“But I don't mean to be in this family.”
“Too late.” She waved a gnarled old hand. “Now be off. You have worn me out.”
“Then I may assume poor Higgins doesn't have to be hauling all this Gothic nonsense down the stairs?” Flint asked.
She huffed, sounding stronger by the minute. “As if he would. Higgins knows who's in charge here.”
“Until I make Miss Chambers my wife.”
“And Miss Chambers is righthere,”Felicity snapped.
“Indeed you are,” Flint said, and held out his elbow for her. “Shall we make a dignified retreat?”
She laid her fingers on his arm. “Might as well.”
They nodded to Miss Fare and stepped into the hallway. Higgins closed the door behind them and followed at a safe distance.
“You didn't seem unduly upset by your aunt's behavior,” Felicity said as she walked.
Flint shrugged. “Something like this happens every time I'm here.”
“If you'll pardon my saying so, sir,” Higgins said from where he brought up the rear, “the threat from His Grace was new.”
Flint smiled. “Yes. Well, don't tell His Grace. There's a good man.”
This time Felicity swore it was Higgins who snorted.
* * *
Mrs. Windom satin the back parlor as if she were in the dock before a judge. A thin, precise woman, she was perched on a hard-back chair with her feet planted in perfect parallels and her hands clasped in her black-serge-clad lap, her unremarkable face rigidly bland, albeit pale. Felicity all but sighed out loud. She recognized this expression as well. Confusion, terror, the look of a woman who had set a foot on firm ground and felt it sink beneath her.
“If you wish me to stay in this house,” Felicity told Flint beneath her breath, “you will let me handle this.”
She got the kind of glare that had been bred into generations of ducal offspring. It was easy enough to recognize after spending a childhood schooling alongside their daughters and working for more of their ilk. She answered it with a calm silence, the kind governesses use with recalcitrant heirs.
He huffed. He actually huffed. Felicity took it as assent and turned to the too-still housekeeper whose hands were clenched so tightly in her lap her knuckles had blanched.
“Did Lord Flint instruct you about which bedroom to appoint for me?” Felicity asked gently.
Flint glared again. Mrs. Windom, surprisingly, hiccupped. “N...no, Miss. We were given no instructions except keep you here 'til he arrived.”
Felicity let go of Flint's arm and slipped into a violet-hued armless chair across from the matching one the housekeeper occupied. “What was I wearing when I arrived?”
Mrs. Windom frowned, obviously expecting a trap. “What you're wearing now, Miss.”
Felicity nodded. “Lord Flint? What am I wearing now?”
He didn't hesitate. “A shapeless brown sack that looks like you stole it straight off a horse's nose.”
“And have you ever seen anyone dressed like this installed in the Chinese bedroom?”
He had the grace not to answer at all.
“What did you think when I arrived, Mrs. Windom?” Felicity asked. “In my shapeless sack with one very battered portmanteau and hard-soled working shoes?”
Because only the child of a ducal family would think that any housekeeper worth her salt would place someone who looked worse than any of her underlings into a family or guest room. Felicity just wanted Lord Flint to understand.
But Mrs. Windom didn't give the answer Felicity expected, that she had thought Felicity to be a new housemaid or a nanny awaiting visitors.
