As diverting as it would be to surprise them with a twelve-foot fall, he did not wish to give away his secrets so easily. To be honest, Stephen was hoping to avoid a physical confrontation altogether. He had no doubt he could handle Reddington in a bout of one-on-one fisticuffs, but only a fool would pit himself against an entire army.
Especially when it wasn’t even him they were after. Whenever the real earl deigned to return, Stephen wasn’t sure whether he would hug him in relief or throttle him for putting Stephen in this position to begin with. Possibly both, in that order.
Far below, Reddington’s men were making their third round about the perimeter of the castle. The sun began to rise. They shot each other startled glances, then scurried off into the woods like fleeing vermin.
Before disappearing into the trees that separated the two properties, Reddington sent a smug look over his shoulder at Castle Harbrook, confident that he’d pulled one over on the Earl of Densmore. Trespassing without anyone in the castle ever being the wiser.
Stephen set down the telescope. Reddington wasn’t nearly the infallible war general he believed himself to be—a fact that did not make him any less dangerous. Men like Reddington would kill to keep their beliefs intact and their high status unchallenged.
Stephen left the turret and made his way down to the study to return to the tasks of running the estate. After almost four months in Stephen’s hands, the earldom had more than emerged from the muck and bloomed into profit. But with great success came added responsibilities. There was farmland to maintain, properties to buy, stocks to sell, and business ventures to manage.
Columns of stark black figures on a crisp white page were exactly what Stephen needed to corral his focus. Whenever he concentrated on mathematics or tinkering, the world around him disappeared. He did not notice his hunger or the passage of time. An entire herd of horses could thunder right past him, and he would not be distracted. Stephen wouldn’t even notice if—
A soft footfall sounded in the corridor. His head jerked up from his accounts so fast he got a crick in his neck. It was Miss Wynchester. Or the butler. Or a ghost.
But possibly Miss Wynchester.
He ran a hand over his hair, straightening his spine and squaring his shoulders before he recalled that it was six-thirty in the morning. Young ladies from London tended to keep town hours, meaningbreakfast came shortly before noon. Even those who attempted country hours tended to break their fasts between nine and ten of the clock.
The sound Stephen had heard was nothing more than a gust of wind in a creaky old castle. There was an infinitesimal 0.0001 probability that an ordinary town miss would be awake at this hour, much less dressed and heading toward Densmore’s study. Toward Stephen.
Er, make that an absolute certainty.
There she was. Lounging against the doorway with a buttery soft periwinkle morning dress clinging to her curves and a dashing sword stick in one hand.
Stephen could not quite credit his eyes. For as long as he could remember, he had always been up hours before any of his peers. He was an unfashionably early riser who had lived through thousands of lonely mornings, even when housed in a crowded building bursting with other students.
But Miss Wynchester was bright-eyed, armed, and dangerous, before the sun had even properly risen.
“Good morning, Mr. Lenox.” She swung the tip of her sword stick to and fro above the stone floor. “I trust you slept well?”
“Like a hibernating bear,” Stephen lied.
Her blond brows lifted. “Did you know that hibernating bears do not sleep the entire winter? They exit their caves for any number of reasons. And may not even hibernate inside of a cave to begin with.”
“I… did not know that. Why doyouknow that?”
“I’m Jacob Wynchester’s sister.” She shrugged as if this were a full and cogent explanation.
Because of her position leaning against the side of the doorway, only half of her body was visible. He wished he could see all of it. He wished he could run hishandsover all of it.
“I’m very busy,” he said instead.
“Busy plotting your next tender assault on my petal-pink lips?”
Yes. “No.”
She looked skeptical. “Not even constructing a few plans for a minor, brief bout of ravishing?”
Nowhe certainly was.
“I’m afraid I haven’t the time to engage in frivolous deviations to my schedule. I’ve accounts to balance, a delivery to prepare for, a series of mechanical and pneumatic devices whose gears and levers shan’t calibrate themselves—”
“Balderdash.”
He blinked. “You’ve seen my contraptions. They’re everywhere. At this very moment, I’m seated at a desk piled high with—”
“—someone else’s responsibilities,” she finished. “Youarea bear, and this castle your cave. You think you can hibernate behind a big warm den of mathematics and miscellaneous earl duties that aren’t even yours—”
