Through the mayhem, Mrs. Nelson remained as cool as the most undaunted soldier in battle. Silent, where his mother and sister now wept. “Will you excuse us a moment, my lady?”
His body went still. By God, surely he’d imagined that command issued from the sour-faced creature. The quick patter of footsteps and then the closing door indicated Mother and Theo left him alone with the woman.
Mrs. Nelson drifted over and toed a particularly large shard of white glass. She made a clicking noise with her tongue. “Well, this certainly moves up my proverbial list of matters that require tending to in your...” She wrinkled her nose. “...rooms. Do you have another?”
Lucas opened and closed his mouth several times. People didn’t speak to him in that casual, curious manner. Not anymore. They picked their way haltingly, fearfully around their words and actions. “What?” The query escaped him, harsh and ragged.
“Another chamber pot,” she said in slow tones better suited to chastising a child.
Blankly, he shook his head once.
“As I suspected.” The lady sighed. “Then, it was in poor judgment to hurl the only one you do have.”
He growled. The vixen was taking him to task like a little boy who’d made off with Cook’s just-baked tarts. But then, isn’t that what I’ve become? A scared, useless child, afraid to be around others, afraid of the nightmares and the madness that plagues me? “I’ve already told you, you are relieved of your duties.” He’d not have a female around here, reminding him of how he’d once been the charming rogue, in whose bed ladies had vied for a place.
Mrs. Nelson shifted her attention away from that piece of glass. “I am afraid I cannot do that, Captain Rayne. I understand you’ve no desire for company,” she went on, coming closer until her knees brushed the edge of his mattress. “That you’ve been content to close yourself away in your chambers.” What did she know of it? Nothing. “I have need of this post and, as such, it will take more than a,” she gestured behind her, “broken chamber pot to run me off. Furthermore,” Furthermore? “you’ve run off nearly all your family's staff and, as such, cannot afford to be discriminating.” With him lying there flummoxed, she started for the entrance of the room and then stopped, her fingers poised on the door handle. “That is, unless you wish to clean your own chambers?” At his silence, she inclined her head. “I did not think so, Captain.”
“Have you not heard,” he taunted on a chilling whisper that sent the color draining from the lady’s cheeks. “Castle Rayne was cursed long ago and it is haunted by the dead lords and ladies who once called this home.” So were the legends and folklores told him and his siblings when they’d been young children sitting at their father’s knee. As a boy, he’d been the only Rayne to scoff at those tales. Until time had proven the depth of that curse.
The woman’s throat moved. Of course she’d cower and run. They all did. Including his own family. Except—Mrs. Nelson tipped her chin up. “I do not believe in curses, Captain Rayne.” She lied. He saw the truth, bright and clear, radiating from the depths of her brown eyes. “If you’ll excuse me?” she excused herself, hurriedly, making a further mockery of her efforts at bravery.
This one would not last a week. “I said, do not come back,” he bellowed.
With the regality befitting a queen, she closed the door behind her with a decisive click.
Lucas stared at the wood panel a long while. He’d spent nearly two years existing in absolute silence. That vacuum had, at first, been imposed on him, a wounded soldier taken as prisoner from the fields of Talavera, by cruel guards who’d delighted in chaining and beating him. Then, that silence had changed to something willing on Lucas’ part. Words, whimpers, even the whisper of sound brought with it the threat of death. From then, he had existed as a shell of a man, breathing but not living. He’d ceased to feel—anything.
Until now.
Now, curiosity about the woman who’d challenge a duchess, countess, and captain from the King’s Army filled him.
With that, Lucas rolled onto his side and stared at those brocade curtains. Boredom. There was no other accounting for the questions that slipped in about the pursed-mouthed servant he’d run off this time.
Chapter 4
Never allow an enemy to see your weakness.
That long-ago lesson drilled into Eve’s head like the steady beat of a drum, never rang clearer than it did this moment. Except, for all her bravado two hours earlier not withstanding outside Captain Rayne’s chambers, her heart beat hard against her rib cage. He’d ordered her gone. But by God, she’d be damned if a hurt, angry, foul-mannered beast ran her off. A man who lays there because of my father’s treachery.
I’ve faced far more daunting moments than this. Rushing from towns, in retreat, when the French had turned the tides in battle. Caring for dying men on a battlefield slick with blood. Yes, one, hurt, angry gentleman who’d shut himself away from the world, she could certainly handle.
“Ahem.”
She jumped, as the aging housekeeper at her back cleared her throat. Eve glanced over her shoulder at the ancient woman, who stood beside a servant, more boy than man. The lad’s cheeks were a stark white as he stole glances at the closed door. His audible swallow filled the hallway.
“There be ghosts here, ma’am,” the lad whispered. That eerie pronouncement raised gooseflesh on Eve’s arms. “You hear them in the dead of night. You can hear music playing—”
“Enough of that, Owen,” Mrs. Bramble ordered, glowering the boy to silence.
Owen flushed and scuffed his boot along the stone floor.
Taking mercy, Eve accepted the clean, porcelain chamber pot painted in pale pink and yellow roses. The piece was delicate and at odds with the austere stone walls of the hallways. “Thank you,” Eve said with a gentle smile.
“Captain Rayne doesn’t care for the servants to linger,” the housekeeper, Mrs. Bramble, shared quietly as she turned over a stack of white cleaning cloths. “And he doesn’t want a body wandering the halls past midnight.”
At that peculiarity, she tipped her head. What accounted for that particular command from the snarly captain? Shifting the burden in her arms, Eve accepted the cloths and stuffed them inside the pocket of her white apron.
“The best advice I may give is enter and leave as quickly as possible,” the older servant with white hair and kindly eyes advised. She handed over the broom and dustbin the way a commander led troops into battle. “Captain Rayne doesn’t like any knocking or noise.” Was there anything the gentleman did like? Eve bit back that dry question. “Her Ladyship is the only one permitted to. Everyone else...” Allowing that cryptic warning to trail off, Mrs. Bramble pressed the door handle and pushed it open.
Silence rang louder than cannon fire as Eve stepped inside the darkened rooms. She blinked until her eyes adjusted to the dimly lit quarters. Shifting the supplies in her arms, she pushed the door closed with the heel of her boot and took a step forward. She was not certain what she’d expected. Thunderous shouts, ordering her gone. Curses. Jeering barbs. Not this—thick quiet better suited to a family’s never-visited crypt.
“What are you doing?”
At Captain Rayne’s terse inquiry, she shrieked. Heart racing, she faced the man, prone in his bed. Even in the darkened quarters, she detected his piercing stare trained on her. A little fluttering unfurled in her belly. A man who frowned so should not have the devastating appeal of this hardened warrior, barking commands like they were still upon the battlefield. Be calm, Eve. You’re no shrinking miss. She forced a smile. “Why, I’m here to clean.” She motioned to the sloppy chambers.
“I ordered you gone,” he shot back, his voice scratchy.
With a nonchalance she did not feel, Eve drifted over. “You’ve run off how many servants, Captain? Seven?”