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would send Doddsworth packing. Corin frowned down at Miss Armstead, who was all sparks and sizzle in her indignation. “By Zeus,” he shouted at her, “it was my grandfather’s and then my father’s!”
    “And now it is your aunt’s!”
    “No, Miss Armstead, it’s not. I couldn’t have cared less if Aunt Sophie had lived here for another sixty-five years. In fact, she’d have had my blessings, the tough old bird. But she’s gone, and I don’t own the cottage. You don’t own the cottage. Her blasted dogs own the blasted cottage!”
    So one of the owners bit him.
     

Chapter Five
     
    “What do you mean, I shouldn’t have shouted?” the viscount shouted. “Now it’s my fault that your vicious little beast bit me?”
    “You were towering over him, raising your voice, and gesturing with your hands. Of course Lucky felt threatened. Besides, my lord, it’s only a small gouge in your boot. It’s not as though a six-pound dog were going for your jugular vein.”
    Only a small gouge? There was a six-inch scrape on one of his new Hessians. Now Corin needed a new valet in addition to a new schoolteacher. And a new career. He rubbed at the spot with the black cloth she handed him, until he realized Miss Armstead hadn’t done any such thing. When she had bent down to inspect the damages, her hideous mobcap had tumbled off her head and into his hand.
    His lordship might apologize for mistaking Lena’s headpiece for a rag, but that was one faux pas he wouldn’t regret. Now he could see why her hair was always coming loose: it was a mass of ungovernable ringlets. Who would have thought that the starched-up companion would have such wanton curls, like she’d just gotten out of bed, and a warm, well-tumbled bed at that? “My apologies, ma’am. I’ll replace your cap, of course.”
    “No, no,” Angelina quickly contradicted, her hands vainly trying to bring some order to her hair. “The cap is nothing, an old one of Lady Sophie’s. No. It is the damage to your boots that concerns me.”
    Corin regarded her thoughtfully, wondering how her soft brown curls would look threaded through with ribbons and rosebuds, or spread upon his pillow.
    Embarrassed by his scrutiny, knowing she looked the veriest frump with her hair every which way and unconfined, Angelina tried to bring the conversation back to its original topic, before Lucky’s unfortunate interruption. “I still do not see why you are so wrought about Primrose Cottage that you are acting like the dog in the manger.”
    “I am not wrought, Miss Armstead,” Corin stated, catching himself from wringing the black cloth between his hands, in lieu of the companion’s neck. “And I am not acting like any dog in any manger.”
    “Begging your pardon, my lord, but you certainly are. With all your holdings, you do not need this one small property, yet you’re like the dog trying to keep the oxen from the hay he himself cannot use. They are Lady Sophie’s pets, Lord Knowle. Why do you dislike them so?”
    “I do not dislike them in the least.” Well, he wasn’t fond of the runt with fangs or the glove gnawer, for that matter, but that wasn’t the point. The vacant cottage was. How the deuce was he to convince this old maid to take her menagerie and leave? Corin wanted to get up and pace, which always helped him think better, but she’d only accuse him of being agitated. Besides, he could feel his sore leg stiffening into the limp that presaged a storm. Devil a bit if he would show Miss Armstead yet another weakness, moral or physical. Morals, that was it! He’d appeal to Miss Armstead’s better nature, if she had one. Jupiter knew he’d tried appealing to everything else.
    “You are an intelligent woman, Miss Armstead, caring and responsible. I appreciate your devotion to my aunt’s ideals, but how can you justify all this”—he waved a manicured hand at the room, the two fires going, the elegant appointments, the platters of cakes and tea—”to