The Regency Season: Scandalous Awakening. Elizabeth Beacon

room with an exasperated sigh. He wondered why he’d employed such an exacting valet; he was old enough to dress himself and could tie a necktie that wouldn’t scare the horses. In a year or so he’d have to present a neat appearance for Eve’s début and his wife-hunting campaign, though, and it had seemed a sensible enough idea at the time. Right now he’d welcome a tramp across the countryside, or a long ride on a swift horse to banish his blue devils, but wealth, power and a title came at a cost so he ignored the urge to escape.

      Hearing his stepmother’s sharp voice in the drawing room and the rumble of male ones from the billiard room, Luke tried to find some peace in the library. Virginia’s godson, the Marquis of Mantaigne, was ensconced in a comfortable chair by the fire, but Luke gave a sigh of relief. The air of world-weary cynicism Tom wore like a suit of armour drove women wild with desire for some odd reason, but he was good company and a loyal friend.

      ‘Tom, you rascal,’ he said, managing a genuine smile and a sincere manly handshake even on this sad day. ‘When did you get here?’

      ‘This morning—you must have travelled in my dust.’

      ‘You only had to come from Derbyshire and there was more mud than dust.’

      ‘How unobservant of me,’ Tom drawled.

      ‘Don’t try to hoodwink me that you’re too idle to take an interest in what’s about you, Tom. I know you too well to be taken in by the air of cynicism you use to keep the world at bay. Just tell me who has come here to gladden our heavy hearts and your estimate of how long I’ll be forced to house them for, there’s a good fellow.’

      ‘Whoever told you I’m a good fellow clearly needs disillusioning.’

      ‘I don’t pay much heed to the opinions of others when it comes to my real friends, my lord Marquis,’ Luke said and accepted the glass of fine burgundy his friend poured out of the decanter at his side with an almost smile.

      Feeling more relaxed after the mellowing effect of the very finest wine and a shrewd and succinct summary of his assembled guests from Tom Banburgh, Luke left him to his solitude and the burgundy and avoided the groups in the billiard room and drawing room to go up and reassure himself Eve and Bran were settling in after the trials and discomfort of their long journey.

      * * *

      Chloe felt weighed down by sleep when she managed to blink her heavy eyes open and tried to gauge how long she’d been lost to the world. For a moment she had no idea where she was and had to force her eyes open to stop herself sinking under the weight of sleep beckoning her back like a siren. Virginia would probably be the first to order her to get up and face the world, so she blinked several times and did her best to banish the huge waves of sleep trying to drag her under again.

      Even an upper servant could enjoy the luxury of a long stretch, so she yawned and extended her legs fully against the fine cotton sheets of Brandy Brown’s narrow bed, then reached her hands high above her head so her arms could feel the pull and strength of youth in them. She shook her head so the auburn locks tumbled down in a tangle it would take far too long to tease out when she’d already wasted goodness knew how long asleep when she should be up and doing.

      ‘Bran?’ a deep masculine voice questioned from the other side of the slightly open door and Chloe felt her heartbeat speed up like a greyhound after a rabbit. ‘You can’t be asleep because I saw you in the garden not five minutes ago. Where’s Eve and why is her luggage still cluttering up her bedroom?’

      If she wasn’t in her shift with her hair falling down her back, she could call out a brusque answer and he would go away. Would that serve anyway? If she sounded assured and awake enough, he might go away rather than risk being discovered here with a female servant in the middle of a winter afternoon?

      ‘Mrs Brown is taking the air with your daughter, Lord Farenze,’ she managed to call out as if she was busy and didn’t have time for answering questions.

      A stiff moment of shocked silence and she could almost feel him flinch at the sound of her voice a room and a half away. Unfortunately, she didn’t hear him walking away though. Yet did she really want him to? As usual her inner Chloe chose the worst moment to stage a revolution. She told her to be quiet and get back in her cage and stop there. She did want him to leave and sat up in the neat little tent bed, holding every muscle and sinew tense and still in the hope he would go. Something about the silence on the other side of the door told her he was still there, but a woman could always hope.

      ‘Why the devil are you unpacking Eve’s things when one of the maids could do it if Bran is busy?’

      ‘I...’ She ground to a halt and told herself if she hadn’t slept so deeply and so stupidly in the middle of a working day she might be able to find an answer that would satisfy him somewhere in her befuddled brain.

      ‘Cat got your tongue?’ he growled and was that really a thread of laughter in his deep voice?

      Impossible—Lord Farenze and Mrs Wheaton had nothing to laugh about. There was no level of intimacy to put a hint of smoky amusement in his voice. She’d imagined it and now her inner Chloe was busy imagining more than she ought to all over again. Such as how it might feel to wake up in his bed with her mind misted with sleep and loving, then share the closeness of lovers with him as he teased her back to full awareness of where she was, and who she was with, in his own unique fashion.

      ‘No, it’s still in perfect working order,’ she managed to reply as if she was merely too busy to argue with him.

      ‘Then come out here and talk to me face to face; I refuse to hold a conversation through inches of fine mahogany.’

      ‘I can’t, I’m far too busy today, my lord,’ she managed and heard the note of panic in her voice as she sensed him stepping closer to the door in question and about to discover her sitting here in a state of scandalous disarray.

      ‘No doubt but, since I’m master here now, you must deal with me sooner or later. Far better to get the plans we must make for the next few days out of the way as soon as possible and rub along as best we can, rather than skirt round the subject all week and send the staff spinning about in opposite directions between us.’

      He sounded as reluctant to have that discussion as she was, so why couldn’t he put it off until he was rested from his journey and she was back in her buttoned-up gown with her wretched hair wound safely under a neat cap and hidden away with feral Chloe, who so badly wanted to respond to him in every way a woman could?

      ‘Very well, my lord, I will meet you downstairs as soon as I have finished here,’ she said and heard the waver of uncertainty in her own voice.

      Her reluctance to confront him with the memory of sitting here half-naked and all he could have been to her, if everything was different, wobbled in her too breathy voice. She didn’t dare stir in case he heard the rustle of crisply laundered sheets and realised she was in bed. Sitting frozen and speechless, she gasped in horror when he finally lost patience and thrust the door open.

      Time seemed to stretch and waver as he strode into the little room then stopped dead, as if a wicked witch’s spell had frozen him in his tracks. He stood staring hungrily back at her and how could she fool herself everything that could have been between them was dead now?

      He should turn and walk away of course; leave her to blush and squirm and be furious with herself for giving in to exhaustion and his daughter’s urgings to rest. He didn’t, though, and it was there in his eyes, the might be. Not a never, but a might be; a dangerous chance of more between master and servant than there ought to be.

      A detached part of her seemed to be looking down on them; speculating how two rational human beings could look so much like codfish and still stare rapt into each other’s eyes as if they’d longed for the sight of the other all unguarded for the years they’d been apart. The rest couldn’t even find the presence of mind to squirm down in her bed and hide her disarray.

      Now he looked like all the robber barons who founded his mighty dynasty rolled into one as he stood stock still, so vividly present he seemed to suck