Chapter 1
1815
It wasMiss Felicity Chambers’ considered opinion that more time needed to be spent cleaning beneath beds. She came to this conclusion when the urge to sneeze overtook her as she crouched under the bed of her host, her heart pounding and her eyes squeezed shut.
“You haven’t seen her?” a voice rumbled above her.
“I’ve been looking foryou,” answered the sultry tones of a woman.
Averysultry woman. Felicity wished she had the knack for sounding so interesting, rather like she thought a siren might sound when calling sailors to their doom. Sadly, she merely sounded like the new teacher of piano and deportment at Miss Manville's Academy for Superior Girls she was. Well, that she had been before the surprise correspondence had come from the man who was standing four feet from her twitching nose. Lord Flint Bracken.
Flint,Felicity thought with a scowl.What kind of self-respecting duke named his son after quartz?Shouldn’t his name be Reginald, or Cyril? But then, from the sound of his voice, she doubted very much that he resembled a Cyril of any kind.
“It was my father’s request,” he was saying, sounding bored. “Bring the chit here and tell her of the bequest.”
Felicity almost bumped her head on the underside of the bed.Bequest?Her eyes popped open.What was he talking about?Who would leave her anything? She had no one but the other teachers at the academy and the few classmates she still kept in touch with from boarding school. She doubted she would even hear from the family for whom she governessed. Her tenure had not been a stellar success, no matter how much she had loved her pupil.
As for the Brackens, the name was familiar, but then, she had attended school with girls of some of the highest families. And since arriving here, she had seen only a variety of servants. If she had seen anyone else in the last four days—or if any of the servants except the head groom, who only conversed of horses, had deigned to speak to her—she might not have begun searching rooms for evidence of why she had been summoned. She might have stayed out of this room in particular.
“Once I find her,” he was saying, his voice now a purr that seemed to thrum right through her, “you and I can continue our own…explorations.”
A pair of pink satin slippers crossed Felicity's field of vision, topped by a glimpse of delicate ankles, just the kind she would imagine to be attached to the feet that filled those slippers. Felicity closed her eyes again, as if it would keep her better hidden. The price of those shoes alone humiliated her. She didn't belong in the same house with those shoes much less the very costly silk dress that matched them.
At least her nose had stopped burning.
Something was going on above her. Something she was certain she had no business witnessing, even with her eyes closed. She heard murmurs and the rustle of fabric, and then, finally, a throaty feminine chuckle.
It wasn't until she heard the door close that she breathed a sigh of relief. Time to escape unnoticed.
“Aren’t you growing cramped under there?” Lord Flint suddenly asked.
Felicity’s eyes flew open to find an upside-down face where the boots had been. Her heart dropped like a stone.
“Not at all,” she said, proud at how composed she sounded. “I am quite petite. But you really should have someone sweep under here. The dust balls are the size of wolfhounds.”
He reached a hand under the bed. For a moment Felicity just stared at it, unable to move. Even in the shadows it was a beautiful hand, with long, elegant fingers and a strong wrist. And she noticed beautiful hands. She was also, after all, the substitute art teacher.
“I'm getting a crick in my neck,” Lord Flint growled, wiggling his fingers.
Felicity gave up and took hold. And gasped. It felt as if she'd been rubbing her stockinged feet on the carpet on a cold winter’s day and gotten a shock. She had heard of such a thing, of course, in every Minerva Press novel she had ever secreted under her pillow. But she had always thought it a literary device. A myth.
That was no myth tingling up her arm.
Before she had a chance to do more than stare at the offending member, Lord Flint grasped her tightly and pulled her out from under the bed. She came out in a tangle of arms and legs, dragging dust after her.
How mortifying,she thought, brushing madly at her sensible gray kerseymere skirts.
“Er....”
She looked up and forgot what she was going to say. She forgot her name.
He was beautiful. Tall and lean and russet-haired, with eyes the color of spring leaves and a humorous cant to his mouth. Chiseled features, square shoulders, slim hips. Hard and sharp as quartz.
Suddenly his name wasn’t so funny.
He was brushing at the front of his hair. Felicity frowned. What was he doing? His hair was perfect, thick and well-cut, with just a little curl to make him look a bit mischievous. He shot a pointed look at the top of her head. Instinctively she brushed at her crown and came away with another shower of dust.
“See what I mean?” she demanded, feeling the unlovely red of a blush creep up her cheeks. “You need to speak to your housekeeper.”
