L
ord Drake Byron strode briskly into his study, wiping chalk dust off his hands onto a white silk handkerchief. He’d come directly from his workshop, where he’d been deeply immersed in formulating his newest mathematical theorem. But as his butler had interrupted to bluntly remind him, his appointment was waiting—and had been waiting for the good part of the past hour.

He cast a quick glance at the back of the bonnet-clad woman seated before his desk, noting the correct set of her shoulders inside her serviceable dark blue gown. He supposed she had every right to be irritated by the delay. Then again, waiting was a servant’s lot in life, was it not?

If he decided to hire her for the housekeeping job, she would simply have to get used to his erratic and unpredictable habits. She would also need to have a strong constitution, enough so that the occasional unintentional explosion from one of his experiments didn’t send her into a paroxysm of nervous terror. He’d lost more than one housemaid that way, girls too delicate to abide the bangs, booms and acrid smells that emanated through the town house from time to time.

His mother still worried that he might blow himself up, but over the years she and the rest of his family had come to accept his interests and eccentricities and given up any attempts at changing him. At present, however, she had no cause for concern since he was once again indulging his love of theoretical mathematics rather than his fascination for scientific invention.

Still, he hadn’t meant to be late for today’s interview. Though come to think, he never
meant
to be late for anything. He just got so involved sometimes, he completely forgot the hour.

“My apologies for keeping you waiting,” he said as he rounded his desk and took a seat. “I was working and could not break away.” Without looking up, he rifled through the papers scattered in tall stacks across the polished walnut surface, thumbing through several before pulling a page free.

“The—um—employment service sent over your credentials, Mrs.—Greenway.” He perused the page, still not glancing up. “I haven’t had time yet to review your background in depth, so why do you not just tell me about yourself. I assume you brought references?”

“Yes, your lordship,” she answered in a gentle, silvery voice that put him in mind of birdsong, summer breezes and, strangely enough, warm sheets tangled after a lusty tumble. “I have them right here.”

A shiver slid like the tip of a hot finger down his spine. Looking up, he stared.

He’d expected a middle-aged woman, someone plump perhaps, and motherly, like his previous housekeeper. But this woman was neither plump nor middle-aged, and she didn’t put him at all in mind of his mother. Nor any mother with whom he’d ever been acquainted, come to that. Quite the opposite, in fact, he thought as he took in her slender figure and youthful countenance.

How the deuced young is she?
he wondered, studying her features.

Glancing down again, he gave the character in his hand a quick skim.

Name: Mrs. Anne Greenway

Marital Status:
Widow

Age:
29

Nine-and-twenty?
How could this young woman seated across from him be a full year older than he? If he hadn’t just read her credentials, he wouldn’t have believed it possible for her to be more than a handful of years out of the schoolroom. Then again, he supposed determining a person’s actual age was an inexact science. As were looks, for though she wasn’t pretty in the classical sense, there was something undeniably appealing about her. She was . . . vibrant, her ivory complexion and high, smooth cheeks dusted the delicate hue of just-picked apricots. Her face was heart-shaped with long-lashed, whiskey gold eyes, a long, straight nose and full, rosy lips that looked as if they’d been formed for the express purpose of being kissed.

But it was her hair, which she’d braided and ruthlessly pinned into a bun beneath her bonnet, that surprised him the most. From what he could discern, the strands were a lush array of autumnal colors ranging from deepest brown to warm red and pale gold. Yet threaded among them were a surprising number of silvery strands that gleamed like the precious metal itself.

She is going grey,
he mused.

Maybe she really was nine-and-twenty, after all.

“I believe you’ll find everything in order,” she ventured in that lyrical voice of hers. Leaning forward, she held out a piece of fine cream-colored vellum, her hand small inside a dark blue glove.

Frowning, he paused for a moment before accepting the character. Opening the page, he began to read.

“You appear to come highly recommended,” he said. “You last worked for the Donald family in Armadale, Scotland, I see. I’m not familiar with the town. Where is it located?”

“In the far north on the Isle of Skye.”

“Ah, and why did you leave?”

A faint scowl briefly marred her features. “The . . . family decided to emigrate to America, as so many of the Scots have done in recent years. I had no wish to follow them.”

“You’re not Scottish yourself,” he said, his words a statement rather than a question. “From your accent, you sound English. The Lake District, if I’m not mistaken.”

Actually, she sounded amazingly cultured as well, he decided. Had he not known better, he would have taken her for a member of the gentry at least. But then, upper servants often worked at erasing the broad vowels and dropped consonants of their birth in an effort to improve themselves and their opportunities.

She raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Yes, that is correct.”

“And Scotland? How did you come to be employed at such a distance from your home?”

Her gaze lowered to her hands. “The Donalds advertised, much as you have done, my lord. After my husband died, I found myself in need of a situation. Prior to my marriage, I’d worked in service, first as a housemaid, then as a lady’s maid. Employment as a housekeeper seemed a much better prospect.”

He nodded, glancing again at her credentials. “You have no children, correct?”

“No, none.”

“And you believe London will be to your liking? It’s very different from a village in the north.” Briefly, he paused. “There is also the fact that I am an unmarried man with a household that is not at all similar to the one to which I expect you are accustomed. With no wife, nor any wish to obtain one, I tend to come and go as I please with no regular routine. I may spend one week locked inside my workroom and the next decide to throw an impromptu gathering for friends. Should you find yourself in my employ, you will perforce need to adjust to a continually changing environment.”

