“And I have somehow escaped your condemnation?” His lip curled faintly. Smile or sneer, she could not be certain. With him, she imagined little difference existed between the two.
“You’re not like Lord Hunt,” she was quick to reply.
“No?” He uncrossed her arms and lifted his shoulder off the threshold.
“No. You’re better than that. Better than he.”
“Better.” His gray eyes glittered, cold as winter on the moors of Penwich. “Hardly. We are old friends. Grew up together. Hunt and I are practically the same. Trust me.”
That confirmed the duke had been her neighbor, then. She released a shaky breath, glad, for some reason, that she had not known him then. She did not have memories of him to draw on that were less than flattering. Why that mattered, she could not say. Strangely enough, she needed to beright in liking him. She claimed he was better than Lord Hunt…and she needed him to be.
“No. You’re not. You have a conscience. You’re not”—she floundered for a moment, before finally arriving at the word she sought—“lost.”
In an instant, his gaze hardened, the gray icing over. The cold of that stare reached her heart and she shivered. “You could not be more wrong.”
At his dark expression, her fingers stilled upon the basket. One would think she had insulted him.
“I am the very definition oflost . Empty. Soulless.” His eyes narrowed on her, and for a moment she feared he would step toward her. She held her ground. “Ask anyone.”
She shook her head. “Mr. Adams and the rest of the staff possess a great deal of loyalty—”
“Loyalty, yes,” he cut in, his voice rapier sharp. “Affection? No. Faith in me? No. Never. They know what I am.”
She nodded slowly, recalling the wicked man in the carriage with burning clarity, and the half-naked man standing on the landing, parleying with a woman of dubious morals before his entire household. During both outrageous episodes, he had never blinked an eye.
“If you wish to keep your position, you would do well to remember that.” He turned from her and strode back inside the conservatory, the click of his boots a jarring tap on the floor. Nearly as jarring as his words.
He would sack her if she liked him? If she thought him good and respectable?She shook her head. Absurd. She glanced down at the weeds and began attacking them with renewed vigor, ripping them from the earth with the same hostility she had seen in the duke’s gaze. A sweeping certainty swept over her. Not only did the greatest reprobate among theton employ her…but the man was stark mad.
Ashrill scream pierced the early morning air. Fallon froze amid her chore of lowering an enormous framed portrait depicting one of the duke’s long-dead ancestors. The maid dusting the bared wall behind it shot her a startled look.
The heavy pounding of feet down a distant corridor shook the air. Arms quivering, Fallon eased the heavy portrait back on the wall just as Mrs. Davies’s voice vibrated over the morning. “Dear God in heaven!”
The maid cast her one more look, then, lifting her skirts, darted off, clearly intent on discovering what latest debacle plagued the duke’s household.
Fallon watched as other servants, forgetting their duties, emerged from various rooms and followed in the maid’s wake. Grunting, she returned the portrait to the wall and fell in with the others, locating Mrs. Davies at the top of the winding staircase.
Hands on her generous hips, the woman glared down into the foyer. “Jack! Jack, where are you?”
The brawny footman appeared below.
“Yes’m?” he called, looking up at the housekeeper.
“Fetch the watch! Before it’s too late!”
“Yes’m!” Jack darted away.
Mr. Adams arrived in the foyer, calling up at Mrs. Davies for an explanation.
She looked down at him as though he were a pesky child. “He’s gone and done it! Just like I always said he would.”
“Woman!” Mr. Adams snapped, his gaze skimming the gawking staff with annoyance. “I would appreciate a more specific—”
Another shriek punctuated the air. Fallon glanced over her shoulder, this time convinced the cries came from the duke’s bedchamber.
Mrs. Davies whirled around and flew down the hall with surprising speed for a woman of her size. The clumsy herd of servants followed, Mr. Adams pushing to the head.
“Never dull, is it?” Nancy asked from Fallon’s side, nudging her in the ribs. Fallon marveled at how the girl always materialized near her. “You never know what’s going to happen in this house from one day to the next.”
