Chapter Seven
F elix did not wake with the morning sun because he had never gone to sleep.
Never having searched out a bed chamber, he’d paced the entire house, marching through memories he’d never thought to relive.
Each hallway held a voice, a ghost of the past he’d put to bed decades ago.
He itched to tear down the drive, escape.
But that meant abandoning Caro.
So, as morning light began to dry the grass and petals outside, he found paper and writing materials in the parlor where they’d eaten the night before.
One letter off to London and another to his grandfather.
He folded the letters and slipped them into his jacket pocket.
A trip to the village would see them sent.
“Oi! Just who the ’ell do you think you are, mister?” A slim woman stood in the door frame, a tall, large man standing behind her, and behind him another woman, tiny and pale. “Get out of here, you!” The maid Polly, likely.
Felix raised a brow. “I’ll stay right here.”
“You have no right to be here. This property belongs to—”
“Viscount Foxton.” Felix inspected his gloves, pretending boredom.
“I was gonna say Viscoun tess Foxton, but…” The woman’s voice wavered, and her determined march to his side slowed. “Yes, I suppose you’ve the right of it. You know the man?”
Felix met her gaze. “I am the man.”
The woman’s jaw dropped. “Yer not.”
“I am.”
“No, yer not.”
He swallowed a sigh. “I assure you, madam. I am Viscount Foxton. Now who are you?”
“Unimpressed with liars and scoundrels.” She looked over her shoulder. “Mr. Smith, think you can escort this pretender from the premises?”
Mr. Smith cracked his neck one way then the other. “I can.”
“Who are you?” Felix demanded.
“Hired to board the broken windows,” Mr. Smith rumbled.
“And you?” Felix peered around him to the second woman.
“His wife,” she whispered, hands fists in already-wrinkled skirts.
She seemed a skittish little thing, her gaze never quite reaching his.
She might have been pretty, but any beauty she possessed was overcast by misery.
Blonde hair and blue eyes, lips that looked like they’d been gnawed to pieces.
She bit the bottom one even now. Hiding behind her husband’s bulk like he were her protector.
Or her prison guard. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Smith.” Felix tried a little smile, something to put the young woman—barely a woman, really—at ease.
“You talk to me,” Mr. Smith snarled, knocking his wife back with a jab of his elbow backward. “Not her.”
She whimpered, and Felix’s hands became fists, soon to make a much closer acquaintance with the window man’s nose. Not a goddamn single man on earth should treat a woman like that.
But Polly put herself between them, forcing Felix to rock back, to drop his anger and refocus.
“And you,” Polly said with a stomp of her foot, “are soon to be gone, Mr. Viscount .”
“Why are you so sure I’m not your mistress’s husband?” Felix asked, standing his ground even though the bigger man loomed.
“Because the real viscount don’t care to come here. Known fact. If you had plans to sneak about this place and do some harm to my mistress, you should have figured the man out better than you have.”
“That known fact must change, because here I am. Go find my wife to learn the truth.”
Mr. Smith lumbered toward Felix, cracking his knuckles.
Hell. If he wanted a fight, Felix would give it to him.
Felix was as tall as the other fellow but not nearly as big.
His best chance without a weapon to even out the odds to dart around him.
Or dart for the fire poker nearby. A challenge.
With the threat of injury. Felix grinned, cracked his own knuckles.
Nothing better. He’d show that horse’s arse what happened to men who mistreated women.
“What is happening in here?” Caro asked, her voice much too calm for the chaos Felix planned to unleash.
“My lady!” Polly ran to her. “This odd man was here when I arrived. Claims he’s your husband.”
“I am!” Felix roared at the same time Caro said, “He is.”
“No.” Polly’s head swung between Felix and Caro. Caro nodded. “Noooo.” That last tiny wail quieter than before.
“Yes.” Caro inched around the frowning giant still snarling for a fight and hooked her arm around Felix’s. “This is Lord Foxton.”
Pale of face and trembling, Polly curtsied as if the quickness of the gesture would save her. “Apologies, my lord. Apologies.”
Mr. Smith smashed one fist into the other palm.
“Stand down, man,” Felix said. “Or you’ll get the fight you’re clearly aching for.”
Mrs. Smith whimpered again, pressing herself against the wall.
Damn. No matter how badly Felix wanted to lay Mr. Smith flat, he didn’t want to scare the women or put Mrs. Smith at risk when she had to tend a belligerent husband.
He shook his fists out and took a few steadying breaths, tried to see the full picture calmly, logically.
