She is banned from my house, Charleton. Do you hear me? Banned!
The words still rang in Louisa’s ears. Heavens, they’d rung through Lord Charleton’s house like one of St. Paul’s bells.
For not long after Louisa had fled the viscount’s house, he’d arrived at Lord Charleton’s door—for the second time in only a day—and he’d made his sentiments known only too loudly to the baron before he’d stormed back to his lair across the lane.
Banned.
Now, hours later as Lavinia prattled on from her narrow bed across their room—something she’d read in the paper, a sale on silks it seemed—Louisa fumed as she stared out the window.
“Even though the money Lady Charleton set aside for our Season is substantial, it never hurts to be frugal, don’t you agree?” Lavinia asked.
“Hmm, yes, certainly,” Louisa murmured, hoping that was the answer her sister was seeking. Thankfully Lavinia seemed satisfied as she went back to prowling her paper.
Out the window and over the garden wall, all Louisa could see was a single candle lit in one of the kitchen windows—the rest of the viscount’s house stood silent, pitch black and unwelcoming.
Like the owner himself. Save when he wasn’t holding her and . . .
She pressed her lips together and tried to look away, for she needed no reminders of what had transpired, how she’d left the linen closet.
Undone.
She ignored that word. It was rife with implications. Like the way her knees had wobbled the entire way home.
After all, she’d only been trying to help—that is until that dreadful man had come storming back into her path. Never mind that it was his house.
And now she was banned. She shuddered as she considered all the tasks that still needing tending over there—hiring more staff, a thorough cleaning of the cellars, and she didn’t even want to consider how much dusting needed to be done. Oh, and she had to imagine that the attics were in a terrible state.
Let alone the terrible crime of leaving the linen closet only half sorted. Unfinished.
Oh, it was a terrible state to be in.
And she wasn’t talking about the closet . . .
Lord Wakefield, she silently pleaded. I am ever so sorry. I didn’t know.
The depth of his pain. His loss. Whatever had happened to him?
Something, she suspected, that had more to do with Spain than with a stolen kiss in a linen closet.
Yet that didn’t stop her hand from going to her lips and wondering how one fixed that sort of pain.
It would take far more than a kiss.
Not that she’d ever find out. For Wakefield’s sentiments had been clear.
I’ve told Tiploft I will sack him and anyone else who lets her set one foot inside my house, Charleton. Not one foot!
Oh, the shame of it.
Worse, the entire staff of Lord Charleton’s house now knew the viscount’s loudly made opinions about her “meddling” ways and penchant for “tampering with what isn’t hers.”
If only she could tell one and all that he’d kissed her first. Well, she’d meddled first, that was true enough, but he’d kissed her. Pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Right there in the linen closet.
Louisa didn’t know if that made it even more scandalous—a linen closet, of all places!
Not that he’d seemed to notice. Nor had it stopped him from unraveling every bit of respectable decorum she’d woven around her life.
Unconsciously she closed her eyes, as if to blot out the rush of passion that welled up inside her, a well that until today had been quiet and unassuming, but now toiled and bubbled and threatened to boil over. Desire, raw and unbidden, and more importantly, unwanted, left her utterly confused.
She was supposed to be in London to help Lavinia find a respectable match—not let herself be led down a path to ruin. Then again, her situation could hardly compare to the agony she’d seen in his eyes.
Terrible, wrenching pain . . .
“Louisa? Good heavens! Are you listening to me? Which gown do you think would suit me better—this one, or the one with the slashed sleeves?” Her sister held up two fashion prints—one of which also featured a well-dressed gentleman standing attentively at the lady’s side—not kissing her or referring to her as “a female horror.”
“The one on the right,” she told her sister as she hurriedly rose from the bed. Notably, it was the print without the gentleman. She paced to the door and then changed her mind, going to the closet.
No, not the closet, she decided, turning around yet again.
By now, her sister was gaping at her. “Whatever is the matter with you? Is it Lady Charleton’s nephew who has you in such a state?” Lavinia set aside her fashion plates. “You can’t let him inflame you.”
Louisa’s cheeks heated with mortification. Inflame? Was her secret that obvious?
