To Beguile a Beast (Legend of the Four Soldiers #3)(16)

He’d been resigned, content if not boisterously joyful. He had his studies; he had the hills and his stream. He had Lady Grey to keep him company.

And then she had arrived.

He didn’t need an officious, too-beautiful housekeeper to barge into his home and life. He didn’t need her changing his retreat. He didn’t need this sudden desire that hardened his muscles and made his skin itch with irritation. She would be appalled—revolted—if she knew what she did to him physically.

Alistair turned from the window in disgust. Soon enough, she’d tire of playing housekeeper and find some other place to hide from whatever—or whoever—she was running from. In the meantime, he would make sure she didn’t keep him from his work.

“IT’S BEEN OVER a fortnight,” Algernon Downey, the Duke of Lister, said in an even, controlled voice. “I ordered you to hire the best men in London. Why can’t they find one woman traveling with two children?”

He swung around on the last syllable and pinned Henderson, his longtime secretary, with a cold stare. They were in Lister’s study, an elegant room newly redecorated in white, black, and dark red. It was a room appropriate for a duke and the fifth richest man in England. At the far end, Henderson sat in a chair before Lister’s spacious desk. Henderson was a dry little man, mainly bones and sinew, with a pair of half-glasses perched on his forehead. He had an open notebook on his knee and a pencil with which to record notes in one shaking hand.

“I admit it is very distressing, Your Grace, and I do apologize,” Henderson said in his whispery voice. He thumbed through his notebook as if to find the answer for his own incompetence there. “But we must remember that Mrs. Fitzwilliam has no doubt chosen to disguise herself and the children. And, after all, England is a very large place.”

“I’m well aware of how large England is, Henderson. I want results, not excuses.”

“Of course, Your Grace.”

“My resources—my men, money, contacts—should have found her by now.”

Henderson gave several quick birdlike bobs of his head. “Naturally, Your Grace. Of course, we have been able to trace her as far as the road north.”

Lister made one sharp cutting motion with his hand. “That was nearly a week ago. She may’ve laid a false trail, gone west to Wales or Cornwall, or for all we know, caught a ship for the Colonies. No. This is simply unacceptable. If the men we have on her now can’t find her, then hire new ones. Immediately.”

“Quite, Your Grace.” Henderson licked his lips nervously. “I shall see that it is done at once. Now, as to the duchess’s trip to Bath…”

Henderson droned on about Lister’s wife’s travel plans, but the duke hardly listened. He’d been the Duke of Lister since the age of seven; his title was centuries old. He sat in the House of Lords and owned vast estates, mines, and ships. Gentlemen of all ranks respected and feared him. And yet one woman—the daughter of a quack physician, no less!—thought she could simply leave him, and what was more, take his bastard offspring with her.

Unacceptable. The entire thing was simply unacceptable.

Lister strolled to the tall windows of his study, which were draped in white and black striped silk. He’d have her found, have her and his children brought back, and then he would impress upon her how very, very stupid it was to cross him. No one crossed him and lived to gloat about it.

No one.

Chapter Four

When Truth Teller could eat no more, the beautiful young man showed him to a large, handsomely decorated room and bade him good night. There the soldier slept without dreaming and in the morning woke to find his host standing beside his bed.

“I have been looking for a brave fellow to do me a task,” said the young man. “Are you such a fellow?”

“Yes,” said Truth Teller.

The beautiful young man smiled. “That we shall see.…”

—from TRUTH TELLER

Mrs. McCleod, the new cook, was a tall dour woman who hardly spoke, Helen reflected the next afternoon. The woman had once cooked for a great house in Edinburgh, but she hadn’t liked the rush and noise of the city and had retired to the nearby town of Glenlargo where her brother was the baker. Privately, Helen wondered if Mrs. McCleod hadn’t become bored with the slow life of Glenlargo and her brother’s bakery, for she certainly accepted the job as cook quickly enough.

“I hope the kitchen meets with your approval,” she said now, twisting her apron in her hands.

The cook was nearly the height of a man, and her face was wide and flat. She was expressionless, but her large reddened hands moved lightly and swiftly as she rolled out pastry on the kitchen table. “Hearth needs sweeping.”

“Ah, yes.” Helen looked nervously at the giant fireplace. She’d been up at the crack of dawn, scrubbing the kitchen as best she could in preparation for the cook, but she hadn’t had time to clean the fireplace. Her back ached terribly now, and her hands were raw from the hot water and harsh lye soap. “I’ll have one of the maids do it, shall I?”

Mrs. McCleod expertly flipped the pastry into a pie plate and began trimming the edges.

Helen swallowed. “Well, I have other matters to attend to. I’ll return in an hour or so to see how you’re getting on, shall I?”

The cook shrugged. She was arranging vegetables and pieces of meat in the pie.