The Seduction of Sara by Karen Hawkins

heralded the entrance of the butler. Wiggs tottered into the room, a tray laden with silver and delicate china resting in his gnarled hands. “Your tea, my lord.” The butler’s voice cracked in the middle of the word “lord” making it sound like “lard.”
    â€œThank you.” Nick noted how the butler kept his gaze averted. Since his arrival, the resident servants had treated him as though they expected him to sprout horns and a tail, and it was beginning to get as annoying as hell. “Wiggs.”
    The butler looked up from adjusting the china on the tray, his gaze uncertain. “Yes, my lord?”
    â€œHow long have you served Hibberton Hall?”
    â€œAlmost fifty years, my lord.”
    Mr. Pratt lifted his head from his list making. “All of the servants have been here for quite some time, which is amazing considering that they haven’t received a decent wage in years.”
    Wiggs nodded, pride shining in his face. “We love the Hall, sir. It is a pleasure to serve it.”
    Pratt dipped his pen into the inkwell and carefully adjusted a column. “Well, you need never again fear missing your wages.”
    â€œIndeed not,” Nick said, who could not understand such misplaced loyalty. A house was just a house, and Hibberton Hall, for all its potential beauty, was nothing more than that. “Wiggs, I cannot help but notice that the staff seems uneasy.”
    The butler’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in an alarming fashion. “Do they, my lord? I-I hadn’t noticed.”
    â€œIndeed they do. And it bothers me. So let me say this once, and you can carry it to the others. Ifyou, or anyone else employed at Hibberton Hall, find you cannot bear to see me in your master’s place, then I shall have Pratt find you employment elsewhere.”
    The butler paled. “My lord, with all due respect, the staff was glad to see the baron sent about his business.”
    Nick frowned. “Then why the devil do all of you jump like rabbits every time I call for you?”
    Mr. Pratt cleared his throat. “Ah, perhaps I can explain—”
    â€œMr. Pratt,” Nick said softly, not taking his gaze from the butler, “while I appreciate your desire to assist Wiggs, he appears quite capable of answering for himself.”
    Wiggs straightened. “My lord, I apologize for any peculiarities you may have witnessed in the household staff, but you must realize that we’ve never had a gentleman in residence. In all my years as butler, Lord Parkington was here only once. I believe he stayed all of three minutes.” Visibly trembling, the butler clasped his gloved hands before him. “The staff and I are doing our best to accommodate you, and we only hope you won’t turn us out.”
    â€œTurn you out? I have no intention of doing any such thing.”
    The butler let out his breath in a long wheeze of relief. “Thank you, my lord! You have no idea—”
    â€œProvided,” Nick continued inexorably, “that you prove your worth. I cannot abide laziness.”
    â€œMy lord, you will have no cause to dismiss anyone.”
    â€œI certainly hope not. Still, I must ask why is it that after almost a month in residence, only my bedchamber and the comte’s are fit for habitation?”
    â€œI have frequently spoken to Mrs. Kibble on that subject, but I’m afraid I was unable to convince her that the quiet countryside around Bath could hold the interest of such a, ahem, man of the world.”
    Nick noted the pause but decided not to pursue it. “So the redoubtable Mrs. Kibble believes I might leave at any minute and not return?”
    The butler looked pained. “The current odds are twenty to one that you won’t see six more weeks.”
    Nick certainly understood the appeal of a wager. “Wiggs, I wish to make a small wager myself.”
    â€œMy lord?”
    â€œI wager ten guineas that