“It isn’t him. I just don’t—”
Lavinia reached over and caught her hand. “Louisa, you worry too much. You’ll be the most elegant lady in London. You need only concentrate. Remember what Lady Essex is always telling you—stand straight and watch where you’re going—if you but do that you shall not fall.”
Words Her Ladyship said every time Louisa arrived at Foxgrove. And went to leave.
Not that they had ever helped.
Lavinia gave her hand another squeeze and then went back to sorting fashion prints. Then she glanced up, her gaze narrowing as she looked her twin over. “There isn’t something else, is there?”
Of course Lavinia would notice that something was amiss. Her sister could spot a loose thread at fifty paces.
“No. Nothing,” Louisa said hastily, looking around the room, anywhere but in her astute sister’s direction. Oh, dear, this would never do. If Lavinia caught even a hint of scandal, she’d needle it out of Louisa with the precision of a diamond cutter. “I think I need to go downstairs. And check on . . .” She glanced around the room. “Hannibal. I need to find where Hannibal is.”
“You shouldn’t have brought him here,” Lavinia called after her as she fled the room. “He’ll only bring trouble.”
He already has, Louisa thought as she hurried downstairs, fleeing not only the turmoil inside, but Lavinia as well. If she had to listen to her sister prattle on about their purchases and the gowns that were due to arrive, or which bonnet was better suited for her new day gown, or wonder aloud for the hundredth time if Lady Aveley had managed to secure vouchers to Almack’s as the good lady had promised, Louisa knew she’d explode.
Or worse, tell her sister what had happened in the linen closet.
Louisa clenched her teeth together. She just couldn’t . . . And yet she and Lavinia never kept secrets from each other.
Without realizing it, Louisa found herself before the open doors of the library, where inside she could see a chessboard atop a table.
The line from Lady Charleton’s letter came rushing forth.
If Charleton continues to be horrid, set out the chessboard in the library. Just set it out, the rest will follow.
It wasn’t the lady’s husband who was being horrid, rather her nephew, but it seemed much the same situation to Louisa so she went over to the board—an exquisite piece of inlaid ebony and ivory.
Glancing around, she spied a narrow drawer in the table and opened it. Inside lay the pieces—the pawns, the knights, the castles, the rooks, and the queen and the king—all resting in velvet.
Without a second thought, she gathered them up and set them to rights, facing each other in orderly rows, the little world atop the board ready for yet another conquest.
She stepped back, wishing the turmoil inside her could be as easily restored, when suddenly a shadow fell across the board.
“What the devil are you doing?” Lord Charleton demanded, his furious gaze fixed on the tabletop. He stormed forward and looked ready to sweep the pieces from the board.
“I . . . I . . . was looking for Hannibal,” she offered, nodding where her cat lay sleeping. He was a beast most of the time, but occasionally he came in quite useful.
Though Lord Charleton apparently didn’t think so. “And that gives you leave to meddle in my library?” His gaze fell hard upon the chessboard.
“I never . . . that is, Her Ladyship suggested—” Louisa bit her lip to stop the blustering flow of words.
“Lady Aveley is a busybody—”
Louisa flinched at the word, for hadn’t Wakefield called her as much earlier?
Keep that interfering busybody out of my house—
Lord Charleton’s tirade stopped as well, as if he was remembering the same heated exchange. “Yes, well, I suppose that word has been overused around here of late. But Lady Aveley overstepped when she told you—”
Louisa shook her head. She certainly didn’t want the blame placed where it wasn’t warranted. “Lady Aveley didn’t suggest this, my lord,” she told him. “It was Lady Charleton’s idea.”
This took him aback. “My . . . I hardly think . . . Whyever would Izzy . . .” The words came sputtering out as a mixture of emotions played out over his face. Confusion. Grief. Anger. And then he glanced over at Louisa.
She thought perhaps he would, as Wakefield had earlier, order her out of his house.
Which would suit her mood entirely. Out of this house. Back to Kempton. Back to where her quiet existence, her orderly life, made sense.
But instead, he shocked her.
Much as the viscount had—no, not by kissing her—by taking hold of a nearby chair and placing it behind the white pieces. Another he placed opposite and nodded to her. “I assume you play.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Show me.”
And so Louisa sat down, and with a sigh of resignation, Lord Charleton followed. She moved out a pawn and so the game began.
