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prepare breakfast. And on the second Tuesday of every month, Mrs. Beedle comes up from the village to assist with the laundering of the linens. I believe you’ll discover we run a very efficient household here at Cadgwyck, my lord. One that is quite beyond reproach.”
    Max trailed his fingertips through the thick layer of dust furring the banister, wondering if she might not be as mad as his new butler.
    During that awkward silence he noticed a most peculiar trait—his housekeeper jingled when she walked. It took his weary brain a minute to trace the musical sound to the formidable ring of keys she wore at her waist.
    “That’s quite a collection of keys you have there,” he commented as they approached the second-story landing.
    Without missing a beat, she replied, “Someone has to mind the dungeons as well as the pantry.”
    “Must be a challenge for you to sneak up on people. Rather like a cat wearing a collar with a bell on it.”
    “ Au contraire, my lord,” she purred, surprising Max anew with the graceful way the Gallic syllablesrolled off her tongue. “When one expects a cat to wear a bell, removing the bell only makes the cat that much more dangerous.”
    This time the smile she cast over her shoulder at him was sweetly feline. When she returned her attention to the stairs, Max narrowed his eyes at her slender back, imagining her slinking through the halls of the manor in the dead of night, up to any manner of mischief. He would be wise not to underestimate her. This kitty might yet have claws.
    The swish of her hips beneath her staid skirts seemed even more pronounced now, as if she were deliberately baiting him. As they reached the second-story gallery, the wavering shadows fled before the gentle glow of her candle. A halo of light climbed the wall, illuminating the portrait hanging directly across from the top of the stairs.
    Max’s gaze followed it, as irresistibly drawn as a hapless moth might be to a deadly flame.
    His breath caught in his throat. Mrs. Spencer was forgotten. His desperate desire to collapse onto a warm, dry mattress was forgotten.
    Everything was forgotten except for the vision floating before his eyes.

Chapter Six
    “M Y G OD,” M AX WHISPERED, taking the candlestick from Mrs. Spencer’s hand and holding it aloft.
    The housekeeper did not protest. Her sigh was resigned, almost as if she had been anticipating such a reaction.
    Max had been entertained in some of the finest homes in England, had toured countless museums in Florence and Venice during his grand tour, and seen hundreds of such portraits in his day, including many painted by masters such as Gainsborough, Fragonard, and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Dryden Hall, the house in which he had grown up, was home to an entire gallery of his own stern-faced ancestors. But he’d never before been tempted to forget they were anything but flecks of dried paint on canvas.
    The artist of this portrait, however, had capturednot just a likeness, but a soul. To even the most insensitive eye, he had obviously been madly in love with his subject, and his intention was to make every man who laid eyes on her fall in love with her, too.
    He somehow conveyed the illusion that he had caught her in the wink of time just before a smile. One corner of her lips was quirked upward, leaving one to wait in breathless anticipation for the dimple that would surely follow. Those ripe, coral lips might tease with the promise of a smile, but her sherry-colored eyes were openly laughing as they gazed boldly down at Max beneath the graceful wings of her brows. They were the eyes of a young woman tasting her power over men for the first time and savoring every morsel of it.
    Her curls were piled loosely atop her head, held in place by a single ribbon of Prussian blue. A few tendrils had escaped to frame full cheeks tinted with a beguiling blush no amount of expensive rouge could duplicate. Her hair was no ordinary brown but a rich, glossy mink. She wore a dress