Page 111 of The Ladies Least Likely
“What was the worst?”
He was being forward, but he’d been worse than rude with her earlier, and her female sensibilities had recovered from the shock. Besides, he needed to know something about her if he were trusting the welfare of his would-be wards to her hands.
She stared at the tidy page of entries, but he had the sense she was not reading. Finally she said, in a light tone that sounded forced, “I was commissioned once to copy a set of Gospels that the owner thought was in early Latin. Turns out it was Flemish.” She tapped a finger against the open page. “I do not read Flemish.”
Mal stared, stupefied, at the small, wry smile that accompanied these words. A bell rang in his ears, as if he’d taken a blow to the head.
“Somehow I believe you could master anything you set your mind to, Miss Illingworth. Including Flemish.”
“It is close enough to Dutch that I was able to make it out, once I found someone who speaks Flemish,” she said. “Either your chandler has been overcharging your housekeeper obscenely, or your housekeeper has been pocketing a profit margin on the household’s purchase of candles. I’ve noted an absurdly high price for several other items as well. Also recent entries for mourning clothes, yet I notice you and the children have put off mourning.”
He stiffened. Was that a reprimand? He was not here to take reprimands from Miss Illingworth, as much as he might require her help.
“I noticed a similar inflation of prices in the butler’s books. Wine seems to have been extortionately expensive of late.”
She put down the small glass of Canary wine that she had just raised to her mouth. Mal noted the shimmer of liquid on her lips and tore his mind away. He was not here to catalogue Miss Illingworth’s anatomy, though he was noting new points of interest with every glance.
“I’m told it is common in wealthy households for the servants to line their pockets,” she said. “A housekeeper selling the candle stubs or cast-off rags as a perk, for example. But I wonder if your steward was aware of the extent of the skimming.”
“He was in no position to scold, given he was robbing from the estate, or planning to.”
“And Her Grace?” She turned to the last page of entries.
“Don’t Grace her,” Mal snapped. “She’s Sybil. A name synonymous with witch.”
She gave him a level look. “The Sybils were oracles of the Greco-Roman world. Their prophecies were considered divine revelation.”
“My father thought Sybil a divine revelation when he found comfort in her arms, though she was but a viscount’s widow, and he was not done mourning his first wife,” Mal said. “Turns out the comfort Sybil took was in having a high title, a country seat, and a townhouse in London, as well as a great increase in her pin money. I expect she and Popplewell have been pocketing the estate’s profits for some time, though our solicitor can tell us for sure. I’ll meet with him tomorrow.”
“And I shall give you the direction of the Sisters of Benevolence Hospital for the Relief of Orphans and Distressed Women,” Miss Illingworth said, closing the book as if the conversation were finished. “They are not a regular agency, but they engage frequently in the placement of servants. Anyone they recommend will be trustworthy and grateful for the work. The matron will recognize my name.”
“Surely, if that is the case, you are in the best position to discuss orphans and distressed women with her?” Mal said with alarm. He could only imagine how he, with his disastrous luck, would be met in such an endeavor. The care of his wards, or soon-to-be wards, was at stake. “More to the point, I don’t have the least notion how to go about staffing a house like this one. I don’t even employ a valet.”
“A chambermaid to tidy?”
“Arranged by my landlady, and I pay for the service with my rent.”
Again those brows raised. Miss Illingworth managed to convey much with just a few twitches of a facial muscle. This one said she found him a useless dandy, which he preferred to admitting that, due to his rebelliousness as a youth and the position of entrenched resentment he had maintained toward his father as an adult, he knew as much or less than she did about running a ducal house.
“I can inquire at the Hospital, but I should think you would rather see the back of me,” she said finally.
If he longed to see the back of her, it was so he might examine her from that angle as well. The brandy had left a pleasant burn in his belly, the warmth spreading to regions lower the longer he sat with her. He had the unadvisable urge to touch her, to settle once and for all whether her hair was comprised of clouds or fairy dust, and whether her skin was silk or velvet.
Whether, if he dipped his finger in the brandy and drew it across those plum-colored lips, she would rear from his touch like a frightened horse. Or if she would bite his finger and suck it inside her clever mouth, warm and wet and?—
Mal wrenched his mind from the tightness that suddenly filled his groin.
“You cannot abandon us now,” Miss Illingworth,” he rasped. “The children have thrown themselves upon your mercy, and I do as well.”
She drew back as if she feared he meant to literally launch himself. He reined himself in. The set of her eyes, that canny way she looked at the world, suggested she was not entirely an innocent, but that didn’t mean she was open to an interlude with a duke’s bastard son. Or anyone.
What he would give, though, to have her look upon him with longing. To see desire in those deep, veiled eyes, a pout of want on her prim lips, to have her turn to him with a sultry invitation and?—
“My brother, Joseph, could make the necessary arrangements. I cannot think you welcome me poking my nose in your business.”
He wanted her nose and every other part of her in his business. No. Mal struggled to cut through the haze clouding his thoughts. No, he did not want her prying into his affairs, as attractive as her nose was.
“Your brother does not seem to have been aware of what was going on here any more than I was,” Mal managed to point out.
