Free Lady Silence by Blair Bancroft

peered at Katy’s fine
bosom, even after she had taken to wearing those flimsy things the
ladies called a fichu. After all, a man would have to be dead not
to—
    “ Anyone else?” Damon asked, not
bothering to hide either his annoyance or his sarcasm.
    Mr. Palmer nodded. “Jesse, the second
footman. I swear that boy can keep his face straight front while
his eyes roam three hundred degrees. Doctor ought to study him , he should! Swivel eyes, that’s
what he’s got. And focused on Katy Snow every chance he
gets.”
    Only long years of strict discipline
kept Colonel Farr’s temper in place. The girl was a
veritable houri with a swarm
of swains panting at her skirts. Disgusting!
    That he should be one of them, even more
so.
    He opened his mouth to express his
satisfaction that the girl would not go wanting for a husband. What
came out was something else entirely. “I find her useful,” he told
Elijah Palmer, “so do not expect that I will give her up any time
soon.” Colonel Farr picked up the stack of estate records, handed
them to his steward, effectively ending their interview.
    Damon looked up to find Katy Snow standing
five feet from his mahogany desk, looking vastly pleased with
herself and flashing a smile at Palmer as if he were her dearest
friend.
    Blasted female. He’d choke before he
apologized to the little minx for discussing her with his steward,
let alone for his attempt on her person.
    Hell and damnation, he’d just been caught
telling his steward he found her useful. He might as well have
groveled at her feet. The chit was a menace. She’d bamboozled the
men around her as handily as she had his mother. Damon just wanted
to get his hands on her—although whether to wring her neck or kiss
her senseless, he wasn’t quite certain.
    “ Bring me the Chapman,” he snapped,
without so much as a good
morning . “We might as well begin where we left
off.” He could not have said that! “I beg your pardon,” Damon gasped. And promptly proved that
Elijah Palmer was not the only grown man who could
blush.
    He expected her to dash from the room,
as she had the day before. Instead, Katy was holding both hands
over her mouth, shoulders shaking. She was laughing ?
    She was.
    In that case, perhaps they should begin where they left off.
The colonel’s spirits soared.
    But Katy, ever elusive, straightened
her face and marched across the room to the table on which Mapes
had placed the books he had found at the foot of the ladder. But,
as she stacked the Chapman translation in front of him, Damon could
swear her lips were twitching. Which meant their odd relationship
had not been shattered beyond repair. No matter she was the object
of the affections of at least three men with seemingly honorable
intentions, droit de seigneur was looking more appealing by the moment.
     
    “ Colonel Farr?” Mapes cleared his
throat, tried again when his employer did not look up from the
Chapman, which Damon found genuinely fascinating, for all its
seventeenth century language. “Colonel, sir? Mr. Rowley, the
doctor, is here.”
    “ Is someone ill?” The words were so
quiet and blandly spoken that only Katy Snow, tucked up in a
wingchair in a far corner of the room, caught the menace in
them.
    “ No, indeed, colonel. Mr. Rowley—Mr.
William Rowley—is a frequent visitor. He is making what he calls a
study of our Katy. He plans to tell her story in some fancy
doctoring journal.”
    Hidden in the wingchair, Katy made a face
that Mrs. Tyner had once described as “sure to curdle milk.”
    “ Mr. Rowley is also attempting to help
our Katy find her voice,” Mapes added with what sounded
suspiciously like the hope and pride of a fond parent.
    “ Very well, send him in.” Damon’s quick
survey of the bookroom revealed not a sign of Katy Snow, but he
knew quite well she was lurking somewhere about.
    Devil it! Damon had pictured a leering roué of forty-odd years, perhaps
a widower. The young man before him could not be a