Any Wicked Thing (8 page)

“Mrs. Carroll and her maid left earlier in your father's—your carriage with John Coachman and young Kenny.”

An ancient coach and ancient nags. The ancient driver still had some teeth but a Yorkshire accent so thick Sebastian had been unable to understand one word yesterday. Young Kenny was not especially young, and appeared to be a half-wit, staring at Sebastian as though he were the devil himself. Perhaps the fellow was prescient after all.

“I'm afraid we're rather short-staffed at the moment. There is, of course, the cook-housekeeper, Mrs. Holloway, and the girl Alice in the kitchen.”

“Please give her my compliments.” Dinner, and in fact all the meals he'd eaten here so far, were more than adequate.

Warren rubbed his wrinkled hands nervously.

“And?”

“That's it, Your Grace. Your father didn't trust anyone near his things except Miss Frederica. And the castle's reputation has discouraged the local people from seeking jobs here. Even if I was able to secure their employment, they never stayed long.”

Sebastian had heard the nonsense about the Archibald Walkers. The suicidal Earl of Archibald was just the latest ghost who supposedly haunted the castle, joining centuries of unhappy Archibalds who didn't have the sense to stay in either heaven or hell. He frowned. “My father has been dead for a year and a half, Warren. Who cleans this pile? Lights the fires?” Not that the castle was remotely clean or warm. “Empties the chamber pots?”

“I do what I can, Your Grace. When Mrs. Holloway can spare Alice, she helps, too. The men tend the gardens and animals and see to any repairs and do any sort of heavy lifting. Miss Frederica takes care of most everything inside herself.”

“Good God.”

“She does the best she can, Your Grace! We all do.”

“I'm not casting aspersions, Warren. I'm just—surprised.” Shocked, more like it.

The old man drew himself up in his seat. “If I may be blunt, Your Grace. When you couldn't be found after your father died, the funds to operate Goddard Castle were in rather short supply. What money there was froze in probate. Miss Frederica wrote to the late duke's man of business and solicitors many times, but their hands were tied until they heard from you. You should know that before she left, Mrs. Carroll told me that she intends to sue you for her back wages. The rest of us are willing to wait until you get yourself settled.”

Sebastian had been home several months. No one had troubled to mention the dire situation in the north, but perhaps that was because Sebastian had found a dire situation in the south, the east and the west. He was beginning to think he had been very ill-served by those his father trusted.

“What have you all lived on?”

Warren swallowed. “I've always run the household with prudence. Your father—I shouldn't like to speak ill of the dead, but he was always dashing off to buy some book or relic, and often forgot to think of our expenses. We—Miss Frederica and the staff and I—got used to being creative. Pinching pennies. There was a little put by to start for a rainy day. Since then, Miss Frederica has been judicious in selling off some of your father's collection. Nothing at all conventionally valuable, mind you. Nothing you'd ever be interested in,” he added hastily. “A few old books to collectors, that sort of thing. Items she'd already made use of in her research, or found to be inaccurate. Rubbish, really.”

So, technically Freddie had robbed him, although a poor sort of guardian he was keeping an heiress penniless and entombed in this godforsaken place without a pot to piss in. And if there was a pot, she'd probably be emptying it herself.

Now he planned to enslave her to his every need when she had already been subjected to his father's profligacy and his own indifference. It was almost enough to make him release her from their bargain. Almost.

“I appreciate your candor and your service, Warren.”

The old man startled. “Am—am I to be dismissed, Your Grace? I assure you that nothing Miss Frederica sold—”

“Just from the table,” Sebastian interrupted, pasting on another harmless smile to calm the butler down. Sebastian had spent years perfecting that particular smile. It had never been known to fail, although gentlemen were somewhat less susceptible to it. “I'll be staying at Goddard Castle for the next month, but I don't expect any more extraordinary sacrifices from anybody.”

“We don't mind, Your Grace.”

“I do.” His father really had a lot to answer for, leaving him with debilitating debt and Freddie to boot. “Miss Frederica is not going to do any more housekeeping. Make other arrangements, please.”

The butler fixed his eyes on a molting stag's head. Clearly his loyalty was conflicted. If Miss Frederica wanted to scour pots, who was he to stop her? Freddie had always been stubborn, a mulish, puggish little brat that Sebastian thought he knew. Until she donned a mask and ruined his life. He'd spent the first six months away waiting to hear he was to be a father. But then, no doubt the pater would have taken care of that with more money, he thought bitterly.

“Yes, Your Grace,” Warren said at last. “Miss Frederica is a lovely young woman. A man would be a fool not to appreciate her virtue.”

It was not her virtue he was interested in. She had once tried to compromise him in her clumsy, schoolgirl way. He was anxious to turn the tables and show her how it was really done. It would give Sebastian great satisfaction to bring Freddie to vice, corrupt her so completely she'd walk around wet for him all day. He felt the surge of power to his fingertips. How he was to kill the time until a minute past midnight he had no idea.

He left Warren to clearing the remnants of his dinner, wondering if Freddie was chewing nervously in her room, or if she had abandoned food altogether. Perhaps an après-sex snack would be advisable to tide them both over till breakfast. Sexual activity was hungry work.

After several wrong turns down dim and dank passageways, he found himself in the sooty kitchen, interrupting the cook, her helper and the two toothless grooms as they sat down to their own dinner. A place had been set for Warren, and Sebastian felt a stab of guilt that he'd delayed the old gent from his meal.

