She Said: “I Need a Place to Stay”… He Replied: “ I Need a Wife to Give My Dying Bloodline an Heir.”

Chapter 2

“You want a bed,” he said.

“Two nights, sir, and I shall work for it. I am not asking for anything given.” Her chin was level. “I kept my great-aunt’s house nine years. I can do the books and the linen and the stillroom. I have got no character, because I was a relation and not a servant, and I know exactly what that is worth. And after two nights — ” and here, for the first time, she stopped, and did not paper over the gap — “I do not know.”

The silence that followed had a shape to it. The footman had gone the colour of the panelling. Somewhere down the passage a door opened and shut, and a woman’s voice said something about the linen press.

Adrian Vane looked at her for about four seconds.

“How much money have you got?”