Maggie drew in a breath to tear strips off him, except the immediate warmth on her skin was too delicious. Her frozen toes curled into the rag rug and as he stoked up the fire, she felt a glorious heat on the back of her legs.
“You have no right to manhandle me,” she said, wishing she sounded as outraged as she should. Smith, the cat, raised his head from the oak settle in the corner, and cast her a disapproving look.
“I had to do something.” In a couple of strides, Mr. Hale set the lantern on the table and crossed the floor to close the door. He was so huge, he seemed to take up half the room. “You were just going to stand up there, wittering on and turning into an icicle.”
Wittering on? The nerve of the man. “If you introduced yourself like a gentleman, I might have felt up to inviting you in.”
He stomped back to stand in front of her. That strange light in his eyes persisted. Odd that it warmed her even more effectively than the fire behind her. “You can’t blame me for my lack of polite address. I was taken aback to find myself greeted by a wood sprite in a nightdress, instead of a respectable housekeeper.”
“I’m respectable.” She pushed aside a faint pleasure at the romantic description. It was too late for him to dredge up whatever shreds of rusty charm he might possess. “You’re the one who needs to establish his credentials.”
His scowl was truly fearsome. “You mean you really are the housekeeper?”
How she wished she’d waited to put on some clothes before she came downstairs. If he saw her in her dull gray gown, he’d have no trouble identifying her as a senior servant.
She
raised her chin and shot him a quelling glare. That quelled him not at all. “I am, sir.”
To her chagrin, he laughed. “You don’t look old enough to be out on your own.”
Her voice turned frostier. “Nevertheless, this house is under my care.”
He shook his head in disgust. “Then why the devil wasn’t someone waiting up for me? I know I’m later than I said I’d be, but when it started to snow, you must have expected that.”
“I would have,” she said with sweet sarcasm, “if I’d had a glimmer of a warning that you were coming. Are you sure it’s this Thorncroft Hall you aim to infest?”
“You give as good as you get, don’t you?” Appreciation was the last response she expected her insolence to garner. “Is there another Thorncroft Hall? And this is definitely the valley I want. Not that anyone else seems to want it. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of another person for hours. It’s like a lost world.”
She didn’t want him dwelling on their isolation. Although she couldn’t see how to stop him discovering that they were alone. Unless she could persuade him to leave in the next few minutes.
“There’s a village about five miles further on,” she said with a trace of desperation, although heavy snow always made the way impassable and it would be unchristian to force him back out into the night.
Mr. Hale gave a grunt of bleak humor. “My mistake. Fraedale’s a bustling urban center.”
Far from it. “And there’s an inn at Tolbeath another three miles from there.”
“I don’t want a damned inn. I want to stay here, as arranged with Thomas Black.”
Oh, dear, if he knew Dr. Black owned this house, he must be in the right place. Her stomach sank, not least because if Dr. Black had invited Mr. Hale, she owed him more courtesy than so far she’d managed to demonstrate. “Not with me.”
“But Thomas Black has to be your employer. Although he doesn’t strike me as a man to entrust a valuable property to a sprite barely out of the schoolroom.”
“I’m twenty-five,” she said, before she could stop herself.
As she should have expected, that didn’t impress him. “Positively ancient.”
“I’m old enough to run this establishment.”
He looked around with a speaking expression. “Place seems completely understaffed. Now roust someone out of bed to look after my horse, and get a maid to unearth some dinner. I haven’t eaten since noon, and I’ve traveled a long and chilly way since then.” He started to take off his coat as the tall clock in the hall upstairs chimed midnight.
Maggie bit her lip. There was no point putting it off any longer. “Don’t take off your coat, Mr. Hale.”
He tilted a brow in her direction. “Miss Carr, I can prove my identity.”
She made a defeated gesture. “I’m sure you can.” He was too confident to be some random intruder. “But you’ll need to go back outside to put your horse in the stable.”
He was back to scowling again, those thick black brows lowering over his commanding beak of a nose. “What about the grooms?”