Hugo had an urge to laugh at this passionate defense of her maligned pet. She reminded him of a Lilliputian. He relented slightly. "If there's any more trouble, he's to be tied up." He turned back to the house and his neglected breakfast. "And I will not have him in the house."
Chloe knew that keeping Dante permanently out of the house would be beyond even such a hardened dog-disliker as Hugo Lattimer, so she was not unduly perturbed by the prohibition. Everyone yielded to Dante in the end. For the moment, though, she left him in disgrace and went in search of Beatrice, who had found her brood without the least difficulty and was once again ensconced in the hat box.
"And now I'll have to find you some food," Chloe murmured, frowning. Her stomach growled, asserting its own claims.
Sir Hugo had clearly been eating his breakfast in the kitchen-another odd circumstance. But with any luck, he would have finished by now and be out of the way. Samuel would be easier to manage.
Unfortunately, her guardian was still very much in evidence when she entered the kitchen. He was leaning back in a chair at the table, one booted leg negligently swinging over the arm, a tankard of ale in his hand. Samuel was clearing away dirty plates. They both turned to the door as she came in. "I'm rather hungry," she said, feeling awkward.
"Then Samuel will find you some breakfast," Hugo responded, looking at her over his shoulder.
"I had breakfast in Bolton at five o'clock this morning," Chloe pointed out, casting a rapid glance toward the open pantry door. She could see a milk chum, which would be a start for Beatrice, but not much comfort to Dante.
"Then he will find you a nuncheon," Hugo said, still observing her. "Now, what are you looking for? Or is it at again?"
Chloe's cheeks warmed. "Nothing."
Hugo regarded her thoughtfully. He didn't think Chloe Gresham was a very proficient prevaricator. "Don't fib," he advised. "It makes you go very pink." Not that that delicate blush did anything more than enhance her beauty.
Dear God, what was he thinking of? Quite apart from whose child she was, she was indecently young for a man in his thirty-fifth year to slaver over.
He thumped his tankard on the table and said crisply, "If you want something, lass, I suggest you come right out and ask."
"Well, I do usually," she replied, wandering toward the pantry in a rather roundabout fashion, as if to disguise her destination. "It usually saves a deal of time, but I don't think you're going to be sympathetic."
"Imagine you're lookin' for summat to give that cat of your'n," Samuel remarked as Chloe peered into the pantry.
"And just where is the cat'" demanded Hugo.
"In my room."
"Your room?" His eyebrows vanished into his scalp.
"Samuel told me to choose which I liked," she said, turning back to the kitchen. "I hope that was all right. It's a corner room, but there aren't any sheets on the bed. I was going to ask Samuel where I could find some."
Hugo closed his eyes. Things seemed to be getting out of hand. "You aren't staying here, Chloe."
"But where else am I to go?" The deep blue eyes took on a purplish hue, and he didn't like what he read in them. She was expecting something hurtful.
"I have to discuss it with Scranton," he said.
"Why does no one ever want me?" she said so softly he barely caught the words.
He swung his leg off the chair arm, stirred despite himself. "Don't be silly," he said, going over to her. "That's not it at all. You can't stay here because I don't have an appropriate household… you must see that, lass." He caught her chin, lifting it. Her eyes still had that purplish hue, but the soft mouth was set.
"I don't see why," she said. "I could keep house for you. Someone needs to."
"Not an heiress with a fortune of eighty thousand pounds," he said, smiling at this absurdity. "And Samuel keeps house for me."
"Not very well," she stated. "It's so dirty everywhere."
"Got enough to do, wi'out wonyin' over a peck o' dust," Samuel grumbled. "If you want to eat, miss, ye'd best come to the table. I can't spend all day in the kitchen."
"I have to feed Beatrice first," Chloe demurred. "She's suckling all those kittens."
Hugo seized the change of subject with relief. He had little to lose by accommodating her in this area. By this evening Chloe Gresham and her dependents would be respectably installed elsewhere. Scranton was bound to have some further information that would provide a solution. "I suppose she can stay upstairs for the time being. But the dog is not to come inside."
"I don't see why it should matter. The house is already so dirty, Dante isn't going to make it worse."
"Has nobody ever told you that it's extremely impolite to criticize one's hospitality?" Hugo demanded, good resolutions forgotten in the face of this intransigent refusal to accept the compromise. "Particularly when one is an uninvited guest."
"That's not my fault. If you bothered to read your letters-" she fired back. "Anyway, why don't you?"
"Because there is never anything of the slightest interest in them… if it's any of your business, miss," he snapped, stalking to the door. "I suggest you stop making a nuisance of yourself and eat your nuncheon." The door banged on his departure.
Why didn't he bother to open his mail? Hugo pondered the question as he went into the library, wondering also why he'd allowed himself to be drawn into a pointless squabble with an argumentative and irritating schoolgirl. No wonder the Misses Trent had been so ready to see the back of her. Ten years of that would try the patience of Job.
He picked up the pile of letters and glanced through them. The truth, of course, was that he didn't want any reminders of the past. He didn't want to hear news of the people he had once known so well. He didn't want anything to do with the world he had once inhabited. The memories of the past were so hideous, and he couldn't summon a spark of interest for the future. He hadn't been able to since the war ended, and he'd returned to his sadly deteriorated family home and the recognition that apart from Denholm Manor and an equally dilapidated house in London, he was without financial resources. What fortune he'd had he'd run through in those two years with the Congregation of
Eden before the duel. It hadn't been more than a competency, anyway, but with careful management he could have kept a wife, set up his nursery, maintained the estate, and even taken his wife to London for the Season. But one is not wise at eighteen, and his trustees had exerted no control over the willful, dissolute youth in their charge.
After the duel, in a frenzy of guilt and misery, he had ridden to Liverpool and taken the king's shilling aboard the frigate Hotspur. One year before the mast had stripped all vestige of privilege, of youthful excess, from him. It had honed and hardened him. At twenty-one he was promoted from the ranks to midshipman and, as the war took its toll, he moved rapidly upward. Within three years he was commanding his own ship of the line.
During those years he was able to forget… except at night, when the nightmares came a-visiting. They were relentless and as far as possible he chose not to sleep during the hours of darkness.
But with Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo had come peace. He'd taken his conge of the king's service and here he was, whiling away his days on the Lancashire moors and his nights in the Manchester stews.
And he was not interested in his mail.
He flung the letters down on the table and picked up a bottle from the sideboard. Its dusty coating indicated vintage rather than poor housekeeping. He glanced at the clock. Half past noon. A bit early for the first brandy of the day, but what did it matter? What did anything matter?