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  “I suppose now that Montfort’s son has run off to France, Margaret has no suitable suitors left.” Ash hated saying that of his former fiancée, but he knew her desperate situation.

  Roderick Montfort was the sort of man Caldwell would prefer for his daughter—a drunk who could be led by the nose. Presumably under the baronet’s advice, the young dolt had led a band of miscreants to terrify Theo and his wife, which was why, when caught, he’d fled to France—probably the most intelligent thing the sot had ever done. “So, how does Caldwell’s arrival concern me?”

  “The obvious, as always. Sir George wants to increase his acreage, and your land is the best to be had in the county. He has three boroughs in his control. He may be ready to return to our side if you and Margaret make up.”

  Ash almost laughed at the notion, except he knew Erran was serious. For the good of the country—marry a cold fish like Margaret? One who had slipped out of his life the instant he’d actually needed her? One whose father had threatened his life in order to stop him from investing in modern farming practices? Not even for the good of the country.

  “You must admit, whatever Miss Caldwell lacks in human compassion, she makes up for in social and organizational skills,” Pascoe pointed out. “If you’re truly not interested in marriage, one of convenience might be beneficial.”

  Ash grimaced in distaste. “Marry her off to Bryghtstone. I’m aware of the extreme importance of replacing Wellington, but I’d like to believe I’m a little more valuable than a pawn.” Even if he was now blind and incompetent went unsaid.

  “The baronet wants land and preferably an influential title for his daughter, not a sheep farmer hundreds of miles away. Margaret would be wasted on Bryght.”

  Ash knew his brother was right. That didn’t make his argument any more acceptable. Maliciously, he suggested, “What about Townsend’s offer? If I’m to lower myself to marry a baronet’s daughter for a vote, how would a baron’s daughter line up as a political wife?”

  “Since Miss Townsend has never been presented, was in town for only a few weeks, and no one seems to have seen or heard of her, one assumes not well,” Pascoe said dryly. “Although she is said to have a dowry that might make Bryght happy, and if she’s invisible, all the better. But that’s not the only reason we’re here.”

  Ash nearly laughed, entertained that he knew more about the missing Miss Townsend than his well-connected family. It almost made him feel like his old self.

  The conversation turned to political strategy. Ash usually enjoyed the challenge of out-plotting master plotters, but the bloom had left that rose today. He needed to put an end to the dreary argument. The moment a servant returned for the tray, Ash sent for Miss Chris.

  “You still haven’t hired a secretary?” Pascoe asked in astonishment. “You can’t ask the lady to join us as if she were a man!”

  “Miss Christie does not cringe when I throw inkpots,” Ash said coldly, although he lost his urge to fling things in her presence. He didn’t need to mention that.

  “She’s not a gray-haired old lady,” Erran warned.

  “I know,” Ash responded with too much satisfaction. “I’m tired of listening to your voices. Hers is more pleasant. And if I must write this letter, I can trust her to do it properly. Unless, of course, the two of you wish to lounge about, pondering what I should say and writing it for me.”

  “Specious argument, Ash,” Pascoe said. “You could dictate to us as easily as the lady.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Ash heard the reluctant stride of his errant companion and rose to greet her. “Miss Christie, if I might ask your aid—these gentlemen would have me write to our more senior members asking for proxy votes. Could you take notes and compose the missive?”

  He heard a rustle. Seats shuffled. Judging by the location of her lily scent, she had taken the chair in the corner behind him, just like any good menial. He sat when he heard her do so, admiring her performance. She had their attention, even if they were annoyed as hell at her dawdling. Unlike any true servant, his mystery lady had an intriguing habit of thinking before she spoke.

  Into the increasingly irritated silence, she asked in that seductive voice that brought a smile even when she crossed him, “Wouldn’t a personal messenger impress the importance of this session on them better than a letter that might sit on a desk for weeks? I thought a vote in the Commons was imminent.”

