To Beguile a Beast (6 page)

He smiled, and the expression made the back of her neck tickle. “Mrs. Halifax.”

She swallowed and tilted her chin. “Sir Alistair.”

He prowled toward her, athletic, male, and rather dangerous. “I confess your presence in my kitchen is something of a surprise.”

“Is it?”

“I believe”—he circled behind her, and she twisted her neck to try and keep him in her sight—“that I dismissed you just this morning.”

Helen cleared her throat. “About that—”

“I’m almost certain, in fact, that I saw you leave in a carriage.”

“Well, I—”

“A carriage I hired to take you away.” Was that his breath against the back of her neck?

She turned, but he was several paces away, by the fireplace now. “I explained to the driver that you’d made a mistake.”

“
I
made a mistake?” His gaze dropped to the basket she carried in her hands. “You’ve been to the village, then, madam?”

She tilted her chin. No use letting him intimidate her. “Yes, I have.”

“And you’ve bought eggs and ham and bread and jam.” He stalked straight toward her, his long stride eating up the few feet between them.

“Yes, I have.” She shied away—entirely inadvertently! —and found herself against the kitchen table.

“And what sort of mistake did you tell the carriage driver
I’d
made?” He plucked the basket from her hand.

“Oh!” She reached for her basket, but he carelessly held it up out of reach.

“Tut, tut, Mrs. Halifax. You were about to tell me how you convinced the driver to bring you back here.” He took the ham out of the basket and set it on the kitchen table. “Did you bribe the man?”

“Certainly not.” She watched him worriedly as he placed the bread and jam beside the ham. Was he angry? Amused? The problem was she simply couldn’t tell. She expelled an exasperated breath. “I told him that you were confused.”

He looked at her. “Confused.”

If the table hadn’t been at her back, she might’ve fled. “Yes. Confused. I said I only needed the carriage to do my shopping in Glenlargo.”

“Is that so?” He’d emptied the basket by now and was examining the contents laid out on the table. Besides the jam, ham, bread, and eggs, she’d purchased tea, a lovely brown-glazed teapot, butter, four nice round apples, a bunch of carrots, a wedge of creamy yellow cheese, and a herring.

He turned his gaze to her. “What a magnificent feast. Did you use your own money?”

Helen blushed. Naturally, she’d had to use her own money. “Well, I—”

“How very generous of you, madam,” he rasped. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard tell before of a housekeeper using her own funds for her master.”

“I’m sure you’ll repay me—”

“Are you?” he murmured.

She set her hands on her hips and blew a lock of hair out of her eyes. This afternoon had been the most trying of her entire life. “Yes, I’m sure. You’ll repay me because I begged and bullied that wretched driver into stopping in Glenlargo. Then I had to find the shops, wheedle the baker to reopen his shop—he closes at noon, would you believe?—bargain the butcher down from his quite scandalous prices, and tell the grocer I wasn’t going to buy wormy apples.” She didn’t even mention the task that’d taken up most of her time in the village. “And after that I had to persuade the carriage driver into bringing us back here and helping me unload the carriage. So, yes, the very least you could do is repay me!”

A corner of those wide sensuous lips twitched.

Helen leaned forward, on the verge of violence. “And don’t you dare laugh at me!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He reached for a knife in a drawer. “Abigail, can you put the kettle on for tea by yourself?” He began to slice the bread.

“Yes, sir.” Abigail jumped to help.

Helen let her arms fall, feeling a bit deflated. “I want to try it again. The housekeeping, I mean.”

“And I, as the master of the house, am to have no say in the matter, I see. No, don’t touch that.” This last was directed at her as she began to unwrap the ham. “It’ll have to be boiled, and that’ll take hours.”

“Well, really.”

“Yes, really, Mrs. Halifax.” He glanced at her with that light brown eye. “You can butter the bread. I’m assuming, of course, that you are capable of buttering bread?”

She didn’t bother replying to that insulting remark but merely took up a butter knife and began applying butter. His mood seemed to have lightened, but he still hadn’t indicated if he’d let her and the children stay. Helen bit her lip, darting a sideways glance at him. He looked perfectly content slicing bread. She blew out a breath. Easy for him to be at ease; he didn’t have to worry if he’d have a roof over his head tonight.

