He scowled. “What a bag of moonshine. Does Marsh believe all your superstitious tricks? I don’t.” He turned toward the portrait, considering how best to repair it. He would probably only vex Sophie more if he dared touch her precious Captain Black. Instead he stepped around Miss Whitney and crossed the room.
At the door he turned back. “You keep your mouth closed about what you think you saw here today, and I won’t mention your skulking about to my mother, who would not think twice about dismissing you.”
“Stephen won’t let her.”
“Stephen isn’t here.”
He saw fear flash in the woman’s eyes and regretted his idle threat. He meant the old nurse no harm, but he’d dashed well had enough of her interruptions and prophetic nonsense.
Wesley returned to Sophie’s room that night. He felt terrible about the scene in the schoolroom and wanted to apologize for damaging her portrait. And for allowing his frustration to get the better of him. He’d never in his life forced a kiss on a woman before today. Never had to. He knew he’d behaved badly and hoped she would forgive him. He also hoped that, without Miss Whitney there to interrupt them, Sophie might even admit her feelings for him.
He softly knocked, and when no answer came, tried the latch. Locked.
Dash it.
He rested his forehead on the cool wood, but it did nothing to cool his frustration. He was not such an idiot to break down the door and wake the whole house. He didn’t want to incur the wrath of his entire family.
“May I help you, sir...?” came a tentative voice.
He turned in alarm, but it was only a housemaid on her way up the attic stairs.
“No. I had something I wished to ask my... sister. But she is already asleep and I don’t want to wake her. I shall ask her in the morning.”
He waited until the maid had ascended out of sight, then started up toward his own room. Realizing he would not sleep for hours, he retrieved a candle lamp and continued up the next set of stairs. He might as well go to the schoolroom and work on Sophie’s portrait, since it appeared that was as close as he would get to her that night.
The maid Flora paused at the landing and looked back down at him. “Is there something I can do for you, sir?”
“Hmm? Oh, no. I am just heading up to the schoolroom.”
“Are you now? For a moment I thought you might be following me. Not that I would mind if you were....”
She waited at the railing while he slowly mounted the remaining stairs. He had noticed the girl before, though she was relatively new, he believed. She was a pretty, buxom girl with dark curls peeping out from beneath her cap. If not for her crooked teeth, she might be worth painting. Or...
For a moment he considered what she might be offering. She was clearly flirting with him, and her room was probably just around the corner. He was frustrated—in more ways than one. He felt as if Sophie had betrayed him by marrying Stephen. She should behiswife, sharinghisbed.
He paused at the top of the stairs and stood looking at the girl, the hills and valleys of her face and figure showing to good advantage by candlelight.
A slow smile lifted her mouth. “A handsome man like you ought not spend his nights alone...”
For a moment, he was tempted to accept the maid’s offer, but then Winnie’s words came back to him.“You will be temptedto betray her this very night, before the jester sings and the cock crows.”
Wesley pressed his eyes closed, blocking out the vision of the plump figure before him, fighting for the self-control to subjugate the urge for temporary pleasure beneath his future happiness. He didn’t want to be the man Miss Whitney clearly thought he was. He didn’t want to ruin things with Sophie, if there was any chance at all....
Over the girl’s shoulder a decorative plaster mask on the wall caught his eye. He stilled, peering at it. It was a jester’s face—one of several masks throughout the manor. This one’s mouth was wide open in an O, as if singing. Wesley knew of two similar masks in the house that disguised squints. Might this one as well? Might there be someone watching him at that very moment? He shivered, even as he told himself he was being foolish. No one had used those squints in years.
Wesley cleared his throat. “I am just going into the schoolroom to paint. Alone. And you had better get some sleep. I know Mrs. Hill makes the staff rise before the cock crows.”
He stopped in his tracks, his own words echoing through his mind.
Seeing him hesitate, the girl tried again. “You sure? A body gets awful lonely in an empty bed....”
Yes, he does.
Flora tried once more. “I saw you outside Mrs. Overtree’s door, but you’re wasting your time there. A cold one, she is. I have it on good authority the captain slept in his dressing room.”
Wesley reared his head back in surprise. “You’re joking.... Really?”
She nodded eagerly.
