One Dangerous Desire (Accidental Heirs) by Christy Carlyle

Author:Christy Carlyle [Carlyle, Christy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Historical, Victorian, Historical Romance
Amazon: B00Y889ZN8
Publisher: Avon Impulse
Published: 2016-04-18T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Three days later

“MRS. HARK!” HE’D give the woman two more minutes, and then he was going to fire her. Not unreasonable, considering it was the third time he’d called her name, with no response, in half an hour’s time. As he straightened up in his desk chair, cupped his hands around his mouth, and prepared to shout for his housekeeper again, the one man in his employ who was always on time strode into his office at the exact moment he was expected.

Charlie scampered out from under Rex’s desk to welcome Jack Sullivan, emitting little growling squeaks.

“Good morning, sir,” Sullivan greeted. “You’ve taken on more staff, I see.” The inquiry agent sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose.

“No new staff.” Though he might be on the lookout for a new housekeeper soon. “Mrs. Hark has gone missing, so one of the kitchen maids is left answering the front door.”

Sullivan strode across the room and poked his finger into a divot in the wallpaper. “Did you shoot her?”

“Don’t be absurd.” Rex rolled his eyes, though the gesture was wasted on Sullivan, who continued to examine the bullet hole in the wall.

“Should I ask why you shot the wall? Or is that question too absurd as well?”

Rex sighed and ran a finger along the line of his eyebrow, across the spot where a pounding sledgehammer had taken up residence. Drink didn’t help. Sleep proved impossible. Distractions failed to distract. May was ever on his mind—her softness, her scent, and the delicious moans she’d let loose when he touched her. He needed to touch her again. The thought that another man would—Devenham or some other titled fop—made him seethe. His insides were twisted in knots, and he wanted to lash out at everyone and everything.

“I was . . . in a dark mood.”

“And took it out on the wall?” Sullivan turned on him with arms crossed and that pompous, disapproving frown marring his face. For a man of humble beginnings, he’d certainly perfected a superior mien.

“The wall didn’t complain.”

“Oh, Mr. Sullivan, thank goodness you’ve come!” Mrs. Hark hovered outside Rex’s office door, twisting her apron in her hands. “It still reeks of gunpowder in that room, doesn’t it?”

Sullivan approached the housekeeper, and she lifted a hand to the corner of her mouth. “He’s been in a bad way for days. Please sort him out, Mr. Sullivan, and get that gun away from him if you can.”

“I can hear every word you’re saying, Mrs. Hark.” Rex stood up and stretched his back. He’d been immobile too long, frozen by frustration and the impossibility of grasping what he wanted most. “Sounds treasonous to me.”

When she gasped and her eyes went round as silver dollars, Rex grinned. “Be a dear and get me some coffee, would you?”

Sullivan whispered a few words of reassurance to Mrs. Hark and closed the door behind her as she finally departed to, Rex hoped, make him a fresh pot of coffee.

Positioning himself in his usual chair in front of Rex’s

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