Discovering the Devil

F o u r

IIII

HARRY couldn't help but smile. The look on the countess' daughter's face was priceless. This was probably the first time she'd ever heard no in her life.

"No?" she echoed.

"No, Miss..." It just now occurred to him that he'd never gotten her name.

"Redwood. Penelope Redwood."

"I'm afraid I'll have to reject your offer, Miss Redwood."

Penelope's face went from shocked to pinched. "You're being stupid."

It was Harry's turn to smile while his other looked on with a growing temper. "How so?"

"You're rejecting my offer because...what...you think I'm a spoiled girl used to getting her way?"

"You are a spoiled girl used to getting her way," Harry pointed out.

"And my way is the only way you'll be able to get a new housekeeper under your employ."

"If you say so," he replied in the same sing-song manner she'd used on him the previous day.

Her beautiful light brown eyes darkened in fury. "You're letting your pride get in the way of common sense."

"There is nothing sensible about hiring you in the first place."

Miss Redwood abruptly rose from where she sat and looked Harry square in his eyes.

"Do you fancy yourself an angel?"

Her face darkened at his quip. "No, I'm just the answer to a problem. And when you're unable to solve this problem, you're going to wish you'd said yes."

"It's a shame that this imagined day will never come."

"It'll come." Bitterness flashed in Miss Redwood's eyes. "It'll just be too late for me to do anything about it."

"Because you'll be Mrs. Solomon Brant, Duchess of Burberry." He gave a mocking bow. "Felicitations on your engagement by the way."

The remark earned the reaction Harry had been hoping for. Miss Redwood's lips folded in a magnificent sneer and she took an actual step backward as if the words had pushed her away. "Burn in hell!" On that note, she spun on her heel and made for the door.

Harry threw his head back and laughed before ringing for the butler to escort her out, though he was sure she would be in her carriage before the butler got to her. Harry should've been sorry to get such satisfaction from turning her down, but he couldn't help smiling the rest of the day. The girl who thought she had bested him by wrangling a ride after swimming indecently had finally been put in their place. It was true what they said; revenge was sweet.

The entire exchange brightened Harry's spirits for a couple of days before he realized he couldn't afford to be happy. He still had to settle the business of finding a housekeeper now more than ever, especially since Miss Redwood believed he was incapable of completing the task without him. To his knowledge. he'd done everything in his power to secure a potential housekeeper at Hawthorne. He'd placed an advertisement in the newspaper, he'd promised double the normal wage, and he'd refurbished the servant's lodgings. Nothing had attracted a single applicant. The solution to his problem came to him over a bottle of sherry while he supped over poor fish and peas (he had to hire a new cook while he was on the lookout for a new housekeeper too). The root of his problems was superstition and rumors, which might as well be gospel in a village such as Milford. The only way to dissipate those beliefs might be the very gospel itself.

Harry took pen and paper that very night and wrote to all the vicars he could think of. He told them how he would be very thankful if they might make a visit to his Castle and pray over Hawthorne's halls and dispel the the perverse beliefs that they were infested by demons, or whatever it was Milford residents said about Hawthorne Castle. He also asked if the vicar might pray over him as well and dispel the lie that he was somehow the devil incarnate. There were also vague promises of financial contributions to said churches and thanks for time spent. He sent off the letters to the various priests and waited patiently for a response. Out of the fifteen something he wrote to, only one wrote back. His name was George and he headed the People's Chapel of Milford. His letter was long and reeked of holy condescension with some rather direct requests of repairs to his beloved chapel as well as a request of an offering of two hundred pounds.