A curiously wry expression crossed her face. “I believe you will discover that I am quite adaptable to any situation, my lord. As for the running of your household, I expect one domicile is very like another at its heart, so I see no difficulty in its management, however unpredictable your schedule may be.”

She drew a breath before continuing. “As for London, city life suits me perfectly at present. I am looking forward to the excitement and change of new things.”

“Hmmph,” he said, the sound an indecisive exhale beneath his breath.

That is precisely what troubles me,
he thought,
new things and the potential excitement and change of having her in my house.

She was far too attractive, and despite her stated age, much too young-looking for comfort. Were he interested in taking a new mistress, well, that would be a different story entirely. He’d have her installed in her own neat little town house in a trice. But she wasn’t there to warm his bed, and he wasn’t the sort of man who took advantage of his maidservants—or his housekeeper. Then again, he’d never had cause before to be so sorely tempted by a member of his domestic staff, even a prospective one.

If only his former housekeeper, Mrs. Beatty, hadn’t decided to quit so abruptly last month. Entirely without warning, she’d given her notice and announced with a nervous urgency that belied her usually steadfast nature, that she was leaving for the seaside. “My health isn’t what it used to be,” she told him, “and my doctor suggests a milder clime.”

She’d always appeared in the peak of health as far as Drake could see, but how was he to argue? And so, with little more than a week’s notice, she’d packed her bags and taken a hired coach out of the city as fast as it could go.

Glancing down again, he studied the papers in his hand.

Mrs. Greenway seemed exceptionally well qualified to be sure, and heaven knows he had no interest in being put to the bother of interviewing more candidates, and yet . . .

Laying her credentials aside, he met her lovely golden gaze and prepared to do what he ought.

If only she weren’t so dashed appealing.

H
e’s not going to hire me,
Sebastianne Dumont realized, her nails flexing deep into the brown cotton twill of the reticule on her lap. Her heart beat like a trapped bird in her chest, alarm squeezing painfully beneath her ribs.

But he has to hire me. Anything else is unthinkable.

The interview had seemed to be going so well at first, the answers she’d practiced with such determined concentration rolling easily off her tongue. She’d thought he seemed impressed, but then he’d grown quiet, contemplative. Her fingers clenched tighter as she mentally reviewed his questions and her responses.

Did I make a mistake?

Has he figured out that nearly every word I’ve told him is a lie?

But how could he know she was lying when her script had been so well researched, so carefully prepared by those who made a profession of deceiving others?

She knew Napoleon’s men had gone to great lengths to arrange this position for her so she could gain entry into Lord Drake Byron’s house. They’d made sure his former housekeeper left her longtime situation—using cash and threats to pave the way.

She knew they’d made sure she, Sebastianne Dumont, would be the one sent by the employment service for this interview.

She knew they expected her not only to obtain the housekeeping position but to retrieve the information they wanted as well.

There could be no failure. For if she did not succeed, the price would be beyond redemption and cost her everything she most loved in this world.

As for her prospective employer, he wasn’t at all how she’d imagined him.

Over the years, she’d heard her mathematician father mention Lord Drake as one of today’s brightest lights in the fields of science, theoretical physics, and mathematics. A prodigy who’d earned advanced degrees from Cambridge and Oxford before his twentieth birthday, he’d won a number of prestigious awards, including the Copley Medal.

Had there not been a war raging in her homeland of France and elsewhere across Europe, she was sure he would have been welcomed on the Continent with open arms. As it was, certain parties coveted his work, particularly the secret work he was presently undertaking for the British government in the realm of cryptography and mathematical ciphers.

Work she’d been sent here to acquire.

Knowing his background, she’d assumed he would be older, more of a contemporary of her father’s, with thinning hair, lined features, and a belly that had gone as round and soft as bread dough.

But there was nothing doughy or lined about Lord Drake.

Quite the reverse since he was young, handsome, and extremely fit. Tall and leanly muscled, he sported solid shoulders, a broad chest, and a flat stomach that belied any notion of his ever developing a paunch.

As for his features, he would catch any female’s eye whatever her age. From his head of thick chestnut brown hair to his aristocratic nose, sculpted lips and square chin, he was everything that was pleasing to behold.

Still, it was the intelligence and light of good humor shining in his translucent green eyes that appealed to her the most—eyes she had best be careful never to gaze into too closely for fear of being unmasked. For above all else, she must keep him from realizing who she really was and the wrong she planned to commit against him.

But first, she had to convince him to hire her, or all the rest would make no difference at all.

“I am a hard worker, your lordship,” she told him before he had a chance to speak the words that would end their interview. “You will not find better, I promise.”

His brows gathered close. “I am sure that is true, Mrs. Greenway, still I am not entirely positive that—”

“I understand from something I heard mentioned at the employment agency that your former housekeeper was with you for a good many years,” she interrupted.

He nodded. “Since I first acquired the house here on Audley Street.”

“Then I am sure her departure has been most disruptive to your routine, even one as admittedly irregular as your own.”

“It has been, yes,” he said, his mouth curving up at the corners.

BOOK: The Bed and the Bachelor

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