“You learn to pace yourself. It wasn’t what I expected here either.”

“How did you come to be here?” Beck asked, keeping his tone casual.

“My husband died while we were in Italy,” she said, slowing to navigate a set of stairs. “Lady Warne was touring and had called upon us socially. She heard of Reynard’s situation and offered us passage back here and employment for me. The packet landed in Brighton, and we’ve been here ever since.”

This recitation struck Beck as a radically abbreviated telling of a more complicated tale. “And that was when?”

“A few years ago. A month after we got here, the old cook quit without notice, so Polly took over.”

“She does very well with it,” Beck said as they approached his room. Since his hands were full, Mrs. Hunt opened the door and preceded him into his sitting room. Once again, somebody had lit his fire, set his wash water by the hearth, and refilled the pitcher of drinking water. The room smelled good too, as if someone had freshened the lavender sachets hanging from the curtain sashes.

The effect was pleasant and welcoming, and yet Beck wasn’t entirely comfortable with the notion that Mrs. Hunt herself had troubled over his comforts.

“I’ve added to your burden,” he said, glancing around the room. “Just by being here, I make more work.”

“But you lightened Gabriel’s load.” She lit the candles on his mantel and moved off to light some in his bedroom. “I’m surprised he allows it.”

“He’s an independent sort. I also think there’s a bit of putting me through my paces going on.”

“Maybe.” She stood in the door between the two rooms and offered him a half smile. “Do you blame him?”

“Of course not.” Beck put down his basket of laundry. “I meant what I said, Mrs. Hunt, about making a list.”

Her smile became a quarter smile, then an eighth. “Of course you did. The question is, when you’ve replaced the towels and rugs, as Gabriel terms them, then what?”

“Then you have a livable property worthy of the Marchioness of Warne.” Beck was tired and not up to deciphering females’ moods.

“Or you have a saleable property, don’t you?”

This again? “You think I’d turn out three females and a man who has worked himself to the bone simply to add to my grandmother’s coffers?”

Her chin came up in a very unservile manner. “We’re hired help, and you’re the son of an earl. We live in an age of clearances and enclosures, Mr. Haddonfield. The working man can riot all he wants over the price of bread, but the price of bread doesn’t change. You’re perfectly within your rights to work us nigh to death and then sell the place for a song.”

Beck advanced on her, fatigue letting his temper strain its leash. “Firstly, any decision to sell would be made by my grandmother, whose generosity of spirit has been proven by her dealings with you. Secondly, my task is to put the place to rights, not sell it. It’s no more for sale now than it was the day you got here, Mrs. Hunt. Thirdly, I am a gentleman and would not leave you and yours to starve when you’ve served the family loyally under trying circumstances.”

“I know better than to depend on any man’s word,” Mrs. Hunt said, her voice low and fierce as she glared up at him. “You mean what you say, now, Mr. Haddonfield, I’ll grant you that much. But if your grandmother should die or the earl redirect your task, you can’t stop the place from being sold.”

Beck’s brows came down in a frown, and he realized with a start he was not dealing with an arrogant exponent of the working class, but rather, a very tired, frightened mother and widow.

His second realization was that Mrs. Hunt employed a stage trick to make her presence more imposing: she remained always in motion. He’d observed her throughout the day, skirts always swishing madly. She dusted, she swept, she scrubbed; she beat carpets, boiled laundry, and bustled about, a rampage of cleaning on two feet. Standing this close to her, Beck saw she was in truth a slender woman of not much more than average height—and a tired slender woman at that.

“I cannot stop my relatives from dying or selling your home,” Beck said, his tone much less belligerent, “but I can assure you they are honorable people, and when I convey to them the conditions under which you’ve labored, they will understand their debt to you, and to Polly and North. Mrs. Hunt—Sara—are you all right?”

* * *

Mr. Haddonfield moved closer, close enough that Sara could catch a whiff of bergamot, an incongruous counterpoint to the roaring in her ears.

“I just need to sit,” she managed. She felt the candle being taken from her grasp and then, in the next instant, felt herself scooped up and deposited on the bed, the scent of lavender bed sachets filling her nose.

“Head down.” Mr. Haddonfield put a hand on her nape and gently forced her to curl her nose down to her knees. “You stay like that, and I’ll fetch you some water.”

She complied, not raising her head, the better to hide the ferocious blush suffusing her features. Her cap went tumbling to the floor, and she didn’t try to restore it.

Mr. Haddonfield lowered himself beside her and let her ease back to a sitting position. “Better?”

“Better,” Sara said. “I’m all right, really, but sometimes…”

“Drink.” He wrapped her hand around a cold glass of water, peering at her with concern. “Your color is off.”

“I’m pale by nature.” Sara sipped the water cautiously.

“You’re flushed now.” His regard turned to a frown. “Are you coming down with something?”

“No,” Sara said, handing him back the glass.

“I see.” And perhaps he did see—possessed as he was of four sisters who each no doubt came down with the selfsame malady Sara suffered every four weeks or so. “I’ve wondered how women cope. Have some more water.”

Sara stole a peek at him. He wasn’t blushing or studying his fingernails or the ceiling, which was oddly heartening. They must be formidable sisters. “There’s always a tot of the poppy when coping is truly a challenge,” she muttered.

“I’ve seen my sister Kirsten wrapped so tightly around her hot water bottle you’d think it was her firstborn child. Susannah copes by tippling, and Della rages and breaks things, then gets weepy and quiet.”

