Captain Durant's Countess - By Maggie Robinson Page 0,31

of the storage rooms contain the usual sort of thing—old toys, ball gowns, and bad pictures. The other end of the attics are the servants’ quarters.”

“They won’t be taking turns with their ears pressed against a wall?”

Maris flushed. “We shall have complete privacy. You know how long Kelby Hall is. There’s plenty of space between the inhabited portion of the attic and the workroom. It’s just through that doorway.”

The captain let out a low whistle when he saw the arrangements she’d made. “Very nice. You’ve thought of everything.”

Rectangles of bright sunlight slanted through the room’s newly scrubbed west-facing windows. “I tried. I will be doing all the real work up here, after all.” She thought of the pillows and blankets stacked neatly on the chaise behind the screen, praying he wouldn’t go looking into that corner quite yet.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure my brawn will be good for hauling crates and jimmying them open. I’ll leave writing down all the historical details to you. I wouldn’t know a Roman frieze from a Greek one. Shall I start a fire?”

There was a plain brick fireplace along the south wall. One of the servants had already laid it. A basket of wood, as well as several hods of coal were nearby.

“I haven’t a tinder box with me.”

“I do. In my room. Make yourself comfortable while I go get it.”

Maris shivered despite standing in a patch of sunlight by the window. She felt she’d never be warm again.

Perhaps she wouldn’t have to disrobe entirely, just hike up her skirt as she had with David. Their few encounters had been hurried and somewhat brutal. The whole thing had been sordid, which only seemed to make him enjoy it more. She had been scared to death of discovery and had never achieved with him what Henry had been able to do with his hand in the early years of their marriage.

She and Jane had been used for David’s own sense of consequence. He had toyed with them—the sheltered wife and daughter of the man who held so tight to his purse strings. Henry was not as generous with David as he was with his tenants and servants, and rightfully so. David had run through his own inheritance in the blink of an eye.

While he could be charm itself, Maris had come to know his ruthlessness. But Jane’s suicide seemed to have sobered him a little, and he’d ceased bedeviling Maris with constant threats to reveal their affair. Over the years, she had given him most of her pin money for his silence. Unlike David, she had more than she could spend.

Were men born evil or did they learn it? Could one do evil and still be good? Maris felt the beginning of a headache but turned from the window at Captain Durant’s footfall. She watched as he shucked his jacket and knelt before the hearth, rearranging the carefully laid fire.

So, he liked to put his mark on things. Most men did. It was why Henry could collect artifacts thousands of years after their makers were long in their graves.

The captain poked and prodded until a merry little flame sprang to life. “There. That should take the chill off once it gets going.” He bounced back up and rolled up his sleeves. “Let’s get at some of these boxes. Lay on, Macduff.” He grabbed the crowbar from the table.

“Most people say ‘lead on,’ ” Maris said with surprise. “It’s one of the most misquoted phrases from Shakespeare.”

“Good to know something sank in after all the canings.”

Maris knew corporal punishment was common. “I take it you didn’t like school much.”

“School didn’t like me either. I was thrown out six times, if I can count correctly.”

“You were expelled from your school six times?” That must be some sort of record. Maris pictured Captain Durant as a mischievous boy, not all that different from the present.

“Only once at each institution, but there were six of them. The army kept me, however.”

Goodness. He must have been a handful. “I see. I don’t think we need open anything up today, so you can leave the crowbar. I’ll just point out the boxes. As I said, they’re labeled, but you may want to add some sort of notation of your own.” She handed him a stick of charcoal from a box on the table.

“Hold still.” He pulled a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and Maris gaped as he wiped the black dust from her fingers . . . taking a little