Teasing Your Wicked Heart

CHAPTER 3

"Bloody, bloody headache from hell," he growled as he stood from his bed.

Coffee, he surmised, no... maybe tea. Concentrated tea and as black and bitter as it could get may rid him of this headache.

He had too much to drink the night before and although that bottle of fine scotch had successfully removed his devils from his mind, it was replaced by this horrendous pounding and throbbing that was proving to be a different kind of devil.

Hell and damnation.

Knock, knock.

"Enter," he rasped. Why did his voice sound so strangled?

Water, yes, he needed water before any bloody coffee or tea. The door opened slightly and he saw his valet peer cautiously behind it.

"Was there a reason why you knocked," he wondered aloud, as he pressed both thumbs on his temple. Sometimes being a bloody lord with hired help was a nuisance at best.

His valet had never knocked unless he was unsure of his employer's decision in receiving company. Lord Killsworth couldn't at all determine any person in their right mind who would think of calling on him this early in the morning.

That and well, Killsworth rather felt that he himself as an unsuitable company for whoever they were. It would be damned impossible to conduct a conversation with this splitting headache.

"Ah... my lord, you—you," he stammered and pulled the door against his face to work it as his shield.

What the hell was wrong with him?

"Spit it out, Linley."

"You have a guest." The words came out too quickly and all that Killsworth could make out of it was its last syllable... a quest?

His head started splitting in two. What in god's name was he talking about?

"What?"

"You have a guest, my lord," The small man repeated as half of his body pressed through the opening of the door to get a better view of the inebriated lord.

Lord Killsworth was aware that he had scared most of the servants in his home since his arrival from London. He had been most beastly, but as the master of the house, he hadn't put it on himself to explain to his servants what had gotten him so surly. They must accept that Lord Killsworth, Anthony Llevy-Dorth, the owner of Kinsmen Place, would just be incorrigible for the time being.

There should be no room to complain. They've been receiving more than fair wages for their employment in an empty house. It was time that they had a master and make their wages worth shelling out.

All the more, the servants knew that he was not receiving any guests. Never. They were almost secluded in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, and his home had been silent as a whisper before he arrived.

He would like to keep it that way.

That was also why he hadn't known what to think when the word "guest" had erupted from his valet's mouth. "What did you say?"

"Your guest is a lady, and she is waiting at the Seafoam parlor."

He blinked twice, thinking through a thick fog while his mind tried to process the words. He had not been in polite society for a year, and if his memory was accurate, a lady coming to visit him was highly improper. Had she come alone?

The valet crossed the room carrying a large glass of unsightly blackened brew and a packet of white powder.

Anthony took it gratefully, savoring the bitter taste of the brew and ingesting the powder quickly to ignore the way it dried his tongue.