Never Kiss a Rake (25 page)

“I heard it,” she said dryly. “It was probably nothing, but I think we’d best investigate, don’t you?”

Emma’s pale face looked aghast. “Oh, no, missus! I’m right terrified. I can’t go down there.”

Bryony stifled a sigh of irritation. “There’s nothing to hurt you, Emma. It was most likely his lordship returning home.”

“Most likely,” Emma said with alacrity. “And if it’s anyone else they’re hardly likely to want to bother the servants, even if they could find the back staircase. I’ll just go and tell the other girls not to worry about it.” She had already started to back down the hallway, leaving Bryony alone and in the dark.

“Wait a moment,” she said. “At least give me your lamp. I intend to investigate.”

Emma offered no token protest, simply handing the lamp to Bryony. “You be careful, missus.”

I’d be a great deal more careful if I had someone to watch my back, my girl,
Bryony thought, irritation almost managing to wipe out her nervousness. “There’s absolutely nothing to worry about,” she said in the voice that had always convinced her younger sisters she was afraid of nothing. “But in the meantime you lock your door and stay in your room until morning. I don’t want to be running into you in the dark again and frightening the life out of me.”

“Yes, miss.” Emma bobbed a curtsy, and before Bryony could think of another way to make her stay the girl had disappeared into the darkness, followed by the closing of the door and the scrape of a lock.

Idiot,
Bryony chided herself. Emma was a servant; she was her mistress, or at least as close as you could get. She could have simply ordered the girl to go with her.

Except she understood very well why the girl was so nervous. And she had no intention of ordering anyone to do something that she herself wasn’t willing to do.

Squaring her shoulders, she shut the door to her room behind her before starting down the narrow hallway, resisting the strong impulse to
follow Emma’s lead and dive back into the safety of her bed. Emma was right—the servants’ staircase was hidden behind a series of baize doors, and no casual visitor to the house would easily discover it. She would make her way carefully down into the basement kitchen and equip herself with one of Mrs. Harkins’s stout butcher knives. She was also possessed of a most impressive scream, one that could rouse the entire household and scare away all but the most determined villain. If things got really bad she could hurl the lamp at him, but since that might end up with the house going up in flames, just as their house on Curzon Street had, that would be only as a last resort.

She could be as silent as she could be loud, and she barely made a sound as she crept down the endless flights of stairs to the kitchen, stopping on each landing to listen for any telltale noise. The house was quiet once more, and she wondered whether that crashing noise had been next door, or out in the streets. After all, she slept with her windows ajar, no matter how chill the spring weather, and she could have easily heard the sound of dustbins crashing over, or an amorous catfight.

She paused on the second floor, about to move on, when she heard a muffled curse, and she froze, suddenly terrified. The curse came again, and she sank back against the wall in relief, recognizing Kilmartyn’s deep voice. He’d come home after all, and he was probably so drunk he didn’t realize he wasn’t on the third floor but the second. If she were truly a good Christian she would rescue him, lead him to his bedroom, and dump him on his bed as she had the first night she’d been here. And she was going to do no such thing.

If she had any sense at all she’d go right back upstairs and lock herself in her bedroom. But apparently she was both a heathen and a dullard, because she was going to continue down to the ground floor kitchen and find that butcher knife before she did another thing. Bad things had happened in this house, very bad things, and she wasn’t going to make the mistake of going about without some sort of protection.

The kitchen was still warm from the banked stove, and she set the lamp down on the big wooden table, looking around her. The night was
still and quiet but her nerves were raw, and there was no way she was going to fall back asleep anytime soon. She reached a hand out to the stove, but it would take far too much time to start a fire hot enough to boil water for tea. Picking up the lamp, she headed into the butler’s pantry. The heavy silver tray lay where Mr. Collins had left it, the cut glass decanter and delicate, globe-shaped glasses waiting. She picked up the heavy tray and carried it back into the kitchen, leaving the lamp in the other room, a pool of light spreading into the room.

Drinking the master’s brandy was an offense punishable by instant dismissal and even a charge of stealing, but there were times when the rules simply didn’t matter. She sat down at the table, poured herself half a glass of the amber-colored liquid and tossed it back as she’d seen her father do with whiskey.

She immediately began coughing and choking, her throat on fire as she struggled to regain her breath. Only to have it frightened out of her again, as a firm hand slapped her in the middle of her back.

“Now that’s a truly criminal way to treat my best cognac, Miss Greaves,” came Kilmartyn’s smooth, not at all drunken voice.

“Bugger,” said Bryony.

S
HE IMMEDIATELY TRIED TO
rise, but he put his hand on her shoulder, holding her back down in the chair, and she decided to stay where she was, simply because she had no choice.

“That’s better,” he murmured as he sensed her acquiescence, and he moved around into the shadowy kitchen, pulling a chair out with one foot and dropping down into it with perfect ease.

She couldn’t read his expression in the shadows, and she sat there, flushed from her coughing fit, cursing her stupidity. The filtered light gave the ordinary room an intimate air. She was sitting there in her nightdress and shawl and bare feet; he was beside her in shirtsleeves, the buttons undone to leave an expanse of golden skin open. She’d touched that warm, sleek skin the first night she’d been here, when he’d been sleeping. She’d felt it press down on her the night before, crushing her breasts, and for some awful reason she felt those small, previously ignored breasts become almost unbearably sensitive against the soft fabric of her nightdress. And then she remembered the book, and she knew her face flamed. Fortunately the dark that hid his expression also shielded her own.

