable gossip could only have a dampening effect on his marital aspirations, to say the least.
She would have to go, but how the devil was he supposed to get rid of her? Technically, she was Lord Skeldings’s servant, and his lordship now lived in London.
During this prolonged scrutiny, Cosy had been staring at him with ever-widening eyes. Finally, it was too much. “I’m sorry, sir,” she cried, fighting back a disrespectful giggle. “But your hair tonic is running down your face in black bars. You look like you’re in gaol.”
Humiliated, Benedict allowed her to lead him to the cupboard under the stairs.
When he came out with a clean face and neatly combed black hair, Cosy was pleasantly surprised. He was younger and better looking than she had expected. Naturally, she would have preferred a younger man with a spectacular physique, but he was taller than herself in an age when few men were. ’Tis always easier, she thought forgivingly, to fatten a man up than it is to slim him down. She didn’t mind the scars on his right cheek at all and the cold, penetrating unfriendliness of his light gray eyes actually sent a pleasurable shiver down her spine. Of course! He was a battle-hardened officer. Her pulse quickened as she imagined him, gray-eyed and black-haired, mounted on a white steed, in the midst of an internecine battle, issuing his commands no one would dare disobey with cold, ruthless precision.
She had fetched his valise while he was in the cupboard washing up.
“Is there no manservant to take my bag?” he inquired angrily.
She looked surprised. Evidently, men were supposed to take one look at her and turn into spineless jellies. That most men probably did just that was completely beside the point.
“There’s Jackson,” she answered, “but I gave him leave to attend a funeral this morning, and the result is, he’s no use to anyone tonight. It’s nice and warm in the kitchen, though, if you’ll follow me.”
“No, indeed! Be good enough to light a fire in the drawing-room.” Benedict brushed past her toward the stairs. Startled, Cosy dropped his bag and caught at his arm without thinking, taking hold of his empty right sleeve. Instantly, he pulled away from her, and, instantly, she released his sleeve.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” she stammered, truly horrified. “I meant no offense. There’s not enough coal for a fire in the drawing-room, I’m sorry to say.”
“Nonsense, Miss Cosy,” he said sharply. “I’m a member of Parliament. If there were a shortage of coal, I would have heard of it.”
It occurred to her that his severity might be masking a dry sense of humor. “I didn’t think to report it to the government, sir,” she said. “I didn’t think Lord Liverpool would be interested in the state of my coal scuttle,” she added, naming the prime minister.
Miss Cosy would have few options when she lost her position here, he was thinking. She belonged to the class meant to scurry about in the background, silent and invisible. She could never be invisible, not with that outlandishly lovely face. No sensible lady would hire her, and, if a gentleman lost his head and did so, the result would be only misery and disgrace, for what man could resist the constant temptation of sharing a house with such a beauty?
It would be wrong to dismiss her simply because she was young and beautiful.
And yet, she could not remain under his roof because she was young and beautiful.
Only one reasonable solution to this ethical dilemma presented itself. He could, of course, move her to a furnished apartment in London in the usual way, thereby averting any hint of scandal here in Bath. A charming mistress could only be an asset to him in his political career. In fact, if he meant to get on in politics, a charming mistress would be quite as necessary to him as a dull, respectable wife.
“You mean you failed to order enough coal,” he said aloud.
“I suppose I did bungle it,” she said. “I’m used to the turf we have at home, you see.”
“Home?” he repeated absently. “Oh, yes, of course; you’re Irish.”
“Don’t worry, sir,” she told him impishly. “I haven’t come to blow up Parliament.”
“I am glad to hear it,” he replied without a trace of humor.
Cosy gave him up as a lost cause. On the battlefield, he might well be a hero, but as a ladies’ man, he was a pure failure. “Will you come down to the kitchen, sir? It’s where the cat sleeps,” she added persuasively. “So you know it’s nice and warm.”
She
