The tables were padded and covered with baize, so she selected one, laid out the pelisse and began to attack the hem. With all this equipment it was surely going to be the work of minutes.

Lucas strolled through the passageways, Will's buckskin breeches draped over his arm, receiving a gratifying amount of attention from the resident domestics. Below stairs, as above, status was everything, and he was an earl by association. It amused him that as a servant he'd acquired a higher rank than his own, and he allowed an amiable condescension to creep into his manner. If he were to engage his fellow staff in gossip about their employers, and specifically Miss Maylin, he needed to make a good impression: top lofty enough to demand answers to questions, pleasant enough so as not to cause resentment.

A housemaid with a pert manner and a dimple showed him to the brushing room, then bustled off with a swing of her hips and a backward glance over her shoulder. He was smiling faintly from the encounter as he stepped inside and saw the room was already occupied.

The young woman had her back to him, bent over the garment on a long table and presenting a vision which drove the memory of the housemaid right out of his mind. Slender, curvaceous, and clad in a dull black that served only to focus all attention on her figure, she had not heard him come in.

She was muttering under her breath as she brushed. Lucas suspected her words were curses, for she seemed to be more than a little hot and bothered. Her honey-brown hair had been braided and strained back into an elaborate knot but had begun to come down. Little wisps clung to the damp skin of her neck. He moved closer, his feet silent on the oilskin floorcloth.

'Damn and blast and botheration…'

It was a very pretty neck. He found himself transfixed by the nape, the tender white skin, the faint sheen of perspiration. What would it be like to bite? Just very, very, gently.