To Beguile a Beast (Legend of the Four Soldiers #3)(8)

“I would’ve brought up a pot of tea,” Mrs. Halifax was saying as she busied herself arranging the dishes on his desk, “but you don’t seem to have one. A teapot, that is. As it was, I was forced to boil the tea in a cooking pot.”

“Broke last month,” Alistair muttered. What scheme was this? And was he expected to consume this dreck in front of her?

She looked up, all rosy cheeks and sparkling blue eyes, damn her. “What did?”

“The teapot.” Thank God he’d put on his eye patch this morning. “This is most, ah, kind of you, Mrs. Halifax, but you needn’t have bothered.”

“No bother at all,” she blatantly lied. He knew full well the state of his kitchen.

He narrowed his eye. “I expect that you’ll want to leave this morning—”

“I shall just have to get another, shan’t I? A teapot, I mean,” she said as if she’d suddenly gone deaf. “The tea just doesn’t taste the same boiled in a cooking pot. I think ceramic teapots are the best.”

“I shall order a carriage—”

“There are people who prefer metal—”

“From the village—”

“Silver’s quite dear, of course, but a nice little tin teapot—”

“So you can leave me in peace!”

His last words emerged as a bellow. Lady Grey raised her head from the hearth. For a moment, Mrs. Halifax stared at him with large, harebell-blue eyes.

Then she opened her lush mouth and said, “You can afford a tin teapot, can’t you?”

Lady Grey sighed and turned back to the warmth of the fire.

“Aye, I can afford a tin teapot!” He closed his eye a moment, irritated that he’d let her draw him into her babble. Then he looked at her and took a breath. “But you’ll be leaving just as soon as I can—”

“Nonsense.”

“What did you say?” he rasped very gently.

She raised her impertinent chin. “I said nonsense. You obviously need me. Did you know that you have hardly any food in the castle? Well, of course you know, but really it will not do. It will not do at all. I shall do some shopping as well when I go to the village for the teapot.”

“I don’t need—”

“I do hope you don’t expect us to live on oats and streaky bacon?” She set her hands on her hips and glared at him in an entirely becoming manner.

He frowned. “Of course I—”

“And the children need some fresh vegetables. I expect you do as well.”

“Don’t you—”

“I’ll go to the village this afternoon, shall I?”

“Mrs. Halifax—”

“And that teapot, do you prefer ceramic or tin?”

“Ceramic, but—”

He was talking to an empty room. She’d already closed the door gently behind her.

Alistair stared at the door. He’d never been so completely routed in all his life—and by a pretty little slip of a woman he’d thought half-witted the night before.

Lady Grey had raised her head at Mrs. Halifax’s exit. Now she lay it back down on her paws and seemed to give him a pitying look.

“At least I got to choose the teapot,” Alistair muttered defensively.

Lady Grey groaned and turned over.

HELEN CLOSED THE tower door behind her and then couldn’t resist a small grin. Ha! She’d definitely won that round with Sir Beastly. She hurried down the tower stairs before he could come to the door and call her back. The stairs were old stone, worn and shallow, and the walls of the tower were bare stone as well until she came to a door at the bottom of the stairs. This led to a narrow hall that was dim and musty but at least paneled and carpeted.

She hoped that Sir Alistair’s breakfast wasn’t too cold, but if it was, it was his own fault. It’d taken her a while to find him this morning. She’d been all over the gloomy upper floors of the castle until it had finally occurred to her that she should try the towers. She should’ve thought he’d be lurking in an old tower like something out of a tale meant to terrify children. She’d braced herself before opening the door so that she wouldn’t react to his appearance. Fortunately, he’d worn an eye patch this morning. But he still let his black hair hang around his shoulders, and she didn’t think he’d shaved in a week or more. His jaw had been quite shadowed with stubble. She wouldn’t be at all surprised if he kept it that way to intimidate people.

And then there had been his hand.

Helen paused at the memory. She hadn’t noticed his hand last night, but this morning when she’d opened the door to the tower, he’d been holding a sheet of paper between his middle two fingers and thumb. His forefinger and little finger were missing on his right hand. What caused such a horrible mutilation? Had he been in some accident? And had this terrible accident also scarred his face and cost his eye? If so, he wouldn’t welcome her pity or even sympathy.

She bit her lip at the thought. Her last sight of Sir Alistair gave her a twinge of remorse. He’d been surly and unkempt. Rude and sarcastic. Everything she’d expected after the night before. But there was something else. He’d sat at that huge table, barricaded behind his books and papers and mess and he’d looked . . .

Lonely.