The Temptation of Your Touch (5 page)

The man was still snuffling and dabbing at his eyes with the cuff of his shirt when the door at the far end of the drawing room swung open. It seemed Max had done his staff a disservice. They had turned out to greet their new master after all.

They paraded into the drawing room, only managing to arrange themselves in a proper row after a fair amount of elbowing, giggling, muttering beneath their breath, and treading on each other’s feet. Max felt his anger melting to dismay. No wonder the manor was in such sorry neglect. There wasn’t nearly enough staff for a house of this size. Why, his town house on Belgrave Square had twice the number of servants!

It hardly strained his advanced mathematical skills to count the still wheezing butler, five housemaids, and a lad wearing footman’s livery plainly tailored for a grown man. A powdered wig that looked as if it had been rescued from the head of
some unfortunate French aristocrat just
after
his trek to the guillotine sat askew on his head. Max blinked as a moth emerged from the wig and fluttered toward one of the oil lamps.

While the maids quickly averted their gazes to their feet, the lad settled back on his heels and gave Max a look rife with insolence.

There was no sign of a cook, a wine steward, or a groom of the chambers. Max was already beginning to regret not forcing his valet to share his exile. He had just assumed there would be a manservant in the house he could recruit for the position.

Just when he had given up any hope of receiving a proper welcome, a woman glided through the door and took her place at the end of the row, her lips curved in a dutiful smile. “Good evening, my lord. I am Mrs. Spencer, the housekeeper of this establishment. Please allow me to welcome you to Cadgwyck Manor.”

In Max’s experience, the butler customarily did the welcoming when one was needed. But his new butler was currently occupied with plucking bits of dust from his moth-eaten coat, the faint tremor in his hands even more pronounced now that he’d divested them of the heavy candlestick.

Max inclined his head in a curt bow. “Mrs. Spencer.”

Despite the rather motley appearance of the rest of the staff, Mrs. Spencer appeared to be all that was proper in an English housekeeper. Her posture was impeccable, her spine more ramrod straight than that of most military men of Max’s acquaintance. A crisp white apron offset her stern black dress.

Her brown hair had been drawn back from her face and confined in a woven net at her nape with a severity that looked almost painful. Her pale skin was smooth and unlined, making it difficult to determine her age. Max judged her to be close to his own thirty-three years, if not older.

She was a plain woman with nothing striking or unique about her features to draw a man’s eye. Her chin was pointed, her cheekbones high, her nose slender and straight, though a shade too long to be called delicate. She smiled with her mouth closed as if her lips were accustomed to holding back as many words as they spoke. Or perhaps she was simply seeking to hide bad teeth.

The only feature that might tempt a man to take a second look were her eyes. Their dark-green depths sparkled with an intelligence that could easily have been mistaken for mischief in a less guarded woman. Her sole concessions to vanity were the delicate tatting peeping out of her collar and the thin chain of braided silver that disappeared beneath it. Max’s
natural curiosity made him wonder what dangled at the end of it. A cheaply painted miniature of Mr. Spencer perhaps?

“I trust you had a pleasant journey,” she said, lifting one delicately arched brow in an inquiring manner.

Max glanced down. Water was still dripping from the hem of his greatcoat to soak the carpet beneath his feet, and fresh mud was caked on the once-supple calfskin of his favorite pair of Wellingtons. He returned his gaze to her face. “Oh, it was simply divine.”

Just as he had expected, his sarcasm was wasted on her. “I’m so very pleased to hear that. I’m afraid there are some who find our climate less than hospitable.”

“Indeed,” he said drily, his words underscored by a fresh rumble of thunder. “That’s certainly difficult to imagine.”

“If you’ll allow me, I shall introduce you to the rest of the staff.”

If he hadn’t been distracted by the velvety timbre of her voice, Max would have informed the housekeeper the only thing he was interested in being introduced to at that moment was a tumbler of brandy and a warm bed. The cultured note in her speech shouldn’t have surprised him. The upper
servants of a household might hail from the local villages, but they commonly affected the accents of the ladies and gentlemen they’d been hired to serve. Most were talented mimics. It seemed his new housekeeper was no exception.

“These are the housemaids,” she informed him, gesturing toward the row of young women. “Beth, Bess, Lisbeth, Betsy, and Lizzie.”
Mrs. Spencer had just reached the end of the row when a sixth maid came racing into the drawing room, skidding to a halt at the far end of the row. “And Pippa,” Mrs. Spencer added with somewhat less enthusiasm.

While her fellow maids had at least taken the time to pin up their hair and don aprons and caps, young Pippa looked as if she had just stumbled out of bed. Her gown was rumpled, its collar gaping open at the throat, and she hadn’t even bothered to hook the buttons on her scuffed half boots.

The other maids bobbed dutiful curtsies; Pippa yawned and scratched at her wild, dark tangle of hair before mumbling, “Your grace.”

“
My lord
will be sufficient,” Max said. “I won’t be
your grace
until my father dies, and the man is in such vigorous health he may very well outlive me.”

“If we’re lucky,” the young footman muttered beneath his breath.

“Pardon?” Max shifted his frown to the boy.

Mrs. Spencer’s smile tightened as she reached to give the lad’s ear a fond tweak. “Our head footman, Dickon, was just saying how fortunate we are to have a new master here at Cadgwyck Manor. We’ve been quite adrift since the last one took his leave in such haste.”

“Aye,” Dickon muttered, rubbing his ear and giving her a resentful look from beneath his tawny lashes. “I was just saying that, I was.” As far as Max could tell, the lad wasn’t just the head footman. He was the
only
footman.

“Called back to London on some urgent bit of business, was he?” Max was not yet willing to let on that he knew the last master of the house had fled the premises in terror, pursued by some dread specter from his own imagination.

