Oh, and Fliss’s former pupil, Juno Defford, was still missing after a night of heavy rain. She had far more important things to do than wonder how it might feel if this arrogantly masculine fool was clean, had shaved and was as fascinated by her as she was in danger of being by him, if she did not wake up properly and get back to real life.
‘Go away and take a bath and shave, then come back at a civilised hour,’ she ordered the man impatiently. ‘But only if you intend to ask civil questions when you get here, mind. Throwing demands about as if the rest of us cannot wait to obey you sets people’s backs up and we have enough to worry about already.’
She glared down at his intrusive foot in the hope he would remove it. No such luck; the man had neither manners nor regard for a lady’s peace and privacy. She tried not to blink in the face of his eagle-eyed scrutiny, but he was tall and she was not used to looking up that far at a man. It felt as if a force of nature was glowering back at her and it was far too early in the morning to deal with one of those when she had so many other things to worry about. She eyed the powerful masculine form under his dirt-spattered and travel-worn clothing and wrinkled her nose fastidiously to tell him what she thought of his disreputable state.
Behind several days’ growth of beard his features were clean-cut and patrician and she supposed he would look stern and impatient even without the whiskers. With them he looked like a pirate, or a very dirty duellist who was all hard eyes and dangerous edges. Something deep inside her whispered he looked like a warrior rather than the idle gentleman of means his accent and the quality of his clothes under all that dirt argued he must be. She almost preferred him this way if he had to be here at all. The set of smooth-shaven and immaculate gentlemen of fashion he probably belonged to when he was clean and decent and not trying to intimidate his way into strange houses made her inner radical stir and shake her fist at the luxury they took for granted while so many people in this unfair world had nothing but the rags on their backs.
‘I must speak with Miss Grantham immediately,’ he argued like a king in disguise.
A pretty heavy disguise, she argued silently and stayed where she was.
‘On personal business,’ he added in the deep and growling voice that secretly sent a shiver of awareness down her spine. ‘Kindly let me in without more ado, then go and tell Miss Grantham I have arrived. Never mind if she is dressed or no, it is urgent,’ he added as if his outrageous demand would remove her from his path like magic.
‘Absolutely not,’ she replied, folding her arms across her body to make it very clear she was going nowhere.
She could stand here until half the townsfolk were wide awake if she had to and she had no intention of telling this grim and arrogant stranger that Fliss had been out all night with a man she would now have to marry if she wanted to save her good name. Even if Marianne had wanted to tell him that tale, it was not hers to tell. The man glared at her again and looked determined to stay in the way until he got what he wanted. She felt a treacherous stir of pity for the dark shadows under his hard blue eyes and the lines of exhaustion so stark around his mouth. He looked as if he had been screwing up his face against the elements and physical weariness most of the way here. He was not wet enough to have been out in the worst of the storm, but he did not look as if he’d spent much of last night sleeping either. In fact he looked as if he had spent days of hard effort and not much sleep to get here with the dawn.
For a fleeting moment he reminded her sharply of her husband Daniel after too many hard days on the march. But this was not the time to weaken or grieve for what she had lost and this man did not need her pity. Her memory of how exhausted she had felt after days in the tail of the Peninsular Army would not help her be sternly objective about him either. And this bossy autocrat had nothing in common with gallant and kind Sergeant Daniel Turner and his beloved but sometimes very weary wife. She reminded herself this man’s filthy clothes had once been of the finest quality and no amount of money could buy him a right to stand on a lady’s doorstep issuing brusque orders at dawn. He needed taking down a peg or two if he thought it should.
‘Go to the local inn and get some sleep,’ she told him brusquely. ‘If you fall down on their doorstep, at least the grooms and ostlers can carry you to the barn to sleep off your journey. If you collapse out there, we will just have to leave you lying there until you wake up again.’
‘I dare say you think you are a good girl protecting your employer’s privacy, but a young woman’s life could depend on you doing as you are bid, my girl, and you are confoundedly in the way,’ he informed her with exaggerated patience, as if she was the last straw he was trying hard not to sweep aside like an annoying fly.
‘I am not the maid, you stupid