“Louisa, aren’t you?”
She nodded. It wasn’t often that people who had just met them could tell the sisters apart.
“Thought so,” he said as he made his first move. “You don’t prattle as much.”
Louisa smiled, though she knew she shouldn’t.
They continued to play, in silence, which seemed to suit them both. But after a time, the baron, without raising his gaze from the board, said, “How do you find London?”
“Not so well,” she replied without thinking. “What I mean to say is, there is nothing to do here in the city.”
“That’s not how I hear it,” he said, with much the same tone as Papa used when she or Lavinia overspent their pin money.
“My lord?” she replied nonchalantly. Occasionally feigning innocence worked with her father.
Not so much with Lord Charleton. “I’ve had a visitor today,” he said. “In fact, he was inclined to come by twice.”
Louisa’s cheeks flamed, but she didn’t glance up. After all, everyone in the Charleton household knew about the viscount’s visit, especially his second one. “I presume you are the one Viscount Wakefield came to see me about since his complaints also included your beast of a cat.”
“Yes, I suppose I am,” she admitted, the words still ringing in her ears.
Keep her and her demmed cat out of my house, Charleton! The viscount had bellowed loudly enough for everyone from the cellars to the attics to hear. She’s a meddling, tiresome chit.
The only redeeming part had been that Lady Aveley and Lavinia had been walking in the park during this unholy tirade and hadn’t heard it . . . firsthand.
“He’s my nephew, you know,” Charleton was saying. “Wakefield, that is. Well, not by blood, but by marriage. His father was Lady Wakefield’s brother.”
“Indeed,” she managed as she made her move hastily, and lost a knight in the process. “I believe Lady Aveley mentioned as much.”
Then to her shock, Lord Charleton leaned back in his seat and howled with laughter. “Good heavens, gel, I don’t know what you’ve done to put him in such a lather—”
“I didn’t intend—”
He held up a hand to stave off her protest.
Louisa’s lips snapped shut, while inside her, objections whirled about as if caught in a gust of wind.
I never meant . . . That is, it was all Hannibal’s fault . . . I should never have brought him to London . . . I should never have. . .
Let Lord Wakefield kiss me. Or rather, kissed him back.
“No need to look so horrified, child,” Lord Charleton told her. “Whatever you are doing, keep it up.”
“My lord?” Louisa stammered, as she had visions of being once again in Wakefield’s arms, his lips upon hers, his hands roaming over her body, and when she thought he was about to . . .
“Whatever you’ve done to wake that boy up, continue so.”
She blinked—not sure what to say or even if she’d heard him correctly. “My lord?”
Continue kissing Wakefield? Why, it was an impossible notion. Ruinous. So very wrong.
Oh, if only it weren’t . . . some very devilish part of her whispered.
Meanwhile, Lord Charleton continued on. “Wakefield hasn’t been out of that lair of his in months. Now you’ve gone and lured him out. Twice.” The baron shook his head as he chuckled. “Whatever you did to annoy him—well, if anything it got him out of his house. And his misery. Well done and keep at it.”
Louisa bit down on her bottom lip. Oh, however could she explain this? Well, Lady Essex always said the truth, even in spoonfuls, was better than a lie. “You know that isn’t possible, my lord.”
Lord Charleton looked up from the chess piece he’d been toying with. “Why not?”
Louisa only glanced at him before she went back to studying the game. “You heard him. Lord Wakefield has banned me from his house.”
“That’s unfortunate, indeed,” the baron remarked. He leaned back and examined the board between them. “Did Lady Aveley tell you Wakefield was a terrible rake before he ran off to war? Him and that no-account heir of mine, Tuck.” Charleton laughed a little. “No, I suppose she didn’t tell you that.”
“I hardly think—”
“It really isn’t necessary to the story. But it does show how far he has fallen.”
“My lord?”
“He came home and we all thought . . . Well, it matters not what we thought, for we were grievously wrong. He’s locked himself away and nothing has moved him. His mother despairs over the situation.”
“That house doesn’t help matters,” Louisa muttered without thinking.
“What is that?”
“Nothing, my lord.”
“Nothing indeed,” he scoffed as he made his move. “Whatever you’ve done you’ve worked a miracle. And there is nothing to be argued about it, you must continue.”
