trouble, Haslemere? Has that sour look on your face made the cream go off?”
Haslemere ignored this. “You’ve no business dismissing your housemaids, no matter what it is you think they’ve done.”
Gideon stopped on his way to his chair, nettled. “For God’s sake, Haslemere. I dismissed my housemaid less than eight hours ago. I fail to see how you’re even aware of it, unless you’ve been wandering about the castle pressing your ear to every door.”
Haslemere scowled, but he didn’t deign to dignify this with a reply. “Your betrothed and her mother will be here in a matter of days, and your castle wants polishing. Look at it!” He waved a hand in the air, as if the breakfast parlor was no better than a cell at Newgate.
“It’s not as bad as all that.” Even as the protest left his mouth, however, Gideon caught sight of a thick cobweb clinging to one of the heavy beams in the ceiling.
“Bad enough. If you think I’m going to sweep floors and scrub silver, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“Pity. You’d look so fetching in a white cap and apron.” Gideon dropped into his chair and took up his teacup.
“Is that why you dismissed Cecilia? Because she’s so fetching?” Haslemere arched a brow. “You did say she was too pretty to be a housemaid. Perhaps she’s proved too much of a temptation?”
A temptation.
Warm skin under a thin linen night rail, soft curves pressed against him, her long, thick hair brushing his forearm, and that mouth, so sweet and pink, arguing with him, questioning him, challenges falling from the edge of that clever tongue…Gideon slid a finger under his cravat, which seemed to have gone uncomfortably tight around his throat.
There was no denying he was attracted to Cecilia, but that wasn’t why he’d dismissed her. He never should have let her remain at Darlington Castle after that first day. He’d suspected her of being a liar even then, and now he’d caught her sneaking about the one room in the entire castle he’d warned her away from.
A cat, she’d said. A cat had lured her into Cassandra’s bedchamber.
A cat, of all absurd things.
He’d been utterly justified in sending her away. “Not to worry, Haslemere. I’ll find another housemaid to sweep and scrub for me.”
Haslemere snorted. “Forgive me, Darlington, but you aren’t precisely spoiled with choice.”
Gideon paused with his teacup halfway to his lips, assessing Haslemere with narrowed eyes. Had Cecilia put him up to this? Because she’d said the same thing to him last night, when she was arguing to keep her place.
How had she put it, again?
Oh, yes. Gideon’s brows pulled down into a scowl.
The challenges of the position.
She hadn’t listed them, but on this matter, she could afford to be subtle.
Every villager in Edenbridge, and a good portion of the London ton, imagined he’d murdered his wife and secreted her bones inside the walls of Darlington Castle. A White Lady was said to haunt his grounds, seeking revenge on him for his sinful deeds, and then there was the new moniker he’d been graced with. That alone had likely put off more than one prospective housemaid.
No one wanted to work for the Murderous Marquess.
Gideon fixed a steady gaze on Haslemere, but the hand resting on his knee had clenched into a fist. “It’s nothing less than I expected. Have you forgotten, Haslemere? I’m Edenbridge’s own wickeder version of Bluebeard.”
Haslemere gave him a pained look, and Gideon’s conscience pricked at him. It wasn’t fair of him to torment poor Haslemere, but Gideon didn’t see any point in mincing words. He’d once been regarded as a gentleman of character, and then in the blink of an eye, he’d become a murderer. What was the sense in pretending otherwise?
“The moniker certainly doesn’t help,” Haslemere allowed, retrieving his teacup with a resigned sigh. “It took you months to find Cecilia. It will take months more to find her replacement, if you can find one at all, particularly one as qualified as she is.”
Gideon frowned. “Yes, about that, Haslemere. Does it strike you as odd Cecilia came to Darlington Castle in the first place? Why should a young woman with such a glowing reference from Lady Dunton wish to work here, given the rumors about me?”
And that was to say nothing about the rumors of a vengeful ghost.
That was the crux of the problem, right there. He didn’t trust Cecilia—her reference from Lady Dunton was suspect, as was her sudden appearance at Darlington Castle. Every instinct warned Gideon she was