  “There’s my best student,” Ash said proudly. It had been worth the performance to hear their audience’s stunned silence when she said exactly what he had. Their hours over correspondence had not gone wasted.

  “You are playing games again,” she scolded, although she didn’t change her dulcet tone. “I was about to explain subtraction to the children, and you disrupted the lesson so you might make a spectacle of me for reasons of your own. I understand your impatience Mr. Ives, Lord Erran. You need to find new entertainment to occupy his lordship.”

  “By Jove, she’s rumbled your lay, Dunc,” Pascoe said in disbelief.

  Ash heard her set the writing desk down with a loud plop to make it clear that she was done. She swept out in a lovely summer breeze.

  “A Valkyrie,” Erran said, while Pascoe just whistled admiringly. “What is that abomination she wears on her head?”

  “I’d wager it’s a disguise to conceal the gears and cogs operating in her brainpan,” Ash said, laughing. “Miss Chris conceals unexplored depths.”

  “She just scolded you like a truant,” Erran said. “And you didn’t sack her!”

  “Could you sack anyone who sounded like that? Your wife has a lovely persuasive voice, but does it contain the depth of feeling my secretary-general just expressed?”

  “Celeste modulates her voice to disguise her feelings,” Erran explained. “Miss Christie lacks that degree of sophistication.”

  “For which I heartily give thanks. It’s tiresome being coddled like an infant.” Although he ought to ask himself how she always knew exactly the right thing to say, but this was a case where ignorance was bliss. “Now, gentlemen, let us begin the task of finding messengers to persuade senile old men to give up on Wellington.”

  And then he would have to consider the task of dealing with Lord Townsend’s request that he find a suitor for the heiress he no longer had, before Ash’s archenemy, the earl of Lansdowne, discovered Ash was concealing a scandal and the key to valuable votes.

  Christie still hadn’t slowed her heartbeat by the time Moira found her.

  The three Ives gentlemen had been exceedingly hard to read. Impatience and irritation hadn’t precisely explained what they wanted. Only Ashford had offered any emotional hints as to the basis for their argument. Fortunately, she had listened to his earlier complaints and felt his eagerness for her to repeat what he wanted, even if he had not said it aloud. She thought she’d replied correctly.

  “No, I can’t go to the shops with you,” Christie answered Moira’s request regretfully. No matter how much she would love to explore London’s temptations, she must resist. After a lifetime of obscurity, the necessity grated, but she need do it only until her birthday.

  “Why not? Ashford is consulting with still more boring officials this afternoon and can have no need of you. We need to decide on wall color. Seeing what is fashionable can be very useful. I’ll buy you a ribbon for your hat!” Moira gathered her sketches into her portfolio.

  “As if I need another ribbon,” Christie said in genuine amusement. “Really, I need nothing. And you are the color expert, not me. Just remember to bring back bills of sale.”

  “You never go out!” Moira protested. “You are worse than Ashford, without his excuse. That cannot be healthy.”

  It probably wasn’t, but she could take no risk that Townsend might see her. She had hidden in the kitchen all morning playing at schoolteacher and quite enjoyed herself. That Ashford had called her bluff by dragging her out to entertain his family grated, but how could she object? Until they had the discussion about her
leaving that he had promised last night, he was concealing her as certainly as she hid herself now.

  They were supposed to be discussing her fate, but politics always came first with the marquess. She’d thought and thought all night and had come up with no better solution than to retreat to the country, where she could hope to hide more successfully than a street away from her stepfather.

  She wasn’t entirely certain how she felt about Ashford knowing even part of her secret. Last night, she had hoped that she might have his aid. After this morning’s performance, she feared he might use her—Miss Townsend’s—secret against her if she roused his temper. She had best come up with a better escape plan.

  Of course, after Moira departed, she was very aware that she’d been left in the anteroom with a gaggle of men arguing in the study. It seemed wisest to return upstairs to the company of Aunt Nessie and her kittens until she and the marquess had reached an understanding.

  It was disappointing that she’d never really see London and must return to living without family or friends, but once she had her independence, she could decide what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. A few months to read and plan was no bad thing.

