“Very sorry I be to bother you, Master Kensley. I hope you wasn’t resting. Very sorry I am.”
“If you tell me why, I might be obliged to forgive you.”
“Mrs. Willoughby be wanting to see you, she does. Right away, sir.”
Annoyance flickered, but he shoved it back and cleared his throat. “Hurry, Ruth. I must escape. Will you aid me?”
The maid’s eyes turned wide as crowns. “Me, sir?”
“We must trade places. Off with your mob cap now, and you must don my tailcoat.”
A fierce shade of pink stole over the girl’s cheeks, whether from amusement or embarrassment he wasn’t sure.
Either way, he laughed and sent her away with the promise he would muster his courage and see his aunt himself. But as he walked through corridors, up a set of mahogany stairs, and into the west wing, his humor faded.
It was a long journey from his bedchamber to hers.
As a child, it had been his nightmare. Sometimes he’d sniffle on the way, blinking fast so he wouldn’t have to shame himself with tears. Other times he’d pound his fist into his palm.Thump. Thump.Over and over, the sequence as loud and thudding as his own heartbeat.
He experienced no such trepidation now. At one and twenty, he was now inheritor of Rosenleigh after his grandfather’s passing three months ago—as much a surprise to him as to anyone else. All his life, Grandfather had hinted that Rosenleigh would one day belong to Horace.
But the will left behind said only that the inheritance was entailed first to the eldest male descendant, then to the next living male relative.
Thus, Rosenleigh was William’s. His home. He wasn’t just the despicable cousin, the object of his aunt’s charity, the unwanted ward they’d all made more than obvious they’d rather do without.
Now, they couldn’t do withouthim.
And it infuriated both of them.
At her oak-paneled door, William tapped twice then entered. The bedchamber was damp, the curtains drawn, the air fragranced with perfumes not quite strong enough to overpower the odors of illness.
From the four-poster bed, his aunt’s narrow, liquid eyes stared at him.
“Pour me a glass of water, William, if it does not trouble you too greatly.”
He moved to the stand next to her bed, poured, then handed her the glass.
She sipped it between wrinkled lips, the longcase clock ticking away seconds, before she finally handed it back and coughed. Her eyelids half lowered. “You truly think you are something, don’t you?”
The accusation ground through William, but he worked hard at changing neither expression nor tone. “You wished to see me?”
“Answer my question, you insolent brat.”
“I have no answer.”
“You must be very proud to force everything away from the ones who cared for you.”
“I had no part in the details of the will.”
“Didn’t you?” Her back arched against the headboard. “All those times you went up to his chamber? A blind old man who found you as despicable as I do and yet you—”
“He was my grandfather.”
“You persuaded him.”
“I did nothing but offer him company, and even that not very often.” William pushed his hands into the pockets of his tailcoat. “Now pray, why did you wish to see me? I must make my leave.”
“You shall make your leave when I tell you and not a minute before.” Her nose crinkled. “Horace has informed me of your injustice to him today. I might have known you’d go to abusing him. He has nothing at all and you deny him even the right to his own horse.”