“But you know that isn’t possible.” Louisa took his rook. Go back? Never. She never wanted to cause him such grievous pain ever again.
Yet what if you were the cure? A sentiment Charleton echoed almost immediately.
“Oh, bother his bluster,” the baron told her. “I’d consider it a personal favor.” He sat back from the table and folded his arms over his chest. “I’m asking for your help in this. Lady Charleton would be beside herself to see him thusly. She loved him like a son.”
Louisa nearly groaned. She could hardly tell the baron her true reasons for not wanting to see Wakefield again. “I don’t see how I can help. He has banned me.”
“So he has. Hmm,” the baron mused, placing a finger on his knight, and then drawing it back as he reconsidered his move.
“Which is most unfortunate,” Louisa insisted.
“Why is that?” the baron asked, his hand having returned to the rook.
Then the words sort of tumbled out. “That house is in a dreadful state. There is so much that needs be done, my lord. A thorough airing. A good cleaning. A proper housekeeper. Maids. A few footmen.” Those were things she knew she could right. Make good. “Why, the linen closet was nearly my undoing,” she said without thinking.
In more ways than one.
“The linen closet?” Lord Charleton asked, as astutely as he played chess. “What were you doing in Wakefield’s linen closet?”
Louisa doled out her answer in the tiniest teaspoon of honesty she could manage. “Mrs. Petchell asked me to help.”
“Hmm,” the baron mused as he moved a pawn forward instead. He was leading her into a trap and she wasn’t about to be caught. She took his rook instead and his brow furrowed in concentration.
“If only he would let me help. I do so deplore disorder. All that house wants is a bit of management.”
As did the man himself, but it wasn’t her place to say so.
“Yes, I suppose so,” the baron agreed.
And like her sister, she began to prattle. “And the gardens, my lord. Oh, heavens, I look down at them from my window and it hurts to see roses in such a deplorable state.”
“Deplorable?” he murmured as he gazed a bit mournfully at his lost rook.
“Yes. What I wouldn’t give to take a pair of clippers to those bushes. And then the peonies! Why, they have no supports. They will be all toppled over by June and ruined in the first bit of rain. How can a man live amidst such horrible disorder?”
“How indeed,” he agreed, though she suspected he was speaking in a wider sense.
“Yet there is nothing I can do, not when he’s banned me from the house.”
The baron paused and glanced up at her. “But not the gardens.”
The next morning, Lord Charleton’s footman, the fellow who also looked after the baron’s gardens, delivered to her clippers, a spade and a large basket—with the baron’s blessing.
And as much as she wanted to turn and run, when she found herself at the door in the wall, she couldn’t shake that feeling that she’d left something very important undone.
After years of being part of the Society for the Temperance and Improvement of Kempton, such doubt, any niggling thought that a task wasn’t completed, was nothing short of a sin.
Once the baron had made his request, his plea, there was only one thing she could do—agree to venture forth.
So Louisa defiantly pushed open the garden door and waded in.
Besides, there was a very wry part of her that wanted to prod the viscount a bit. He had, after all, called her “tiresome” loud enough for the entire Charleton house to hear.
“Tiresome, indeed, you wretched man,” she muttered as she glanced around, her gaze straying uneasily toward the house. There was also the matter of whatever she’d broken when she’d made her heedless flight from the house.
Broken and undone.
Much as their kiss had left them both. . .
Louisa straightened. Besides, what sort of man declared a lady “plain” and a “harridan” and then ravished her in his linen closet?
She glanced again at the house—with its windows tightly curtained shut and that go-away milieu that hung from the attics to the cellar—and knowing full well that she’d left something far more important than a linen closet undone.
Undone.
A tangle of images and memories unraveled inside her. Wakefield’s lips stealing over hers. His tongue tracing a delicate line over her mouth, teasing her to open up to him. And when she did, he’d opened more than her lips—he’d awakened a Pandora’s box of desires.
Oh, that knowledge—of how a man’s kiss could leave you breathless, how a kiss could make your breasts tighten, your insides quake and grow heated, and oh, heavens, wet—could not be outrun.
Could not be straightened back up and tucked on the high shelf of a closet to be shut away and forgotten.
