by Gina Lamm
His decision firmly set, he splashed another dollop of brandy into his glass and sprawled in his chair before the fire. Miss Marten could bait him all she wished. He’d not quarrel with her. Too much passion, he mused, is roused in a verbal joust. That’s why I nearly kissed her. That and nothing more.
He drained the rest of the brandy and left his estate room, carrying a candle with him. Snapping his fingers at the foot of the stairs as he usually did, he waited for his hound to appear. The darkened hallways were empty. Baron was nowhere to be seen. Bemused, Micah walked up the stairs. Could the dog have been shut in his bedchamber all evening?
Micah entered his room. The light in the hearth flitted lazily, illuminating the empty rug that Baron usually inhabited each night.
“Baron,” Micah commanded in a low voice. “To me.”
No answering click of toenails on polished floors sounded. With a sigh of exasperation, Micah journeyed down the corridor. Occasionally, the hound would bed down in one of the empty chambers if one of the maids left a door ajar. But that is only in the summer months, his subconscious objected. Shaking his head, he peered into each room.
Rounding the corner of the hallway, a faint glint of light caught his eye. It was coming from beneath the door of the yellow bedchamber. What the devil?
His hand closed on the cool brass doorknob. The door opened with a soft squeak, and his blood stirred at the sight of Miss Marten lying across the cream and yellow bedding, asleep. Her hair, now bound in a braid, lay like a velvet rope across the pillows. And there, beside her, lay the traitorous greyhound, the thin skin over his ribs moving like a bellows as he dreamed.
If Micah called to Baron, she’d surely wake. For a long moment, Micah stood in the doorway, watching her sleep. Her forehead delicately wrinkled as she dreamed, a heavy sigh blowing from her lips. So beautiful, he thought. It would be no onerous task to take her as his mistress. It would be quite pleasant for the both of them.
She turned then, snuggling into her pillow, and Micah felt like a lecherous bastard. She’d made it quite clear that she was no loose-moraled Cyprian, despite her odd manner of undress. Even though he desired her, he’d made her a guest in his household, and he’d not take advantage of the young lady. Leaving Baron to watch over the sleeping maid, he shut the door softly and headed back to his lonely bedchamber. All the while, he wondered what to do about his damned inconvenient sense of honor. And also, what had she done with that small device with the cross birds?
Six
Jamie stretched and yawned. The warm body next to her adjusted slightly, and she rolled over to wrap her arms around Logan. When she encountered smooth fur instead of skin, her eyes flew open.
Baron lapped at her nose.
“Hey, dog.” She sighed and wiped the slobber from her face. She’d forgotten where and when she was. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been sucked back into her own time during the middle of the night, as she was half hoping she would. She’d have to keep up the countess lessons for a while longer, until she could convince Mrs. Knightsbridge to have Wilhelmina send her home.
A soft knock came at the door.
“Yes?”
The hinges squeaked softly as Muriel entered the room. Baron saw the open door and bolted. Guess it was time for his morning constitutional. “Good morning, miss. I have your chocolate here.”
Jamie’s ears perked up. “Chocolate?”
“Yes, miss. Hot chocolate. ’Tis just the thing for the morning. And Cook’s is delightful.”
Muriel set the tray on the bedside table and handed Jamie a steaming cup. She took a wary sip. What if chocolate meant something different than she was used to? Fortunately, Muriel was right. It was damn tasty.
“Ah, that hits the spot. Thanks, Mur.”
The maid giggled. What, did nobody have nicknames in the past? “My pleasure. Now, Mrs. Knightsbridge said I am to help you dress.”
Jamie looked down at her nightgown. “Well, I don’t really have anything other than the tank top and shorts I showed up in yesterday.”
Muriel’s pale face was clueless, light blue eyes blank. “Tank…top?”
Jamie waved her hand in the air. “Never mind. I don’t have anything you people will let me wear.”
“Oh, his lordship instructed Mrs. Knightsbridge to garb you however she saw fit. You are to wear the late countess’s clothes.”
