To Beguile a Beast (Legend of the Four Soldiers #3)(32)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

“Thank you,” she muttered rather ungraciously as she sat.

“You’re quite welcome,” he murmured gently as he pushed the chair in overly hard.

Sophia was busy instructing Abigail on the proper placement of her water glass and so missed their byplay, but Phoebe watched them curiously from the other side of Mrs. Halifax. Damn. He’d forgotten how observant the little woman was. He nodded at her and received a wink in reply.

“So you’ve begun writing again,” Sophia said as Tom brought in a tureen of clear soup with a maid to serve it.

“Yes,” Alistair replied cautiously.

“And this is the same work?” she demanded. “The one about the various birds and animals and insects in Britain?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Good. I’m glad to hear it.” She waved away the basket of bread Abigail was attempting to pass her. “No, thank you. I never eat yeasted breads after luncheon. I hope,” she continued, turning on him again, “that you’ll do a proper job of it. Richards made a hash of it with his Zoölogia a few years back. Tried to show that chickens were related to lizards, the idiot. Ha!”

Alistair leaned back to let the maid set a bowl of soup before him. “Richards is a pedantic ass, but his comparison of chickens and lizards was quite reasonable in my opinion.”

“I suppose you think badgers are related to bears as well?” Sophia’s spectacles glinted dangerously.

“As a matter of fact, the claws of both have a striking resemblance—”

“Ha!”

“And,” he continued unperturbed, as they had, after all, been arguing like this since childhood, “when I dissected a badger carcass last autumn, I found similarities in the bones of the skull and forearms as well.”

“What’s a carcass?” Jamie asked before Sophia could set into him.

“A dead body,” Alistair explained. Beside him, Mrs. Halifax choked. He turned and solicitously thumped her on the back.

“I’m quite fine,” she gasped. “But might we change the subject?”

“Certainly,” he said kindly. “Perhaps we ought to discuss dung instead.”

“Oh, Lord,” Mrs. Halifax muttered beside him.

He ignored her, turning to his sister. “You won’t believe what I found in the dung of a badger the other day.”

“Yes?” Sophia asked with interest.

“A bird beak.”

“Nonsense!”

“Indeed, it was. A small one—perhaps a titmouse or a sparrow—but a bird’s beak most certainly.”

“Surely not a titmouse. They don’t come to the ground that often.”

“Ah, but it’s my judgment that the bird was already dead when ingested by the badger.”

“You promised no more dead bodies,” Mrs. Halifax burst out.

He looked at her and had a hard time not laughing. “I promised no more badger carcasses. This is a bird carcass we speak of.”

She frowned at him, beautifully, of course. “You’re being didactic.”

“Yes, I am.” He smiled. “What’re you going to do about it?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sophia and Phoebe exchange a raised-eyebrow glance, but he ignored them.

Mrs. Halifax tilted her nose in the air. “I just think you should be more polite to the woman who oversees the making of your bed.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Are you threatening to place toads in my bed, madam?”

“Perhaps,” she said loftily, but her eyes laughed at him.

His gaze dropped to her mouth, lush and wet, and he felt his loins turn to iron. He said low so no one else could overhear, “I would pay more attention to the threat were it something else you placed in my bed.”

“Don’t,” she whispered.

“Don’t what?”

“You know.” Those harebell-blue eyes met his, wide and vulnerable. “Don’t tease.”

Her murmured words should’ve made him feel ashamed. But, like the basest cad, it only heightened his interest. Careful, a voice whispered. Don’t let the woman seduce you into thinking you can give her what she wants. He should listen to that voice. Should obey and turn away from Mrs. Halifax before it was too late. Instead he leaned forward, beguiled despite himself.

LATER THAT EVENING, Miss Munroe lifted her dish of tea, pinned Helen with a piercing gaze, and asked, “How long has my brother employed you as his housekeeper?”

Helen swallowed the sip of tea she’d just taken and replied cautiously, “Only a few days.”

“Ah.” Miss Munroe sat back and stirred her tea vigorously.

Helen turned to her own tea, somewhat disconcerted. It was hard to tell whether that “ah” had been approving, disapproving, or something else entirely. After dinner they had retired to the sitting room, now cleaned—well, at least cleaner than it had been before. The maids had labored over it all afternoon and even had a fire crackling in the old stone fireplace. The stuffed animals still stared down out of rather gruesome glass eyeballs, but they no longer had trails of cobwebs hanging from their ears. That was a definite improvement.

Jamie and Abigail had stayed in the sitting room only long enough to make their good nights. When Helen had put them to bed and returned, Sir Alistair had been in discussion with Miss McDonald at the far end of the room. Miss Munroe had sat waiting by the door. If Helen was a suspicious sort, she’d wonder if Miss Munroe had been lying in wait for her.

Now she cleared her throat. “Sir Alistair said he hadn’t seen you in quite some time?”

Miss Munroe scowled over her tea. “He hides himself away here like a leper.”

“Perhaps he feels self-conscious,” Helen murmured.

She glanced to where Sir Alistair and Miss McDonald were in conversation. Instead of tea, he drank brandy from a clear glass. He tilted his head toward the older lady, listening gravely to whatever she was saying. His clubbed hair exposed his scars, but it also civilized his countenance. Studying his profile, she realized that without the scars, he was a handsome man. Had he been used to female attention before he’d been maimed? The thought disconcerted her, and she looked away from him.

Only to find Miss Munroe watching her with an inscrutable expression. “It’s more than self-consciousness.”

“What do you mean?” Helen frowned into her tea, thinking. “Abigail screamed when she first saw him.”

Miss Munroe nodded once, sharply. “Exactly. Children who don’t know him fear him. Even grown men have been known to look askance at him.”