“What?” he growled at the door. It was bolted so a certain female couldn’t just swan in at will.
“Your supper is ready,” she called back.
“Bring it here, then,” he replied absently. Sketching a badger’s nose could be quite difficult.
There was a short silence, and he thought for a moment that she’d gone away.
Then she rattled the doorknob. “Sir Alistair, your supper is laid upon the table downstairs in the dining room.”
“Nonsense,” he shot back. “I’ve seen my dining room. It hasn’t been used in near a decade, and it’s filthy. It’s not fit for man or beast to eat in.”
“I’ve spent all this day cleaning it.”
That gave him pause, and he stared suspiciously at the tower door. Had she really spent the day scrubbing out his dining room? It’d be a Herculean task if so. For a moment, he felt a flicker of guilt.
Then he regained his good sense. “If what you say is true, Mrs. Halifax, and I really have a newly cleaned dining room, I thank you. I’m sure at some point I may even use it. But not tonight. Go away.”
The silence this time stretched for so long that he was convinced she’d gone away. He’d returned to sketching the badger and was working on the difficult bit around the eyes when a great thump! shook the door. Alistair’s hand jerked and the pencil tore through the paper.
He scowled at the ruined sketch.
“Sir Alistair.” Mrs. Halifax’s voice came through the door, sounding very much as if she might be gritting her teeth. “Either you come out at once and eat the delicious supper that Mrs. McCleod spent all day cooking in the dining room that I and the other servants spent all day cleaning, or I shall instruct the footmen to break down this door.”
Alistair raised his eyebrows.
“I have scrubbed and polished, beaten and swept all the day long,” Mrs. Halifax continued.
He set his pencil down, rose from his chair, and approached the door.
“And I think it only common courtesy to—” she was saying as he opened the door. She stopped, mouth agape, and looked up at him.
Alistair smiled and leaned a shoulder against the door frame. “Good evening, Mrs. Halifax.”
She started to back up a step but then caught herself, although her wide blue eyes were wary. “Good evening, Sir Alistair.”
He loomed over her to see if she would flee. “I understand you have supper waiting downstairs for me.”
She clutched her hands but stood firm. “Yes.”
“Then I shall be pleased to dine with you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You can’t dine with me. I’m your housekeeper.”
He shrugged and slapped his thigh for Lady Grey. “I dined with you yesterday.”
“But that was in the kitchen!”
“It’s proper for me to eat with you in my kitchen but not in my dining room? Your logic escapes me, Mrs. Halifax.”
“I don’t think—”
Lady Grey passed them and started down the stairs. Alistair gestured for the housekeeper to precede him. “And I expect your children to dine with us as well.”
“Abigail and Jamie?” she asked as if she might have other offspring about the place.
“Yes.”
She was below him on the stairs, but she shot a look over her shoulder that clearly stated that she thought he’d gone mad. And perhaps he had. Children never dined with adults, at least not in his level of society.
His beautiful housekeeper was still protesting when they made the hall outside the dining room, although Alistair was fairly sure she’d given up the idea of dining in the kitchen by then. Her objections were merely stubbornness now.
He nodded to the children when he saw them hovering in the hall. “Shall we go in?”
Jamie readily ran into the dining room, but Abigail frowned and glanced to her mother for guidance.
Mrs. Halifax pursed her lips, looking uncommonly disapproving for such a lovely woman. “We’re to eat with Sir Alistair tonight. But this will be the only time.”
Alistair took her arm firmly, leading her into the dining room. “On the contrary, I expect you and the children to dine with me every night that you stay in Castle Greaves.”
“Huzzah!” yelled the boy. He had already found a place at the table.
“You can’t!” hissed Mrs. Halifax.
“It is my castle, madam. Allow me to remind you that I do here as I please.”
“But the other servants will think… will think…”
He looked down at her. Her harebell-blue eyes were wide and pleading, and perhaps he should’ve taken pity on her.
But he didn’t. “They’ll think what?”
“That I am your mistress.”
Her lips were red and parted, her hair smooth and golden, the skin of her neck and breast so white and pure it might’ve been made from the wings of doves.
The irony was enough to kill him.
His mouth twisted. “Madam, I care not what others think, about me or anyone else. I should’ve thought that was obvious by now. You may either leave my castle this very night, or you may stay and dine with me tonight and every evening henceforth. It’s your choice alone.”
Alistair pulled out her chair with a thump and watched to see if worry for her own reputation would finally drive her away.
She inhaled, her sweet bosom swelling above the square-cut neckline of her dress. She’d left off the fichu tonight, and he damned the loss. Yards of creamy skin seemed to be revealed in the fichu’s absence. He could feel the blood rushing through his veins, pounding to that most earthly part of him.
“I’ll stay.” She lowered herself to the chair he held.
He gently pushed it in for her and bowed over her golden head. “I am filled with joy.”
* * *
BEASTLY, BEASTLY MAN!
