realized. It had taken the touch of her warm and ardent spirit. Such a small shift would put his arms around her; a mere bend of his head would set his lips on hers.
Shocked, he stepped back. This young woman was living under his roof and his protection, in company with his sisters. “I’m doing all I can for my own people in Derbyshire.” It came out rather stiffly.
“That’s what these letters are about?”
“Yes.” He didn’t mean to be dismissive, but her nearness was deeply unsettling.
“There are so many. Do you need help? Perhaps I could…”
“I believe I have matters well in hand,” Alec lied.
Charlotte drew back at the undeniable snub. “I mustn’t keep you from your work then.”
“Thank you.”
She turned and strode out with a rustle of skirts. Alec sank into his desk chair and grappled with his entirely inappropriate impulses. Charlotte Wylde was alone—without family or any other protector—and under his authority as executor. She was extraordinarily appealing. She was recently bereaved, though how she could be mourning his reprehensible uncle he could not… She sometimes seemed even younger than her age—nineteen, he had discovered in his uncle’s papers… Of course, she was not a total innocent. She was a widow not a deb… one of his most agreeable liaisons had been with a widow. An utterly different case!
They were barely acquainted. She had entered so readily into his concerns… the quick sympathy in her eyes… for the workers, not for him. She was his aunt, for God’s sake! He snorted. This was maddening and pointless. The best thing would be to banish all thought of her from his mind. Alec returned to the letters awaiting his attention, and struggled for some time to follow his own excellent advice.
***
Ethan watched the houseguest storm up the stairs and wondered what had happened in the study to make her angry. Not likely to be Sir Alexander; he was never impolite. Must have been the visitor. There was a strange little man—refused to give his name, glared at Ethan like he was a thief when he tried to take his coat. They’d never had a caller like him before.
Ethan was suddenly reminded of Harry Saunders. Everybody back home knew Harry was a poacher, though nobody could prove it. He had the same half-furtive, half-sly, and insolent air about him as the man just gone. Harry was a sneak, always popping up where least expected and slipping a few rabbits or even a deer out from under the noses of the gamekeepers. He enjoyed it, too; wouldn’t trade the poaching for honest work despite some run-ins with the magistrates. The visitor was like that, only on the other side seemingly. Somebody—Mrs. Wright, maybe?—had said he hunted down criminals for pay.
Ethan tried to imagine tracking quarry through the wilds of London instead of the forest. You’d have to know where to search, where to lie in wait, but he couldn’t picture such places. He didn’t even want to—surely they’d be dark, filthy, and treacherous. He couldn’t shake the conviction that city dwellers were meaner and more crooked than country people. Look at some of the footmen he’d met from other households; all they seemed to think of was how to extract larger tips for tasks they were supposed to do anyway, and then wasting their money on drink and tailors and other useless trash.
Ethan wondered if her mistress’s bad mood would help him out with Lucy. He hadn’t made much progress there. She still avoided him, though he’d been as charming as he knew how to be. Now and then, he fancied he caught a gleam in her eye that said she wasn’t immune. But as long as she kept away from him, nothing could follow from that. And it was becoming more and more important to him that something did follow. Maybe he’d just go and tell her that her “Miss Charlotte” was upset. She’d want to know. It was part of the job to keep track of the moods of the gentry. Sometimes—mealtimes, for instance—you even had to listen at doors to get a jump on their requests.
Before he could go looking for Lucy, though, Miss Cole came down the stairs, a small envelope in her hand. “Ethan, would you take this note to Lady Earnton’s house?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Right away.” He wondered why she hadn’t rung for him to fetch the note. But Miss Cole had been flighty and unlike herself for quite a time now.
Nodding her thanks, she