“Amazed?” Lydia asked. “More like grateful. I hope someday I can manage a household half as well as my grandmother and be lucky enough to have servants like ours.”
“You’re ready to give up your social whirl and manage a household?” Sophie couldn’t hide the touch of awe in her voice.
“Maybe not this Season, but soon. I’ll make Papa and Grand ecstatic and leave them in peace.”
“Do you have someone in mind for whom you’d like to manage a household?”
“Oh, there have been volunteers, but they’re the type who are too easily led. I need someone who will tell me what I want and not take ’no’ for an answer.”
Sophie shook her head and gave a little squeak of bliss and contentment while sinking lower into the luxury of hot water. She raised her arm and shuddered at the look of the darkening bruises around her wrist.
“What about you?” came from the other tub.
“Whataboutme?” Sophie sat up so suddenly, some of the precious warm liquid sloshed onto the floor.
“You know. Have you met the man you want to spend the rest of your life with?”
“Honestly?” Sophie shivered at the cold air on her exposed breasts and slid back down through the bubbles. “I don’t know what he would look like or what he would say that would convince me.”
“I know one thing.”
“What?”
“If your naval officer protector looked at me like he looked at you today when we almost lost you, I’d be ready to set down roots so deep, he’d always sail home to me.”
Arnaud paused in his perusal of the plan of Howick Houseto welcome Dr. MacCloud who had just arrived and was handing his coat, gloves, and hat off to his valet, Artemis. “Are the others with you?”
“Haven’t seen them since the fracas at the museum this afternoon. I know we’re all supposed to live to serve at your pleasure, even when on leave, so I’ll see about having them flogged, sir, when they show up.”
Arnaud frowned at his ship’s surgeon over the edge of a drawing of the Howick first floor. “Youarejoking. Right?”
“Not unless you are. I know you’re concerned about the lass, but there’s only so much we can do, and as far as I can see, we’re doing as much as we can, considering we have no idea who we’re up against, or how many men he can muster.”
“And since you mentioned the question of who we’re up against, did you find out anything more from the kidnapper about who hired him?”
“Since you ask, we turned him over to a runner, and lo and behold he’s wanted for a number of nefarious doings.”
Arnaud’s gut lurched. “What nefarious doings?”
“Picking pockets, robbery, and murder, plus a dozen other offenses since he was boy.”
“Jupiter’s braces! What kind of animal would hire a man like that to snatch Miss Brancelli?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. The stakes have to be verra high for someone to go to these lengths to make sure she doesn’t collect her inheritance.” Cullen absently scratched his stubbled cheek. “Who would inherit that money if she disappears?”
Arnaud hadn’t thought of that eventuality, because he refused to allow such a calamity to happen. “As far as Miss Brancelli knows, the sum is not that large. Something else must be at work. There has to be another reason.
“There. That must be them,” Arnaud said, in the wake of loud pounding at his door. He gave a wry grin and motioned for Artemis to have George and Richard join them.
When they arrived at the table, Arnaud added, “Have four suppers brought out, if you please, Artie, and a couple bottles of wine.” He flattened the floor plans of Howick House and turned to his three comrades in arms.
“Where have you swabs been?” Arnaud demanded.
First Lieutenant Richard Bourne gave him a dark look and lashed out with “D’ye wish our help or no?”
Arnaud leaned across the table and clapped Bourne on the back. “Nothing ever changes, thank God. You’re always ready for a conker.”
His lieutenant broke out in a companionable smile and agreed. “Slights righted, fights initiated, misunderstandings punched into submission. I’m your man.”
