“Your Grace?” Miss St. Claire’s fair head appeared around the side of the door. “I beg your pardon for interrupting you. Good afternoon, Mr. Townsend.”
Townsend leaped up from his chair, his cheeks going as red as his hair. “Miss St. Claire! How do you do? I’m afraid you must be done in, after such a frightening experience.”
“You’re kind to enquire, Mr. Townsend, but I assure you I’m quite well. Only a little tired.”
“You don’tlookwell.” Max rose belatedly to his feet. “Though better, admittedly, than the last time I saw you.”
She was wearing a pale yellow dress, the thick mass of her fair hair scraped into a prim knot at the back of her head, secured with what must be dozens of invisible pins, as there wasn’t a single wayward strand to be seen.
She’d obviously borrowed the gown, as it was so large it might have fit two Miss St. Claires, with fabric to spare. She was a wee bit of a thing. It was a wonder she hadn’t been killed, her dainty limbs crushed under the weight of the collapsed ceiling.
Everything about her was dainty, aside from her hair.
What business did such a small scrap of a young lady have with such a superfluous quantity of hair as that? How was it she managed not to topple over from the weight of all those wild golden curls?
He sank back into his chair, unaccountably nettled by that extravagant hair. “I don’t know what you’re doing out of bed, Miss St. Claire. You look perfectly dreadful.”
Townsend grimaced. “Er, Your Grace, I don’t think—”
“Never mind, Mr. Townsend.” Miss St. Claire choked back a laugh. “At this point, I’d find His Grace’s flattery much more distressing than his admittedly brutal honesty.”
“Is that so, Miss St. Claire?” Max made a show of tidying the papers on his desk, but from under his eyelashes he gave her a slow, thorough perusal. “Then you won’t mind my saying you look as if you’ve been dragged backward through a knothole.”
Townsend gasped. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace, but I really must insist that you—”
“It’s all right, Mr. Townsend. I don’t deny I’ve had more peaceful weeks than this one, and I suppose it shows.” Miss St. Claire smiled at Townsend, then turned her attention back to Max. “I wondered if I might have a word with you, Your Grace?”
“Of course. Townsend, if you would?”
Townsend cast him a reproachful glance, then left the room, leaving the door half-open behind him.
“Sit down, Miss St. Claire.” He waved her toward one of the chairs in front of his desk.
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
Max drew in a sharp breath as she settled into the chair on the other side of his desk. The heavy snowfall had dwindled to an occasional burst of snow flurries, but it was clear now, and a ray of pale sunlight fell across her face.
Her eyes were ringed with dark circles, her lips were tight as if she were in pain, and her cheeks were as pale as death. Some emotion flickered to life in his chest and swelled, mushrooming inside him until his ribs ached with it, his heart pressing against his sternum, threatening to tear it in two.
Damn the girl, what was she thinking, staying in that decrepit old house? Didn’t she have any sense at all? Why, anyone could see it was merely a matter of time before another part of that house collapsed on top of her. “I can plainly see, Miss St. Claire, that you’re not well at all. I insist you return to bed at once.”
His voice was clipped, his tone cold, but if she resented it, one couldn’t tell from the angelic smile she gave him. “I’m perfectly well, Your Grace, only a bit sore.”
“That’s hardly surprising, Miss St. Claire, given I found you sprawled on the floor with a chair on top of you. I can only assume you fell off it.”
“I did, yes.” She waved a hand as if a fall from a chair into a hip bath’s worth of half-frozen water were a mere trifle. “But I didn’t come to see you to—”
“Is that all you have to say? For God’s sake, you might have cracked your head open. If the beams in your bedchamber had given way, you might even now be buried under a mountain of rubble with broken fragments of your skull scattered on the floor around you!”
She stared at him, clearly taken aback by his vehemence, but she couldn’t have been more shocked at it than he was. Good Lord, what was wrong with him? There was a reason thetoncalled him the Duke of Ice behind his back. He wasn’t given to fits of temper, but here he was scolding Miss St. Claire like a hysterical grandmother.
How the devil had this tiny slip of a girl managed to burrow under his skin?
Then again, perhaps it wasn’t all that surprising. ShewasAmbrose’s daughter.
“That’s, ah, wonderfully descriptive of you, Your Grace. But as you can see, my skull remains intact. Indeed, that’s why I’ve come to see you. We didn’t begin on the most cordial terms, but—”
“Cordial? You tried toshootme, Miss St. Claire.”
