Hugo glared at the man who'd been his companion and servant since he'd first gone to sea as a lad of twenty. As usual, Samuel was right. The pounding in his head became fierce, and he knew he couldn't deal with this another minute. "Get that dog out of the house," he commanded, striding to the staircase. "And put that damn cat and her litter in the stables, where they belong… and put a cover on that parrot," he added savagely as the bird tossed out another example of its dubious vocabulary.
"Oh, no!" Chloe exclaimed. "Dante lives inside-"
Hugo swung his head carefully in her direction. "Dante?" he demanded incredulously. "That dog is called Dante?"
"Yes, because he came out of an inferno," she informed him. "I rescued him from a bonfire when he was just a puppy. Some louts had tied him up and were setting a fire around him. I did think of calling him Joan of Arc," she added reflectively, "until I realized he was the wrong sex."
"I don't think I want to hear any more," Hugo said. "In fact, I know I don't want to hear any more." He enunciated his words with great care. "I have not yet been to bed, so I am going upstairs, where I shall probably say my prayers for the first time since I left the nursery. And when I wake up, I devoutly trust that my prayers will have been answered, and I shall find that this…"He waved his hand in an expansive movement across the scene in the great hall. "That all this will prove to have been no more than the hideous figments of a disordered imagination."
The parrot cackled in an uncanny imitation of a hysterical drunk. "Get this menagerie out of here!" On which hopefully decisive note Sir Hugo Lattimer took himself to the sanity of his own bedchamber, hearing the fluttering whimpers of Miss Anstey behind him.
He was a chronic insomniac but proficient at catnaps. Ten years of night watches at sea had turned a tendency into immutable habit, one he welcomed since the nightmares haunted his night sleep but visited less often in the short bouts of daytime unconsciousness.
He dropped his clothes in an untidy heap on the floor, crawled into bed, and closed his eyes with relief. The throbbing at his temples lessened with the absence of light. He couldn't begin to think about Elizabeth and the child who looked so like her and yet so unlike her. Some vast mistake had been made. She belonged at Shipton with the Greshams.
The brutal face of Jasper Gresham swam abruptly into his internal vision and he was wide awake again. Jasper was his father's son… Stephen's son. No fit man to have charge of a young girl. Was that what Elizabeth had been trying to avoid? But in what kind of madness could her father's killer be considered a fit guardian? A recluse who sought relief from die past in drink and the city stews.
He groaned and turned over. The sound of wheels on the courtyard cobbles came from below the open window. Hope flickered that the post-chaise with two passengers and a menagerie was leaving, and when he awoke this craziness would be over. But he had a prickling premonition that his life was about to undergo a profound change.
Chapter 2
Downstairs, Chloe stood on the steps and waved the chaise and Miss Anstey out of the courtyard. The poor lady had been torn between her perceived duty to Chloe and her unquestionable duty to her new employers. But her perceived duty had not been proof against Chloe's brisk dismissal of her fears, and she had finally been persuaded into the chaise, dabbing at her eyes and pouring forth a stream of benedictions on the dear child she was leaving. She bemoaned the disreputable state of the house, the strangeness of Sir Hugo and his servant, and the significant absence of either housekeeper or a Lady Lattimer. The last words Chloe heard were: "Oh, dear, perhaps I shouldn't leave you like this… what will the Misses Trent say… but then what will Lady Colshot say… such a bad impression to arrive late… oh, dear…"
Chloe firmly shut the door of the chaise, putting a period to the vacillation, and called good-bye. The coachman cracked his whip and the vehicle and its still indecisively bewailing passenger disappeared from Denholm Manor.
Thoughtfully, Chloe turned back to the house. It did seem that there was no Lady Lattimer, although it had been assumed at the seminary that there would be. Chloe had never heard of Sir Hugo Lattimer until her mother's will had been read. She had no idea why her mother had chosen him, but then, she knew almost nothing about her mother, having spent no more than a few days a year with Elizabeth since she was six. The only thing she knew at the moment was that this change in her circumstances could only be for the better.
She knelt down by the hat box. The cat's labors seemed to be over and Chloe counted six damp kittens squirming at her belly. They were curiously repellent, she thought, absently stroking the cat's head, more like baby rats than the entrancing creatures they would soon become.
"Best get that lot out to the stable before Sir 'Ugo comes down." Samuel's gruff voice came from behind her and she stood up, brushing the dust off her skirt.
"I dont think we should move her outside just yet. She'll feel threatened and she might abandon them."
Samuel shrugged. "Not an animal lover, Sir 'Ugo… except horses, of course."
"Doesn't he like dogs?" Chloe caressed Dante's massive head, pushing against her knee.
"Not indoors," Samuel informed her. "Gun dogs is fine, but their place is in the kennels."
"Dante sleeps with me," Chloe stated. "Even the Misses Trent accepted that. He howls all night otherwise."
Samuel shrugged again. "I'd best get back to me kitchen. Sir 'Ugo'll be wantin his breakfast when he wakes."
"Don't you have a cook?" Chloe followed him out of the hall, down a long corridor to the kitchen at the rear of the house.
"Who needs one? Wi' just the two of us?"
Chloe looked around the room with its huge fireplace and spit, the massive table, the array of copper pots. "Only you and Sir Hugo live in this house?" It seemed very odd, but one could become used to anything.
"Tha's right." Samuel broke eggs into a bowl.
"Oh." Chloe frowned, nibbling her lip. "Well, perhaps you could direct me to my bedchamber. I could move some of my things out of the hall, then."
Samuel paused in his beating of the eggs and gave her a searching look. "You reckon on stayin?"
"Of course," Chloe said with an assumption of confidence. "I have nowhere else to go."
Samuel grunted. "There's sixteen bedrooms. Take your pick."
"Sixteen!"
He nodded and dropped a pinch of salt into the eggs.
Chloe stood uncertainly for a minute, but when it seemed that the man had nothing further to say, she left the kitchen. The events in her life so far had not encouraged her to expect warm welcomes or particularly friendly exchanges, so she was not unduly troubled by the oddities of her present situation. She was a pragmatic soul and accepted that now, as always, it was up to her to make the best of things and improve on them as and how she could. Anything… anything… was an improvement on the Trent Seminary for Young Ladies in Bolton, where she'd been immured for the past ten years.
The most important thing was to ensure she was not returned there. To that end, she went in search of the library, where Samuel had suggested her credentials might be found.
The library was as unkempt and dusty as the rest of the house. Dante went snuffling into the corners, his tail wagging furiously as he dug and scrabbled at the skirting board. Mice, presumably, Chloe decided, approaching a table where lay a pile of letters. It was dark in the room despite the brilliance of the morning. The daylight was filtered through grimy diamond-paned windows, and the massive oak beams and dark, paneled walls added to the gloom. She looked for flint and tinder to light one of the tallow candles on the table but couldn't find any, so she picked up the pile of papers and took them to the window.