“Now what has brought my inestimable housekeeper down to the kitchen in the middle of the night in desperate search of my cognac?” he murmured. “Trouble sleeping again?”

He
would
bring that up, she thought, trying to summon indignation to fight the curling heat in her body. She used her best housekeeperly voice, but she was having a hard time getting the accent right. “I thought I heard a noise, and I came down to investigate it.”

“Alone? I don’t think that was a very wise idea.” His voice was light, but there was a hard note beneath it.

“The door is kept locked between the rooms that house the male and female servants, and I left the keys downstairs. In fact, I was coming down to get them so I could summon assistance.”

“And none of the female servants could at least accompany you?” Again that note of steel beneath his soft, charming voice.

If she told him Emma had refused he might very well fire the girl, even though he’d given her final say over the staff. She lied. “I didn’t want to frighten them. And besides, by the time I reached the second floor I heard your voice and realized you’d come home unexpectedly and there was nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about? You flatter me, Miss Greaves.”

Again that twist in her stomach, an odd, clenching feeling that wasn’t particularly unpleasant, just disturbing. She needed to pull herself together, and fast. “I do apologize for taking some of your brandy, my lord, but as you know I have difficulty sleeping and I decided to continue on down to the kitchen to brew myself a soothing cup of tea. Unfortunately the stove wasn’t hot enough, and I gave in to temptation. I realize it was unpardonable, but—”

“Oh, I rather like the idea of you giving into temptation. And that isn’t brandy, it’s the finest French cognac. Haven’t you ever had any before?”

“A lady doesn’t drink hard spirits,” she said stiffly.

He simply smiled at her. “But you’re not a lady, my very dear Miss Greaves, you’re a housekeeper. Or had you forgotten?”

“Of course not, my lord,” she shot back, mentally cursing herself. She wasn’t going to give in to this strange lassitude that was spreading over her.
She had a job to do and she would do it. “I was merely using the term ‘lady’ to apply to any properly brought-up female, whether she comes from the aristocracy or the serving class.”

“And you were a properly brought-up young female? Tell me about it.”

She watched, hypnotized, while he reached out for her brandy snifter and poured a scant inch of the fiery liquid into it, then poured the same into the other glass. She stared at his hands, beautiful hands, with long fingers. He had a heavy signet ring on one hand, and it gleamed dully in the diffused lamplight, and for a moment she couldn’t tear her gaze away.

It took her a moment to remember she’d already worked this out, committed it to memory as well as her forged letters of recommendation. “My father was a shopkeeper, my lord. My mother had been in service before she married and I was their only child. After my parents died it seemed only natural that I follow in my mother’s footsteps.”

“I see,” he murmured, lifting the glass to the light to admire the color. “And you come from the north, do you not? Occasionally I hear a bit of Yorkshire in your voice.”

It should have been more than occasionally, but she accepted that. “Yes, my lord.”

“I told you to stop calling me ‘my lord.’” His tone was almost lazy.

“And what do you expect me to call you?” she replied with some asperity.

“Use your imagination. Pay attention, my sweet. I’m about to give you a lesson in the proper way to drink cognac.”

“I’m hardly likely to partake of it again.”

“Oh, you never know when you might be tempted to sneak down and pilfer the good stuff again,” he said lightly. “Of course I can always ask Collins to put it under lock and key from my tippling housekeeper, but that would be unkind. I’m more than willing to share.”

“I don’t—”

“Pick up the glass, Miss Greaves,” he said, and she did so.

“That’s right,” he continued in a softer, almost seductive tone. “Now, you cradle the globe in your hand, sliding your fingers around the stem of
the glass. That way your body heat warms the liquid, just slightly, bringing it to the same temperature as your body.”

“That’s assuming the room isn’t freezing cold,” she pointed out.

“Are you cold, Miss Greaves? It feels quite cozy to me—the heat of the day’s cooking remains, but if you’re chilled I can think of a number of ways to warm you.”

His words alone could do that, she thought as she felt the heat rise in her face. She picked up the glass, letting her fingers wrap around the base, and he frowned.

“Why are you wearing gloves? Were you planning on going out in your nightdress?”

He
would
have to mention what she was wearing, she thought mutinously. A gentleman would have ignored it. A gentleman wouldn’t have put his hands on her and made her sit with him in the kitchen and drink cognac.

A gentleman would have fired her.

She immediately set the glass down again, trying to put her hands in her lap. “My hands were hurting—I was trying an old cure.”

She should have known he wouldn’t let her get away with it. He caught her arm and pulled her hand out, then proceeded to slowly peel away the white cotton glove, then reached for the other and did the same. He surveyed her hands with a critical eye, turning them over, and Bryony could feel herself blush. They were looking better—not as cracked and painful, but still rough. There was a long silence as he looked at them, and then, to her horror he caressed her hands with his, running his thumbs against her palms, his fingers stroking hers, entwining with them. “Much better,” he murmured softly.