That moment, that kiss, would live in her heart for the rest of her life.
Leaving her, in a word, undone.
So if the linen closet was—like the man who owned it—unattainable and out of her reach, perhaps Lord Charleton’s “suggestion” was the next best thing.
She could tidy up the garden.
Squaring her shoulders, she looked around and sighed. Bother! What an overgrown mess. No indeed, she wasn’t about to spend another morning looking over the wall at this tangle.
Besides, unused to being so idle, she’d go mad sitting around all morning being proper. Oh, Lavinia might be in alt over their changed circumstances, poring over the newspapers, prattling on about this ball or that soirée, and weighing each and every invitation that arrived in the salver, but Louisa was not.
The notices that had begun as a trickle were now like a river, with notes pouring in.
Apparently the news of the deceased Lady Charleton’s newly arrived goddaughters was being bandied about and they’d become something of a curiosity and therefore worthy of social inspection.
“So many opportunities,” Lady Aveley had declared at breakfast.
For disaster, Louisa wanted to add as Lavinia had beamed happily.
Hadn’t this morning’s session with the dancing master, Monsieur Delacroix, been humiliating enough? And a most telling portent of things to come.
After thirty minutes of having his toes trod upon, he’d stormed out of the music room, telling Lady Aveley as he limped to the front door, “There is nothing I can do for mam’selles.”
And bless her heart, the dear lady had taken Monsieur at his word, thinking that the sisters needed no further instruction.
No, it was much better out here in the garden, Louisa decided, where if she tumbled over her own feet, no one would call her “an abomination to the Graces,” as Monsieur Delacroix had.
Sizing up where to start, she considered Lady Essex’s best advice: start at the beginning. So she clipped at the tall rose canes that kept the garden door from opening easily, each snip a rebellious drumbeat.
Ban me, will you, she mused.
He ought to have, at the very least, called upon her and apologized, not ranted at Lord Charleton that she was a busybody.
Snip. Snip.
Even a note might have sufficed in such circumstances.
Dear Miss Tempest,
I most sincerely apologize for kissing you senseless . . . If I hadn’t had my wits rattled when you knocked me over with the closet door, I might have behaved in a more gentlemanly. . .
Louisa’s defiance grew more rooted with each rosebush she tamed. Snip. Snip. Snip!
Every clip of the shears, every cane she carefully tamed, she felt as if she were telling him that she was utterly indifferent to his kiss. And to his opinions. And his lack of manners.
He meant nothing to her.
Which was a terrible lie, but she hoped if she told herself as much, perhaps she’d stop dreaming of his arms around her, of his lips teasing hers open, of his hands curving over her . . .
“Ow!” she cursed as a great big thorn stabbed her, bringing her back to the tangled mess that was Lord Wakefield’s garden—and in nearly every way, her heart.
Pierson woke up to a persistent snip, snip, snip coming from his gardens.
And worse, there was a stubborn bit of sunlight tracing through an opening in the curtains and slanting right across his bed. A bright nudge of sunlight as insistent as the clatter coming from below.
Snip, snip, snip. Pound, pound, pound.
“What the devil,” he muttered as he climbed out of bed and went to the window, tugging open the curtain.
At first the brilliant spring sunshine left him blinded, but he couldn’t shake the suspicion of what he’d glimpsed.
Miss Tempest.
And when he looked again, yes, there she was. In his garden. Meddling.
Never mind that she looked quite fetching, he thought he’d made it quite clear to Charleton, and to his own staff, that the lady’s presence was not wanted. And yet there, on closer inspection, were Bitty and Bob standing beside her, the girl holding a basket for the lady, while Bob energetically hammered stakes into the ground.
When the lad finished with his task, he looked expectantly up at Miss Tempest and the lady smiled down at him, saying something that left the boy blushing and laughing, basking in her smile.
Pierson stepped back from the window as the oddest sensation needled down his spine.
Something as green as the stalks she clipped and as dark as the cellar.
It was utterly ridiculous, but here he stood wishing it was he receiving that radiant glance from the lady. That it was he basking in her delight.
For she had the sort of smile that could melt a man’s heart. Make him forget himself.
Tempt him to forget his pain.