“I was like that,” Sara said, knowing she shouldn’t have this discussion with him. She’d certainly never had it with Reynard. “When I was younger, that is. I hope I don’t rage and break things now, but the water bottle and the tippling sound appealing.”

“Except you haven’t a water bottle,” he guessed. “And the only thing to tipple is the brandy I see in dusty decanters throughout the house, which might be a bit much.”

“You’re right, though I can put Madeira on my wishing list, can’t I?”

“It’s not a wishing list, it’s a shopping list.” He sounded both amused and exasperated. “You’ll come to Portsmouth with me, because I’ve not shopped there in recent memory.”

“The roads are miserable this time of year,” Sara said, fatigue and the drops of laudanum she’d added to her tea making her eyes heavy. “We’ll be stuck in town overnight, and that costs money.”

And it would probably rain the entire time. Why did certain times of the month make a woman prone to the weeps?

“You should know Lady Warne is very well off, Mrs. Hunt. There’s no excuse for her allowing this place to flounder as it has, except she delegated the land management to my father, and he delegated the task in turn to a pack of jackals posing as his London solicitors.”

Mr. Haddonfield sounded very stern and a little bit far away, though he sat close enough that Sara could see a small J-shaped scar just past his hairline near his temple. She wanted to brush his hair back the better to examine the scar.

Sara refocused her thoughts to pick up the thread of the conversation. “The Three Springs house finances are still managed by Lady Warne herself. She sends down a quarterly allowance for the household, and separate funds for the kitchen. Polly and I receive salaries directly from her quarterly as well.”

“So why are things in such poor condition?” Mr. Haddonfield asked. He reached out and brushed her hair back over her ear. The gesture should have startled Sara right off the bed, when instead it made her want to purr.

Like Heifer, who was probably the happiest member of the household.

“I’ve told Lady Warne the funds aren’t sufficient as baldly as I might. It’s as if she doesn’t get my letters. Her notes are chatty and pleasant and wish us well, but the funding doesn’t change.”

“She’ll read my letters. If I have to have Nicholas read them to her, she’ll read them.” He was very sure of himself. She’d expect no less of him.

“Who is Nicholas?” Sara’s words came out sleepy, not quite slurred, and Mr. Haddonfield made the same gesture again, smoothing her hair back over her ear. She should rebuke him, except there was no disrespect in his touch.

Only an inability to abide disorder—Sara suffered from the same penchant—or perhaps a passing inclination to offer comfort.

“Nicholas is my older brother, the heir to the earldom, whose job while I’m immured here is to marry his prospective countess.”

A little silence ensued, broken only by the crackling of the fire. He caressed her hair a couple of more times, his touch lingering.

“Mrs. Hunt?” Mr. Haddonfield’s hand slid to her shoulder and shook it lightly. “Sara?”

“Hmm?” Her eyes fluttered open, and she focused on him with effort. Too much laudanum and too little sleep. What must he think of her?

“You’re falling asleep. North claims it can be done with the eyes open. I can carry you to your bed.”

“Carry me?” Sara straightened her spine through force of will, but between fatigue, the dragging of the poppy, and the mesmerizing pleasure of Mr. Haddonfield’s hand, it was an enormous effort. “That won’t be necessary.”

His smile was slow and slightly naughty, like a small boy would be naughty, not a grown man. “If I wanted to carry you, you couldn’t stop me.”

“But you are a gentleman, so you will not argue this point with me.”

“Suppose not, though I’ll see you down the stairs, at least.”

“I’m a housekeeper, Mr. Haddonfield.” Sara rose, only to find her hand placed on Haddonfield’s arm and held there by virtue of his fingers over her knuckles. “Your gallantries are wasted on me.”

Though they were sweet, those gallantries. Sara liked them probably about as much as Mr. North liked his chocolate mousse.

“I respectfully disagree.” He took up the candle and escorted her from the room. “If I lose favor with you, I’m out of clean laundry, candles, coal and wood for my fire, clean sheets, and God help me if I should split the seam of my breeches.”

“God help us all, in that case.” Sara gave up trying to hold her weariness at bay and moved at his side through the darkened house. “You really aren’t going to sell the place?”

Beside her, Mr. Haddonfield stopped, a sigh escaping him in the near darkness.

He set the candle down and turned her by the shoulders, while Sara felt her heart speeding up for no good reason.

“You’ve managed as best you can, managed brilliantly, but you’re battle-weary, Sara. You keep firing when the enemy has quit the field.” He kept a hand on her shoulder, his thumb sliding across her collarbone in a slow, rhythmic caress.

He made no other move; he didn’t use that seductive baritone on her in the darkened corridor, just circled his thumb over the spot where neck, shoulder, and collarbone came together. A vulnerable, lonely point on a woman’s body.

Her mind did not comprehend what he was offering, but her soul longed for it, and her body leaned closer to his, then closer still. In the cold, dark corridor, she leaned on him, despite her pride, despite common sense, despite all the reasons she couldn’t lean on any man ever again.

His arms came around her, and it felt so good. He’d called her Sara, and that had felt good too.

“I give you my word I will not recommend to my father or to Lady Warne that Three Springs be sold,” he said, his voice sounding near her ear. “The house has good bones, and the resources are available to set it to rights. And even if Lady Warne should die and leave the property to some distant relation, I’ll see you and yours situated. I give you my word on that too, and I’ve the means to do it, easily.”

She lingered in his embrace for a few precious moments, wanting to believe him but knowing only that she hadn’t been held like this for years. It was worse, in a way, to be reminded of what she’d never have.