“I…please, my lord, there’s no need for you to, to…” Cecilia made a frantic dive for the scuttle, and stumbled to her feet. She dragged an arm across her forehead, leaving a black smear onher pale skin.
Gideon frowned at it, his fingers twitching with an odd urge to rub it away. “Wait, Cecilia, you have amark on your—”
“I apologize for my clumsiness, Lord Darlington. It won’t happen again.” Then she was gone in a whirl of skirts and coal dust, before Gideon could uttera single word.
* * * *
Cecilia flew down the corridor as fast as a lady could fly with a full coal scuttle tripping up her every step. She didn’t stop until she rounded the corner, then she dropped the scuttle—again—and fell against the wall at her back.
That…hadn’t gone well.
The sick plummeting of her stomach when she realized the bucket was slipping from her fingers—that she was, in fact going to drop it, just as he’d predicted she would—then the deafening crash when the overflowing bucket hit the floor, and the shocked look on Lord Darlington’s face…
Each torturous moment of it had felt like a waking nightmare.
It hadn’t occurred to her until that deafening crash Lord Darlington might be right—that shedidlack the physical strength to make a proper housemaid. Cecilia had never been a lady of leisure, but teaching children their numbers and letters was far less taxing than hauling buckets of water and coal up dozens of stairs.
She hadn’t been prepared for him to rise from his bed and cross the room to help her pick up the coal. Even now, she couldn’t make sense of it. He hadn’t hidden the fact he wasn’t delighted by her presence in his house, and God knew waking the lord of the manor with such a clumsy accident was reason enough for him to dismiss her.
His ears were probablystill ringing.
Why had he helped her? She’d braced herself for an outraged shout, and perhaps some gloating, but the next thing she knew his bare chest hadappeared, and—
No. Not Lord Darlington’schest, for pity’s sake. That is, his chesthadappeared, but it was attached to Lord Darlington himself. She’d glanced up and found him on his knees beside her, his breeches pulled tight against his thighs and those fascinating dark hairs peeking from the opening of his shirt, and then she’d commenced thatawful staring…
Her cheeks burst into flames just thinking about it. How was she ever meant to look at him again without seeing that intriguing chest hair in her mind’s eye? She’d never seen a gentleman in a state of undress before, but instinct told her it would have been far better if her first glimpse had been of a man with less impressive musculature than Lord Darlington.
Perhaps then she wouldn’t have made such an utter fool of herself.
Then again, it likely wouldn’t matter, would it? He was sure to send her away now, and she’d have to return to London and admit to Lady Clifford that Lord Darlington had dismissed her not because she’d uncovered all his secrets with her brilliant sleuthing, but because she’d been caught gawking at his naked chest.
But there was nothing for her to do but go downstairs and confess to Mrs. Briggs she’d made a mess of the first task she’d been given, and was likely to be dismissed by Lord Darlington before the morning was over.
Cecilia reached down for the coal scuttle, but as she hauled the heavy bucket up by the handle, the most dreadful thought occurred to her, and she gazed down at it in dawning horror.
The bucket wasfull.
Oh, no.No.
She slapped her hand over her eyes, overcome with mortification. She’d scurried out of Lord Darlington’s bedchamber with such haste, she’d neglected to lighta fire for him!
She’d have to go back. He’d freeze if she didn’t, especially in that drafty shirt.
But…she couldn’t go back! There was no way she could face himnow, much less build a fire, what with the way her hands were shaking. She’d be sure to set his bed hangings ablaze.
Cecilia squeezed her eyes closed and bumped her head rhythmically against the wall behind her. Oh,howhad she managed to get herself into such a dreadful tangle? She hadn’t even been at Darlington Castle a single day yet, and already she’d made an irretrievable mess of things.
What in the world had ever made Lady Clifford thinkshecould manage this task? Sophia, Georgiana, Emma—any one of her friends would have made quick work of this business, but not Cecilia. Now poor Fanny Honeywell would end up married to a murderous marquess, and it would be all Cecilia’s fault—
She jumped as a sudden, despairing shriek pierced the silence, her eyes opening wide. Dear God, that hadn’t beenherwho’d shrieked, had it?
Cecilia just had time to mutter a fervent prayer she hadn’t given voice to her despair when a door she hadn’t noticed beside her flew open, and a ginger-haired girl with a smattering of freckles across her nose stuck her head out into the hallway. “Oh, thank goodness you’re here! It’s Cecilia, isn’t it? I’m Amy Wells. Did Mrs. Briggs send you?”
Cecilia stared at her. “I—”
That was as far as she got before the girl seized her by the wrist and dragged her over the threshold. “She’s woken in a foul temper this morning, she has. She’ll have me at my wit’s end soon enough, I don’t mind telling you.”
“Who will?” Cecilia asked, completely baffled.
