CHAPTER 1
DECEMBER, 1883
Something was different at Blackwell Abbey this cold, gray winter’s morning. The Duke of Sedgewick couldn’t quite discern what it was, however.
Quint sniffed the air, a new, unfamiliar scent invading his nostrils. It smelled…verdant and crisp, with a slight tinge of sweetness. What the devil could it be? Whatever it was, he didn’t bloody well like it.
“Dunreave!” His voice echoed in the marbled great hall like the lash of a whip cracking.
The servant who acted as both his butler and valet appeared, rather in the fashion of a wraith seeping from the old stone walls. “Your Grace?”
Dunreave was tall, though not as tall as Quint, and spare of form, with a solemn air that would have been more suited to a vicar than a domestic.
“What is that scent?” Quint demanded.
“Scent?” The man’s dark brows furrowed in confusion. “What scent, sir?”
He waved a gloved hand before him in irritation, indicating the air. “The smell in this damned great hall. Something has changed. What is it?”
Dunreave cleared his throat. “To the best of my knowledge, nothing has, Your Grace.”
Quint ground his jaw. “The best of your knowledge isn’t sufficient, Dunreave. Something has been changed. Discover what immediately, if you please.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“You know how I feel about change,” he growled.
Dunreave winced. “Of course, Your Grace. I’ll inquire about the scent with Mrs. Yorke at once.”
The name—as unfamiliar as the smell—made Quint’s eyes narrow. “Who the hell is Mrs. Yorke?”
“The new housekeeper, Your Grace.”
That information gave him pause.
Quint stiffened. “I neither want, nor need, a housekeeper at Blackwell Abbey. I have no intention of entertaining visitors of any sort.”
The last housekeeper hired by his mother—a Mrs. Brome, who had borne a perpetual scowl and rattled about everywhere with her nettlesome chatelaine—had been sent away several months ago, and the household had been delightfully quiet and absent of nuisances, such as an abundance of maids, ever since. The fewer people underfoot, the better. Quint didn’t like people either.
“I am aware of how Your Grace feels about housekeepers,” Dunreave said dutifully.
“Then why is she here?” he snapped impatiently before giving the air another sniff.
Was the scenther, the unwanted housekeeper, then? If so, he’d toss her out of Blackwell Abbey himself.
Dunreave looked as if he had just swallowed a fish bone and presently had it lodged in his throat. “The dowager duchess selected her for the situation, Your Grace.”
Curse his mother. Why did she insist upon interfering? He had banished her from Blackwell Abbey, and yet she continued to meddle from afar.
“There is no situation, because Idon’t want a bloody housekeeper.” He was shouting by the time he finished, which he regretted.
It wasn’t Dunreave’s fault that Quint’s mother was as stubborn as a dog who had scented his favorite pig trotter hidden in the dirt and refused to surrender until he had dug it free of the earth. In this case, Quint was the pig trotter. However, he wished to remain quite miserably buried in a tomb of his own making.
Dunreave winced again, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “I will write the dowager duchess to inform her, Your Grace.”
Quint no longer had a wife, and the distinction of referring to his mother as the dowager duchess was unnecessary. A reminder of what he lost. And yet, his mother and the domestics had grown accustomed to the change when he had married Amelia.
“I’ll write her myself,” he snarled, the weight of guilt and the pain of grief pressing down on his chest like a boulder, omnipresent particularly at this time of year. “But this Mrs. Yates must go.”