Jamie threw back the covers. “Oh, okay. I don’t know what size the countess was, but I’m about an eight. Or a ten, depending on how it’s…cut.” Shit. They didn’t have sizes. Jamie rubbed hard at her temples. This was going to take a lot of adjustment. She hoped Wilhelmina wouldn’t take too long to send her back. Things were way too weird here.
Muriel nodded and ignored Jamie. She opened the trunk again and pulled out a long dress.
“Oh, this sprigged muslin should do. Are you ready to dress now, miss?”
Jamie stared at the maid. She hadn’t had a shower yet today. She hadn’t brushed her teeth. She hadn’t shaved her legs or her underarms, and she certainly hadn’t applied deodorant. She was supposed to hop straight from jammies to dresses without cleaning up first? The thought gave her the creeps.
Jamie crossed her arms, almost getting tangled in the generous yards of fabric. “We’re going to have to have a discussion.”
With several comments about her peculiarities, Muriel finally agreed to help. Once she’d talked Jamie out of a full bath (it seemed the footmen weren’t too keen on lugging all that water up the stairs again so soon after her last bath), she used a basin and a sliver of soap. It was hardly adequate, but she couldn’t really argue.
Her request for a toothbrush only got her another blank stare from the maid. A clean rag dampened with water had to do. Her teeth still felt coated with furries. Blecch.
After she’d made the best of a bad situation, it was time to get dressed. She’d hidden behind the potty screen to do her washing, so she wouldn’t be parading around naked in front of Muriel. The maid passed a plain white cotton garment behind the screen. Jamie held it up in the air, trying to figure it out.
“What’s this?”
Muriel’s exasperated sigh was loud, even from the other side of the screen. “It is your shift, miss.”
Jamie made faces in the maid’s direction, but she pulled on the dress anyway. It reminded her of a slip that she’d worn the few times her family had attended church when she was little.
Jamie poked her head around the corner. “Hey, I can’t go out in this, can I? It’s more see-through than that nightgown was.”
Muriel shook her head. “Miss, these are your undergarments. The dress goes over them. Mrs. Knightsbridge swore that you were not simple, but I wonder…”
“She is not simple, Muriel, she is unfamiliar.” Mrs. Knightsbridge bustled into the room. Her round face held its usual cheerful expression, chubby pink cheeks contrasting with the drab brown of her serviceable gown. “She was brought up very oddly, so it is up to us to help fill in the stops. Good morning, Miss Jamie. Are you well?”
“I’m great. Trying to figure this clothes thing out.” Jamie fluffed the sides of the cotton gown out from her body. “It kind of swallows me whole.”
“We will put it to rights. Come now. Muriel, the pantalettes?”
They put her in bloomers. They put her in stays, which was apparently an English word for hellish deathtrap of boning and laces. By the time they’d stuffed her into the petticoats and long-sleeved gown, stabbed her skull with thousands of hairpins, and tied a perky green ribbon in her hair, she was planning ways to murder Wilhelmina in her sleep. And Mrs. Knightsbridge. And that grumpy-ass earl for trying to marry some fortune-hunting bitch in the first place.
“Oh, she looks a treat, Mrs. Knightsbridge.” Muriel beamed, clapping her bony little hands. Jamie wanted to murder her too. All of them. With a double-handed axe. With plus-fifty pain. And then she’d resurrect them so she could kill them again. She couldn’t breathe.
“She does indeed.
Now, should you like to come down to breakfast?”
Jamie stared at Mrs. Knightsbridge. The morning light revealed more of the lady’s face than the firelight had the night before. She was nice looking, for an older woman. Her dark brown hair held streaks of gray at the temples, and her eyes smiled even when the rest of her face didn’t. Who’d have known that such an innocent face could hide such a pitiless, evil monster?
“How am I supposed to eat in this getup? I can’t even take a good breath. There’s no way I could make room for food. There’s not even room for my boobs.” Jamie poked at one of the pale mounds that peeked above the neckline of the dress. It jiggled in response. Much as she hated to admit it, that corset thing was doing pretty impressive stuff with her cleavage. Too bad Logan couldn’t see her now. He might rethink things.
