“Well, Miss, I thought you was the same as the other women.” Mrs. Windom still looked bemused. “And we always put them upstairs.”
Felicity blinked, sure she'd heard wrong. “What?” she demanded, turning to glare at Flint.
But he was staring at Mrs. Windom as if she'd grown fins. “What?!”
Mrs. Windom blinked and hiccupped. “Pardon, my lord. I hiccup when my nerves....”
He waved her off. “Just tell me. What women you're always putting upstairs?”
“You mean you don't know?” Felicity asked.
“Of course, I don't know! Does my aunt know?” he asked Mrs. Windom.
“Of course not!” the housekeeper retorted, then hiccupped again. “We were instructed not to inform her.”
“Women,” he said, his frown terrifying. “How long has this been going on?”
The housekeeper pressed her fingers over her lips after another unseemly noise. “But...they've always come,” she said. “Since right after your lady grandmother...”
“Always?”Flint demanded. “But who sends them?”
She frowned. “You mean you don't?”
For the first time in days, Felicity thought she might actually enjoy herself.
“If you could, Mrs. Windom,” she said. “Tell us how they come. Who contacts you. How long they stay. Where they go.”
“Well, I don't know,” Mrs. Windom protested, “do I?”
“What,” Flint asked in deadly tones, “doyou know?”
He only succeeded in setting off more hiccups.
“Sit down, my lord,” Felicity suggested.
“What?”
“You loom, sir. Please. Sit down before the woman has a spasm.”
He sat with very little patience. “I apologize, Mrs. Windom,” he said. “But I have no idea about any women. Which means someone else is using my house without either my knowledge or permission. You truly thought that...I...sent them?”
His housekeeper nodded, gave one more hiccup and looked to Felicity. “Of course. It's Mr. Burke brings 'em here, after all. And he always has a note from your Mr. Everhill. To hold the ladies here until they're collected.”
“Collected?”Felicity demanded, turning to Flint.
But he was already back on his feet. “Hi-i-i-g-g-i-i-i-i-n-s!”
Felicity rubbed at the headache that had begun to bloom with all the bellowing. “You really must stop doing that.”
“H-i-i-i-g-g-i-i-i-i-i-i-n-s!!”
Inevitably, footsteps thundered down the hallway in their direction. No wonder Higgins had maintained his youthful figure, Felicity thought inconsequentially. He was always moving faster than an army at double-march.
“My lord,” he greeted them as he skidded to a stop in the doorway.
“Do you know anything about a series of women who have been making free with my staff bedrooms these last two years?”
Tugging his jacket straight, Higgins blinked as if caught in a bright light. “But of course, my lord.”