The facts were damning. Two women were living alone in a big house, a half mile walk from the nearest village…
and this walking bad tempered brute of a man.
Felix met Mr. Smith’s beady gaze. “We do not need your services any longer. Thank you.”
“Please do not listen to his lordship, Mr. Smith,” Caroline said. “You will remain here this afternoon to do the work Polly has brought you for.”
Mr. Smith didn’t even look at Caroline. Only steadily regarded Felix. Caroline’s lips thinned, and her eyes narrowed. Oh, she did not like being ignored, did she? Though she clearly had not yet witnessed this man’s treatment of his wife. Otherwise, she’d send him packing.
Felix spoke before her irritation could boil over. “I will board up the windows, Mr. Smith, and see glaziers hired after that.”
“I was promised payment,” Mr. Smith said. Again, he ignored Caroline.
“Very well,” Felix said. “I’ll pay you to leave instead of to stay.”
“I wish I could pay you to leave,” Caroline mumbled.
Felix ignored that as he gathered his coin purse from his valise, still by the door where he’d dropped it earlier, and counted out a good amount in the other man’s palm.
Mr. Smith pocketed them without thanks and shuttled his wife out the door. She looked back at them only once, her face pale, her eyes dull and… dead.
Hell.
Felix pulled Caro aside. “You need to return to London.”
“Still on about that, then?” She rubbed a hand down his arm, then back up again, squeezed his shoulder, fingers lingering there, and Christ, he enjoyed her touch. “Not going to happen. Did you sleep well last night?”
“Perfectly. Thank you.”
The smallest frown, almost imperceptible crept between her brows. She’d wanted him to have the night he’d actually had—miserable. Bloodthirsty wench .
He pulled from her grasp. “Time to see to the windows.”
The house had been crawling with men, the two women unprotected. And he’d had no bloody idea. He clipped through the hallways, poking his head into every room, tallying the missing panes of glass in his head.
His older brothers’ rooms were at the end of the hall.
Matthew and Bart used to yell at one another until their father yelled back.
Much louder. Always inspired quiet. Or his mother would pop her head out of her drawing room with a heavy and too-loud sigh, hoping out loud that her sons had managed to gain more decorum with their sixteen and fourteen years than yelling across hallways suggested.
Felix swallowed a lump in his throat, his steps slowing. As quickly as the memories flicked these images to life, the dusty reality of Hawthorne scattered them. Easy to forget so many things. When you did not have to face them. He cleared his throat and pushed into another chamber.
The women scuttled behind him.
“You said he wouldn’t come,” the maid whispered.
“I did not think he would.”
They were awfully keen to keep him away.
“You could have told me,” the maid muttered after a moment of silence.
Felix had already counted five missing windowpanes. “Why didn’t you fix these at the same time as the roof?”
“I have a plan,” Caro ground out. “A budget.”
“You have money.” Her own and his if she wished it.
“Yes, but I lack a certain organ between my legs that makes men take a person seriously.”
He tripped, righted himself, turned slowly. “Pardon?” Though he’d heard what she’d said.
“The roofers, the glaziers, every cursed tradesman I speak to refuses to respect me! They speak to me like I’m a child, and look at me as if I’m simple. You try accomplishing a half of what I’ve done under such circumstances.”
Men could be nodcocks, including himself. He pulled at his cravat. “You should have told me. Asked me to help.”
Caro snorted. “They should treat me like I am in possession of a brain.” She wagged her finger at him. “Do not call me ‘stubborn.’”
“I thought that a virtue, and thus a compliment, in your eyes.” He turned and continued down the hall.
Caro likely simmered behind him, but she didn’t respond.
Instead, the maid whispered, “You should have told me he was a prime one.”
Caro groaned.
Miss Polly chuckled. “Arse looks good walking.”
“I can hear you,” Felix snapped. Was Caro looking? He flicked his hand above his head, a dismissal. “And no need for the two of you to follow me about. I’ll be done in a quarter hour at most, then I’ll head to the village to procure laborers and supplies.”
Silence. Not a footstep or yes, my lord , to be heard.
Felix glanced back at them to find Polly’s gaze skittering between her mistress and him.
“You may go,” Felix said.
“Apologies,” Polly mouthed to her mistress before sketching a curtsy and running off.
Caro reaching for her, grabbing nothing but air. “Traitor!” Then she rounded on him. “What are you doing?”
He opened his mouth.
“You do not care about this house. You do not care about me .”
“Correct.” He did not care about her. Did not want to care about her. “But while I’m more than happy to neglect a house, I cannot bring myself to neglect my wife.” Duty, honor, friendship.