A shocked giggle escaped Muriel before she could stifle it with a hand. Mrs. Knightsbridge glared at the maid before turning her stink eye to Jamie.
“Ladies never refer to their, ahem, bosoms in such a manner. In fact, endeavor to forget that they even exist.”
“It’s going to be hard, since my chin is basically going to be resting on them all day.” Jamie hunched her shoulders and demonstrated. Muriel got a good squawk out that time.
“Miss Marten…” Ooh, that tone was never a good thing. Apparently “I’m going to kick your ass” sounded about the same in 1816 as it did in her time.
“All right, sorry. I won’t talk about my boobs.”
Muriel fled the room. The door hadn’t clicked shut behind her before her giggles escaped. That girl really needed to get out more.
Mrs. Knightsbridge led Jamie down the stairs to the dining room she’d seen last night. As they walked, the housekeeper lectured.
“Be polite, be engaging, and most of all, please, no coarse language. His lordship is a fairly patient man, but you must not try him.” She pointed to the open doorway and left Jamie.
Jamie would try him as much as she could and then some. He’d been a jerk last night, and she wasn’t about to let him think he could treat her that way without a fight. She was done being any man’s doormat, and that included Mr. High-and-Mighty-Oh-Holy-Crap-She-Forgot-He-Was-That-Frickin’-Gorgeous.
The slippers that Muriel had shoved on her feet stuck to the floor at the doorway of the dining room. He sat at the head of the table, his dark hair shining in the sunlight that poured into the window. He leaned back in his chair, reading a letter. The dark blue of his jacket contrasted nicely with the crisp white of his collar and neck cloth thing. He studied the paper in his hand intently, eyes never leaving it even when he brought the steaming cup of tea to his lips. Full, beautiful lips that she’d come very close to kissing last night.
But he’d rejected her.
Remembering that little fact acted like a stun gun on her fluttering heart, and she set her jaw and marched over to the table.
Her first step raised his eyes from the paper. The second had him shoving his chair back to stand. The third lowered his brows into that now-familiar glower.
She flopped down into a chair, grabbed a piece of ham from the platter in the center of the table, and shoved it into her mouth with a grin.
“Mornin’, Mikey!” Her nauseatingly cheerful greeting was spoken around a mouthful of food. She smacked as loudly as she could, inwardly wincing at the sound. It had to be good if she was that annoying to herself.
If he hadn’t been born with that silver spoon lodged up his ass, she thought he would have gone slack-jawed. But she had to give it to him; he really played it cool. He sat back down in his chair, took another sip of his tea, and resumed reading his letter as if she hadn’t pissed all over his cornflakes.
The lack of reaction did disappoint her a bit.
Jamie helped herself to the platters of food in front of her. Although she was used to either a bagel or a bowl of cereal in the morning, the more substantial, if a little odd, fare was sort of tasty. Eggs, toast, ham, and tea took priority in her brain once she figured out it was possible to eat with the deathtrap, er, stays, compressing her middle.
She munched in silence for several minutes while trying to wrap her brain around a game plan. It was fairly obvious to her that Mrs. Knightsbridge’s conviction that she and Mike would fall desperately in love was a load of animal dung.
After several moments of quiet eating, Jamie looked over at Mike. He’d set the letter down and was looking straight at her.
“What?” she asked around a mouthful of buttered toast.
“You are looking quite fine this morning,” he said. She gasped and nearly choked.
“What?” she sputtered, tears welling as she coughed.
He gestured toward her, a bemused expression on his face. “You look, well, almost a lady. I did not expect that. After your appearance yesterday, I thought I would find you looking fit for Newgate prison again.”
She lowered her brows as she finished swallowing the wayward bite of toast. She took a sip of tea, mainly to cool her rage. She’d been working yesterday. Wor-king. Something she suspected Lord Dunnington hadn’t ever had to do in his lifetime. She hadn’t exactly had the time or the means to put on her evening gown and stilettos before meeting his worshipfulness. She set her teacup down with a clink and gave him her best death-to-earls scowl.
