Code Name Desire by Laura Kitchell Page B

man shouting. Teague’s footfalls echoed on the
steps as she raced toward the back of the manor.
    Gun in hand, she burst through a closed
swinging door and found the kitchen. The woman from the sleigh
stood in the center of the huge room with water dripping from her
hair and clothes. On the floor, a man knelt with most of his body
concealed inside a tiny closet, his rear end and the soles of his
shoes the only parts in view.
    “I think I’ve got it,” he yelled, his voice
hollow, like he spoke into a tin can.
    Teague slapped Jaeda on the back with the
door as he came through, and she tucked her gun into the pocket of
her robe. Glad to see he had taken a moment to cover himself, she
stepped aside and willed her pulse to slow.
    A spout of water shot from the closet and
barely missed the cook. She screamed anyway.
    “No need to pierce my eardrums, Polly. It
didn’t even get you that time,” said the man. He sat on his heels
and glanced over his shoulder, the fountain of water knocking off
his hat in the process.
    “Good morning, Sutton. Mrs. Chesley,” said
Teague with a nod of greeting to the shivering woman, his cheerful
tone out of place.
    “That’s a matter of opinion,” the butler
muttered. He grabbed a wrench from a toolbox and disappeared once
again.
    “I’m drenched!” cried the cook. She darted an
accusatory glance at her employer.
    “I’ll be right back,” Teague whispered in
Jaeda’s ear. His bare feet slapped pooling water as he went to help
Sutton. “Let me give you a hand.”
    Ice-cold touched Jaeda’s big toe. Backing a
step, she held out a hand. “Mrs. Chesley, isn’t it?”
    The cook sent her a miserable look, water
eddying around her clunky black boots. “Polly.”
    “Let’s see about getting you warm and dry,
Polly.”
    Mrs. Chesley moved through the deepening
water and took her hand, her freezing fingers engulfing Jaeda’s and
sending a chill up her arm. They made it to the cavernous
ballroom-type space that housed the staircase when Mrs. Wilson, in
pink fluffy slippers and curlers in her hair, came to a sliding
halt at the top landing.
    “Stay right there,” the housekeeper called in
a shrill voice.
    The cook wilted, her hair hanging limp
against her cheeks and her soaking clothes sagging.
    Jaeda’s heart went out to the poor wretch.
“What happened?”
    “It’s the freeze,” said Mrs. Chesley. “Froze
that water line, it did. I always said it was too close to the
outside wall.”
    “But I heard an explosion.” She wanted to let
go of the cook, but the woman clung as though feeding on her
warmth.
    “That was the pipe bursting. Scared me half
to death, it did. And now look at me,” she said on a wail. “I’m
likely to meet my maker, what with all this freezing water sucking
the life out of me.”
    Jaeda bit her lip to keep from smiling at the
woman’s dramatics. When Mrs. Wilson arrived with a stack of towels,
Jaeda relinquished the wet cook to the housekeeper’s capable care.
The two women went up the staircase.
    Glancing over her shoulder, Jaeda waited. The
women disappeared upstairs and Teague didn’t join her. She gripped
her gun. Leaving it in her pocket, she conducted a reconnaissance
of the first floor. The floor plan she had memorized made it
easy.
    With the first level secure, she headed for
the second.
    “We’ve had our excitement for the day,” said
Teague, stopping her before her foot landed on the first stair.
    She wanted to be upset with him for
interrupting her search, but his voice sounded too wonderful. It
brought all manner of incredible memories to mind from the night.
Her body responding against her will, she released her hold on the
gun.
    “Is Mrs. Chesley alright?”
    Jaeda offered him a close-lipped smile. “Mrs.
Wilson took her upstairs.”
    “I’m sure she’s fine, then.” He took her hand
and led the way up. “We’ve got the water stopped. Caster brought a
heater from the stables and Sutton is tightening a new pipe in
place. That