Page 8 of The Duke's Counterfeit Wife

“If ye’re no’ a housebreaker, madam, why are ye here?”

His question startled her, and she clamped her lips down on a squeak. “I do not have to explain myself!”

“I think ye do. I should apologize for mistaking ye for that miscreant, Bull Lindsay, but ye still owe me an explanation—”

“Bull?” she gasped. Just like that, Felicity’s ardor cooled. “You were planning on attacking my son in such a manner?”

The man in front of her had gone very still. “Miss Montrose?”

There was something about his tone… “Mr. Calderbank?” she guessed, nearly groaning in pained realization.

And from the empty study came the perfectly timed call: “Mother?”

The lantern Bull must be carrying threw the hall into shadows. As he stepped through the door into the corridor, Mr. Calderbank—for it was, in fact, he—stepped back, away from her.

Felicity’s eyes widened at the sight of a knife, its blade catching the light from the lantern, disappearing into the man’s sleeve’s.

Had he been holding a knife to her this entire time?

“Flick?” Bull’s tone sounded as if he was fighting back a smile as he called her by that ridiculous nickname. “What are ye doing here?”

Terror and arousal and exhaustion warred in Felicity’s mind, such that all she managed was a huffed, “Looking for you.”

“Ah.” Bull’s gaze flicked to Calderbank and back. “I wouldnae use the secret door after hours, Mother.”

“Ye shouldnae use it at all!” Calderbank burst out, taking a step toward the lad, who merely raised his chin. “The damn thing should be plastered over!” he growled, turning back on Felicity.

She flinched, suddenly so overwhelmed she wasn’t certain how to respond.

Mr. Calderbank had always struck her as dangerous, with his dark hair and darker scowls. He had a way of looking at the world that reminded her not even a little of the clerk he claimed to be. What kind of clerk accosted suspected housebreakers with a knife?

Indeed, she’d had no interest in getting to know the grumpy man next door any better…until he’d pressed her against a wall and she’d caught a whiff of his shaving soap, and now she was looking at him in an entirely different manner.

An entirely inappropriate manner. He’s still a thoroughly unlikable man. Look at how he’s glaring at you, merely because you have thus far declined to limit Bull’s access to his best friend?

But all she could manage was a whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Both of them seemed to guess she was overwhelmed. Bull stepped forward, reaching for her, at the same moment that Calderbank stepped back, exhaling a low curse and running his hand through his dark hair.

Felicity averted her eyes from the bulge in his trousers and turned to her son, hoping she wasn’t going to expire from embarrassment. “I could not find you, Bull. The door was open, so I was afraid…”

Her son offered a crooked smile as he extended his arm to her. “I came back through before dinner. Perhaps I dinnae close it tightly enough.” His grin turned mocking as he glanced at his nemesis. “If ye find a cat wandering about, have Marcia capture it humanely, aright? Nae telling how many have slipped through.”

Her knees turned to jelly when the man growled, “Get out of my house.”

Bull’s salute was cocky and entirely uncalled for, but he turned them both toward the empty room which led to the secret door.

“You should not antagonize him,” she scolded under her breath.

He glanced down at her—yes, her son was taller than her, which was frustrating—and his grin flashed in the light from the lantern. “And ye shouldnae creep about his house in the dark, Flick.”

It was clear he didn’t respect her as his mother.

And, damnation, but his reasoning was sound.

So she pressed her lips tight and didn’t breathe easily until she’d shut the secret door behind them.

What was that all about?

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