The Historical Collection. Stephanie Laurens
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her house again.
As the owner of properties all over Britain—hotels, town houses, mines, factories, country estates—Gabe was accustomed to awakening in unfamiliar rooms. Three things, however, never altered.
He always woke with the dawn.
He always woke hungry.
And he always woke up alone.
He had a set of rules when it came to sexual congress—he didn’t pay for it, he wouldn’t beg for it, and he damned well wasn’t going to wed for it. When based in London, he found casual lovers with no difficulty, but lately he’d been moving from place to place so often he simply couldn’t find the time.
On this particular morning, he sat up in the bed, gave himself a shake, and familiarized himself with his surroundings. Mayfair. Bloom Square. The house that ought to bring a satisfying profit, once it was finally ready to be sold.
The house next door to her. Lady Penelope Campion—the aging, frazzled, unsightly spinster who …
Who wasn’t any of those things. Not by a mile. As fortune would have it, Lady Penelope Campion turned out to be a fair-haired, blue-eyed beauty.
In his mind’s eye, he could still see her sprawled across this bed in her dressing gown. Like an all-grown-up Goldilocks, having crept into his house uninvited to test the mattress. Too soft, too hard … ?
He didn’t know her opinion, but Gabe’s reaction was the latter. His cock was in its usual morning prime, standing at full mast.
He scrubbed his face with one hand and stumbled to the bathroom.
He’d been too weary from travel to inspect the new fixtures yesterday, but all looked to be in order this morning. Tiled marble floor and an immense copper tub, complete with taps for running water—both hot and cold.
Last night he’d settled for a quick, cold dousing. Today, he meant to have a hot bath. He settled into the tub and turned the tap marked with an H. The tap shivered, but refused to give up any water. Gabe gave it a gentle shake, then a firm slap. Nothing.
In all his life, he’d never backed down from a fight, but this had to be his most inane confrontation yet: fisticuffs with a water tap.
He banged on the pipe, and it finally gave way with a rattle and groan. A blast of cold water sprayed him in the face. Needles of ice speared him in the eyes, the mouth. Bloody hell, even up his nose.
Round one to the water tap.
Blocking the spray with one hand, he closed the H tap with the other. Annoyed, he reached for the one marked with a C. A cold bath did have its benefits. After a few minutes of scrubbing in the bollocks-shrinking bathwater, he’d rinsed his mind of his neighbor’s soft, pink lips.
Mostly.
The remainder of his morning toilette was simple. He brushed his teeth, shaved, combed back his stubborn shock of hair, and dressed.
Before leaving the room, he reached for the dull silver coin on the dressing table—a single shilling, rubbed smooth—and tucked it in the pocket of his waistcoat. Over the years, a shilling had become his talisman. A reminder of where he’d come from, and how far he’d climbed. Gabe never went anywhere without one.
He opened the door and bellowed. “Hammond!”
His architect appeared a minute later, huffing from the climb up the stairs. “Good morning, Mr. Duke.”
“It might be a good morning, if the hot water taps I paid hundreds to install were functioning.” He shook his head. “This house should have been complete months ago.”
“I know that was your hope, sir.”
“It was my expectation,” Gabe corrected. “I spent three years wrangling in Chancery to gain possession of the place. I’m spending thousands to bring it up to modern standards. But I can’t turn a profit until I sell it.”
“As I indicated in my correspondence, Mr. Duke, there have been a few obstacles.”
“You call them obstacles. To me, they sound like excuses.” He gestured at the water basin. “You told me this is the latest innovation. Hot running water.”
“It is the latest innovation. It’s so new, in fact, that this is only the second boiler of its kind in England. There’s only one man on this side of the Channel who knows how to perform repairs.”
“So get that man in here to repair the cursed thing.”
“Yes, well, here we come to the obstacle.” Hammond pushed both hands through his silver hair. “That particular man is dead.”
Gabe swore. “Get the other one on a ship, then.”
“Already under way.”
As they strode down the corridor, Gabe stopped to peer through the open doors, surveying the progress in each chamber. No wallpaper in this one, unfinished molding in another …
Unacceptable.
“So tell me about these other ‘obstacles’ you’ve encountered.”
Hammond stared down the staircase and lowered his voice, speaking through unmoving lips. “I’m looking at one of them now.”
Gabe peered in the same direction. “The housekeeper?”
“Oh, good,” he muttered. “You see her, too.”
“Should I not?”
“I don’t know. I’m not certain she’s human. Sometimes I think she’s a ghost who’s been haunting the place for centuries.”
Gabe gave his architect a worried look. Maybe Hammond needed a holiday. The man was getting on in years.
He assessed the housekeeper in the light of day. The woman carried herself with a strict demeanor, and her appearance might as well have been sketched in charcoal—from her severely parted black hair, down her black buttoned frock, all the way to her polished black shoes.
“She looks like the typical housekeeper if you ask me.”
“There is nothing typical about that woman,” Hammond said. “You’ll see. I swear, she moves through walls. Materializes out of thin air. You’ll be walking down a perfectly empty corridor. Suddenly, there she is right in front of you.”
Gabe had to admit, she’d certainly appeared out of nowhere last night.
“I’m an architect. If there were secret corridors in this house, I’d know—and there aren’t. I’m telling you, she’s some kind of spirit. I’m hoping you’ll sack her, but I’m not certain it would work. You’ll need an exorcism, I think.”
“Finding and training a suitable replacement would be a monumental task on its own.” Gabe knew the value of a competent employee—and after last night, he wasn’t giving the woman any reason to go spreading vindictive rumors about. “So long as she’s loyal, she stays.”
“She’s much too loyal. She doesn’t want anything changed. Projects that were done one day will be mysteriously undone the next morning.”
“So she’s meddling?”
“That, or working incantations.”
“I’m not going to sack her. When people are competent in their posts, I keep them on.” He gave Hammond a look. “Even if they are annoying.”
“I worried you’d say as much.” Hammond sighed. “Whatever else can be said for the creature, she does know this house. Better than you know the face of a shilling.”
I doubt that.
“But when she has you scared out of your wits,” Hammond said, “don’t come knocking at my door in the middle of the night. I won’t let you in.”
“How