Chapter 2 #2
Irritated at the very thought of sharing the same roof with the vexing American, he quit his study, determined to confront her. He was halfway up the staircase before it occurred to him that it wasn’t done for a gentleman to knock at the door of an unwed woman, even if she decidedly wasn’t a lady.
Lion paused. He could ring for Mrs. Burton or perhaps even one of the few maids left belowstairs.
Any one of them might do, and without the danger to Miss Fox’s dubious reputation.
His fingers tightened on the railing. No, he couldn’t rely on any other female in his household.
He had no doubt that Miss Fox would simply browbeat them into accepting her eccentric whims.
It would have to be Lion.
With each footfall that took him closer to the room she’d been given, his annoyance grew.
She had already interrupted his solitude.
She had appeared uninvited. She had brought a dog as a companion.
She had nearly managed to freeze to death in a broken-down carriage. And now, she was disturbing his peace.
Disregarding the tranquility of his household.
He had no doubt Marchingham Hall was a paltry comparison to her father’s magnificent mansion in New York City. However, it was his ancestral home, and she was a guest, albeit an unwanted one. Lion reached her door and raised his fist to rap on it. The very least she could do was to—
The door opened, and the maiden aunt who had also accompanied Miss Adelia Fox, Miss Pearl Fox, gave a start as she nearly collided with him.
“Your Grace!” she squeaked.
He rolled his lips inward and offered a slight bow. “Miss Fox.”
“Forgive me my lack of grace,” the elder Miss Fox said. “I didn’t intend to trample you.”
She was a handsome woman, with a pleasant, soft-cheeked visage, gold spectacles perched on her nose, and kindly blue eyes, her ebony curls shot through with silver. She was dressed elegantly in an austere travel gown, and he very much doubted that she had been the one racing about in the chamber.
His eyes narrowed. “It is I who must beg your pardon, Miss Fox. I heard a disturbance and came to investigate the source.”
“A disturbance?” The elder Miss Fox blinked owlishly. “Oh, that must have been me. Do forgive me.”
“You,” he repeated, disbelief tingeing his voice.
“Yes, it was me. I saw a mouse, you see.”
Something that sounded suspiciously like a bark emerged from deeper within the room.
Lion was a head taller than Miss Fox, and although he’d been trying to avert his gaze in a gentlemanly fashion, he looked up and spied Miss Adelia Fox by the fireplace, wrapped in a blanket, her feet shockingly bare as they were propped up by the fire, her golden hair unbound and cascading down her back…
and was that a mongrel stretched on the carpets?
The elder Miss Fox jostled into him and snapped the door closed at her back.
“I was just off to dress for dinner, Your Grace,” Miss Fox said.
And that was when Lion realized that Miss Adelia Fox was not alone in being a menace. Apparently, all the Misses Fox were lying, shameless bits of baggage. Even the one old enough to be his mother.
“Is the hound within?” he asked tightly.
The elder Miss Fox blinked yet again. “That would have been the mice.”
“Mice do not bark, Miss Fox.”
“Perhaps my niece sneezed,” she suggested brightly. “If you’ll excuse me, Your Grace?”
Without awaiting his response, she hastened down the hall and disappeared into the room she’d been allotted. Lion turned back to the closed door before him, the acute sensation of losing control of his own damned household making his gut clench.
To the devil with propriety. Who was here to witness his ungentlemanly behavior? He had naught but a handful of domestics. Snow had blanketed the world. And Miss Adelia Fox had defied him.
He rapped sharply on her door.
On his door, as it happened.
“Yes?”
Her dulcet voice was distant, as if she were still by the fire.
Unbidden, the image of her rose in his mind.
She had removed her stockings. He’d witnessed the curve of a shapely calf, a slim ankle.
Heat prickled over his skin, awareness seeping through him.
Had her gown been raised any higher, he might have seen her knees.
What was wrong with him? He had no wish to see Miss Adelia Fox’s knees.
Did he?
Lion cleared his throat.
“It’s Marchingham,” he said. “I am desirous of a word with you, madam.”
“Well, I am not desirous of a word with you, my lord,” she called.
He set his teeth on edge. “I am not a lord, Miss Fox. I am a duke.”
“In America, we don’t have such silly customs. You’ll have to forgive me for my confusion. I’m an uncivilized Yankee.”
Fury rose within him. He was being insulted by a bloody door. The maddening woman hadn’t even deigned to open it.
“Is refusing to open a door to the person speaking to you also a product of being an uncivilized Yankee?” he snapped.
Muffled footsteps sounded within, and in the next breath, the portal opened just wide enough to reveal one green eye and the corner of her lush pink lips. “What do you want, Marchingham?”
Lion clenched his jaw so hard that the muscles ached. “I want to know why the mongrel isn’t in the stables.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Proving her a liar, the hound’s face appeared near the floor, or rather a black nose and a wrinkly forehead, accompanied by loud, pronounced sniffing.
He raised a brow. “I’m talking about the dog at your feet.”
“Oh, Dandy is not a dog.”
“Surely you aren’t going to insult my intelligence by suggesting it’s a mouse,” he drawled.
Had the snow ceased yet? He certainly hoped it had. Why couldn’t the vexing chit have decided to invite herself in summer instead? He’d have already had her waiting for the next train out of here by now.
“Of course not,” Miss Fox said brightly. “I would never dream of insulting your intelligence, Your Graceship.”
His gaze narrowed. “The correct form of address is Your Grace, Miss Fox.”
She beamed. “As I said.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No, you—” Lion stopped himself, gritting his teeth. Why was he arguing with this lunatic? “Explain, if you please. If the snuffling thing at your feet isn’t a dog, then what, precisely, is it?”
He could hardly wait for her response.
“She is my darling,” Miss Fox answered. “My baby. I am her mama, you see.”
“You cannot be a mother to a mongrel.”
Miss Fox sighed, shaking her head. “I’m afraid you’re wrong, my lord.”
She was mocking him. Intentionally addressing him incorrectly.
“Also, Dandelion is not a mongrel,” she added. “She hails from exquisite French bulldog bloodlines in Paris.”
As if to concur, the hound barked at him. Then barked again. And again.
She was irritatingly loud for such a small dog.
Lion winced. “I told you to take it to the stables where it belongs.”
“You’ll have to take me to the stables as well,” Miss Fox announced over the incessant barking.
In the next moment, the dog wedged herself through the door and raced off down the hall.
“Dandy!” Miss Fox called after her.
The dog, quite predictably, didn’t listen. Instead, Dandelion rushed down the staircase.
“Oh, bother,” Miss Fox muttered.
He couldn’t deny it. Watching the mongrel’s flagrant refusal to heed Miss Fox pleased him immeasurably.
“It seems your hound obeys as well as you do, madam,” he couldn’t help but gloat.
“I don’t obey, sir.”
With a huff, Miss Fox whisked past him, treating him to another tantalizing glimpse of her bare ankles and toes. Lion watched her rush off after the errant French bulldog and tamped down an unwanted rush of appreciation.
Mayhem.
That was what this was.
The sooner Miss Adelia Fox and her furred nuisance were gone from Marchingham Hall, the better.