The Wagered Miss Winslow by Kasey Michaels

seat of the chair, his long legs and booted feet sprawled on the soft carpet, his arms hanging over the armrests.
    “Stow that bilge, Woodrow, before we stuff your skinny rump in the top drawer of that dressing table,” Beau answered absently, looking about the dressing room Bridget had already told him once belonged to his father. He was inside the house. Not his house—but the house. Still the house.
    His clothing had all been disposed of behind the doors of the dressers and armoires in this paneled room. His bedchamber lay on the other side of the door, a large, elegantly furnished room that was hung with portraits of people who were not his ancestors. He had partaken of his luncheon on a tray in that room, glaring at those unknown faces, not at all in charity with any of them.
    But he really was no further than he had been this morning, if his object was to feel at home in what he had believed to be his own house. He was here on sufferance, and only because Bridget had refused to budge, saying she couldn’t go another step, as her heart was “fixin’ ta quit on me, it is, and no mistake.”
    What an unholy commotion Bridget’s early arrival had brought with it!
    Rosalind Winslow, who had been just hitting her stride in a round condemnation of persons who would dare to invade another’s home and then lie to that person, presenting themselves as someone they were not and making outlandish proposals and advances, had watched, openmouthed, as Bridget had made her declaration and then headed straight up the steps to the third floor, where she had proceeded to lock herself into her old room.
    That had left Beau and Woodrow. It wouldn’t do to forget Woodrow, the stiff-backed valet Beau had hired to teach him how to go on in Society, which he had done with an admirable level of competence if not remarkable enthusiasm. Woodrow appeared to hold a low opinion of his employer, and Beau (who hadn’t found much to admire in his valet) had been about to gift the man with his freedom from servitude to one of “those uncouth Irishers” when the plum called Niall Winslow had at last fallen into his hands. As Woodrow had a maiden sister living somewhere in East Sussex whom he had considered paying a visit soon, Beau had agreed to keep the man on—temporarily.
    Which had proved to be a good thing, as it had been Woodrow who had bravely stepped in between Beau and Rosalind once Bridget had tripped off upstairs, one hand to her plump breast, his quick action probably preventing bloodshed.
    “Mr. Remington is many things I cannot admire, madam,” Woodrow had declared in his unemotional, precise English, stepping directly in front of Rosalind as Riggs, who knew his own limits, had made a break for it. Miss Winslow had been in a rare temper, she had, which Riggs had breathlessly related to the other servants as he sat trembling in a chair in the kitchens (the cook fanning him with a large towel), where he had retreated after Bridget had released her hold on his throat.
    “However, I do not include prevarication among his deficiencies,” Woodrow had gone on. “His birth and breeding are unexceptional. It is his scattered, hey-go-mad upbringing that I deplore, although he has made great strides toward civilized behavior since entering my tutelage. I can only suggest that we disperse now until the dinner hour, at which time cooler heads may be allowed to prevail.”
    Beau didn’t know which had made him angrier, Woodrow’s backhanded defense or Rosalind’s apparent submission to the imperious, domineering valet. But she had acquiesced, albeit grudgingly, and Beau had been allowed to move himself into the house—for now.
    He sighed, a wave of Irish melancholy crashing over his English soul. It was depressing, that’s what it was, and he felt lower than a barnacle on an anchor that he had been reduced to hiding (at least figuratively) behind Bridget and Woodrow—behind a woman’s apron and a valet’s pressing iron. He would