“Oh, really? Well, thank you. You look, well, just as snotty and conceited as you did yesterday. Is that a new stick up your ass, or do you use the same one every day?”
Her heart warmed as his nostrils flared. God, why did pissing him off make her so happy? Oh yeah, maybe because he tosses insults at every opportunity. She smiled at him sweetly as she took another sip of hot tea. She was really getting to like the stuff.
He groomed his face into an impenetrable mask, sitting up even straighter in his chair. “I spoke too soon, miss. Your waspish tongue would make an angel look haggard.”
She nearly spit her mouthful of tea back into the cup. She almost strangled when she swallowed it instead. “Waspish? You stuck-up, arrogant son of a bitch!”
“I assure you, my mother was a saint.”
“She’d have to be, to put up with a hell-spawn like you.”
“I was right to doubt the truthfulness of your tale. You speak like an ill-bred guttersnipe. Surely all females in the distant future are not as foulmouthed.”
Jamie splayed her palms on the tablecloth, leaning toward him as much as the unrelenting boning of her stays would allow. “Women in my time can say any damn thing we please because we are equal to men.”
He barked a laugh, his brows climbing nearly to his hairline, and her rage boiled even hotter. Sweat started to pop out on her furrowed forehead as she clenched her jaw so hard she thought her teeth would crack.
“Equal to men? Walking about nearly nude, breaking into houses, and swearing like a low-born stable boy does not mean you are a gentleman’s equal.”
“Gentleman my ass! You don’t know anything about me! And besides, you’re forgetting one important thing again. I didn’t break into your house, certainly not by choice.”
He steepled his fingers, leaning back in his chair like a Wall Street tycoon. “Oh yes. The mysterious bureau deposited you here. So sorry, it must have slipped my mind in the storm of profanity you have spewed since arriving in my home.”
She scraped the chair back as hard as she could, wishing the grating noise was breaking bones. His. Particularly that aristocratic nose. “You know what? You don’t have to worry about me anymore. I’ll find my own way back. Thanks for letting me crash here for the night. I wish I could say it was nice, but…” She shrugged and shook her head. Turning away from him, she marched toward the door.
“Oh, Miss Marten?”
She really didn’t want to turn around. She really, really didn’t.
With a roll of her eyes, she did it anyway. “What?”
“I have an engagement this evening. If you decide to continue your stay in my home, please do remain indoors. I have no wish to be respons
ible for whatever havoc you wreak upon London without my supervision.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. He’d stood when she did, and as she looked into his face, he had the gall to smile at her. He looked like a movie star, his cleft chin pronounced against his white collar, but he was the most arrogant ass she’d ever met.
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure to mind my Ps and Qs. I won’t be here to bother you much longer anyway.”
She slammed the dining room door shut behind her. It didn’t help. If Mrs. Knightsbridge continued to refuse to help her locate Wilhelmina and insisted on trying to make her into Mike’s ideal woman, she was going to have to change him into someone that Jamie could spend three minutes with comfortably. Right now, at 120 seconds, she was ready to clock him.
***
Micah sank back into his chair, not as happy at having bested her verbally as he thought he’d be. He felt, actually, rather disappointed in himself. Bracing his forehead in his palm, he groaned. He’d not intended that. But the letter from his ex-mistress, Collette, that had arrived that morning had eradicated his already thin patience. Miss Marten’s quite pointed barbs had shattered the last shreds of his control, causing him to fire back when he should have remained silent. Clearly his talent with the fair sex did not extend to his uninvited houseguest.
“That was a good job, wasn’t it, lad?” Micah said to Baron, whose nose was now propped on the earl’s knee. “How was it in her bed, then?”
The greyhound said not a word but gave a pointed look to his lordship’s plate. With a sigh, Micah laid the porcelain on the floor, so Baron could have at the scraps of his breakfast.
“You spoil that dog, my lord.” Mrs. Knightsbridge bustled into the dining room, smiling fondly down at the hound.
“As do you, Mrs. Knightsbridge.” Micah stood, rounding the corner of the table to block the housekeeper’s path. “Pardon me, but I’d like a moment of your time.”
