Ruthless (The House of Rohan 1)

She threw her body against it, to halt him. “I’m here to see his lordship. Just tell him Miss Harriman is here. ”

The man’s gaze flicked out at the wagon waiting for her, then back at her, and if anything, his look was even more disdainful. “I have heard no mention of that name,” he said haughtily, pushing on the door.

“Just ask him…” The door slammed shut in her face, leaving her standing there, cold and furious. “All right,” she said beneath her breath. “You asked for it. ”

She stomped back down the snow-covered stairs, mentally thanking Mrs. Clarke for her pilfered boots, and climbed up into the wagon. “The servants’ entrance it is, Rolande. ”

She’d lived such a strange life, so many extremes, and yet she’d never ventured into the servants’ quarters of a great house. From her father’s country house, to the elegant Paris apartments where her mother and her lover had lived with passionate abandon—so much so that it had been up to Elinor and Nanny Maude to bring up Lydia—she’d still remained sequestered from the servants’ quarters. The apartments and houses grew shabbier, but somehow she’d yet to venture into the demiworld of working people.

It was warm and clean in the back hallway. In the distance she could hear the sounds of the servants talking as they worked on what must be dinner, and Elinor wondered what it would be like to have the safety and warmth of honest labor. Perhaps she could become a servant. There was no task she particularly excelled at—she was too clumsy to be a chambermaid, too bad a seamstress to be a lady’s maid and a truly terrible cook. Perhaps a kitchen maid might be possible, under the watchful eye of some stern master chef, and she could…

“Mademoiselle?” Rolande interrupted her brief fantasy. “If you go straight down that hallway you’ll find stairs to the main liv

ing quarters. You keep an eye out for Cavalle—he runs this place with an iron fist. ”

“Bless you, Rolande,” she said. “I wish I had money…”

“There is no need. I take pleasure from serving you, mademoiselle,” he said, starting to bow.

She leaned forward and kissed his leathered cheek, and he gave her a dazzling smile. And then she turned and headed off in search of her nemesis.

The steps were narrow, with rough wood, clearly a servants’ staircase, and she moved quietly. There was a closed door at the top, of course, and she hesitated for a moment. Once she entered the main part of the house what would she do? Start searching the rooms until she found him, obviously, but exactly how she’d start the conversation was a problem, considering that she had to sneak into his house.

That was his fault as well, for hiring a majordomo who was such a…a…polite words evaded her, and even in the privacy of her own mind she couldn’t use the street words she’d unconsciously absorbed during the last few years. Batarde would have to do. She pushed open the door, very carefully, and stepped into the lion’s den.

The space was warm, with the golden glow that came from only the best beeswax candles. The ones he had sent to her house, along with the blessed firewood and the food that she’d stormed off and missed. For a moment she felt faint with hunger. She’d eaten nothing since the toast strips in the morning and the scone less than an hour ago, and it wasn’t enough to keep her sturdy frame alive. She wasn’t delicate, like Lydia. She was taller, stronger, and she felt as if she’d been running some terrible, endless race. She would have given anything to lie down on one of the new beds they’d brought in and sleep for days. Anything but her sister’s honor. And her own, what was left of it.

She closed the door behind her and set off, resolute. The door led into a series of formal rooms, gilded woodwork, highly polished floors, mirrors all around. She’d heard stories of Versailles and the Hall of Mirrors. Surely this rivaled those places. Despite what little she knew of Lord Rohan, she was uncomfortably aware that his fortune was enormous.

Author: Anne Stuart

As were the marble stairs she eventually confronted. She moved up slowly, keeping to the edge in case an overzealous servant should appear, but it was evening and most of them would be discreetly absent unless summoned. She remembered that much from her family’s more affluent times.

She wandered the hallways of the first floor, peering into rooms. She found a library, redolent of leather and pipe tobacco, a pretty little salon clearly designed for the woman of the house, clearly never used, a music room with a pianoforte and harp. At the end of one hall was the ballroom, dark and silent, at the opposite end a locked door.

She pressed her ear against the door, but all was silent. Whatever that room was used for, and she shuddered to think, it was empty now.

She had no choice but to climb another flight of stairs, this one smaller but no less magnificent. What if Rolande was mistaken, what if she was wandering around the Viscount Rohan’s town house with no one there? And then she heard the voices as she reached the top of the stairs. His, deep and melodious, and she held her breath, expecting a woman’s reply.

Instead, a man’s voice, the words too indistinct for her to decipher. She moved out of the shadows, heading in the direction of that room, when her rival from the front door suddenly reappeared, carrying a tray with a carafe and glasses.

“You!” the butler said in tones of extreme loathing, too much the professional to drop the tray. He set it down carefully on a table, but she was already off, racing in the direction of those voices.

A door was open, light spilling out into the hallway, with her goal just beyond it. She’d almost reached it, her booted feet no longer silent on the parquet floor, when the majordomo caught up her with her, catching her hair and yanking her back painfully.

She bit him, hard. And kicked him in the shins with Lady Carlton’s boots, and she heard her dress tear as she lunged forward, skittering through the open door to greet the room’s inhabitants, who stared at her in shocked silence.

9

At least the scarred man, Reading, appeared suitably shocked, Elinor thought. Lord Rohan, as always, was a different matter. He appeared to be expecting her, the wretch.

He was sitting in splendid state, in the middle of a huge bed hung with gloriously gilded curtains, his hair loose around his shoulders, and he was completely naked, at least as far as she could tell. He had covers pulled to his waist, but it still left far too much flesh exposed, and she wasn’t supposed to be thinking about that when her nemesis came skidding around the corner after her.

Lord Rohan made no effort to cover himself. He merely smiled at her. “You shouldn’t look so surprised, Charles. It’s my darling poppet from last night. Clearly she couldn’t bear to be parted from me. Did I tell you we slept together? Twice? And extremely pleasant it was. ”

Reading made a choking sound. “Pleasant?”

“His lordship is misleading you, as always,” Elinor said. “I fell asleep in his presence. Not everyone finds him as entertaining as you seem to. ”