“I’d like something stronger than tea, my love. Do you keep spirits here?”
“There’s a bottle of brandy Cook uses for the mince pies. Sally?”
The maid rushed from the room.
Montsimon cast his eye around at the wainscoting. “Brookwood could have secreted something away behind a panel.”
“He wasn’t familiar with the house. He so seldom came here.”
“Mmm.” Montsimon rose and began tapping the panels. The inquisitive cat followed along behind him.
Althea laughed at them. “I wonder what you got up to as a child.”
“The usual things, fishing, hunting. I enjoyed climbing trees searching for birds’ nests.”
He turned and grinned at her. “I recall you are an accomplished tree-climber yourself.”
“We were talking about you,” she said firmly while imagining him as a boy, all gangly limbs and floppy dark hair. It appeared his childhood hadn’t been a happy one.
“You make a far better subject for discussion.” He returned to the wall. “These old houses are notorious for secret panels, tunnels, and hidden rooms. We have one at Greystones Manor.”
“Old mansions are intriguing. There was a priest’s hole at Brookwood Park. But not here.
This is a humble cottage.”
“Your ancestor might have wished somewhere safe to hide his valuables.”
“He wouldn’t have been a man of great wealth.”
“All the more reason, in those uncertain times, to safeguard what you had.” Montsimon continued tapping. He finished one wall and moved along to the next. The cat, deciding it was a game, danced around his legs.
Althea opened the window that had been Jet’s method of escape. “Come and look at this, Montsimon.”
He leaned out and ran his finger along the wooden frame. “Deep gouges around the catch. It’s been forced.”
Althea shivered. “I’ll have the gardener nail it up.”
Montsimon’s arm came around her shoulders. “There’s no evidence of them being inside.
Though you might check the other rooms. “Perhaps they’ve already found whatever it is they sought.”
“You don’t believe that.” She couldn’t resist leaning into the taut smoothness of his shoulder. Ridiculous, how his familiar manly smell seemed to ease the knot of tension in her stomach.
“We won’t stay any longer than we need to.”
“Then I have much to do.” Althea moved out of the circle of his comforting arm as Sally entered with a tray. “Ah, here’s the tea, and we do have brandy. How fortunate.”
When the maid left the room, Montsimon raised his glass in a mock salute. “You should call me something more intimate. After all, we are married.”
“I don’t see the necessity of it. Married ladies often call their husbands by their title.”
“Don’t care for it. You might address me as Kieran, or use my surname, Flynn.”
Flynn suited him. But she couldn’t call him Kieran. It seemed far too intimate.
“Flynn, then.” She wondered why it mattered to him.
He drank the last of the brandy. Nibbling a macaroon, he continued examining the walls. Althea sipped her tea and admired his manly grace. She hadn’t realized how lonely she was. But she mustn’t grow used to him filling the void. At the sound of voices, she rose. “My housekeeper, Mrs. Peebles, has arrived back. I’d best introduce you to the rest of my staff.”