Fallon forced a smile, unable to feel the same enthusiasm. She wanted stability. Constancy in her life. Even boring would be acceptable. Ever since arriving at 15 Pottingham Place, her life had been upheaval. And yet curiosity drove her on to the duke’s bedchamber with the rest of them. Mrs. Davies was almost to the duke’s bedchamber when the doors burst open.
Diddlesworth barged out, shoving past servants. “Out of my way!”
“Mr. Diddlesworth! Where are you going? You can’t leave!” Mrs. Davies commanded.
“I’ve had enough. I’m done with this madhouse and that—that—” Diddlesworth jabbed a finger toward the bedchamber, “Caligula!”
Mrs. Davies and Mr. Adams entered the bedchamber together. Even from the corridor, Fallon heard their gasps.
Heart hammering in a way she could not explain, she stumbled ahead, pushing among the other servants, peering over their heads, her only thought of the duke, praying that he was not ill or harmed. His last femaleguest made off with the silver, after all. Perhaps the woman he selected for the previous evening’s pleasure possessed even lower scruples. Perhaps she had harmed him while he slept.
Sick at the thought, she didn’t even think to mind when Nancy grasped her arm, a clinging vine at her side while Fallon peered inside the room. Like the butler and housekeeper before her, Fallon gasped.
“Is that a pistol?” Nancy whispered.
Fallon nodded grimly, eyeing the squat, rotund man wearing an unfortunate checked jacket. He brandished a pistol, pointing it at the duke and his bedmate.
“Harold, darling, please. Put down the pistol!” The female’s hands clutched the sheet to her ample bosom. Ashy-blond hair surrounded her in a wild cloud, reminding Fallon of the fog perpetually cloaking the city.
Propped up on a pillow, his bare chest a far too tempting sight—dark, coiling serpent tattoo and all—the duke lounged in the bed as if he didn’t care one whit that a pistol waved in his general direction. “Word is you’re far from a crack shot, Lord Foley. Maybe you should step closer for a more accurate aim?”
“So you can grab the pistol out of my hands?” Harold sneered. “I don’t think so.”
The duke shrugged as if the idea had not occurred to him.
“Must you provoke him?” The female hissed before returning her gaze to her husband. Eyes glowing with entreaty, she scooted farther from the duke, as if distance from him would save her. “Harold, darling. Please. He means nothing to me. You’re my husband…the man I love.”
Some of the tightness about Harold’s lips loosened. He lowered his arm, eyes gleaming moistly as he gazed adoringly at his wife. Fallon released a pent-up breath. Thank goodness the cuckold loved his wife to the point of blindness. The duke might yet survive the morning.
“I’m so glad you found me. The wretch tricked me and was on the verge of taking horrible advantage of me.”
“On the verge?” the duke queried with a drollness, shocking given the circumstances. “Two times and we were just on theverge ? I can’t wait to see what you have in store for me next, Gracie.”
Fire lit Gracie’s cheeks. “You’re no gentleman!”
His lips curved wickedly. “And I thought that’s what you liked about me.”
“Bastard!”
“That’s not what you were calling me earlier.”
Some of the servants chuckled. Fallon simply shook her head. Was hetrying to get himself killed?
Harold sputtered. “You’ve dallied the last with another man’s wife, Damon.”
The duke rolled his eyes and waved his hand in a small circle. “I feel as though I’m watching a Drury Lane performance. Surely if I’m to die, that clichéd remark won’t be what I take with me into the hereafter?”
The irate husband’s cheeks grew ruddier.
“Truly.” The duke’s voice changed pitch as he mimicked, “You’ve dallied the last?”He shook his head. “Not entirely original, is it?”
Harold shook with outrage. Straightening, he snapped his arm up again, pointing the pistol in the duke’s direction. “I’m not overly concerned with originality.”
Fallon’s chest grew tight as steel-cold conviction swept over her—she was about to witness murder. And no one seemed inclined to stop it.