“We can only assume,” Mrs. Spencer replied, calling his bluff with an unruffled stare of her own. “I’m afraid he didn’t linger long enough to give us any reason for his abrupt departure.” She turned away from Max, her voice softening. “I would be quite remiss in my introductions if I left off the captain of this fine ship we call Cadgwyck Manor—our esteemed butler, Mr. Hodges.”

A muffled snore greeted her words. Max craned his neck to discover the man who had let him in the door had slumped into a faded Hepplewhite chair and dozed off. His chin was tucked against his chest
like a plump pigeon resting its beak in the feathers of its breast.

“Mr. Hodges,”
the housekeeper repeated, much louder this time.

The butler started violently, shaking himself awake. “Teatime, is it? I’ll just go fetch the cart.” He sprang to his feet and went bolting from the room, leaving the rest of them staring after him.

Max arched one brow. Apparently the man wasn’t a mute as he had first feared, but simply a garden-variety lunatic.

In the time it took for Mrs. Spencer to turn back to Max, she had recovered both her composure and her smile. Folding her hands in front of her like some sort of beatific Buddha, she said, “You must be terribly weary after such a long journey, my lord. Dickon would be delighted to show you to the master chamber.”

Judging by his sullen scowl, the young footman would be even more delighted to shove Max over the nearest cliff. Or out the nearest open window.

“That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Spencer,” Max said. “I’d prefer that
you
escort me to my chamber.”

Although Max would have thought it impossible, Dickon’s scowl darkened.

Mrs. Spencer’s expression remained carefully bland. “I can assure you young Dickon is perfectly capable of—”

Max took a step toward her, using the advantage of his size and his physical presence to underscore his words. “I insist.”

The housekeeper’s crisp smile wavered. Although Max could tell it displeased her, she had no choice but to respect his wishes or risk defying him in front of the other servants, which would set a poor example indeed.

Her smile returned. As her lips parted, he was reminded of a cornered creature baring its teeth at him. Teeth that weren’t bad after all, but were small and white and impressively even except for the winsome gap between the two in the front.

“Very well, my lord,” she said stiffly, retrieving from the pier table the heavy candlestick the butler had abandoned. For some reason, Max had a sudden image of it coming down on the back of his head.

She started toward the entrance hall, tossing a look over her shoulder that could easily have been mistaken for a challenge had they met as equals instead of master and servant. “Shall we proceed?”

M
AX FOLLOWED HIS NEW
housekeeper up the shadowy staircase toward the deeper gloom of the second story. He knew he ought to be ashamed of himself. He had always had his autocratic tendencies, but he had never been a bully. So why was he taking such
mean-spirited pleasure in baiting a stranger—and an inferior at that?

He could hardly fault Mrs. Spencer for trying to foist him off on Dickon. Max had been a willing slave to propriety for most of his life. He was well aware there was nothing proper about a lone woman escorting a man to his bedchamber, especially a man she had just met. Perhaps he had simply wanted to see if the composure the woman wore like a suit of armor had any chinks.

Judging by the stiff angle of her neck, the rigid set of her shoulders, and the almost-military cadence of her half boots on each tread of the stairs, it did not. Her determination was so unyielding she might have been marching along behind Hannibal and his elephants as they crossed the Alps during the Second Punic War.

Max’s gaze strayed lower, finding a vulnerability he had not anticipated in the subtle sway and roll of her hips. Something unsettling lay in imagining any hint of womanly softness beneath those crisp layers of starched linen. She stole a glance over her shoulder at him; he jerked his gaze back to her face. He was also not in the habit of ogling women’s derrieres, especially women in his employ.

“Am I to assume that was the entire staff on display down there?” he asked, hoping to remind them both of his new role as lord of the manor.

“I should say not!” Mrs. Spencer exclaimed, as if the very notion was nonsense. But her next words quenched Max’s swell of relief. “There’s also Nana the cook. I saw no need to disturb her since she has to rise so early to prepare breakfast. And on the second Tuesday of every month, Mrs. Beedle comes up from the village to assist with the laundering of the linens. I believe you’ll discover we run a very efficient household here at Cadgwyck, my lord. One that is quite beyond reproach.”

Max trailed his fingertips through the thick layer of dust furring the banister, wondering if she might not be as mad as his new butler.

During that awkward silence he noticed a most peculiar trait—his housekeeper jingled when she walked. It took his weary brain a minute to trace the musical sound to the formidable ring of keys she wore at her waist.

“That’s quite a collection of keys you have there,” he commented as they approached the second-story landing.

Without missing a beat, she replied, “Someone has to mind the dungeons as well as the pantry.”

“Must be a challenge for you to sneak up on people. Rather like a cat wearing a collar with a bell on it.”

“
Au contraire,
my lord,” she purred, surprising Max anew with the graceful way the Gallic syllables
rolled off her tongue. “When one expects a cat to wear a bell, removing the bell only makes the cat that much more dangerous.”

This time the smile she cast over her shoulder at him was sweetly feline. When she returned her attention to the stairs, Max narrowed his eyes at her slender back, imagining her slinking through the halls of the manor in the dead of night, up to any manner of mischief. He would be wise not to underestimate her. This kitty might yet have claws.

The swish of her hips beneath her staid skirts seemed even more pronounced now, as if she were deliberately baiting him. As they reached the second-story gallery, the wavering shadows fled before the gentle glow of her candle. A halo of light climbed the wall, illuminating the portrait hanging directly across from the top of the stairs.

Max’s gaze followed it, as irresistibly drawn as a hapless moth might be to a deadly flame.

His breath caught in his throat. Mrs. Spencer was forgotten. His desperate desire to collapse onto a warm, dry mattress was forgotten.

Everything was forgotten except for the vision floating before his eyes.

Chapter Six