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replied. “My time is precious, my lord. Once my clients start to arrive in the spring, I can hardly turn the house upside down with painting. I have to get my work done during the winter, when no one is here.”
    He nodded. Then he said in a perfectly amiable voice, “Well, if you can spare me a paintbrush, I will be happy to assist you, ma’am.”
    I stared at him across the table, not quite sure I had heard him correctly.
    “I am perfectly able to wield a paintbrush, Mrs. Saunders.” His voice had taken on that clipped tone once more. He obviously felt it was an insult to his manhood that I didn’t think him capable of painting a wall.
    I felt a shiver of unholy glee at the thought of the Earl of Savile painting my house. I raised my brows and gave him a look that was deliberately provoking. “Really, your lordship, I don’t think it would be at all commensurate with your rank for you to be undertaking such common labor.”
    I had intended him to be annoyed by my remark, but he surprised me with a smile. “No, they would certainly drum me out of the House of Lords should anyone hear about it,” he said. “I must rely on your discretion, ma’am.”
    He probably was accustomed to moving mountains with that smile, I thought crossly. Well, it was not going to move me.
    I rose from my chair. “If you are serious about this, my lord, then I suggest you change out of those elegant garments. I will also try to find you a smock.”
    “A smock,” he repeated in deepening amusement as he stood up. He shook his head. “My reputation is in your hands, Mrs. Saunders. If it should ever become known in the London clubs that I actually wore a smock…!”
    I was standing behind my chair and now I lifted my hands and rested them upon its laddered back. “Would you be drummed out of White’s as well, my lord?” I asked lightly.
    He gave me a pained look. “I must inform you, ma’am, that I am not a member of White’s. White’s is a Tory club. All the Melvilles are Whigs. I belong to Brooks’s.”
    I said gravely, “I beg your pardon for even suggesting that your lordship might be a Tory.”
    At this moment the door from the kitchen opened and Nicky came into the dining room. “I’ve finished my breakfast,” he announced. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mama?”
    “No, thank you, sweetheart. Do you have something to work on for Mr. Ludgate?”
    “Yes, I do, Mama.”
    “Well, why don’t you do your schoolwork. If you need my help I will be in the guest room. The earl and I are going to paint.”
    Nicky’s blue eyes grew huge. He looked at the tall aristocrat standing at the foot of the table. “Are you really going to help Mama paint, sir?” he asked in awe.
    “I can see that if I don’t do a decent job with this painting, I shall never live it down,” Savile said. “Why are we standing here dawdling, Mrs. Saunders? There’s work to be done!”
    * * * *
    I had been working on the bedroom next to Nicky’s for about a week, so all of the furniture was pushed into the middle of the room and swathed in covers. The floor was also covered so that I didn’t splatter it with paint, and a ladder was propped against one of the walls.
    I had begun my painting project five years ago, when I finally realized that if I kept waiting for my landlord to paint the house, I would wait forever. This particular bedroom was the first room I had done, and this winter I had decided to do it again.
    I had swathed myself in a smock and was briskly stirring my bucket of blue paint when the door opened and the Earl of Savile came into the room.
    He had removed his coat and his shoes and his neckcloth and had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. As he crossed the room toward me on silent feet, I thought fleetingly that he moved with the fluid strength and grace of a lion. I stood with the paint stirrer in my hand and looked up at him as he came to a halt beside me.
    He was a full head taller than I, and without his coat