Miss Cosy, if that was her real name, would have to be dismissed, of course. His sole purpose in coming to Bath was to make a respectable marriage. There could be no convincing the rude minds of the polite world that the ravishing Miss Cosy was not warming his bed as well as ordering his coal, and the inevitable gossip could only have a dampening effect on his marital aspirations, to say the least.
She would have to go, but how the devil was he supposed to get rid of her? Technically, she was Lord Skeldings’s servant, and his lordship now lived in London.
During this prolonged scrutiny, Cosy had been staring at him with ever-widening eyes. Finally, it was too much. “I’m sorry, sir,” she cried, fighting back a disrespectful giggle. “But your hair tonic is running down your face in black bars. You look like you’re in gaol.”
Humiliated, Benedict allowed her to lead him to the cupboard under the stairs.
When he came out with a clean face and neatly combed black hair, Cosy was pleasantly surprised. He was younger and better looking than she had expected. Naturally, she would have preferred a younger man with a spectacular physique, but he was taller than herself in an age when few men were. ’Tis always easier, she thought forgivingly, to fatten a man up than it is to slim him down. She didn’t mind the scars on his right cheek at all and the cold, penetrating unfriendliness of his light gray eyes actually sent a pleasurable shiver down her spine. Of course! He was a battle-hardened officer. Her pulse quickened as she imagined him, gray-eyed and black-haired, mounted on a white steed, in the midst of an internecine battle, issuing his commands no one would dare disobey with cold, ruthless precision.
She had fetched his valise while he was in the cupboard washing up.
“Is there no manservant to take my bag?” he inquired angrily.
She looked surprised. Evidently, men were supposed to take one look at her and turn into spineless jellies. That most men probably did just that was completely beside the point.
“There’s Jackson,” she answered, “but I gave him leave to attend a funeral this morning, and the result is, he’s no use to anyone tonight. It’s nice and warm in the kitchen, though, if you’ll follow me.”
“No, indeed! Be good enough to light a fire in the drawing-room.” Benedict brushed past her toward the stairs. Startled, Cosy dropped his bag and caught at his arm without thinking, taking hold of his empty right sleeve. Instantly, he pulled away from her, and, instantly, she released his sleeve.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” she stammered, truly horrified. “I meant no offense. There’s not enough coal for a fire in the drawing-room, I’m sorry to say.”
“Nonsense, Miss Cosy,” he said sharply. “I’m a member of Parliament. If there were a shortage of coal, I would have heard of it.”
It occurred to her that his severity might be masking a dry sense of humor. “I didn’t think to report it to the government, sir,” she said. “I didn’t think Lord Liverpool would be interested in the state of my coal scuttle,” she added, naming the prime minister.
Miss Cosy would have few options when she lost her position here, he was thinking. She belonged to the class meant to scurry about in the background, silent and invisible. She could never be invisible, not with that outlandishly lovely face. No sensible lady would hire her, and, if a gentleman lost his head and did so, the result would be only misery and disgrace, for what man could resist the constant temptation of sharing a house with such a beauty?
It would be wrong to dismiss her simply because she was young and beautiful.
And yet, she could not remain under his roof because she was young and beautiful.
Only one reasonable solution to this ethical dilemma presented itself. He could, of course, move her to a furnished apartment in London in the usual way, thereby averting any hint of scandal here in Bath. A charming mistress could only be an asset to him in his political career. In fact, if he meant to get on in politics, a charming mistress would be quite as necessary to him as a dull, respectable wife.
“You mean you failed to order enough coal,” he said aloud.
“I suppose I did bungle it,” she said. “I’m used to the turf we have at home, you see.”
“Home?” he repeated absently. “Oh, yes, of course; you’re Irish.”
“Don’t worry, sir,” she told him impishly. “I haven’t come to blow up Parliament.”
“I am glad to hear it,” he replied without a trace of humor.
Cosy gave him up as a lost cause. On the battlefield, he might well be a hero, but as a ladies’ man, he was a pure failure. “Will you come down to the kitchen, sir? It’s where the cat sleeps,” she added persuasively. “So you know it’s nice and warm.”
She started down the hall with his bag in one hand, the candlestick in the other.
As he followed her, Benedict could not help observing that her undergarments were of very fine silk, in marked contrast to the cheap baize of her skirt and jacket. He was able to make this observation because the back of her skirt had been tucked into its waistband. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, he chose to believe this had happened accidentally, no doubt while she was jumping into her clothes. Rather than call the faux pas to her attention, which would have embarrassed them both, he reached out and corrected the problem with a sharp, decisive tug.
Cosy whirled around. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
Benedict showed her only boredom and a slight, puzzled frown. “I beg your pardon?”
His unruffled calm succeeded in confusing her. “I thought—I thought I felt something brushing against me,” she said uncertainly.
“Oh? I daresay it was a draft.”
Evidently judging it best to keep an eye on him, she backed through the swinging door that led into the servants’ part of the house. After a short flight of stairs leading down, Benedict found himself, for the first time in his life, standing in a kitchen.
Chapter 2
Unlike the cold, dark hall upstairs, the kitchen was warm and inviting. Cosy dropped his bag next to the huge brick chimneypiece, placed the branch of candles on the big work table, and invited him to sit down. Though shabby and threadbare, the two chairs beside the fire were upholstered in brocade and must have graced a drawing-room at some point in their careers. As promised, a tortoiseshell cat was curled up in one of them. Benedict took the other.
Miss Cosy’s easy manners seemed better suited to the kitchen. He felt that he was now in her domain and that she, and not he, was in charge. Briskly, she stirred up the small banked fire with the poker, adding a few broken bits of wood to it. Then she stood on tiptoe to retrieve the whiskey bottle from its niche in the chimneypiece. She poured a generous measure into a glass.
“Get this in you quick as you can,” she said, holding it out to him.
He raised a brow. “You keep the brandy in the chimney, do you?”
Her eyes twinkled at him. They were green as the sea. He was less sure about the color of her hair. In this light, it looked more yellow than orange. “There’s no brandy in this chimney,” she told him. “It’s whiskey. And it’s doing you no good this side of your tonsils.”
Leaving him to it, she took the kettle into the scullery to fill it from the pump. “He’ll spoil the milk if he stays,” Nora warned her, taking the kettle from her.
Cosy was not surprised to find Nora hiding or, rather, spying, in the scullery.
“That is an ignorant superstition, Nora Murphy,” she said angrily. “Anyway, he can’t help being left-handed, poor man. He’s an amputee.”
“I had the notion he was foreign the moment I clapped eyes on him,” Nora