faint smile curved his lips. “That important, are they? I’ll be down in fifteen minutes.”
Cord shook his head, his amused smile still in place as he reached the doorway of his suite. She was quite remarkable, this new housekeeper of his. Cheeky little thing and far too perceptive for his liking. The door stood open. His gaze slid across the room to the ethereal creature in the mobcap pushing the broom with light, rapid strokes, piling up the tiny bit of dust that was all she could find on the carefully polished oak floor.
She was lovely in the extreme. And unlike her slightly impertinent sister, completely in awe and even a little afraid of him. He wondered what he could do to put her at ease.
He started into the room, then stopped as he realized she hadn’t noticed his presence, which allowed him the pleasure of watching her. The broom continued its movements, then stilled as Claire stopped to study the little silver music box on his writing desk in the corner. Lifting the lid, she stood transfixed as the notes of a Beethoven lullaby spilled out.
She began to sway, the broom moving side to side as if it were her dancing partner, her lilting voice softly humming along with the tune in the box. Cord watched her lithe, graceful movements, but instead of being captivated as he had been that first day, he found himself frowning.
As lovely as she was, watching her was like peering into a fairy’s private kingdom, like watching a child at play. Cord didn’t like the notion.
She saw him just then, jumped and slammed the lid closed on the box. “I—I’m sorry, my lord. It—it was just so lovely. I opened it and the music poured out and, well…1I hope you aren’t angry.”
“No,” he said with a faint shake of his head, “I’m not angry.”
“My lord?” At the sharp tone of Victoria Temple’s voice, his eyebrows went up and he swung his attention in her direction. He found himself inwardly smiling at the fierce look on her face.
“What is it now, Mrs. Temple? I thought I told you I’d be down in fifteen minutes.”
She smoothed her features into a bland expression. “Quite so, my lord, but I was bringing up this load of freshly washed laundry and I thought I would save you the trouble of walking all the way back downstairs.”
She held up the laundry as proof of why she had come and he caught a whiff of starch and soap and a hint of something feminine. “Yes, well, that was extremely thoughtful of you.”
And fairly creative. She was a protective little thing, and no doubt. But then he had known that from the start.
With a last glance at Claire, whose face, even drained of color, still held an ethereal beauty unlike anything he’d ever seen, Cord closed the door, leaving the girl to her work. He followed Victoria Temple down the hall, then paused beneath a gilt sconce on the wall.
“All right, Mrs. Temple, these very important questions you have…what are they?” He imagined she’d had time to think of something in the moments she had feared for her sister’s safety. He found himself intrigued to discover what she might have come up with.
“To begin, there is the issue of the silver. I assume you wish to keep it polished at all times.”
He nodded very seriously. “By all means. What would happen if a guest arrived and the tea service were not up to snuff?”
“Exactly, my lord.” She glanced over his shoulder toward the room in which her sister still worked, Claire’s humming faintly audible through the door. “And there are the guest rooms to consider.”
“The guest rooms?”
“They are desperately in need of airing…if that meets with your approval, of course.”
He bit back an urge to laugh and instead kept the serious expression on his face. “Airing…Of course. I should have thought of that myself.”
“Then I have your permission?”
“Absolutely.” As if Victoria Temple needed his permission for anything she might wish to do. “Why, should a guest catch the scent of less-than-clean air in any of the bedchambers, the humiliation would be unbearable.”
“And the chimneys. It’s important that—”
“Do with the chimneys whatever you wish, Mrs. Temple. Keeping the house clean is extremely important. That is the reason I hired someone as obviously capable as you. Now, if you will excuse me…”
She opened her mouth, probably thinking he meant to return to where Claire continued to work, then snapped it closed when she saw he was heading, instead, downstairs. Chuckling to himself, he made his way toward his study. Behind him he could hear her sigh of relief.
Cord just smiled. He wasn’t sure what to make of either of the two young women, but one thing was certain. His life hadn’t been dull since the moment they arrived.
Tory rose early the following morning. As befitted her status as housekeeper, her below-stairs room just off the middle hallway was large and surprisingly pleasant, with a well-furnished sitting room and a bed with a comfortable mattress and pillow. A porcelain basin and pitcher painted with lavender flowers sat on the bureau against the wall, and pretty white muslin curtains hung at the half windows.
Tory poured water into the basin, completed her morning ablutions, then walked over to the black skirt and white blouse that were the uniform she wore each day. She frowned as she picked up the clothes, realizing these weren’t the ones she had hung beside the door last night.
Instead, these were freshly laundered, smelling strongly of starch and soap. They crackled as she took them off the hook, so stiff they looked as if they were fashioned of pieces of wood instead of the soft cotton fabric they had been sewn from.
Sweet Mother Mary! Of all the childish…Tory cut herself off, ending her silent tirade before it had actually begun. She didn’t know which of the staff had done this, though Mrs. Rathbone, the most senior of the staff, seemed the most likely. Her dislike of Tory was a clear case of jealousy, but it didn’t really matter. All of them resented her. They probably spent half the morning devising ways to make her quit. They didn’t know how badly she needed this job, how desperate she and Claire were for money.
They didn’t understand it was possible they might even be fugitives from the law.
At least they seemed to have accepted Claire. But then, Claire was so sweet and generous nearly everyone did. It was Tory they considered the problem, the one they needed to get rid of. Still, no matter what the others believed, no matter what they did to her, she wasn’t going to quit.
Gritting her teeth, Tory pulled the blouse on over her shift and shoved her arms into the sleeves, stepped into the skirt and fastened the tabs, the garments crackling with every move. The blouse scratched under her arms and the collar chafed the back of her neck.
She knew how she sounded, snapping and popping with every step. As she passed a gilded mirror in the hallway, she discovered how awful she looked. The sleeves of the blouse stuck out like wings and the skirt poked out front and back like a stiff black sail.
“What in God’s name…?”
Tory froze at the sound of the earl’s deep voice, turned to see him striding toward her,