  By the time she heard the twins return that afternoon, Nessie had taught her basic knitting. Harriet longed to run up to the schoolroom and ask what schools the boys had looked at and how they liked them, but that was presumptuous. The Christie part of her personality must be a bit of a snoop.

  Below, she heard male voices raised in farewell and the front door opening and closing. She nearly bit off her tongue waiting for Ashford to start yelling for her. Surprisingly, he didn’t. Had he forgotten her then?

  She should be so fortunate. Before she’d completed her second row of stitches, a maid scratched at the door.

  This servant hobbled badly as she entered, and probably shouldn’t be running up and down stairs, but the little maid beamed as if her world were perfect. “His lordship requests your presence at tea, Miss.”

  “Wordsmith?” Nessie asked in puzzlement. “Presents? I once received a lovely book of poetry from a suitor. I wonder where that volume is now?” She glanced up at the maid. “Might I have a bit more milk with my tea today? The kitten is growing.”

  “Yes, Miss Nessie,” the maid said, bobbing. “I will bring your tray.”

  “That’s the thing,” Nessie said in satisfaction. “I shall pray to find the volume.”

  Biting back a smile, Christie addressed the maid, hoping if she kept her voice low enough, Nessie wouldn’t hear her. “Tell his lordship that I am taking tea up here while Miss McDowell is out of the house.”

  It pleased her entirely too much that he recognized her as a lady and not a menial, but she was not about to sit at the table alone with Ashford. That was simply asking for trouble. Her eyes nearly crossed remembering the suggestive comments he’d made while she was just reading last night. The man had an extraordinary effect on her that she simply could not act on, even though she understood he encouraged it. Someone had to be the mature adult around here.

  Christie knew the moment his lordship had been informed that she was disobeying his command. His bellow carried up the stairs. Perhaps she could go up to the schoolroom and eat with the twins. Then she could pretend she hadn’t heard him.

  Really, if this was how the Ives men normally communicated, it was a wonder they ever accomplished anything.

  The pounding of heavy dog feet on the stairwell distracted from her musings. Hartley’s latest acquisition had a hound nose and floppy ears, but the enormous paws of a St. Bernard. The mutt wasn’t supposed to be inside the house.

  “Chuckles, come back here!” Hartley shouted frantically from above.

  Oh, dear. She froze in indecision. Her stepfather would have had an apoplexy if she’d chased a dog through the house.

  Judging by his roars and the slam of a hard object against a wall, she thought Ashford might already be having an apoplexy.

  Warily, she set aside the knitting and stepped into the corridor. She had to dodge one of the kitchen cats and the hound happily racing down the threadbare carpet in a game of chase. At least there were no vases or statues adorning these barren upper corridors. Hartley crashed down the stairs on the dog’s trail, not so much as acknowledging her as he raced by.

  The look of determination on his face strongly resembled his father’s—who was still roaring on the floor below.

  She had no experience in handling chaos, much less fury or determined men. Perhaps she should just slip out the back and never be seen again.

  No, she couldn’t let the poor boy suffer the consequence of being young and bored. If she was to give up being Hidden Harriet, she must learn to deal with others. Taking a deep breath to calm her rattled nerves, resolving to take this one step at a time, she followed hound and boy down the front stairs.

  The other twin caught up to her before she was half way down. “He’ll send us back to mother for certain this time,” Hugh muttered. “I told Hart not to bring the damned dog in.”

  “Apologize for your language, please,” she corrected, lifting her skirt and hurrying.

  “Apologies,” he said. “But Papa is already in a rage.”

  “That’s because of me. He’ll have to throw us all out.” The front door knocker resounded, and she winced.

  Below, furniture toppled. “Thou loggerheaded miscreant!” Ashford roared, fury escalating.

  “Don’t let him out!” Hartley cried as some servant evidently headed to answer the door.

  Christie and Hugh ran the rest of the way down the stairs.

