Free No Man's Mistress by Mary Balogh Page A

sweep in the village, you see, and the nearest town is eight miles away.”
    “One can only hope,” Lord Ferdinand said, jumping to his feet and hurrying across the room to throw first one and then the other window wide, “that the nest is empty at this particular moment. Otherwise I daresay we can enjoy roast bird for dinner.”
    Something in his tone alerted Viola. He
knew
at last. He understood. But he was not going to lose his temper as she had hoped. He was going to play out the game, perhaps on the theory that good humor would annoy her far more than scowls and bellows. He was perfectly right too, of course. But it did not matter. At least he would understand now what he was facing—his lone person, and perhaps those of his handful of servants, pitted against a houseful of people bent on making his life as uncomfortable as they possibly could. She wondered how he had enjoyed his pillows last night.
    “Sometimes,” she said, shivering despite herself as a fresh breeze from the outdoors fluttered the edges of her napkin and wrapped itself about her person like an icy cloak, “I believe that the few advantages of living in the country are far outweighed by the disadvantages. You may leave, thank you, Mr. Jarvey. We must simply hope that the day will be warm enough that we can live without fires in only a moderate degree of discomfort.”
    The butler made for the door.
    “Don't leave yet, Jarvey,” Lord Ferdinand instructed him, staying close to the window. “Find me a good stout groom or gardener, will you? One with a head for heights? Perhaps one who is familiar with the rooftop and the chimneys? I daresay there
is
such a person.I would wager on it, in fact. I will go up there with him when I have finished my ale and see if we can rescue the poor homeless birds. Unless it is too late for them, of course, as undoubtedly it is for their nest.”
    Viola's eyes were watering and aching quite abominably. He was going to be a worthy foe, she realized with a sinking heart. Well, they would see who would win the final victory. He was grossly outnumbered. And she was no mean foe herself. She had far more to lose than he, after all—a thought that conspired to make her egg sit quite uncomfortably in her stomach.
    “You will fall and kill yourself,” she predicted before indulging in a prolonged coughing fit into her napkin. What on earth had Eli stuffed up the chimney? And why should she care if Lord Ferdinand came to grief?
    “You must not fear for my safety, ma'am,” he said as the butler slipped from the room. “One of my more notable escapades, though admittedly it was back in my salad days, was in response to a wager that I could not move from one end of a long London street to the other without once touching the ground. The dare was made more interesting by the fact that it was a wet, windy, moonless night, and there was a time limit of one hour. I did it in forty-three minutes.”
    “I suppose,” she said more tartly than she intended, “you rode your horse.”
    “And took forty-three minutes?” He chuckled. “Alas, the men who issued the dare considered that possibility in advance. No form of conveyance was allowed except my feet. I did it over the rooftops.”
    “You have won my warmest admiration, my lord,” she said, getting to her feet and doing nothing to hide her scorn.
    “Where are you going?” he asked.
    She raised her eyebrows and looked coolly at him through the gradually dispersing smoke haze. “My movements are none of your affair, my lord,” she said—and then wished she had chosen different words. His eyes moved down her body, stripping her of clothes as they proceeded—or so it seemed. She clamped her teeth together and glared.
    “Perhaps after I have dealt with the chimney,” he said, “you will take a walk with me, Miss Thornhill.”
    “To show you the park?” she asked incredulously. “It is my private domain and is shown only to privileged visitors.”
    “Of which