“Miss St. Claire!” Max shot forward, tearing the chair off her and tossing it aside before reaching for her, and hauling her to her feet. “Can you stand? Damnation, you’re soaked to the skin!”
“I—I’m all right. I can stand. It was just a bit of a tumble, that’s all.”
“Atumble? You might have broken your neck! What were you thinking, standing upon a chair in a flooded room?” Didn’t the girl have any sense at all?
“I thought if I could see what had happened, I might be able to . . .” She trailed off with a shudder. Her entire body was trembling, and her hands, which had somehow found their way into his, were like two blocks of ice.
“Billy!” He glanced over his shoulder. “Quickly, fetch some dry blankets.”
Billy didn’t argue this time but fled down the hallway. Max turned back to Miss St. Claire, whose despairing gaze was darting from the broken window to the hole in the ceiling, to the pond that had once been her bedchamber floor. “There’s nothing to be done, is there?” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “It’s utterly lost.”
“Look at me, Miss St. Claire.” He grasped her shoulders and gave her a gentle shake until her gaze found his. “There, that’s better. You’re coming back to Grantham Lodge with me, so you can—”
“No, I—I can’t leave! It’s out of the question.” She waved an unsteady hand around the room, her mouth twisting. “Look at this mess!”
He caught her chin between his fingers and turned her face back to his. “I see it, and it will be dealt with, but not now, and not by you. You’re exhausted, and half-frozen, and you’re going to need a great deal more than a foul-mouthed boy and a kitchen chair to rectify this problem.”
“But I can’t just—”
“You can, and you will.” God above, had there ever been a more stubborn woman than this one? Or a more maddening one? She was dead on her feet, her face as pale as death aside from the dark rings under her eyes, and she thought he’d simply walk away and leave her here?
She glanced around the bedchamber, biting her lip. “I think it would be best if I—”
“May I remind you, Miss St. Claire, that I am a part owner of Hammond Court? You can’t do a single thing in this house without my approval. Now, not another word, if you please. You’re coming back to Grantham Lodge, where you will have a hot bath and a rest, and then we’ll decide what’s best to be done.”
Billy came scrambling back into the bedchamber then, blankets piled high in his arms. “Here you go, Miss St. Claire!”
“Thank you, Billy.” She took a blanket from the top of the pile and wrapped it around her shoulders. “You’ve been a great help to me today.” She patted the boy’s shoulder. “I’m going with His Grace to Grantham Lodge, Billy, so go on home to your grandmother now.”
Billy cast a suspicious look at Max, then turned back to Miss St. Claire. “You’re sure you want to go withhim?”
Max huffed out a breath. Bloody little demon.
Miss St. Claire choked back a laugh. “Yes, quite sure, but you may come by later, if you like, Billy. I’ll be back at Hammond Court by this afternoon.”
Max said nothing, only took her arm and led her down the stairs to the carriage he’d left at the bottom of the drive, but if he had anything to say about it, she wouldn’t be returning to Hammond Court.
Not this afternoon, or any other.
* * *
“Your Grace!” Townsend burst through Max’s study door like a whirlwind, his red hair standing on end in a most disgraceful manner, his face pale and sweaty.
Max, who’d perfected the art of putting people in their places with an imperious quirk of one eyebrow, employed the tactic now, and predictably, Townsend came to a halt in front of his desk, his cheeks flushing. “Oh, dear. I do beg your pardon for bursting in upon you without knocking, Your Grace, but I’ve just had the most distressing news. It’s Hammond Court. It’s tumbled down to the ground!”
“Tumbled down to the ground?” Is that what everyone was saying? “Hardly, Townsend.”
Townsend blinked. “Ithasn’ttumbled to the ground?”
“No, though I confess I would have been singularly unsurprised if it had.” Max raised the eyebrow another notch to emphasize his point.
“But something’s happened! Something dreadful, indeed!” Townsend wrung his hands. “Miss St. Claire is missing!”
Missing?Good Lord, were all small villages as prone to hysteria as Fairford? He tugged his spectacles off and dropped them onto his desk with a sigh. “She isn’t missing, Townsend. At this very moment, Miss St. Claire is tucked into a bedchamber two floors above us, with the estimable Mrs. Watson clucking and fawning over her like a mother hen with a baby chick.”
Townsend collapsed into the chair in front of Max’s desk—again, without so much as a by-your-leave, and let his head drop into his hands. “Thank goodness, Your Grace! I own I was quite distressed on her behalf. One doesn’t like to think of a young lady buried under piles of—” He broke off, his head jerking up. “Did you say she’shere? At Grantham Lodge?”
“I did, yes.” Those were the words that had come from his lips, at any rate. Even now, he had a difficult time believing they were the truth. Of all the places he’d have predicted Miss St. Claire would end up, he would have put Grantham Lodge at dead last. But here they were, and he had no one to blame for it but himself, as he’d been the one who’d brought her here.