Sir Alistair didn’t speak again for a bit but sliced and handed her bread to butter. Abigail had brought out the tea, and now she rinsed the new teapot with hot water before filling it. Soon they all sat down to a meal of tea, buttered bread, jam, apples, and cheese. It wasn’t until Helen bit into her second slice of bread that she realized how very odd this might look to anyone walking in. The master of the castle eating with his housekeeper and her children in the kitchen.

She glanced at Sir Alistair and found him watching her. His long black hair fell over his brow and eye patch, giving him the appearance of a surly highwayman. He smiled—not very nicely—and she was put on the alert.

“I’ve been wondering something, Mrs. Halifax,” he rasped in his broken voice.

She swallowed. “Yes?”

“What, exactly, was your position in the dowager Viscountess Vale’s household?”

Damn.
“Well, I did do some housekeeping.”

Technically true since Lister had set her up in her own house. Of course, she’d had a paid housekeeper. . . .

“But you weren’t the official housekeeper, I’m thinking, or Lady Vale would’ve said so in her letter.”

Helen hastily took another bite of bread so she could think.

Sir Alistair watched her in that disconcerting way, making her quite self-conscious. Other men had stared at her before, she was considered a beauty, and it was only false modesty not to admit the fact. And, of course, as the Duke of Lister’s mistress, she’d been an object of curiosity. So she was used to being stared at by men. But Sir Alistair’s gaze was different. Those other men had looked at her with lust or speculation or crass curiosity, but they hadn’t been looking at her really. They’d been looking at what she represented to them: physical love or a valuable prize or an object to be gawked at. When Sir Alistair stared at her, well, he was looking at
her.
Helen the woman. Which was rather disconcerting. It was almost as if she were naked before him.

“You certainly weren’t the cook,” he murmured now, interrupting her thoughts. “I think we’ve established that.”

She shook her head.

“Perhaps you were a type of paid companion?”

She swallowed. “Yes, I think you might call my position that.”

“And yet I’ve never heard tell of a companion who was allowed to keep her children with her.”

Helen glanced at the children across the table. Jamie was intent on devouring an apple, but Abigail looked back and forth between Helen and Sir Alistair with a worried expression.

Helen threw the abominable man her best smile along with a conversational bomb. “Have I told you about the two footmen, three maids, and the cook I hired in town today?”

“You’ve hired half a dozen servants,” he said slowly.

Her brows drew together, making two small lines in her otherwise smooth forehead. “Yes.”

“Servants I neither want nor need.”

“I think there can be no question that you need them,” she replied. “I’ve dealt with Mr. Wiggins. He seems unreliable.”

“Wiggins
is
unreliable. He’s also cheap. Your servants will expect to be paid well, won’t they?” Grown men had been known to flee when he spoke thus.

But not she. She tilted up her softly rounded chin. “Yes.”

Fascinating. She appeared to have no fear of him. “What if I don’t have the money?”

Her beautiful blue eyes widened. Had that thought never occurred to her? That a man who lived in a castle might not have servants because he couldn’t afford them?

“I… I don’t know,” she stammered.

“I do have the money to hire servants if I wished to.” He smiled kindly. “I don’t.”

Actually, Alistair supposed he could be called rich, if the reports from his man of business were to be believed. Investments he’d made before he set off for the American Colonies had done very well. Then, too, his book describing the flora and fauna of New England had been a rather spectacular success. So, yes, he had money to hire a half dozen servants—or dozens more if he cared. Ironic, really, considering that he’d never set out to make a fortune.

“Why not hire servants if you have the money?” She seemed honestly perplexed.

Alistair leaned back in his ancient kitchen chair. “Why should I spend my money on servants that are useless to me?” He didn’t add, servants who would no doubt loiter in the halls to stare at him and his scars.

“Cooks aren’t useless,” Jamie objected.

Alistair raised his eyebrows at the lad. Jamie sat across from him, his elbows flat on the table, a slice of bread with jam between his hands.

“Indeed?”

“Not if they can make steak pie,” the boy pointed out. He had jam smeared on either side of his face. There was jam on the table in front of him as well. “Or custard.”

Alistair felt his mouth quirk. Warm custard, fresh from the oven, had been a favorite of his as well when he’d been Jamie’s age. “Can this cook make steak pie and custard?”

“I believe so,” Mrs. Halifax said primly.

“Pleeease may we keep the cook?” Jamie’s eyes were wide and earnest.

