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for you to wake up,” she said calmly. “Long enough to have a cup of tea, organize my list of requests for Penreith, and make a brief survey of the house to see what needs to be done to open the place properly. Rather a lot, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Or perhaps you didn’t—men can be amazingly unobservant. From sheer boredom, I decided to wake you. It seemed like the sort of thing that a mistress might do, and I’m trying my best to fill the role you have assigned me.”
     
    She spoke with a hint of lilting Welsh accent and a rich, husky voice that made him think of aged whiskey. Coming from a prim spinster, the effect was startlingly erotic. Wanting to discomfit her, he said, “My mistresses always wake me up in more interesting ways. Care for me to explain how?”
     
    “Not particularly.” She took a towel from the washstand and handed it to him.
     
    He roughly dried his hair and face, then blotted the worst of the water from his nightshirt. Feeling more human, he tossed the towel back to Clare.
     
    “Do you get drunk often?” she inquired.
     
    “Very seldom,” Nicholas said dourly. “Obviously it was a mistake to do so this time. If I had been sober, I wouldn’t have to endure you for the next three months.”
     
    With a look of demure malice, she said, “If you decide not to go through with this, I won’t think less of you.”
     
    Nicholas blinked at hearing his own words thrown back at him. “You’ve a tongue like a wasp.” He glowered at her until she began to look distinctly uneasy, then finished, “I like that in a woman.”
     
    To his delight, she blushed. Insults might not faze her, but compliments or shows of masculine interest did. Feeling cheered, he said, “Find my valet and send him in with hot shaving water. Then tell the kitchen to brew a very large pot of very hot coffee. I’ll be down in half an hour.” He threw the covers back and started to climb out of bed.
     
    Averting her eyes, Clare said, “Very well, Nicholas,” and beat a hasty retreat.
     
    He chuckled as the door closed behind her. She really was a most intriguing female. If her natural forcefulness could be transmuted into passion, she would make a hell of a bedmate.
     
    As he stepped onto the cold floor, he wondered if he would be successful at seducing her. Probably not; he suspected that her relentless virtue would outlast his patience.
     
    But it would certainly be fun trying. Whistling softly, he stripped off his sodden nightshirt and considered when and where he should collect his first kiss.
     
      When Lord Aberdare appeared downstairs in the breakfast parlor, exactly half an hour later, all traces of overindulgence had been removed. Except for his dark coloring and over-long hair, he looked every inch the fashionable London gentleman. Clare decided that she preferred it when he was informal; his present garb made her uncomfortably aware of the vast gap between their stations in life.
     
    Then she remembered how he had looked in his nightshirt, with half his chest bare and wet fabric clinging to his muscular shoulders. That had been entirely too informal.
     
    Wordlessly, she rose and poured him a cup of steaming coffee. Equally wordlessly, he gulped it down in three swallows, then held out his cup for more. The second cup vanished almost as quickly as the first. This time he refilled it himself, then took a chair opposite Clare. “You may begin your presentation about the ills of Penreith and the solutions you expect of me.”
     
    He was unnervingly businesslike. Glad that she was prepared, Clare said, “The problems are economic, with several different causes. Things started getting difficult five years ago, when your grandfather had Parliament enact a private land enclosure act. With the upland commons fenced off so Aberdare could run sheep, a number of cottagers were driven into the village because they could no longer support their families from the land. Jobs are few, and most of those