Once Mrs. Holloway got over the shock of seeing a duke in her realm, she promised to make up a tray for later in the evening and deliver it. The little crew around the long table was most unprepossessing, but they had been loyal to Freddie for the past year and a half under wretched living conditions, apparently with little or no pay. Sebastian felt obliged to pull out a few precious coins from his pocket and ensure them that one day—one day soon—they'd receive pay beyond their room and board. When he had satisfied himself that poor Warren—or worse yet, Freddie—was not going to haul up the requested bathwater personally, Sebastian excused himself. He'd lived in primitive conditions a time or two before—most noticeably when he was incarcerated for eight very long months—and thought he could manage to adapt here for a mere month. There was, after all, the enticing benefit of Frederica Wells's lush body in his bed.

With nothing left to arrange for the night's festivities but his own ablutions, Sebastian returned to his room and dashed off two letters to his friend Cameron Ryder and Lord Sanderson and sealed them with his father's ring. He was still not used to the weight of it on his hand, its etched sapphire reminding him of Freddie's smoky blue eyes. He closed his own eyes and pictured her as he'd last seen her, looking as if she wished him to Jericho.

Her hair, when it came down to it, was brown. Her blue-gray eyes were surrounded by half-and-half eyelashes, dark at the base but pale at the tips. She was still short, but her bosom was even more spectacular than he remembered. The rest of her was more voluptuous than was in fashion—she was no sylph. But she had a fine mouth, pink and sweet when it wasn't tossing out barbs against his lack of morals. He could see that mouth around his cock now. He
would
see it there in just a few hours.

The two grooms huffed and puffed into his room with a folding wooden tub. After several more trips up the winding stairs, Sebastian had a few inches of tepid water to wash some of his sins away. He was just drying himself with a threadbare towel when he heard a bloodcurdling shriek echoing against the castle walls.
Freddie
. He didn't bother with his robe. There was a demoiselle in distress.

F
reddie's room was a floor below his, the door standing conveniently open so he wouldn't need a battering ram. She, however, was nowhere to be seen. He called her name, but there was no reply. Feeling somewhat foolish and extremely naked, he looked behind curtains and under the untouched bed for her. A candle flickered on her desk, revealing that she had been laboring over their contract. Her handwriting was scrupulously legible, fitting for the daughter of a secretary. He noted June the first as the date Goddard Castle was to be transferred to her.

“Devil take it,” he muttered. Was she playing a trick on him again? Did she think she'd somehow avoid his embrace by frightening him to death and running away? He was about to pick up the candle and expand his search when he heard a little gasp.

“Sebastian! What are you doing here? It's not yet midnight.”

Freddie stood on the threshold, arms folded over her chest, her long hair in the two neat schoolgirl braids he remembered. She wore a night rail with a thousand tiny buttons that marched right up to her chin. He couldn't remember when he'd seen a more welcome or seductive sight.

“Damn it, Freddie! I thought something happened to you. Why did you scream? I believe you must have taken a few years off my life.” He covered his heart, but Freddie's eyes were elsewhere.

“Oh, that.
I
didn't scream. You are not dressed,” she said as an afterthought.

“I thought your life was in danger. It hardly seemed worthwhile to don my breeches if I was required to save you in a timely fashion.”

“How gallant. But I am perfectly fine. You really should . . . put some clothes on.” She stared at him for just another moment, causing his spine to straighten and his chest to swell slightly. He knew he was fit. Riding, fencing and long bouts of daytime and nocturnal sex kept him in excellent shape. He was somewhat disappointed when she raised her eyes and resolutely focused on the top of his head. She might be shy when it came to his body, but that bloodcurdling noise didn't seem to disturb her at all.

“What was that ghastly racket, then?”

She flicked a braid over her shoulder and smiled. “You mean
ghostly
racket. Just one of the Archibald Walkers, I expect.”

“You know we have ghosts. Your father was rather proud of them.”

“Rubbish and rot.” Warren had alluded to the same thing, but Sebastian paid no attention. He didn't believe people wouldn't come to work here because of ghosts, but rather because of the likely chance they'd perish under falling debris. Sebastian certainly did not believe in ghosts himself. The only white drifty thing he wanted to see was Freddie's night rail dropping to the floor.

“I quite agree. I think if the wind kicks up a certain way through the arrow loops, the resulting sound is the noise you heard. It's rather chilling, isn't it? No wonder we can't get the locals to work here—they're a superstitious lot. They say the last earl is still wandering about the castle searching for his germinal francs. Or gold bars or jewels—whatever Napoleon paid him to betray his country.”

Sebastian snorted. “If there's any treasure to be found here, I'm the King of England.”

She wagged a schoolmistressy finger. “More treason.”

“Where were you?”

Freddie lowered her eyes. “The garderobe.”

He looked at her blankly.

“You know, the privy, Your Grace. With regular applications of lime, they're still perfectly functional. We've upgraded from hay to rags, however.”

How barbaric
. The sooner he got away from this heap, the better. His father may have preferred to live like a feudal lord, but Sebastian was a thoroughly modern man, although his droit du seigneur was stirring—the right of the landed lord to sleep with the bride before the groom, or indeed any of his vassals at any time he chose. Sebastian knew that was more medieval nonsense, though. The custom was unproven, word of it likely spread about so the peasants would revolt against the casual cruelty of their lords. More often than not, the lord was probably paid a tax in lieu of sexual congress, but Sebastian didn't think any amount of money would stop him from wanting to fuck Freddie.