She said nothing, but her chin lifted defiantly. He swung away from her before his temper could get the better of his self-control; his eyes sweeping the assembled company in a way that made them cower before him.

"My-my lord!" Donovan, trying vainly to restore some semblance of order to his person, was hurrying toward him. Mrs. Donovan, chewing nervously on her lower lip, was right behind him. The other servants gratefully yielded to the pair's seniority, looking very much as if they wished to become invisible. "We-we didn't expect you, my lord!"

"Obviously."

"My lord, we-I…" Donovan was stuttering as he tried to find a way to explain the unexplainable. Justin ruthlessly interrupted his faltering efforts.

"I require a bath in my chamber within ten minutes," he told his perspiring butler in a tone that boded ill for everyone. "And something in the way of dinner precisely twenty minutes after that." His eyes moved beyond Donovan to fix on his unhappy-looking wife.

"As for the other," Justin's gaze flashed to the rest of the group. "I will have something to say to you-all of you!-tomorrow. For now, you will go about your business!"

"Yes, my lord," Donovan murmured unhappily. Justin did not wait to hear more. Instead, he turned on his heel and strode from the room.

The bath materialized with amazing speed, considering that he was in Ireland. Donovan, looking suitably abashed, carried the buckets of steaming water himself. (Doubtless the other servants were quaking in their boots, afraid to face him.) While the porcelain hip-bath was being filled, Justin divested himself of his wet clothes and then sat down on the edge of the enormous four-poster bed that had cradled the Earls of Weston for generations.

"Give me a hand with these, if you please," he said to Donovan, indicating his boots. Donovan nearly tripped over a footstool in his eagerness to obey.

"Manning isn't with you, my lord?" the butler ventured.