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more.”
    “Letty, are you accusing me of something?” He gave her a wide-eyed stare.
    She laughed and backed from the pantry. “I’ll wager you got away with everything using those eyes like that.”
    “Only with my nursemaid and mother.” Dominick grimaced. “I wouldn’t be here if I could charm my own sex into succumbing to my charms.”
    “And here I thought it was charming the fair maidens that was amongst the things that got you here.” Still chuckling, Letty returned to the kitchen and her pots of savory dishes bubbling over the fire.
    “If only it had been fair maidens,” Dominick murmured.
    He returned the canister of emery grit to its shelf, applied a boar’s hair brush to his coat, and followed Letty into the kitchen. Dinah and Deborah sat at the worktable peeling potatoes. He hoped the young women’s presence would prevent Letty asking him questions or making further innuendos about either his activities of the night before or the circumstances that sent him bucketing across the Atlantic. Tabitha Eckles had put him through enough of that agony already this morning.
    Did he have a knife indeed. What a thing for a lady to ask a gentleman.
    Except she wasn’t precisely a lady. Nor was he a gentleman any longer.
    Social standing aside—this was America after all, where those sorts of things weren’t supposed to matter—nothing changed the fact that she had asked. Her asking signaled one fact—she believed he was responsible for cutting that long, slender throat of hers.
    Nodding to the kitchen maids, he strode through the back door and headed across the garden to the laundry. His fingers twitched with the desire to stroke away any pain that cut might cause her. Marring her skin was a crime worse than the act of threatening her at knifepoint. He didn’t understand the drive that compelled some men to violence or greed. His previous sins stemmed from nothing as ambitious as the wish to conquer or gain great wealth. And now his contrary ambitions threatened to make a manipulative, unconscionable monster of him.
    He retrieved a stack of table linens from the worktable, where the laundry maid had left them for him to collect. Before stacking them in the sideboard, he must inspect each piece for wear or tear, fray or stain. Kendall expected his tablecloths and serviettes to be as pristine as his shirts and cravats, as white as his butler’s hair. Dominick had never known his parents’ stiff-necked butler to stoop to such menial tasks—he probably gave the chore to his army of footmen. Dominick didn’t possess such a luxury.
    Of course, Dinah and Deborah might oblige. They greeted him with enthusiasm when he returned to the house.
    “I’ll get the door for you, sir.” Dinah bounced to her feet, allowing a shower of peelings to cascade onto the floor.
    “I’ll pull out the drawers for you.” Deborah followed with a little more decorum.
    “You will return to your chairs and finish scraping the vegetables,” Letty commanded. “Mr. Cherrett, you will see to the linens yourself.”
    Did the woman read his mind?
    “But I was so hoping for some company in my lonely task.”
    “It must be lonely, being the only manservant in the house,” Dinah said. “Surely I can help, Letty. It’ll take only a few minutes.”
    “It’ll take less time if you both help,” Dominick suggested.
    “No, you will do your own work,” Letty admonished. “Alone.”
    “And here I thought the butler directed the servants.” Dominick sighed gustily enough to flutter the serviette on the top of the stack.
    The scent of starch wafted into his face stronger than the stewing game, and he screwed up his features in an effort not to sneeze.
    “I’ve been here longer.” Letty wiped her hands on her apron and took two cloths off the top of the stack. “I’ll need these to wrap the bread rolls for dinner. Mr. Kendall is entertaining, if entertaining a newly widowed man is the right term.”
    “Newly widowed?” Dominick