Page 10 of Tender Blackguard

Chapter Four

The woman was an oddity. For all her prim and proper poise and obvious experience in domestic work, she was not at all what a housekeeper should be.

Mrs. Evans might have managed to convince her previous employers that she possessed a staid, subservient manner, but Alastair wasn’t the least bit fooled. That first day when she’d stood in his study, her somber dress and woolen coat drenched from the rain, he’d known by the steady self-assurance in the woman’s winter-gray eyes she was more than she tried to appear. And then she’d proven it with her bold assertion that he needed her.

She hadn’t been wrong.

In the week since he’d hired her, his home had begun to run more smoothly. The dust of the past and echoes of the house’s prior resident were being stirred up by the swift steps and lively chatter of the maids as they went about refreshing the entire townhouse under Mrs. Evans’s formidable instruction.

If her youth had ever been a concern, it was no longer a thought. His housekeeper had more ingrained authority in her little finger than many women twice her age.

That wasn’t the issue.

The issue was what he sensed beneath her proper veneer of competence and efficiency. There was a force driving the young Mrs. Evans. It was evident in those brief moments when she couldn’t quite hide her impatience or the hint of distraction in her gaze that often coupled with a deep furrow in her otherwise smooth brow.

But whatever her internal worries, they were not the least bit his concern. And also not the issue at hand.

He’d requested his tea in the library this morning for a very specific purpose—to see if the scene of last night’s near-encounter would induce a response. The answer was troubling.

Her gaze had gone straight to the well-disguised hidden passage. The focus and certainty in her searching stare suggested she was not the type to disregard the experience as a flight of her own fancy. And though he couldn’t imagine what had drawn her attention to his presence last night, it proved his concern about needing to be even more circumspect in his nightly movements than he was already.

Dammit. Perhaps he should dismiss the woman and seek a replacement. One with a duller gaze and an even duller manner.

Even as he had the thought, he rejected it. He’d gone too many long months without a single qualified candidate for the position. No doubt he’d have just as much trouble—if not more—should he decide to reject the only woman who’d stepped forward in all this time. And he was pretty damned certain he knew exactly why he’d had so few applicants.

His father’s scribbled memoirs had not been limited to descriptions of the entertainments enjoyed amongst the so-called brotherhood. They also detailed his inclinations toward his own female staff. The reprobate had been shameless and utterly undiscerning. His lascivious nature had eventually led to a dalliance with a woman of greater standing in society who possessed a family with the power and position. When they’d demanded satisfaction for his lascivious behavior, his punishment had been exile.

Considering what Alastair knew of his father’s relentless pursuits, he could understand why female servants might be reluctant or downright fearful of taking a position in the Marquess of Warfield’s home. Even if he declared to the world he was nothing like his sire, why should anyone believe him when he couldn’t quite believe it himself?

Setting aside the paper, Alastair rose to his feet. In long strides, he crossed the antique rug to stand before the fireplace. As he stared into the dancing flames with his hands clasped tightly behind his back, his mother’s voice resonated eerily through his mind, like that of a haunting specter he could not evade and would likely never escape.

The evil will consume you, Alastair. I see it in your eyes—his eyes. I can’t bear it.

Familiar tangled threads of hatred, guilt, and sorrow twisted and knotted inside him. Fury and disgust welled. The pressure was nearly unmanageable.

Alastair had been told all his life that the man who’d sired him was on par with the devil himself. When he was young, his mother’s disturbed rantings had terrified him. As he’d gotten older, he’d come to understand that her mind and heart had been irreversibly scarred. And the only thing he’d known to do to help her was stay out of her sight and hope she found some peace from no longer having a constant reminder of her torment. It wasn’t until her death that he’d finally learned the full truth of what she’d endured at the hands of his father.

Deep breaths eventually eased the ache inside him, tightening it into a dense ball he could hide in the pit of his soul.

He would not be consumed by the evil in which his father had reveled.

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LATER THAT NIGHT, ALASTAIR sat nursing a glass of whisky in a shadowed corner of his club, of which a Lord Lowndes also happened to be a member.

Lowndes had a residence not far from Warfield. Just one street over. They’d met at a party hosted by Lord Marlowe, yet another neighbor, and had encountered each other again at the Lord Hazelton’s house and the Earl of Altham’s. Though Lowndes was significantly younger than the other suspected members of the brotherhood, Alastair had gotten the distinct impression that the lord was one of them.

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