It took the maid several seconds to recover from her own shock and lift her eyes from where they had focused at his chest up to his face, her eyebrows rising with every inch of her gaze.
Alec was transfixed. Her eyes were grey—not slate and not steel, but the color of the darkest rainclouds, shot through with silver. He stiffened, the too-small coat pulling tight across his shoulders, reminding him that he was in England, and whoever this woman was, she was irrelevant to his interests. With the exception of the fact that she was standing between him and his immediate return to Scotland.
“I suggest ye let me in, lass.”
One red brow rose. “I shall do no such thing.”
She closed the door.
Alec blinked, surprise and disbelief warring for a fleeting moment before they were both overcome by a supreme loss of patience. He stepped back, sized up the door, and, with a heave, broke the thing down.
It crashed to the foyer floor with a mighty thud.
He could not resist turning to the women next door, now frozen in collective, wide-eyed shock. “Animal enough for you, ladies?”
The question spurred them into action, sending them fairly climbing over each other to enter their carriage. Satisfied, Alec returned his attention to his own house and, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, crossed the threshold.
The maid stood just inside, staring down at the great oak slab. “You could have killed me.”
“Doubtful,” he said. “The door is’nae heavy enough to kill a person.”
Her gaze narrowed on him. “Number Eighteen, I presume.”
The words could not have held more disdain. Ignoring them, Alec lifted the door from its resting place and turned to lean it against the open doorway. He deliberately thickened his accent. “Then ye ken who I am.”
“I’m not certain there’s a person in London who wouldn’t easily ken you. Though you might learn the word know if you wish them to understand you.”
He raised a brow at her smart mouth. “I don’t care for being left waiting at the door of my own home.”
Her gaze moved pointedly to the door, removed from its hinges. “You make a habit of destroying things when they displease you?”
Alec resisted the urge to deny the words. He had spent the majority of his adult life proving that he was not coarse. Not rough. Not a brute.
But he would not defend himself to this woman. “I pay handsomely for the privilege.”
She rolled her eyes. “Charming.”
He refused to reveal his shock. While he had little to no experience with aristocratic servants, he was fairly certain that they did not make a habit of sniping at their masters. Nevertheless, he did not rise to the bait, instead taking in the impeccable home with its broad, sweeping center staircase, stunning and massive oil landscapes on the walls, a touch of gilt here and there, indicating modernity rather than garishness. He turned in a slow circle, considering the high ceilings, the massive mirrors that captured and reflected light from the windows high above, casting the whole space in natural light, and offering a glimpse of a wide, colorful carpet and a roaring fireplace through a nearby open door.
It was the kind of house that should belong to a duke with impressive pedigree, no doubt decorated by some previous duchess.
He stilled.
Was there a previous duchess? With seventeen dead dukes, Alec would bet there was more than one previous duchess.
He growled at the thought. All he needed was a widow to deal with on top of the scandalous ward and the petulant staff.
The staff in question heard the sound of displeasure. “I knew they called you the diluted duke, but I did not think you would be so . . .”
The impertinence trailed off, but Alec heard the unspoken worlds. Beastly. Coarse. Unrefined. He lost his patience. “I suggest you fetch Lady Lillian. Immediately.”
“It’s Miss Hargrove. She’s not highborn.”
He raised a brow. “This is England, is it not? Have they changed the rules, then? You gleefully correct dukes now?”
“I do when the duke in question is wrong,” she said, “Though you should be fine, as few will understand enough of your monstrous accent to know if you are right or wrong.”
“You seem to understand me well enough.”
She smiled too sweetly. “My vast good fortune, I suppose.”
He resisted the urge to laugh at the quick retort. The woman was not amusing. She was moments from being sacked. “And what of the respect that comes with the title?”
“It comes from people who are impressed by said title, I imagine.”
“And you are not?”
She crossed her arms. “Not particularly.”
“May I ask why?”
“There have been eighteen of you in five years. Or, to be more precise, seventeen in two weeks, followed by you for five years. And despite this being the first time you’ve set foot in this house, it—and all its contents—belong to you. Are cared for. For you. In absentia. If that’s not evidence that titles are ridiculous, I’m not sure what is.”
She wasn’t saying anything he didn’t believe. But that did not mean she was not maddening—likely just as mad as the other woman in the house. “While your insubordination is impressive and I do not entirely disagree with your logic, I’ve had enough,” he said. “I intend to speak with Miss Lillian, and your task, whether you like it or not, is to fetch her.”
“Why are you here?”
He let stony silence stretch between them for a long minute, attempting to intimidate her into doing as he asked. “Fetch your mistress.”
She was not intimidated in the slightest. “I think it amusing that you refer to her as mistress of the house. As though she isn’t a prisoner of it.”
That’s when he knew.
His ward was not the swooning type, after all.
Before he could speak, however, she continued. “As though she were not a belonging just like the door you summarily destroyed like a great Scottish brute.”
He didn’t mean to hear the word.
But somehow, standing here, with this impeccable Englishwoman in this impeccable English town house in this impeccable English square, wearing an uncomfortable suit, barely fitting in the open doorway, feeling big and out of place, he couldn’t help but hear it.
Couldn’t help but feel it, close and unsettling, like the tight cravat around his neck.