The duke’s jaw tightened, revealing that he was not unaffected. Not as he would like everyone to think. Not as a man deserving death might duly accept his fate. Suddenly, she knew she could not stand idle. Could not watch him die…especially when she could stop it.
Harold’s red-rimmed eyes focused with deadly intent on the duke. Fallon plunged into the room, past gaping servants who would do nothing to help the master to whom they professed such loyalty. She moved swiftly, stomping on the gentleman’s toes with the heel of her boot.
Howling, his arm wobbled, and she snatched the pistol from his lax fingers.
His gaping, astonished face turned to her. “Who in bloody hell are you?”
A quick glance around revealed that everyone else watched her with expressions of equal astonishment. Mr. Adams’s mouth hung open. Nancy’s eyes shone with an adulation that bordered on obsession, and Mrs. Davies’s head bobbed furiously in happy approval.
The offended husband took a step toward her, shaking his head as though waking from a dream. “Give that back.”
She matched him step for step, moving back. “No.”
The duke sat up, the sheets pooling around his lean waist, arms dangling off his bent knees. He stared at her with hard, glittering eyes, alert, aware, his attention on her so sudden and intense she had to stop herself from squirming beneath his regard.Grand . So much for staying beneath notice. Finding herself the subject of such deep scrutiny—again—had not been part of the plan.
He cocked his dark head and merely remarked, “Frank?”
Fallon flattened a hand against her chest, her palms perspiring around the pistol. “Francis.”
“Frank,” he repeated with a decisiveness that rankled. Shoving back the counterpane, he rose from the bed in one fluid motion.Naked .
Gracie squeaked, the sound resembling laughter.
“Gracie! Cover your eyes,” her husband bellowed.
Fallon would have rolled her eyes at the edict for all its absurdity had her gaze not been glued to the duke’s nether parts. Hisconsiderable nether parts.
That’s what a man looked like?It was a wonder any woman permittedthat entrance into her body at all! Even as she thought this, her stomach began a slow churning twist. Her gaze roamed from that part of him to the flat belly ridged with muscle. Her belly tightened in a manner that made her want to squeeze her thighs together. Or worse, press her hand there.
“Gor!” Nancy sputtered from behind Fallon, snapping her mind from such lewd thoughts.
Striding forward, Harold wrenched his wife from the bed. Clinging to her sheet, she stumbled after him as he dragged her toward a screen in the corner.
Shocked titters emanated from the rest of the servants. Scampering feet indicated at least some of the female staff members possessed dignity enough to depart the mad spectacle. A quick glance over her shoulder, however, revealed some remained, Nancy included, riveted to the sight of the duke’s nakedness.
“Out! Out with you all!” Mrs. Davies shouted.
Cheeks afire, Fallon followed the departing servants, intending to hand the pistol to Mr. Adams on her way out.
A deep, gravelly voice stopped her in her tracks.
“Notyou .”
The duke had not spoken her name, but she knew he addressed her. Slowly, she turned, her breath trapped tightly in her chest. He was looking directly at her. The gray eyes as stormy as the Yorkshire moors from which she fled two years ago. She shivered, fighting to hold his stare and not let her gaze drop. To not reveal his overwhelming effect on her.
You’re a man. Remember—a man!
She inhaled deeply, letting air fill her lungs and fortify her, striving to cool the stinging burn in her cheeks. Men did not blush like schoolgirls.
Still gazing at her, the duke spoke. “Mr. Adams.”
“Yes, Your Grace?” The one-eyed butler snapped to arrow-straight attention, his gaze trained on the duke’s face, not once straying to the naked parts of him that held such fascination for her.
“Whatever we’re paying young Frank here, double it.”
Fallon felt her eyes grow round.
“Very good, Your Grace.” Mr. Adams turned an approving smile on Fallon.
“Thank you,” she murmured, sending forth a quick prayer that he saw only a footman when he looked at her. A footman he intended to give a higher wage. Nothing else need matter. Not that he stood naked before her. Not that her face burned under his scrutiny.Not that he stood naked before her…