The Sins of Lord Lockwood (Rules for the Reckless #6)(8)

He blinked several times—seeming confused by how closely she suddenly loomed. For she was not a small woman; on her tiptoes, she was nearly eye level with him, which gave her an opportunity to deliver him a fulminating glower.

“Now,” she said as her hand landed on the doorknob. One swift tug sent him stumbling off the door past her, though he recovered with grace, swinging back as his own brows began to lower into a proper scowl. “Get rid of the company,” she said as she stepped through the doorway. “At once.”

He opened his mouth to reply. She shut the door in his face to spare him the effort.

? ? ?

A hammer was knocking on Liam’s skull.

“My lord.”

And now came the hiss of rings across the curtain rod, and an unbearable scalding light that caused him, with a groan, to drape his arm over his eyes.

“Your lordship.”

He was not going to move for another hour. “I am dead,” he said. “Go away.”

The floorboards squeaked. “Lock, it’s your—”

Eyes closed, he reached out, seizing the oncoming hand before it could shake him awake. Then, on a hard breath, he forced himself to face the full light of day.

Hanks was staring down, rheumy eyes wide in amazement. “That’s a fine trick,” he said. “I’ll never know how you do it.”

“Magic.” Dropping the man’s wrist, Liam closed his eyes again. “Now you try some. Disappear.”

“She’s downstairs,” came Hanks’s apologetic voice. He was, nominally, Liam’s valet. It was not a role that came easily to him; ironing and folding, yes, but the fussy proprietary hassling of a typical valet, no. “She’s questioning the staff. Has us lined up, introducing ourselves, explaining what purpose we serve.”

Jesus bloody—

He made himself sit up, wincing as the hammer transformed into a dagger that lanced his right eye. What in God’s name had Colthurst given him last night?

Whatever the substance, it was useless: it had not blurred his memory by a fraction. He stared blindly at a pool of sunlight on the Persian carpet, reliving in an instant the entire disaster.

His wife was here.

She was here, and famously and gorgeously in form. She had not changed a whit.

Worse, she intended to stay.

“I think she means to sack Tommy,” Hanks said.

He looked up. “What?”

Hanks gave a mournful tug of his gray beard. He was the only one of them who had not gone clean shaven at the first opportunity, but he spent an hour each night trimming and grooming his facial hair. The others had a name for his beard—“the poodle,” for how wildly it curled, and how lovingly Hanks tended to it. “Nobody was attending the front door last night,” he said. “And she ran into Tommy inside, and so takes him for the porter, and means to sack him for not minding his business.”

Liam gingerly rose, and was relieved to find that the floor remained steady beneath him. “I’ll take care of it.”

Hanks, brightening, hurried to fetch the clothing he’d laid out.

Liam sighed. “Paisley,” he said. “What did we decide about paisley, Hanks?”

The old man hesitated, considering the pile in his arms. “Ah—doesn’t go with stripes?”

“Doesn’t go with stripes,” Liam confirmed. Sometimes, very occasionally, and not without a feeling of disloyalty, he did wish he’d kept on his old valet. Morris had spent three years here sitting on his arse, cheerfully drinking his way through the cellar, skills rusting—but he had not been color-blind, and he had known what to do with paisley.

Alas, Morris would not have known what to do with his master’s new body. Liam stripped off his nightshirt, and Hanks did not so much as blink at what was exposed. Hanks had seen it done to Liam; that was the difference. All the men in this house knew more about him than he might have wanted—and he knew just as much of them.

That was why Hanks, and not Morris, now served as Liam’s valet.

Also, Liam had no idea what else to do with the old man.

He dressed quickly, Hanks fluttering around him with hands too palsied to be of use. When Liam started for the door, Hanks came up hard on his heels, and between the headache and premonitions of the disaster below, it was all Liam could do to keep from snapping.

Instead, on a deep breath, he sidestepped and waved Hanks ahead of him.

Hanks, oblivious, hurried onward. To imagine that he’d once been convicted of thieving sheep! He couldn’t have caught a sheep had one been placed before him in a state of advanced decomposition.

On the staircase, Liam got his first glimpse of the problem below. His wife had the staff lined up like a regimental formation—unaware, of course, of how much she asked. The chambermaids and the housekeeper—all of whom had been on holiday yesterday—looked to a woman very pleased by this crisis. No doubt they had dreamed of a mass sacking for months now.

The men looked torn along a spectrum from rage to bewilderment. Henneage, a squat Northman who’d been transported for leading a riot, looked red faced and indignant enough to rally a new mob. Scrawny Wilkins was weaving on his feet, barely supported by the combined efforts of Gibbs and Riley, who were muttering ominously.

“What nonsense is this?” came a strident female voice. As Liam hurriedly took the last few steps, his wife came into view. She was pacing the line, her hands clasped at her back, her lavender woolen walking gown fittingly garnished with black epaulettes and military braids. She stopped in front of Wilkins, peering down her Roman nose. “Did your nap on the snooker table last night not leave you sufficiently refreshed, sir? And to think I’d imagined you a guest! Instead, it seems, you are . . . Well? What, precisely, is your role here?”