  10

  As it often did since his accident, Ash’s head pounded with the savagery of demons wielding pickaxes against his skull. Why the devil he’d ever thought politics would relieve his boredom eluded him. If he couldn’t make one infernal woman obey, what was the point?

  Or control his own damned household, he amended, hearing the thunder of dog’s feet and feeling a cat brush past in the direction of the kitchen. He edged up to the wall to avoid any unseen encounters. The dog raced over his boots, colliding with the pedestal table at the bottom of the stairs. A lamp crashed.

  “Hartley!” Ash howled. “Miss Christie! Get yourselves down here now!” Grimacing as the pickaxes rattled his brain, he gripped his walking stick and edged through the field of debris left in the dog’s wake.

  The door knocker sounded. The dog changed direction, nearly toppling Ash again. Cries and pounding feet warned Hartley descended. From above, Miss Christie shouted, “Don’t let the animal out!”

  She ought to be shouting to let the animal go. The beast didn’t belong in a house this small, or any house at all. It stank and was probably riddled with fleas.

  The knocker sounded again, louder and more impatient while the footman dithered.

  “No-o-o-o!” Hartley screamed as the footman must have finally decided the guest was more important than a dog.

  Ash stepped away from the wall to halt the proceedings. Leaping from the stairs at that same moment, the boy bounced off Ash. Thrown off balance, Ash spun and caught the wall to steady himself. Ash heard Hugh pound by on his twin’s heels.

  The front door opened. Female screams erupted outside.

  From the piercing shriek, Ash was pretty certain the female was his untrustworthy ex-fiancée, Margaret. Still hanging on to the wall, he almost relished the scene.

  “Excuse me, my lord,” Miss Christie murmured, brushing past him where he’d frozen in place.

  “Christie, dammit, get back here!” Feeling abandoned, he shouted at her as if she truly were a male secretary.

  “Sir George Caldwell, Miss Margaret Caldwell,” the new footman announced.

  “Excuse us, we have a dog to catch,” his disobedient secretary said to the guests beneath Ash’s furious curses.

  He blamed well wasn’t facing these unwanted intruders on his own, not when pain was already loosening all the gears inside his head so he couldn’t think straight.

>   He swung his stick at the door, encountered skirts, and rudely stomped past, forcing his guests to dodge. “Catch the dog,” he shouted at the footman. He hadn’t learned all the voices of the new servants, but this one was a hair’s breadth from being sacked.

  “Ashford,” Caldwell protested as Ash shoved past.

  “You can’t go out like that,” Margaret cried in horror.

  Like what? It didn’t matter. He heard Hartley’s cries of fear and anguish and the dog’s yelp over the rattle of carriage wheels and horses.

  He halted helplessly at the bottom of the street stairs, unable to go further without risking his neck like a stupid beast. He swung his stick in fury, connecting with the footman’s knees. The lackwit hadn’t gone far in pursuit of the dog. The servant yelped and crashed to the pavement. Ash’s backhand swing hit a gas lamp and glass shattered.

  “We’ve caught Chuckles, my lord,” Miss Chris called from a distance. “Smith, he’s hurt. We need some help carrying him.”

  Smith—the footman he’d just crippled. Ash swore and reached down to help the man up.

  “Thank you, my lord. I’ll be fine, my lord,” the footman stuttered, while Margaret screeched like a bloody barn owl from above.

  The footman’s hand was wet, probably with blood since it wasn’t raining for a change. He’d probably cut his hand on the shattered glass.

  “Christie, his hand is bleeding!” Ash shouted his fury. “By Beelzebub, Caldwell, don’t stand there like a lamppost. Help the lady, or at least poor Smith here.” Having only a cacophony of noise to guide him, Ash strode in the direction of his sons’ high-pitched cries.

  “He’s hurt,” Hugh called.

  “The horse hit Chuckles!” Hartley cried, nearly weeping.

  “Ashford, we’re over here. Give me a moment,” Christie called somewhat breathlessly. “The animal won’t hold still.”