An Improper Aristocrat. Deb Marlowe

path. Even as her warning rang out, his feet became tangled and he went down heavily, the basket flying out ahead of him.

      The cloth-wrapped bundle within took flight. Trey watched, prophetically sure of its trajectory even before it landed, with a splat, in his arms. He looked down at the stain that now managed to decorate both his coat and his linen, and then he glared at the disastrous duo before him.

      Miss Latimer was solicitously helping the boy to his feet. ‘My lord, we would be pleased if you would stay to dinner.’ She indicated the dripping bundle in his arms. ‘As you see, we shall be dining on roast beef.’

      Chapter Two

      Trey was in the grip of an excessively bad mood. He had travelled halfway round the world, only to end up in Bedlam. He had given his word, and so he had given up Egypt. And he had ended up in a madhouse.

      It hadn’t been his first impression. He’d left the village this afternoon, taking the coastal path as directed, and he’d thought this must be one of the most wild and beautiful spots on the Earth. Oddly enough, he found himself uncomfortable with the surrounding lushness. After the spare desert beauty of Egypt, this part of Devon appeared to be blessed with an embarrassment of riches: stunning ocean views of harbour and bay, woodlands full of gnarled trees, rocky cliffs, and charming dells bursting with early springtime displays.

      Oakwood Court blended right into the undisciplined vista. The long, meandering drive left the coastal path and took one on a leisurely trip through a wooded grove, then abruptly broke free to cross a sweeping lawn. A traveller found oneself gifted with a stunning tableau of a many-gabled Elizabethan manor nestled against a rising, wooded slope. It was a distinctive old house, full of character.

      Trey had never met Mervyn Latimer, Richard’s famous grandfather, who had won a cargo ship in a card game and turned it into one of the biggest shipping companies in England. Yet just by spending a short amount of time in his house, Trey felt as if he knew something of the eccentric old man. His larger-than-life presence fairly permeated the place, along with many fascinating objects that must have been collected throughout his travels.

      And although the many curiosities hanging on walls, gracing the tables and filling the shelves of the house were interesting, they were as nothing compared to the arresting collection of human oddities he’d found here.

      Directly after Trey’s heroic rescue of dinner—the boy’s words—his horse had been taken up by the groom. The wizened little man with a peg leg looked as if he belonged in the rigging of a Barbary pirate’s ship. Yet he soothed the fidgety horse with a soft voice and gentle hands, and the skittish hack followed after him like a lamb.

      Trey, in all his greased and bloodied glory, had been handed over to the housekeeper. A dour Scot if he had ever met one, she wore a constant frown, spoke in gruff tones, and carried heavy buckets of water as if they weighed nothing. Yet she worked with brisk efficiency and made sure he had everything a gentleman could ask for his toilet. Save, perhaps, clothes that fit.

      She’d come to fetch him once he was changed into some of Richard’s left-behind things, rasping out a crotchety, ‘Come along with ye, then, to the drawing room.’ He did, stalking after the woman along a long corridor with many framed maps upon the wall, and down a dark stairwell.

      One notion struck Trey as they moved through the large house. There was a curious lack of activity. There were no enticing kitchen smells, no butler guarding the door, no footmen to carry water, no maids dusting the collection of bric-a-brac. Trey might be the black sheep of his family and a dark hole on the glittering map of the ton, but he had grown up in a substantial house and knew the kind of activity required to run it. The lack was somehow unnerving, and lent the house a stale, unused air. Somehow it felt more like an unkempt museum than a home.

      Eventually they arrived on the first floor, and the housekeeper stopped before a richly panelled door. She pushed it open without preamble, stood aside and said, ‘In here.’ Without even waiting to see him cross the threshold, she shuffled off towards the back of the house.

      Trey entered to find yet another room filled with the inanimate detritus of a well-travelled collector. And one animate specimen.

      It was a child, of perhaps two or three years. Trey blanched. The only thing more inherently threatening than a respectable female was a child, and this one was both. She was very pretty, with long chestnut curls, but her heart-shaped face was smeared and her grubby little hands were leaving marks on the sofa she stood upon.

      ‘Livvie do it,’ she said, pointing down behind the piece of furniture.

      Why the devil would a child be left alone in the parlour? Suppressing a sigh, Trey crossed the room to peer into the narrow space she indicated. The wall behind the sofa was smudged with what looked to be honey and a crumbled mess lay on the floor below. ‘Yes,’ he agreed with the solemn-faced sprite. ‘You did do it, didn’t you?’

      She sighed and abruptly lifted both hands towards him.

      Trey grimaced. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, shaking his head.

      She only grunted and lifted her demanding little arms again.

      Trey decided to take charge. Children responded to authority, did they not? ‘Come down from there,’ he said firmly. ‘We shall find the irresponsible creature meant to be in charge of you.’ He snapped his fingers and pointed to the floor.

      The child’s lower lip poked out and started to tremble. Great, fat tears welled in her brown eyes. ‘Up,’ she whimpered.

      Hell and high water, were females born knowing how to manipulate? It must be a skill transferred from mother to daughter in the womb. Well, stubbornness was the gift his mother has passed to him, or so he’d been told many times in his own childhood. ‘No,’ he said more firmly still. ‘Now hop down from there at once.’

      The tears swelled and ran over, making tracks on her dirty cheeks. ‘Uuuuuppp!’ she wailed, and her little body began to shake with the force of her sobs.

      Oh, Lord, no. ‘Don’t do that,’ Trey commanded. ‘I’m picking you up.’ Grimacing in distaste, he plucked her off the sofa, trying to keep her at arm’s length. Quicker than a flash, more subtly done than the most precise of military manoeuvres, she foiled his effort and nestled up tightly against him.

      Trey was suddenly and fiercely glad of the borrowed coat he wore. Underneath the chit’s sweet honey smell lurked a more suspicious odour. ‘Let’s go, then,’ he said, ‘and find your keeper.’

      The door opened with a bang and a distracted Miss Latimer rushed in. ‘Oh, no,’ she gasped, rushing forward to take the child.

      ‘Shone!’ cried the little girl. ‘She-own! Livvie do it.’

      ‘I do beg your pardon, my lord.’ Miss Latimer strode back to the doorway and shouted in a most unladylike fashion, ‘I’ve found her!’

      The dour housekeeper arrived a moment later. She never glanced at Trey, but took the child and scowled at her young mistress. ‘She’s taken a plate of bannocks with her,’ she said with a roll of her eyes, ‘so there’s no tellin’ where we’ll find the mess later.’

      Miss Latimer shot an inquiring look at him. Trey had not the smallest desire to witness the fuss created should that discovery be made. He shrugged and maintained an air of innocence, and the young lady soon bundled the girl and the older woman out of the door.

      Miss Latimer winced. ‘I must apologise, my lord. Our household has been greatly diminished since Richard’s death and Olivia will wander.’ She continued on, but Trey was not listening. He knew he was glowering at her, but he could not help himself.

      God’s teeth, but he could not get over how beautiful she was. Her heavy, black tresses shone, as black as the moods that plagued him, as dark as any he had seen in his travels to the east. It was the perfect foil for her exotic skin, just exactly the tawny colour of moonlight on the desert sands.

      Her eyes, framed by those lush lashes, agitated