Page 11 of Gambling with the Earl
Irritation surged inside him that his life had narrowed so drastically. Just weeks earlier, he had been a trusted knight of the king. Now he couldn’t even gallop a few paces without whimpering like a babe. The dark battlements of the castle increased his displeasure. He walked through the courtyard as if he were about to enter a prison.
A prison of his uncle’s making. This castle had known neither laughter nor joy in many years. A dour misery had seeped into the very walls, infecting the servants and even the furnishings. It reminded him of the wretched childhood he’d worked so hard toescape. Phantoms that he’d banished long ago were rising within him, threatening everything.
Suddenly his need for human contact became overwhelming. He pivoted on his heel and marched back to the marshal.
“Did a young woman come here today looking for work?” he demanded.
“Yes, my lord. I sent her to Cook. She always has need of extra help.”
“What was her name?”
The marshal thought for a moment. He was a small man with a weathered face. “’Twas Kitty, I believe.”
“Kitty.” Guy turned the name over in his mind. He recalled her tumbling curls, the colour of autumn leaves. Her sea-green eyes. The hypnotic sway of her hips. He pressed his lips together and tasted salt from the sea. “I look forward to seeing more of her.” He paused. “Mayhap have the girl bring luncheon to my solar, if Cook can spare her from the kitchen.”
Chapter Four
The castle kitchenwas filled with steam from the big pot on the stove. Red-faced and perspiring, Kitty leaned over and stirred the thick vegetable broth, closing her eyes and relishing the delicious smell that rose up to meet her.
“Keep on until it boils,” shouted Cook, who was rolling pastry on a big stone table at the other end of the room. She was a small woman with a sharp face, but her nut-brown eyes revealed a kind nature and Kitty had taken to her instantly. “Then you can go on up and tidy his lordship’s bedchamber while Thomas is in the armoury.”
Kitty nodded her assent, keeping her head down so no one would notice the excitement in her eyes. This was her third day of service in Rossfarne Castle. She’d been hired as a housemaid with barely a second look from the marshal. But with only the earl himself in attendance at the castle, her duties had been confined to the kitchen so far and she was unlikely to discover her family jewels amidst the roasting spits and food barrels. On her first day, she’d been thrilled to be summoned to the solar, wildly imagining that she might lay her hands on Rosalind’s inheritance within the hour. But a dark temper had hung around his lordship, and he’d curtly dismissed her just as soon as she placed her heavy tray on a polished walnut table. She hadn’t even had the chance to so much as raise her gaze and glance around the room.
She straightened up and wiped her hands on her stiff apron. “Are there specific instructions?” she asked.
Agnes, a tall, stooped servant some years older than Kitty snorted in derision. “Make sure he’s not still in there. You don’t want to be left alone with him.” She nodded emphatically before returning her attention to a brown sack of muddy potatoes.
Kitty’s eyes opened wide. The man she’d met on the causeway had given her little cause for concern, but she still had much to learn about life in Rossfarne Castle.
Cook flapped her floury hands. “Don’t listen to her,” she told Kitty impatiently. “She’s remembering the old earl. His lordship isn’t like that.” She turned her disapproving face towards Agnes. “And I won’t have smutty tales told in my kitchen.”
Agnes rolled her eyes before plunging the potatoes into a bowl of water. “It never hurts to be careful.”
“I’ll be careful,” Kitty reassured her, remembering the dark carriage and the deep, commanding voice which had sent shivers down her spine.
“And don’t be caught with your back turned,” Agnes quipped.
Cook held out her large knife threateningly, and Kitty quickly looked away from both of them. She didn’t want a ruckus caused on her behalf. It would be better by far if they hardly noticed her. Then they wouldn’t miss her when she’d gone. And more importantly, no one would ever trace her back to Shoreston Manor. She’d already broken her promise to give a false name, but the incident on the causeway had left her shaken and disorientated. All she could think of was the tall, brooding man on the powerful charger. The way his muscles had rippled under his shirt and how his dark eyes had bored into hers. When the marshal asked for her name, she found herself reciting the pet name she’d been known by since birth.
Kitty. It was a good name for a servant. Simple, sensible, no frills. It suited her.
“Go on now,” Cook urged, wiping her hands on her apron and bustling over to take the wooden spoon from Kitty. “Make haste or else his lordship will be back from his morning ride and looking to change.”
Kitty didn’t need further encouragement. With steady hands, she removed the heavy pot from the stove and settled it on the scrubbed wooden table to cool.
“You’ll need a broom for the rushes,” prompted Agnes, perhaps regretting her earlier, unhelpful words. “Sprinkle them with dried lavender.”
Kitty tucked her errant curls more securely under her cap and found all she needed. The kitchen took up most of the lower ground floor. To leave it, she had to ascend a spiral stone staircase which led directly into the vast, echoing great hall. It was a room meant for feasting and gathering, but with so few people in attendance at the castle, the long trestle tables had been pushed up against the bare stone walls and the dais was bare. Four circular pillars reared up towards the vaulted ceiling, and in the far corner stood the raised lip of a deep well, situated inside in case the castle was ever held under siege. Kitty pressed her lips together at the thought. Rossfarne had known peace in her lifetime, but the troubled borderlands were not far away, and the earl had no army to protect them against marauding raids.
Shaking the thought away, she glanced around her to get her bearings. The earl’s solar was situated in an alcove on this floor and the grand bedchambers were above. She walked past the cavernous fireplace, balanced her broom against her shoulder and opened a creaking door to the tower stairs. She had not yet been higher than the ground floor of Rossfarne Castle. The steps in front of her were narrow and slippery and her heart began to beat loudly beneath her apron as she climbed. She paused beside a window to catch her breath as the turbulent sea crashed repeatedly against the mighty castle walls. Out there, gulls criedand fishermen from the village plied their trade, but the forceful, elemental waves had power over them all.
How could she, a mere girl from the village, hope to better the formidable Earl of Rossfarne?
Kitty swallowed down her fears and turned resolutely from the cheerless view. So much wilderness all around only served to underline her own physical weakness. But she was so close. She must hold her nerve for just a little longer.
She reached a tapestried gallery with a door set into the stone wall beside another narrow window. This must be the earl’s bedchamber. Squaring her shoulders, Kitty hesitantly knocked on the door. The last thing she wanted was to walk in unannounced and discover he had returned unexpectedly. Worse, to find him waiting for her, his fierce eyes flashing, his powerful body coiled like a spring.
She closed her eyes to banish the image and listened hard, but no sound came from the thick-set doorway. Pulse-pounding, she turned the handle and pushed. The door refused to yield.
