Page 55 of The Hidden Heart

He looked at the front door, then the open doorway into the drawing room, where a bundle of mistletoe hung in a wire ball. He swung on his heel and strode back into the Great Hall, through which he had just passed. Garlands of spruce festooned the huge fireplace at the other end of the hall, the one where they had always placed the Yule log. Fat red candles sat atop the mantel of the fireplace, encircled by holly and ivy leaves.

He turned at the sound of footsteps and saw Baxter approaching, looking at him with some trepidation.

“What is the meaning of this?” Cleybourne asked sharply.

“Good afternoon, Your Grace. Would you care for tea?”

“No, I would not. And don’t try to distract me. What the devil is all this greenery doing about the house? Did I not tell you I wanted no reminder of Christmas?” His voice was cool, but all the fiercer for it, his eyes dark and glittering in a too-white face.

“Ah, actually, no, sir, not this year. It has been some time since you said that, and I thought, especially seeing as we were back here at the Castle, and with the young miss and the other guests—”

“You thought?” Cleybourne’s voice deepened with suspicion. “The devil you did. Why did this thought not occur to you until that bloody governess arrived here? It was she, wasn’t it, who put this idea in your head, this mockery of—”

“No, Your Grace! No!” Baxter cried in a shocked voice. “No mockery, sir, I would never…”

“I know you would not. Just as you would not have ordered this without my say-so. Somehow that she-devil convinced you to do it.” When his servant looked uneasily about, not answering, he snapped, “Answer me! Didn’t she?”

The butler was several shades paler as he said, “Miss Maitland did say as how the young lady would miss the decorations, sir, and her being so sad and all, for her great-uncle. And she thought the decorating might give the, um, guests something to do to while away the hours.”

“Where is she?”

“I—I—the last I saw her, she was upstairs, Your Grace, with Lady Westhampton.”

“She is a fool if she thinks she can escape me by hiding behind Rachel’s skirts.” Cleybourne turned and shouted up the stairs, “Miss Maitland! Come down here this instant!”

* * *

Jessica did not linger, but neither did she hurry down the stairs. She walked at her usual pace, her face settled into lines of calm, her hands folded together. When she reached the wide staircase, she saw the Duke standing at the bottom of it, hands on his hips pugnaciously, his eyes glittering and dark with fury. Her heart began to beat faster, but she made herself walk down the stairs without haste.

“Did you wish to see me?” she asked collectedly as she neared the bottom step.

“No!” Cleybourne lashed out. Her calm infuriated him. And it was even more infuriating that as he watched her approach, all he was able to think about was reaching out and jerking the pins from her hair, destroying the prim knot at the nape of her neck and sending the fiery mass tumbling down over her shoulders as it had been last night.

“I would much prefer not to see you ever again,” he went on. “But you force me to do so. You are everywhere, disrupting everything.”

“I am sorry that you think so.” As he stood on the first riser of the stairs, Jessica’s face was level with Richard’s. If she leaned forward, their lips would touch. The thought alone was enough to send a little flicker of desire sizzling through her blood. She hoped that what she wanted was not written on her face.

“Perhaps we should go to your study to discuss this calmly,” Jessica continued, turning her gaze upward significantly, to where Mr. Cobb, Miss Pargety and Mrs. Woods were standing at the top of the stairs, watching interestedly. “I think you may be alarming your guests…and servants.”

Cleybourne glanced into the Great Hall and saw a knot of servants clustered to one side, looking anxious. “Oh, bloody hell!” he muttered, and stalked through the Great Hall and down the corridor into his study.

Jessica followed him, closing the door after her. She turned to face him. “Perhaps you would like to sit down.”

“No, I wouldn’t. Damn it, woman, what is the matter with you?”

“Nothing, Your Grace. I am feeling quite well. It is you who seem to be disturbed.”

“Yes, I am disturbed. Have you no sense? Have you no shame?”

“Yes, Your Grace, I think am amply endowed with sense. As for shame, I—”

“Damn it!” he roared, cutting her off. “You come here, poking your nose into everything, giving orders with no authority, changing things….”

“I am sorry if I have overstepped my bounds, sir.”

“No, you’re not. You are not sorry at all. Overstepping your bounds is precisely what you like to do. You do it at every turn. Telling my servants what to do. Telling me what to do. Damn it, we were all doing very well before you got here!”

“I beg to differ. This house when I arrived was a gloomy, disheartening place, where the servants were worried and sad, and the master of the house was contemplating doing away with himself.”