“But it was just a ploy to frighten me off. He got quite angry when it didn’t work.”
Alfreda raised a brow. “Did you like the way he kissed?”
“I didn’t mind it. It was quite—surprising.”
Alfreda looked pleased. “That’s an excellent start, poppet.”
“For me, not for him. He’s certainly not repulsive. I wouldn’t mind a’tall having him for my husband—if he didn’t hate me.”
“You’ve only just met him. We’ve only been here a few hours. In time he won’t hate you.”
“That’s not a certainty, Freda. And, no, don’t give him one of those potions you mentioned. He’s got far too much rage in him right now for me to want him to want me. It could turn out much too unpleasantly.”
“We’ll just keep it in mind as a last resort then.” Alfreda winked.
Brooke rolled her eyes before she broached Dominic’s condition. “Speaking of your herbs, would you be willing to have a look at the wound Robert gave him? It’s not healing and his fever appears high.”
Alfreda snorted. “Just because you take pity on every sick dog you come across doesn’t mean you need to feel sorry for a wolf.”
“Pity is the last thing I feel for him right now.”
“Then why do we want to help him?”
“Because then he might be inclined to deal with me more reasonably and not see Robert whenever he looks at me.”
“Well, we’re going to have lunch first to give him a bit of time to take in his first glimpse of you and realize the remarkable favor the Prince Regent has done him.” Alfreda put her arm around Brooke’s waist to lead them back up the corridor. “Besides, we are not in a hurry to fix him after the insult he’s dealt you.”
“You were listening at the door!” Brooke accused, hearing Alfreda use the wordfixand the same phrase she used with the wolf.
Alfreda didn’t admit whether she had, she just nodded toward the tower. “I’m talking about that room we just left. That was an insult, poppet, of the worst sort.”
Brooke agreed, but she still grinned. “Lunch sounds like a good idea. He’s not going to get worse in the next few hours—I don’t think.”
Chapter Fourteen
BROOKE AND ALFREDA FOUNDa big kitchen at the back west corner of the house. Two men and four women were in it, and two older children doing menial chores. Two Biscanes, three Cotterills, one Jakeman, and two others who weren’t members of those three families that had worked at the “big house,” as they called it, for hundreds of years. But the two newcomers didn’t learn all that until Alfreda got angry when their lunch was set before them in the dining room.
Brooke felt discouraged as she looked at her plate. It was obviously another ploy the wolf had arranged to get them to leave his house. But Alfreda was livid when each of them was served a plate with only two thin slices of toasted bread, burned actually, on it and nothing else, not even a crock of butter.
“Come with me,” Alfreda said, going straight to the kitchen.
Brooke agreed that something needed to be done about the shabby way they were being treated, but she wasn’t expecting the approach Alfreda took. First, Alfreda demanded that the servants introduce themselves. As the staff warily gave their names and positions, they stared nervously at Brooke. They probably weren’t used to a lady invading their domain, but she might have confused them, too, when she sat down at the kitchen table. They didn’t know that she was used to eating in a kitchen.
Marsha Biscane, the cook, was much older than the other women in the room. Short and blond, she had laugh lines around her blue eyes, which hinted at a jolly disposition. Unfortunately, she wasn’t displaying it now as she stood quite stiffly, looking offended by Brooke and Alfreda’s presence.
Alfreda pointed a finger at the cook, saying, “You’ll serve us a proper meal if you don’t want to grow warts.”
Marsha turned quite red in the face. “I follow his lordship’s orders.”
“To starve us? How many warts would you like? I can be very accommodating.”
Brooke almost laughed, the other servants looked so horrified. But frightening the servants probably wasn’t a good idea, especially if she ended up marrying Dominic. So she told Marsha, “She’s joking.”
“She don’t look like she is.”
“She has an odd sense of humor,” Brooke assured Marsha before she got assertive herself. “I’m sure you know I am to marry your lord and eventually bear his children, so I do need to be in good health for that. You can either agree that he wasn’t serious when he told you to feed us scraps, or you can vacate the kitchen and we will make our own meal.”
Alfreda added as she sat down at the table, “And you might also want to keep in mind that once Lady Whitworth becomes Lady Wolfe, she’ll be wielding the household ax, as it were. If you like your jobs, you might want to agree that Lord Wolfe, being in a feverish state, wasn’t thinking clearly about any orders he’s given you concerning my lady.”
