Chloe flushed. "That's so unfair. I couldn't help it if the curate made moon eyes at me and dropped his cake on the floor and forgot his sermon in church."
"No," Hugo agreed. "I'm sure you couldn't. However, again reading between the lines, I suspect the real mischief lies with Miss Anne's nephew."
Chloe's expression changed to one of deep disgust. "That smarmy toad," she declared. "His hands were always wet and he had these horrible loose lips, and he tried to kiss me, as if I were a kitchen maid. He wanted to marry me! Can you imagine?"
"Quite easily," Hugo murmured. "And how did Miss Anne view his suit." "She favored it," Chloe declared. Hardly surprising, Hugo thought. What aunt wouldn't want a fortune of eighty thousand pounds for her nephew?
"But when I told her what I thought of Mr. Cedric Trent," Chloe continued, "she… well… she was horrid. Then she and Miss Emily said I was a bad influence on the other girls and they really couldnlt keep me any longer, although, of course, they were very sorry to send me away, as I'd only just been made an orphan, but I had to go for the good of the seminary. So they wrote to you, and since Miss Anstey was traveling in a post-chaise that Lady Colshot had paid for, it seemed convenient that she should bring me on her way to London." "I see." Poor brat. It was a story that revealed much more than the girl realized-a dark stretch of a lonely and unloved existence. Would it have been different if her father had not died in that crypt…?
He thrust the thought from him and flung off the sheet, swinging his legs to the floor with an unusual surge of energy.
The girl's eyes widened; with a violent oath, he grabbed the sheet again. "Get out!"
Chloe fled.
Hauling the sheet around his waist, Hugo strode out of the room, bellowing for Samuel, who appeared at the end of the corridor.
"Get that idiot Scranton out here. Send the boy with the message. I want him here by dinnertime."
"Right you are, Sir 'Ugo." Samuel, imperturbable, disappeared.
Hugo stalked back to his room and flung on his clothes. The girl couldn't stay here-not even for a night. A bachelor household was a completely inappropriate environment, as that lunatic piece of carelessness had just demonstrated. However heedless of convention he might be, there were limits.
Chapter 3
Chloe recovered her composure in the undemanding, accepting company of her animals. The one-legged parrot swore softly at her from the windowsill, where he preened himself in the sun, and Dante lay with his head in her lap as she sat on the floor beside the hat box, watching the nursing mother.
Animals had always been her chief companions. She had a sure touch with the sick, wounded, or abandoned and an unfailing nose for finding them. Her acquisitions had not been popular with the Misses Trent any more than had her frequent embarrassing confrontations with neglectful or abusive owners. However, Chloe was not easily turned from a course of action, and when her anger and pity were aroused, it would have taken much more than the combined efforts of Miss Anne and Miss Emily to dissuade her.
Now she stroked Dante's head with a soothing rhythm until her flush died down and she could imagine facing her guardian again. Until he'd thrown aside the bedclothes, she hadn't thought twice about his nakedness beneath the sheet. She hadn't thought twice about being in a man's bedroom-a virtual stranger's bedroom -conducting such a long and relatively intimate conversation. She had little experience to go on, but it did not seem as if that had been a most unusual circumstance. In fact, everything about this business was unusual. Here she was, orphaned and alone, thrust into the clearly unwelcoming arms of a stranger who lived in a decaying Tudor manor house on the Lancashire moors with only a servant for company. And not an ordinary servant either.
Dante stood up and went to the door, whining. He needed to go out, and presumably the cat would need to as well. And they had to be fed. The thought of food made her realize that she was starving, and the need to do something practical for her menagerie chased away any lingering embarrassment about the morning's interview.
She picked up the cat, who mewed at her sleeping kittens but was not reluctant to be carried away. Dante pranced ahead of her as she hurried down the corridor, hoping she wouldn't meet Sir Hugo with her arms full of feline. She dashed across the hall and out into the sunny courtyard, where the cat dug herself a tidy hole under a bush and Dante went off, tail flying, to investigate the stables.
She was halfway across the hall, returning mother to babes, when chaos broke out in the courtyard. The air was split with the frenzied barking of what sounded like half a dozen maddened dogs. The cat leapt from her arms with a high-pitched yowl and belted for the stairs.
"What the devil's going on?" Hugo emerged from the kitchen, wiping his mouth on a checkered table napkin. The cat streaked past him and the cacophony from outside grew to new proportions.
"Beatrice… Beatrice, come here. For heaven's sake, it's only Dante." Chloe ran after the frantic cat, now racing up the stairs.
"Beatrice/" Hugo exclaimed. "What sort of a name is that'" Then he shook his head impatiently. "Stupid question. What else would you call her?" He grabbed Chloe's arm, halting her pursuit. "Leave the cat. If that damn dog of yours is causing trouble out there, lass, you will sort it out."
"Oh, dear… yes, I suppose so," Chloe said, staring distractedly after the cat. "I suppose Beatrice will find her way back to her kittens… mother's instinct. Don't you think?"
"I don't know the first thing about cats and I don't give a tinker's damn. But I want that noise stopped now."
Chloe flung up her hands in defeat and ran back outside. It was hard to distinguish one dog from another in the whirling ball of fur in the courtyard. "Dante!" she yelled, running down the steps.
"Don't get in the middle of them!" Hugo called in sudden panic as she raced to the snapping, growling, barking ball of fur.
Chloe stopped dead. "I'm not a fool! What do you take me for?" Her tone was considerably less than polite. Without waiting for an answer, she ran to the pump in the corner of the courtyard, filled two leather buckets, and lugged them toward the fray.
Hugo watched the diminutive figure struggle with the heavy buckets, but he was still smarting from that flash of insolent impatience and made no attempt to help her.
She heaved the contents of the first bucket over the snarling animals, who immediately sprang away from one another. The second bucketful sent Dante's two opponents whimpering toward the stables. Dante, in apparent indifference, shook himself heartily and trotted over to his mistress.
Chloe bent down to the dog. Hugo couldn't hear what she said, but Dante's head hung, his tail drooped, and he slunk off into the far corner of the courtyard.
Chloe straightened, throwing her hair back over her shoulders. She hadn't replaited it, and its radiance seemed to throw back the sunlight like a halo. She looked at Hugo, her expression uncertain, and he returned the look grimly. With a visible stiffening of her shoulders she crossed the yard toward him.
"I'm sorry if I was rude," she said abruptly. "But I know perfectly well how to deal with a dogfight."
"I assume you've had plenty of experience with that ill-bred, ill-disciplined beast," he stated. "He's to be tied up in the stables. I'll not have him causing trouble with my hounds."
"But that's so unjust!" she exclaimed in vigorous defense. "How can you possibly know that Dante started it? It was two against one, I'll have you know." She glared at him, all apologetic conciliation vanished. "And he's not ill-disciplined. Look how downcast he is because I scolded him."