“Jamie!” Abigail chided. Her eyes weren’t pleading at all. Interesting.

“I don’t think Mama can make a steak pie. Do you?” Jamie whispered hoarsely to his sister. “At least not a proper one.”

Alistair glanced sideways at Mrs. Halifax. A pretty blush was creeping up her cheeks. It had spread down as well; disappearing under a gauze fichu she had wrapped about her neck and tucked into her elegant bodice. She caught his gaze, her eyes wide and blue and a little sad. The sight of those eyes, even more than the tender skin at her throat, caused him a sudden and altogether unwelcome jolt of desire.

Alistair pushed back from the table and surged to his feet. “I’ll give the cook—and you, Mrs. Halifax—a week in which to prove yourselves. One week. If I’m not convinced of the usefulness of cooks and housekeepers by then, you’ll all go. Understand?”

The housekeeper nodded, and for a moment he felt a tiny twinge of guilt when he saw her stricken look. Then his mouth twisted at his own idiocy. “If you’ll excuse me, madam, I have work to do. Come, Lady Grey.”

He slapped his thigh and the dog got slowly to her feet. He strode from the kitchen without a backward glance.

Damnable woman!
Coming to his castle and questioning and demanding and taking his time when all he wanted was to be left alone. He took the tower stairs two at a time and then had to pause and wait for Lady Grey. She was climbing the stairs slowly and stiffly as if her legs pained her. The sight made him even angrier. Why? Why did everything have to change? Was it too much to ask to be left to write his books in peace?

He sighed and climbed back down the stairs to Lady Grey. “Come on, lass.” He bent and gently scooped her against his chest. He could feel her heartbeat under his hands and the trembling in her legs. She was heavy, but Alistair held the big dog in his arms as he ascended the tower stairs. Once in the tower, he knelt and set her in her favorite place on the rug before the fire.

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” he whispered as he stroked her ears. “You’re a brave lass, you are, and if you need a bit of help up the stairs, well, I’m glad to oblige.”

Lady Grey sighed and laid her head on the rug.

Alistair stood and walked to the tower window that overlooked the back of the castle grounds. There was an old garden there, terraced in steps that led down to a stream. Beyond, rolling purple and green hills met the horizon. Vegetation overgrew the garden, falling down the buttressing walls and crowding the paths. It hadn’t been tended in years. Not since he’d left for the Colonies.

He’d been born and raised in this castle. He didn’t remember his mother, who had died giving birth to a stillborn baby girl when he wasn’t quite three. His mother’s death might’ve infused the castle with gloom, but though she’d been well loved, it hadn’t. He’d grown up running wild over the hills, fishing with his father in the stream and arguing history and philosophy with Sophia, his older sister. Alistair smiled wryly. Sophia had usually won the arguments, not only because she was the older by five years, but also because she was the better scholar.

Back then, he’d thought that eventually he, too, would marry. He’d bring his bride to the castle and raise another generation of Munroes, just like all his ancestors. But that hadn’t happened. He’d been betrothed at three and twenty to a girl named Sarah, but she’d died of a fever before they could wed. Grief had kept him from forming another alliance for years, and then somehow his studies had taken precedence. He’d traveled to the Colonies when he was eight and twenty and had stayed there three years before returning, a prematurely aged one and thirty.

And after he’d returned from the Colonies . . .

He traced the eye patch on his cheek as he gazed out at his countryside. It’d been too late by then, hadn’t it? He’d lost not only his eye, but also his soul. What remained was not fit for civilized company, and he knew it. He stayed far from other people to protect himself and, perhaps more importantly, to protect them. He’d seen sorrow, smelled death’s rotting breath, and knew that savagery lurked close beneath the thin veil of society. His very face reminded others that the basic animal was very near. That it might pounce on them as well.

He’d been resigned, content if not boisterously joyful. He had his studies; he had the hills and his stream. He had Lady Grey to keep him company.

And then
she
had arrived.

He didn’t need an officious, too-beautiful housekeeper to barge into his home and life. He didn’t need her changing his retreat. He didn’t need this sudden desire that hardened his muscles and made his skin itch with irritation. She would be appalled—
revolted
—if she knew what she did to him physically.

Alistair turned from the window in disgust. Soon enough, she’d tire of playing housekeeper and find some other place to hide from whatever—or whoever—she was running from. In the meantime, he would make sure she didn’t keep him from his work.