“I’ll say I did.”
He waited for some retort, but her expression turned blank. For the first time, to his disappointment, she looked like a servant. Although this sudden docility meant that he might discover why she was in his library. Housemaids started work early and generally didn’t have the energy to run around after bedtime. “What’s your name?”
She dipped into another curtsy. He could have told her she overdid the meekness, but he held his peace.
“Trim, my lord.”
Trim? He couldn’t argue with that. “Trim what?”
He thought she might smile again, but she’d leashed her rebellious spirit as tightly as she tied back her hair. He wasn’t a man who experienced profound and sudden sexual urges. But he’d give this girl every sparkling diamond in the family vault if she’d take down her hair. If she let him touch it, he’d throw in the damned house as well.
“Nell Trim, sir.”
“Helen or Eleanor?”
“Eleanor.” Her voice retained its curiously flat quality and she stared somewhere over his shoulder.
Eleanor. An elegant name for an elegant woman. An elegant woman who was his housemaid.
“Very good.” Except Eleanor wasn’t a suitable name for a junior servant. Eleanor was a queen’s name. It brought dangerous, powerful women to mind. “What are you doing in my library, Trim?”
By rights, he should call a housemaid Nell, but with her slender neatness, Trim suited her so well.
“If I tell you, you’ll dismiss me.”
He kept his expression neutral. “I’ll dismiss you if you don’t.”
She leveled that direct stare upon him. “I couldn’t sleep, and I wanted something to read. I always return the books, my lord; you have my word.”
A housemaid who rifled his bookcases and offered her word? She became more extraordinary by the minute. “You can read?”
“Yes, sir.” In a show of deference that didn’t convince, she lowered her eyelids. Years in the political bear pit had taught him to read people. He was sure of two things about the trim Miss Eleanor Trim. One was that deference didn’t come naturally. The other was that somewhere in this odd conversation, she lied.
“So what did you choose?” She hadn’t carried a book when she’d run into him at the door.
“Nothing appealed. May I go, my lord? I’m on duty early.”
“Do I need to search you to see if you’ve stolen anything?” She could be a master criminal bamboozling him into complacency. Except he didn’t feel complacent. He felt alive and interested as nothing had interested him in months.
Temper lit her eyes. She didn’t like him questioning her honesty. “I’m not a thief.”
Ah, the false docility cracked. He hid his satisfaction. “How can I be sure?”
“You could check the room for anything missing, my lord.”
“I might do that.” Abruptly his sour mood descended once more. What the hell was he doing flirting with a housemaid in the middle of the night? Perhaps his political advisers were right about him needing a break.
He bent to pick up the candle the girl had dropped when he’d barged in on top of her. He lit it from the branch and passed it across, then unlocked the door. “You may go, Trim.”
She raised the candle and surveyed him as if uncertain whether this dismissal was good news or not. Her curtsy this time conveyed no ironic edge, then she backed toward the door. “Thank you, my lord.”
“For God’s sake, I’m not going to pounce on you,” he said on a spurt of irritation. It niggled that for a different man living in a different world, the thought of pouncing on the delectable Miss Trim was sinfully appealing.
Her eyes flashed up and he saw that beneath her drab exterior, she was fierce and strong. He awaited some astringent comeback. Instead she dragged the door open and fled.
Wise girl.
Chapter Two