“Aye. I want Mrs. Davies up here right now.” The footman hesitated. “Now!”
The servant skittered away as if the Furies were chasing him, as well he should. They would be indeed if he didn’t make haste.
Connor stared at the portrait with a long string of curses. He’d walked by the bloody thing every single day for more than three months now and not once given it a second glance. Not that he’d had reason to. Nobles kept portraits on their walls dating back to the bloody birth of Christianity. No reason in particular to study them. No reason to note their subjects or any similarity to those around him.
Until last night, when he’d seen Piper with her black hair down, tumbling in curls around her bonny face.
That face.
“My lord, you’re awake at last. I needed to speak to you…” Mrs. Davies climbed the final step and her usually brisk pace—along with her words—lagged as she noted where he stood.
Because they knew. The whole lot of them knew.
He rapped the back of his knuckles on the gilded frame. “Who is the lass in this portrait?”
A bland disinterest descended over the woman’s face to wipe away that flicker of surprise. “I’m uncertain as to what information you’re soliciting, my lord. A random ancestor—”
“Save that act for the gaming hells, Mrs. Davies. I want—nay, I demand an answer!”
Not that he needed one. He knew who it was. Who had duped him for months, played him for a fool. Aye, he knewwhoshe was. What he needed was something else entirely.
“A name, Mrs. Davies.”
The housekeeper drew herself up, jaw set and lips pursed so tightly Connor was sure he’d have to pry them apart to get an answer. Then to his surprise, the fight leached out of her. A hint of anxiety touched her eyes, the first real emotion he’d seen from her thus far.
One hand extended in supplication, she took a step toward him. “She’s in need of protection, my lord. Now more than ever. You mus—”
“A name.” The command resounded with the force of a hammer striking the forge, and she flinched.
“Lady Philippa Brudenall,” she confessed. “Only daughter of Robert Brudenall, 18thMarquis of Aylesbury.”
“Harry has a sister? One he never mentioned to me?”
How was that possible? Granted, his few private conversations with his new brother-in-law had focused on farming and the needs of the estate, but how had it never come up? “Does my sister know?”
“Of course, my lord.”
Of course. As if it should have been apparent all along.
Grim faced, he strode toward the housekeeper, then past her to the head of the staircase.
“My lord,” she cried, then lowered her voice. “Before you go down there, there is something you should know.”
“I’m no’ a bloody fookin’ lord!”
Connor stormed down the stairs determined to confront every lie he’d been told when a shrill voice stopped him in his tracks.
“Who are you? What are you doing in my home?”
At the foot of the stairs, he came up short at the petite harridan at the door to the parlor. Aye, for certain the worst sort of shrew. It was obvious in the bitter pinch of her lips, her squinting eyes.
Mrs. Davies was a damned benevolent Madonna in comparison.
The finest fabrics and jewels draped the woman’s gaunt figure. Red hair a tinge too vibrant to be natural was twisted into an elaborate knot dotted with gems. On a Friday morn in Buckinghamshire, the effort was ridiculous. This wasn’t Mayfair. Even in Mayfair, such excessive efforts would be preposterous.
The woman crinkled her nose at him, as if she caught the scent of something rank. Her dark, scathing gaze assessed him from head to toe, scrutinizing his canvas work pants and rough linen shirt.
“You don’t belong here.” Her grating tone grew more strident. “You’ve the air of an Irish potato farmer.”