He whirled away from the window and cursed, catching up his breeches and tossing them on. This was exactly why he’d banned her. She had no business in his life. No right to interfere. He nearly tore the cambric shirt he yanked on, but his haste was being hurried with each annoying snip.
Snip. Snip. SNIP!
It was as if she was taking great personal delight in cutting each and every one of the careful ties he’d bound around his life to keep the world out.
Out, he would remind her. Not in. Like the demmed morning light that kept finding its way through his curtains at whatever ungodly hour it was that it came up, despite having checked his draperies twice before he’d gone to bed.
He stormed down the hall with only a sketchy plan as to how he was going to toss her over the garden wall.
First, he had to figure out how he could do that and not touch her.
Not put his hands on those tempting curves and pull her close. He’d have to manage a way to look past those dusky lashes, those soft lips of hers, because that would throw his every intention of removing her from the garden into chaos.
She’d most likely end up in his bed . . .
Pierson skidded to a stop. His bed? Had he gone mad?
He stood there, halfway down the stairs, his hand gripping the rail.
No, if he’d gone mad, he’d be in the library looking up plans for a trebuchet. Then he could remove her without having to hold her.
Perhaps it would be the better part of valor to give this task to Tiploft—he could send Miss Tempest packing.
Coward . . . a voice not unlike Poldie’s whispered up from inside him. The one that usually called to him in his nightmares.
Yes, well, he supposed he was being cowardly. Nor did he care. Even Sir John Moore had told them at Sahagún, I’ve known for some time, we’ll have to make a run for it.
That wasn’t cowardice, but common sense.
And facing Miss Tempest was akin, in his estimation, to facing eighty thousand of Boney’s best troops.
He continued down the stairs to the kitchen. No, he wasn’t about to go out and inform Miss Tempest that he’d ordered her off his premises. But certainly his servants weren’t doing a very good job of enforcing his instructions.
Opening the door, he strode in, ready to lambast one and all for their failings—when he came face to face with nearly his entire staff: Tiploft and Mrs. Petchell.
Sitting comfortably at the table sharing a pot of tea. The scene was so domestic, so utterly quiet and peaceful, he nearly forgot his errand. And it occurred to him that having such a small staff was suddenly a disadvantage—for he felt rather a heel to have to order Tiploft up and out of this cozy comfort to go dispatch Miss Tempest.
And he hadn’t the nerve to ask Mrs. Petchell to do it. Not when she had a kettle within arm’s reach. Besides, she looked rather furious that he’d come this far into her domain.
“My lord—” Tiploft began as he rose to his feet, even as the garden door came bursting open.
“Oh, Auntie, can I have a rag? I got dirt on the new dress the beautiful miss gave me, and she says if I sponge it off quick it won’t be ruined,” Bitty said. Then she spied Pierson standing there and her smile faded as her eyes widened with fear.
Like he might pop her in the stove and bake her for supper—which was most likely the story Miss Tempest had been telling the children—a nightmarish tale of The Viscount Who Lived Down the Lane.
“Oh, gar!” the child gasped. “I weren’t s’posed to mention it, not in front of you.”
“And why not?” he asked, brows arched and feeling most imperious.
Right then Bob came stumbling in behind his sister. “Bitty, what’s taking so—oh.” His gaze widened as well.
He glanced at Bob and realized the lad had on new breeches. He could tell they were new because they actually fit the boy, and there wasn’t a single patch on them. Pierson glanced over at their aunt.
“Another gift from Miss Tempest?”
“Yes, milord. And it was a kindness of her to think of them,” Mrs. Petchell said without blinking an eye.
For her words really meant, Miss Tempest saw to them when it should have been yours to do.
“She told us not to tell you,” Bitty rushed to add. “’Cause she didn’t think you’d like her helping us. Since you don’t want her—”
Not like it? Of course he didn’t. Because Mrs. Petchell had been right—even if she hadn’t come right out and said it—it was his job to see to his staff.
Even a staff of ragamuffins.
Which only increased his vexation. The woman was winding her way into his life no matter what he did. Or rather, didn’t.
So Pierson reiterated his instructions. “I thought I made my orders clear,” he told them all. “I do not want that lady”—he pointed his finger toward the kitchen door—“in my house.”
