Never Kiss a Rake (Scandal at the House of Russell 1)

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.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SHE 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 ha

nd, 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.