Romancing the Duke (Castles Ever After #1)(24)
Author: Tessa Dare

Through gritted teeth, he told her, “You have a post as my secretary. I’m not paying you two hundred pounds a day to rearrange furniture and hang drapes. Now, sit back down and find that list of payments.”

“Did I hear a please?” She waited a beat. “No, I didn’t think so.”

“Damn it, Goodnight.”

“Dock my wages for the afternoon, if you like.” She began walking away. “The accounting will have to wait for tomorrow. If you don’t allow me and Miss Pelham to prepare a warm, comfortable, rat-and-bat-free bedchamber before nightfall, I promise you—there won’t be a tomorrow at all.”

Miss Pelham called down from the gallery. “Do come along, Miss Goodnight! Let’s set about making this castle into a home.”

A home.

Those words sent dread spiraling through him.

There was no use fighting it any longer. Miss Goodnight was settling in. Making a home. Just bloody wonderful.

Ransom began to wonder if he’d made such an excellent bargain after all.

As young ladies went, Miss Abigail Pelham was everything that made Izzy despair. From the moment the vicar’s daughter had walked—nay, floated—into the great hall, Izzy had known they were creatures of different breeds.

Miss Pelham was the sort of young woman who had plans, made lists, kept a beauty regimen. The sort who knew, somehow, which straw bonnets in the milliner’s shop would suit her and never ended up looking a beribboned scarecrow. The sort who always smelled of vanilla and gardenias, not because she liked baking or working in the garden—but because she’d decided it was her signature scent, and she kept sachets tucked between her stored undergarments.

She was competent in the art that motherless, awkward Izzy had never mastered. The art of being feminine. If she had met Miss Pelham at a party, they would have had less to say to each other than a bright-winged parrot sharing a perch with a common wren.

Luckily, this was not a party. This was a housecleaning, and it became immediately clear that in this endeavor, Izzy couldn’t have asked for a more enthusiastic partner.

Miss Pelham surveyed the ducal chamber, sniffing at the moth-eaten hangings. “It was horrid of the duke to put you in this chamber. This room isn’t without its potential. But it’s hardly the place to start, either.”

“I agree,” Izzy said.

“We’ll make a tour of the whole castle this morning.” Miss Pelham left the room in a brisk swoop. “This afternoon, we’ll choose one room to begin with,” she went on. “One that’s small and easy to clean. We’ll sweep it out, fit it with a proper bed by tonight. Check the chimney, of course. Some of them are clogged with birds’ nests and only the good Lord knows what else.”

She stopped in her paces, shivered—and squealed.

“I can’t tell you how excited I am to be doing this. At last. It’s been torture, living down the hill from this wonderful castle all my life and watching it slip further and further into ruin. And, finally, we will have some jobs and custom for the local parishioners.”

Izzy followed the relentless ribbon of chatter, amused. If Miss Pelham was at all winded by their pace, she didn’t show it.

For her part, Izzy kept her mouth shut and her eyes open. As they moved through the corridors, the daylight revealed most of the chambers to be in a discouraging state. Many of the windows were broken out. Everything that could be chewed by moths or mice, had been. Dust and cobwebs coated the rest, like a blanket of grayish snow.

“We’ll have to set reasonable goals,” Miss Pelham continued. “This castle wasn’t built in a day, and it won’t be made livable in one day, either.”

“Judging by the architecture, building it took a few hundred years,” Izzy said. “I hope making it livable doesn’t take that long.”

Miss Pelham turned at the bottom of the stairs and smiled. “You must know so much about castles. From dear Sir Henry, of course.”

Here we go.

“Yes.” Izzy pasted a sweet smile on her face. “I always loved hearing my father give his lectures.”

“How lucky you were to have him.” Miss Pelham looked her over. “And how clever you are today. I’ll have to change into my work smock, but here you’ve had the foresight to wear yours already.”

Izzy touched the skirts of her frock—her best morning dress—and tried to smile.

As they turned a corner, she recognized a familiar set of stairs. “Let’s go up here.”

Miss Pelham followed reluctantly. “There can’t be much up here. The stairs are too narrow. We’ll have to resist the urge to explore every nook just yet, or we’ll never complete our survey of the castle. We’ll walk through the main towers today, and by afternoon, we should be able to narrow down the options for your bedroom.”

Thirty-two, thirty-three . . .

“This one,” Izzy said, emerging into the turret room. “This is the room I’ve chosen.”

The turret room was even more enchanting by day than it had been by night. The vaulted ceiling tapered to a point above, and a golden shaft of sunlight pierced the sole window.

As Izzy went to the window, her heart beat faster. An inspiring green vista of rolling hills and castle walls spread below. Oh, there was even ivy climbing the walls, with songbirds nesting in it.

“This one?” Miss Pelham didn’t sound as though she saw the room’s charms. “This would be terribly impractical, what with all those stairs. Drafty, too, I’m sure. There isn’t even a hearth.”

“No hearth means we wouldn’t have to clean out a chimney.” No hearth means no bats. “And it’s summer. I can make do with blankets.” Izzy circled the room. “This must be my chamber.”

“You truly are little Izzy Goodnight, aren’t you?” Miss Pelham smiled broadly. “Oh! Shall we paint the ceiling with silver moons and golden stars?”

She referred to Izzy’s bedroom in The Goodnight Tales—the one with a purple counterpane and the starry heavens painted on the ceiling. The room that had never even existed.

“No need to do that,” she said. “At night, I can see the real stars.”

She didn’t want to feel like a little girl in this room. In this room, she was a woman. A temptress. This was where she’d had her first true kiss.

A kiss from a roguish, impossible duke, who’d only kissed her under duress. But it was a kiss nonetheless, and one she still felt at the corners of her whisker-rasped lips.