Before Tiploft could mutter an apology, Bob spoke up, “The miss isn’t actually in the house, milord. She’s in the garden.”
That sounded to Pierson like Miss Tempest’s argument and not one from the likes of Bob—so he let the boy off with only a piercing stare.
Which, to his chagrin, didn’t even quell the little guttersnipe. Bob stood his ground like a knight guarding a fair maiden.
A willful, bothersome, headstrong one. She’d found a way to invade his castle without setting foot inside it.
“Is there anything else, my lord?” Tiploft asked. Not since Pierson had been a lad of four had his butler sounded so disapproving.
Pierson tried to open his mouth and form the words. Get. Her. Out. But when he looked from face to face, he realized he was outnumbered. Even if he did pay their wages.
Yes, Moore had been right. At times it was better to fall back.
Especially when faced with the tremble of Bitty’s bottom lip and a sheen forming in her eyes. Having two sisters, he knew the signs of imminent tears when he saw them.
Oh, good heavens, he couldn’t have that.
“Please bring my breakfast tray to the library,” he told Tiploft instead. “And Bob, you follow me. I need some books from the top shelf.”
If anything, he had to admit the addition of Bitty and Bob to the household had made his research easier. The lad could scramble up the library ladder like a monkey.
Much better than sending Tiploft up.
From outside, a distinct snip, snip, snip came echoing into the kitchen, leaving everyone still—and all eyes on Pierson. Again, he tried to form the words, but knew that there was no way he was about to go outside and order her off his lawn. That would mean facing her down. And quite possibly owning up to his high-handed behavior the previous day.
Or worse, apologizing.
Which he had no intention of doing. He had nothing to apologize for—since he realized in that moment of indecision there was something he did know to be an inalienable truth.
He had quite liked kissing her.
And such a notion was as insufferable as the infernal racket of her clippers.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
“Bob, with me,” he ordered, and turned from the kitchen, moving up the stairs as quickly as he could and fleeing to the library, which was the one logical room in which he could hide and not look a coward—for it faced the square and wasn’t anywhere near Miss Tempest.
But this time when he entered the cool dimness of the shuttered room, a sense of disquiet ran down his spine. Looking around, he saw it as if he hadn’t been in it for ages. Everywhere—from the open, forgotten tomes, to his notes and papers on military strategies scattered about, all he saw was a disorderly mess. That, and every time he went to reach for a book, on Caesar or Alexander’s conquests, or Scipio’s cunning, they all seemed to have leaped up to the highest shelves, necessitating a call to Tiploft or Bob to gain his desired volume, say on Hannibal.
Hannibal. Pierson winced as he looked across the room. For all too predictably, there was his own Hannibal, having breached the house once again with the daring of his namesake, and curled up like a confident conqueror on the chair by the fire.
What was it every general, every tactician he studied asserted? Well-organized and disciplined troops were the key to any military success.
Bob, who seemed to sense his consternation, glanced around as well and huffed. “The fine miss says an orderly arrangement makes a task more easily done.”
“Does she now?” Pierson replied. The woman was a modern Trojan horse, wheeling her way inside his walls without setting a single slippered toe inside.
“Aye. It seems to me you always want the books that are up high, so why not move ’em all down where you can git ’em?”
Pierson was about to argue the point, that the volumes on military history had always been kept on the top shelf, but something about Bob’s practical and stubborn expression—a look that said, I’ll keep climbing up there iffin you want me to—nudged at the viscount’s unwitting hold on the past.
It was much like Miss Tempest’s practical observations about the linen closet.
What you need should be in reach. Easily gained and quick to find.
Then he glanced around the entire library and realized that most of the accessible volumes did not hold his interest—and were certainly not necessary to the tome he was writing on military tactics.
Damn her hide. It made perfect sense to reorganize the shelves.
“How long until Miss Tempest is done tampering with my gardens?” he asked the boy.
“A few days, I think,” Bob said.
Pierson eyed the room. That would probably be how long it would take to reorganize the place. Of course, his sister would suggest hiring a librarian to do it all properly, but he’d had enough of new faces about the house without adding another.
Though perhaps a few footmen to guard the garden door might be a wise choice.
“Shall I fetch them books down, my lord?” the boy prompted.
“Yes, Bob. Let’s get at it.”