girls,’ the coachman said with a reminiscent grin. ‘I’ll keep an eye on her when she’s out, or get young Seth to if I’m busy. When she’s in the house you’re far better placed to keep watch over her than me, my lord.’
Josiah’s tone was so bland Luke wondered if the old villain knew how much he needed to avoid the girl’s mother over the next few days. He truly hoped not.
‘Oakham will tell me if anyone breathes on her the wrong way,’ Luke informed his childhood ally in the hope he’d stop making bricks without straw.
‘Then we don’t need to worry ourselves, do we?’
‘I’d still like to know who our curious stranger is, though,’ Luke mused and at least it gave him a problem to consider for the rest of the evening, instead of wondering how he’d get through the next days and weeks without disaster befalling himself and Mrs Chloe Wheaton.
When the household was settled at last, Chloe made her weary way to Lady Farenze’s bedchamber ready to take over the night vigil from Culdrose. She braced herself to try to appear as awake and cheerful as any of them could be tonight. She couldn’t let the elderly maid know she felt tired to the bone, even after her ill-advised nap this afternoon.
Especially not after that; she shuddered at the very idea of what she might have given away in those unguarded moments while she gazed into Lord Farenze’s hot grey eyes like a besotted schoolgirl. At the time a strange sort of exhilaration had buoyed her up, as if a wicked part of her was whispering she should stop fighting and give in to fiery attraction. Except he was a lord and she an upper servant and in a few weeks they would part, never to meet again.
The notion of such heady freedom stretching ahead of her made it an effort to set one foot in front of the other. The notion of all those empty years to come without even the occasional sight of him pressed down on her like a ton weight. She stopped outside the door to put on a suitably serene expression before she met Cully’s shrewd gaze, then walked in.
‘Oh, there you are, my dear. There’s no need for you to stay with her ladyship tonight,’ the elderly maid said with a nod to the other side of the bed where the new master of the house sat. ‘Master Luke won’t hear of anyone else keeping vigil.’
‘No, I won’t,’ he said in a flatly emotionless voice that told her there was no point arguing.
‘Quite right too,’ Cully said with an approving nod. ‘You need a good night’s sleep and no argument, Mrs Wheaton. If you spend one more day trying to fit a month’s worth of work into twenty-four hours, you’ll collapse. Your little miss is home now and we don’t want her more upset than she is already.’
‘Aye, go to bed,’ Lord Farenze barked from the most heavily shadowed corner of the room.
‘Very well,’ she said, knowing she couldn’t argue in front of Culdrose and turned to go before the temptation to do it anyway overtook her.
‘See she drinks one of your noxious potions and really does sleep, Cully,’ she heard Lord Farenze say when she’d almost shut the door behind her. ‘I wouldn’t put it past the confounded woman to steal in here if I fall asleep to take your place, so she can boast she sat by her employer day and night when she applies for her next post.’
As if she would be so mercenary. Arrogant, unfeeling wretch—he would never believe she had loved wonderful, complicated Lady Virginia Winterley very deeply. He was always on the lookout for a base motive, a different sin to visit on her, as if she might have sprouted horns and a tail when he wasn’t looking.
‘Now then, Master Luke, you’re being unjust. That girl loved her ladyship and would have done almost anything for her.’
‘Except go away,’ he raised his voice just enough to grumble so she couldn’t fail to hear him.
Chloe flinched and wondered how he knew she couldn’t bring herself to leave when Lady Virginia breathed her last, before he got here. Bracing herself against the fact he wanted her gone, she made herself walk away noisily enough to let him know he could say whatever he liked and she didn’t care.
Back in her room, she wished it as many rooms as possible from where Lord Farenze was taking the last vigil at his great-aunt’s side. To be within call if her mistress needed her, Chloe was using an odd little bedchamber over the grand gallery that only unimportant guests were ever given, because the high ceiling of the room below meant the floor of this one was raised on a minor staircase with three other cramped chambers. It had been convenient to stay close to Lady Virginia’s lofty suite, until now. So why hadn’t she moved back to her modest room a floor up and at the back of the house as soon as Lord Farenze had set foot in Farenze Lodge? She hadn’t known Verity would be home then and marvelled at herself for being so foolish as to stay within shouting distance of the state rooms now.
It was too late to change even if Verity hadn’t arrived so much in need of a good night’s sleep, so she yawned and hoped for a dreamless sleep against the odds. She had more to disturb her than ever, but after a soft tap came on the door, Cully opened it a half-inch on her invitation to enter.
‘Are you decent, dear?’ she whispered.
‘Aye,’ Chloe admitted with a half-smile at herself in the dimly visible mirror that said it was as well nobody could see into her head. ‘Come in, Cully.’
‘His lordship says you’re to drink this down and I’m to stay until you do,’ her old friend told her sternly.
Chloe sniffed the fumes coming from the steaming mug she held out and caught a hint of camomile, a waft of cinnamon and some honey to sweeten it all and decided there was nothing in it to worry her, even if such a mild concoction was unlikely to make her sleep soundly tonight.
‘Very well,’ she said with a resigned shrug. She knew that resolute expression of Cully’s of old and didn’t feel like a battle to resist her at the moment.
‘I’ll sit here until you’re finished then go to bed myself. My lady is in safe hands and would be the first to tell us to get to bed and show some sense.’
‘I know, but you’re the last person I need to tell how hard it is to be sensible at a time like this,’ Chloe said with a sigh as she paused her drinking and earned a frown. ‘If I drink any faster, I’ll choke,’ she excused herself.
‘I suppose so, but his lordship is right. You look as if a strong gust of wind could blow you into next week.’
‘Kind of him,’ Chloe retorted ruefully.
‘He is a kind man, child, if only you would see it. You two bring out the worst in each another, but Master Luke was a good-hearted, gallant lad before that silly girl nagged and flouted him until he hardly knew which way was up any more.’
‘He’s hardly a lad now, or very gallant.’
‘No, he’s a man nowadays and a fine-looking one at that.’
Chloe distrusted the sly glance her old friend was shooting her. Cully knew her a little too well, after ten years of service in the same house. So, if the elderly ladies’ maid knew she was deeply attracted to her gallant lad, who else might have their suspicions she wouldn’t leave Farenze Lodge as heart-whole as a sober