Helen glowered from beneath her brows as she watched Sir Alistair round the table and sit at his own place. He didn’t have a worry about society or the consequences of flaunting it, and as a result, he’d put her in an untenable position purely on a whim it seemed! She inhaled and beckoned to Tom, the taller of the two footmen. He’d been standing in the corner gawking at their byplay all this while.
“Fetch dishes and silverware for myself and the children,” she ordered.
Tom hurried out of the room.
“Mrs. McCleod’s made meat pie,” Jamie confided to Sir Alistair.
“Indeed?” Sir Beastly replied to her son as gravely as if he spoke with a bishop.
Helen frowned at the polished table in front of her. Lister had never been interested in anything Jamie or Abigail had ever said.
“Yes, and it smells won-der-ful.” Jamie drew the last word out to emphasize the ambrosia that awaited them.
Despite working all afternoon, Jamie was bouncing with energy. Helen couldn’t help but smile at him, though she worried whether his exhaustion was merely waiting for bedtime. There had been several times on the ride north when Jamie had fallen apart with tiredness at the end of the day. It made putting him to bed rather wearying. Nursemaids, too, were something she’d never take for granted again.
Sir Alistair sat at the head of the rectangular table as was proper. Jamie was to his right, Abigail to his left, and Helen was at the foot, blessedly as far away from the master of the castle as she could be. Jamie’s face barely cleared the table. If they were to do this every night, Helen would have to find something he could sit on to make him higher.
“Mama said we weren’t to eat with you.” Abigail’s blue eyes were shadowed by worry.
“Ah, but this is my castle, and I set the rules within it,” Sir Alistair replied. “And I wish for you and your brother and your lovely mother to dine with me. Is that to your liking?”
Abigail knit her brow in thought before answering. “Yes. I like eating in the dining room. We polished the table and beat the carpet today. You wouldn’t believe the cloud of dust that came out of it. Nellie, the maid, coughed so hard I thought she’d choke.”
“And there was a bird in the chimney!” Jamie said.
Sir Alistair looked toward the fireplace. It was surrounded by old carved stone with a painted wood mantel. “What color was the bird?”
“It was black, but its belly was pale and it was ever so fast,” Jamie replied.
Sir Alistair nodded as Tom returned with more plates and silverware. “Probably a swallow. They nest in chimneys sometimes.”
Meg and Nellie bustled in carrying trays of food. Meg cast quick curious glances as she handled the food while Nellie gaped at Sir Alistair’s scarred face until Helen caught her eye and frowned. Then Nellie ducked her head and went about her work. Besides the meat pie, there were new peas, carrots, fresh bread, and stewed fruit. For a minute, there was silence as the maids retreated.
Sir Alistair looked at the table. The dishes of food steamed, and the glasses sparkled in the candlelight. He raised his glass of wine and nodded at her. “I commend you, madam. You’ve set a feast out of thin air and managed to clean this dining room as well. I would think it impossible if the result were not here before my eyes.”
Helen found herself smiling foolishly. For some reason, his words warmed her far more than the practiced flowery rhetoric she’d once received in London ballrooms.
He watched her over the rim of his glass as he drank, and she didn’t know where to look.
“Why?” Jamie asked.
Sir Alistair’s gaze was diverted to her son, and Helen took a deep breath, wishing she could fan herself.
“Why what?” the castle’s master asked.
“Why do swallows sometimes nest in chimneys?” Jamie asked.
“That’s a silly question,” Abigail stated.
“Ah, but no question is silly to a naturalist,” Sir Alistair said, and for a moment Abigail looked crushed.
Helen opened her mouth to defend her child.
Then Sir Alistair smiled at Abigail. It was only a quirk at the corner of his mouth, but the child relaxed and Helen closed her mouth.
“Why should a swallow nest in a chimney?” Sir Alistair asked. “Why there and not somewhere else?”
“She wants to escape the cat?” Abigail guessed.
“She’s warmed by the fire,” Jamie said.
“But there hadn’t been a fire in that chimney in ages,” Abigail objected.
“Then I don’t know why.” Jamie gave up the question and forked up a piece of meat pie instead.
But Abigail still frowned. “Why should a swallow nest in the chimney? It seems a silly thing to do—and dirty.”
“Your idea that the swallow wants to bring up its young where the cat can’t get them is a good one,” Sir Alistair said. “Perhaps also the swallow nests where no other bird is nesting.”
Abigail stared hard at Sir Alistair. “I don’t understand.”
“Birds—and animals—must eat and drink just like us. They must have space to live and grow. But if another bird, particularly one of its own kind, is nearby, that bird might wish to fight it. The bird guards its own manor.”
“But some birds like to live together,” Abigail said. Her brows were drawn together stubbornly. “Sparrows are always together in a flock, pecking at the ground.”
“Always?” Sir Alistair buttered a piece of bread. “Do they nest together as well?”
Abigail hesitated. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen a sparrow’s nest.”
“Never?” Sir Alistair darted a look at Helen, his brows slightly raised. She shrugged. They’d always lived in London. The birds of the city must nest somewhere, but she didn’t recall seeing them. “Ah. Then I shall have to show you some nests.”
“Coo!” Jamie exclaimed—regrettably with his mouth full.
