Page 23 of Gambling with the Earl
“Kitty, close the door behind you, please.”
Her composure had left along with the manservant. Kitty did as she was told, her hands trembling, then stood quietly in the corner awaiting further instructions.
The Earl of Rossfarne was sitting at his desk by the window. The afternoon sunlight cast a golden glow all around him, almost like a halo. She remembered his fingers closing around her wrist and the unanticipated pull of attraction in the pit of her stomach. He had willingly ascended the tower steps to find her dropped broom, despite being stooped with pain. The earl was injured, yet none of his household knew. Who was tending to him?
How, in fact, had he come by such an injury? She recalled the low-cut sumptuous gowns secreted in his solar and shuddered. Perhaps a jealous husband had sliced him with a sword.
Such a jumble of thoughts crowded her mind that she couldn’t hope to sift through them. This was a man the villagers feared, albeit as a consequence of his bloodline, but there was no escaping the fact of his sordid wager with her father. She should despise him. But he had also shown her glimmers of something else. Honour and maybe even kindness. He’d conversed with her almost as an equal, despite thinking her nothing more than a servant. And yesterday he had saved her from the unwanted attentions of Lord Ulric. What did that mean?
More pressingly, what did he want with her now?
Her heart jumped in her chest like a bird beating its wings against a cage. The palms of her hands grew hot as the silence stretched between them. Still the earl sat at his desk, head down,writing. Seemingly absorbed in his task. He must be a man of learning. A dazzling haze of light obscured his chiselled features, but she could see his long, ink-stained fingers holding the quill. Fingers that she had felt against her own flesh.
She bit down on her lip. She could bear it no longer.
She cleared her throat. “You asked to see me, my lord.”
He looked up sharply. “Where did you train as a servant?”
His words took her by surprise and her mind unhelpfully went blank. She could hardly reveal that she had learned all she knew by watching Lizzie at Shoreston Manor.
“A housekeeper helped me,” she said at last.
“A housekeeper in which establishment?” He looked back down at the parchment as if her answer hardly interested him.
“A minor manor far from the coast. You won’t know it, my lord.”
Immediately he looked back at her, and she shrank backwards under the scorching force of his gaze. Dark eyes boring into her soul. Did he recognise her deception? Was he about to claim her as his own? A prize won in a game of dice, witnessed by many.
She is mine,he’d said last night. Did he actually know this for a fact?
Dread circled around her stomach, and she half closed her eyes against the inevitable shame.
“Try me,” he said.
Her heart pounded as she reached desperately into the recesses of her memory for a name. “It was near Belford,” she said weakly. “After the crossroads.”
She had no idea if there were crossroads at the village of Belford, but the detail seemed to convince him.
“They do things differently there, no doubt.” His dark eyes roamed over her face. Looking for what? But he merely pursed his lips and added, “Just as we do here.”
“Here, my lord?” She realised too late that her voice rang out across his solar with the clarity of a lady.
He put his head to one side, watching her. “You will have noticed, Kitty, that we keep meagre staff.”
Her mind raced again. Was this a challenge? Compared to Shoreston, Rossfarne Castle positively teemed with servants.
She lowered her eyes. “’Tis not my place to notice.” She deliberately altered her speech patterns to match those of her fellow servants below stairs. She would have to try harder to mirror all of their ways. How else did she readily give away her true identity?
The earl sat back in his high-backed chair and opened his arms expansively. “Come now,” his voice was encouraging. “We have no guards, no musicians, no entertainers.” He marked them off with his hands. “No lady’s maids of course, for there are no ladies.”
He had found her out. Kitty felt the world spin around her.
“Life here is very different to life at Answick Castle, for example,” he added.
Her knees sagged. She waited.
“Would you not say?” he prompted when she didn’t respond.
