The Marquess Who Loved Me - By Sara Ramsey Page 0,73
suited for service. Any one of them could join the enemy for the right price.”
“Just because the staff happens to be younger than usual doesn’t mean they are disloyal,” Ellie protested. “This is a very good job, better than most of them could get outside the theatres — I doubt they would risk it. If anything, they have been more discreet than any of us could expect. Surely some of them have heard about the body in the shed, but if they have, they’ve kept it to themselves.”
“How can you know that? Someone must have let it slip, or the shed wouldn’t have been set on fire.”
Ellie frowned. “It’s possible, of course. Servants know everything we do, no matter how discreet we are — it’s the price of having them. But they don’t survive in my employ if I catch them passing secrets about me. And if any of them have said anything to our visitors’ servants, you can be sure the subject of the highwayman would have been raised by now. Do you really suppose that my brother would have let it go unremarked if one of his servants had heard of it?”
“True. But how many servants are on the estate?”
Ellie looked at Marcus, who shrugged. “Folkestone usually has a butler, a housekeeper, an estate manager, Mrs. Grafton, my valet, the chef, his two assistants, six footmen, four upstairs maids, a laundress, and three downstairs maids. But with the party, there are double those numbers of footmen and maids, plus the guests’ maids and valets. And their grooms and coachmen — and our grooms and gardeners.”
“Don’t forget the usual scullery maids, in addition to the extra help in the kitchens that we hired in from the village,” Ellie said.
Nick had mentally counted as they spoke. The estimate stunned him. “If every guest has a servant, there are well over a hundred servants on the grounds. Can you really tell me that I can trust all of them with my life? Or, more importantly, your lives?”
Ellie nodded firmly. “My servants aren’t prone to violence. If they were, I would have used them to throw you out of my ball that first night.”
Nick laughed. “I shall hire some ugly brutes for you so that you may accomplish such tasks in the future.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Thank you, but no. Still, you do have a point about the visitors. I shall see if Lucia has learned anything about them.”
It shocked him, how adept Ellie was at considering these issues. His need for her raged ever hotter because of it. If she were nineteen, he would have shielded her from all of this. But Ellie no longer needed to be shielded. Protected, yes — he would certainly overrule her on the issue of her ornamental footmen. Shielded, though…
She caught him staring at her. She met his gaze without hesitation. His need to keep her safe stunned him. Imagining a world without her face, her voice, her paintings — it was impossible to imagine. Even if he gave in to what was prudent, let her go, and never saw her again, he would need to know that she lived and was safe.
The irony of wanting her safe when he was also bent on torturing her wasn’t lost on him. But the question of what to do with her was one for when they were alone, not in the breakfast room. And certainly not with Marcus watching them as though he was appalled by what they were doing to each other. Nick cleared his throat.
“I will stay at least for a few days — until we have any evidence that proves whether the threat is based here or in London.”
Ellie looked relieved. And then she looked aggrieved, as though remembering that keeping him safe at Folkestone also meant keeping him in her bed. “Do try not to be killed here. It will harm my reputation as a hostess.”
“I appreciate your concern, Lady Folkestone,” he said drily. “But I may harm it anyway. I intend to continue befriending your guests. If they are all like Sir Percival, I may save our assailant the trouble and burn the house myself.”
Ellie protested even as she laughed. “Percy isn’t that bad.”
“His poems are awful,” Marcus interjected.
“Yes, but he knows it, and he does it anyway because he likes it. If more people were like that, London would be a far better place. Even hardened industrialists like you may benefit from a few days of idle talk.”