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“I gather a claymore is a sword of some sort, but the encyclopedia overlooked it,” Stella told him.

“A two-handed sword that definitely could have cut the man through to his spine if it had fallen point first,” Silvester said.

“If that was one of Queen Elizabeth’s men, does that mean this room has been unused since the 1500s?”

“Elizabeth was the only queen who has ever showed the faintest propensity to have anything to do with the Dukes of Huntington, let alone pay a visit to the Grange. My parents’ reputation for eccentricity was exceeded by that of my grandfather. Moreover, the family always blamed her royal visit for our impecunious financial situation. Housing all those courtiers for a month was ruinously expensive.”

She frowned, and said with certainty, “The family is no longer impecunious.”

“No. You are free to redecorate as you wish.”

Of course, her pirate had made a fortune, or several fortunes, the moment he was old enough.

“Well, this chamber is perfect!” Stella said briskly. “I have always admired Queen Elizabeth. I shall enjoy thinking of myself as royalty.”

“It might well be the same mattress she slept on,” Silvester said dubiously.

Stella walked over and poked at it. “It’s a husk mattress covered by a feather bed,” she reported.

Before she could turn, her husband moved to stand just behind her, pressing his body against her back and plopping his hands on the mattress, which responded with a puff of dust. “We should lie on it to make certain that it’s acceptable. The bedding, I mean.”

A gasp escaped Stella’s lips. His cock was informing her silently exactly how they would test the mattress.

“The sheet is gray with age,” she pointed out.

Silvester pulled away, turning her around. “I don’t suppose you’d like to return to my bedchamber?”

Yasmin’s bedchamber?

She shook her head. “You said there were a few maids left on the grounds. Might one of them change this bedding?”

“I can ask. The few who remain refused a trip to London,” he said. “I’m afraid that my mother’s lackadaisical view of domestic chores means that the household staff are accustomed to doing as they wish, when they wish.”

“I can see that,” Stella said.

“Should I apologize?”

“The state of the house is not your fault.” She couldn’t help wondering what Yasmin would have made of it, though. She struck Stella as extremely fastidious. “Let’s find the maids.”

Silvester started. “The Dowager House! We can spend the night there. It is fully renovated.”

“Including furniture?”

He grinned at her. “Yes, with new beds and bedding. I ordered that the house be outfitted from top to bottom. Animals had made their home there, so everything was torn down to the studs and rebuilt. It took almost a year.”

Exactly what would have to happen to the Grange, Stella thought grimly, only renovation was likely to take a decade.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Showing Stella through the Grange made mortification settle on Silvester’s skin like a greasy film. When he was a child, he had racketed around happily, darting in and out of the castle, running down to the kitchens for a boiled egg when he was hungry. Meals were irregularly served, since no nanny would stay in service. In retrospect, he knew they were likely unpaid.

No one put him and his sisters to bed, at least until he was old enough to realize that little girls were supposed to sleep when night fell. After that, he began doing it himself. As well as fetching tea and boiled eggs for the girls’ tea.

They were neglected, but not unloved.

The dowager loved all three of them fiercely. But she shared her husband’s passion for locomotive engines. When they weren’t traveling around the country meeting other enthusiasts, the two of them often worked late into the night, utterly absorbed by the fascinating process of engineering a new kind of machine.

When his mother remembered their existence, she would summon her children to the drawing room and give them lessons in deportment. She taught them to dance, and the girls to embroider, holding an embroidery frame with fingers blackened by soot and engine oil. They all learned exquisite manners, the better to cut up their boiled eggs.