But was it so very wicked to want this strange holiday from reality to continue for ever?
When she padded into her maid’s room in bare feet, wrapped in the gorgeous Oriental dressing gown, she discovered that Pru was already up. Up, dressed and in full flow, arguing with Bates in his bedchamber by the sound of it.
‘His lordship’s downstairs cooking breakfast, which is where I should be if I didn’t have my lady to get dressed, so why you can’t have the sense you were born with and let me fetch you your hot water I don’t know.’
A low grumble was all Decima could hear of Bates’s views on the matter. ‘I’m not offering to wash you, you stubborn man.’ Decima stepped back as the door swung open and Pru marched out. ‘Honestly, Miss Dessy—men.’ She looked her up and down sharply. ‘I’ll go and get your water then. The snow’s almost gone, you know.’
Decima went back into her room and looked out of the window and the slush that yesterday had been the white yard. She could just see the remnants of their snowman, hat drooping, body already half-eaten away by the rain: nothing lasted, it seemed.
Adam flipped the bacon over, wondering how long it would be before they could get fresh supplies of food. Not much longer, if this rain continued. And then Decima would be gone. After a restless night spent tossing and turning, in between dreams that were either guilt-racked or wildly erotic, he almost welcomed the thought of their separation.
They both needed time, distance and a remedial dose of ordinary life. Perhaps then he could work out what he truly felt for her. He filled the kettle and put it on the hob, caught himself doing it without a second thought, and smiled at how rapidly the basic routines of kitchen life had become second nature.
Decima. He desired her. Oh, how he desired her. But she was a gentlewoman—he could not make her his mistress. What did that leave? A chaste friendship? He grimaced. Marriage?
The bacon was burning. He pulled the pan off the heat and stood there looking at it. He didn’t need to get married, not with his fifteen-year-old cousin Peregrine all a man could hope for in an heir, and more. He had his freedom now; that would be lost with marriage. The thought of losing that freedom, of finding himself leg-shackled to just one woman for the rest of his life had always seemed intolerable.
On the other hand, he had spent several days cooped up in a snowbound house with just one particular female companion and there had not been a boring moment. Long hours of aching physical frustration, yes, but no boredom.
He was contemplating exactly what that might mean when the back door banged open and his missing domestic staff bundled in, dripping wet and laden with parcels.
‘My lord!’ Mrs Chitty stopped dead in her tracks and stared at him. ‘What in the world are you doing in my kitchen?’
‘Cooking breakfast,’ Adam admitted, feeling as though he had been caught stealing cake from the pantry.
‘Never tell me your guests have arrived!’ The housekeeper took in the four plates on the table. ‘The only thing that kept my mind at rest these past few days was the thought that none of you would be able to get here.’ She cast off her vast bonnet and cloak and shook out her apron with a snap. ‘Who has been wearing this, might I ask, my lord?’
‘I have, and Miss Ross.’ That did it.
‘Miss Ross?’
‘Yes, Mrs Chitty. I need to have a word with you about that.’
‘Indeed, my lord? Emily Jane, get outside and fetch the rest of the provisions and look sharp, girl.’ The silent kitchen maid scuttled back out into the rain.
‘Mrs Chitty, I almost did not manage to get here through the snow. On the way Bates and I helped a lady and her maid who were trapped in their carriage and brought them here. No one else has reached us.’
‘Well, at least she had her maid,’ the housekeeper observed, burrowing in her basket and producing a loaf. ‘And Bates—not that he’d be much use for keeping propriety.’
There was no point in trying to put a fine gloss on the situation. ‘Miss Ross’s maid has been bedridden with a fever the whole time and Bates broke his leg the night we arrived here.’
‘Ah.’ Mrs Chitty regarded him with a trace of amusement tweaking at the corner of her mouth. ‘I’d say you were in a bit of a pickle, my lord, especially as I’ve no doubt your houseguests will be here shortly. The roads are mostly passable now, that we could see.’
Oh, hell. Adam realised he had not thought about that. The arrival of four eminently respectable members of London society, two of whom he did not know well enough to confide in, was quite sufficient to ensure Decima was ruined.
Even as he thought it, Emily Jane hurried in, hung about with more shopping. ‘There’s two carriages coming up the drive, my lord.’
‘Then it’s a good thing I’ve been here all the time and only Emily Jane and William went into town, isn’t it, my lord?’ Mrs Chitty finished tying her apron strings round her plump middle and took the frying pan firmly from Adam’s hand.
‘Emily Jane, take off those wet things and go and open the front door. And no gossiping, mind.’ She turned back to Adam. ‘You’d better hurry and put your coat and neckcloth on, my lord, and warn the young lady what’s happening. And don’t you worry about Emily Jane and William, they won’t be saying anything out of turn, I’ll see to that.’
‘Mrs Chitty, you are a paragon. Whatever I pay you, you are going to get a raise.’ He bent and planted a kiss on her red cheek. ‘And what makes you think it’s a young lady?’
The housekeeper merely looked at him; a long, slow stare that produced the first blush Adam was conscious of in over ten years. With a rueful grin he strode out of the room and up the stairs, just in time as the knocker thudded on the front door.
Decima sat at the dressing table, guiltily enjoying having her hair properly dressed for the first time since she had left Charlton’s house. She had protested, but Pru refused to sit down and rest, so she gave in and allowed herself to be fussed over.
The knock at the door startled them both. ‘Decima? Are you decent?’ Adam slipped inside before Decima had a chance to check whether she was or not.
‘My lord!’ Pru managed to sound like the most outraged chaperon, only to bridle indignantly as she was completely ignored.
‘Mrs Chitty, the kitchen maid and the footman are back—and my guests are at the front door now. Pru, are you well enough to come downstairs? Good. Mrs Chitty has, of course, been here the entire time. We have not been cooking, we have not been looking after ourselves and, Pru, you have not left Miss Ross’s side.
‘Mrs Chitty is cooking breakfast, and whatever the others need—I don’t know where they’ve come from this morning. I will go and warn Bates. Perhaps you and Pru can come down in about twenty minutes.’
He vanished before they had the chance to reply. ‘Well, Pru…’ Decima took a deep breath and regarded her reflection carefully. Her mouth felt dry and her stomach contracted painfully. Strangers—that was enough under normal circumstances to send her into an agony of self-conscious shyness. But these strangers could ruin her. ‘Fetch my jewellery case, please, Pru, I can see that this is an occasion for the utmost respectability. Can you act like a dresser? I want you to pretend to be the sort of upper servant who could chaperon me.’
‘What, like Lady Ambridge’s dresser?’ Pru’s eyes widened at the recollection of the stately dame in the employ of one of Decima’s cousins. ‘All starched up and top lofty?’ Her eyes sparkled. ‘I can do that, I reckon. Ooh, yes.’
When Decima descended the staircase she was followed by a haughty little person who looked down her nose at the footman and completely ignored the nervous