Chapter Seven
Felix did notwake 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 ViscountessFoxton, 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. “Iamthe 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.
