Amanda Scott by The Bath Eccentric’s Son Page A

house.
    She lifted her chin. “I am not so impertinent, sir.”
    He grinned at her. “Are you not, Miss Bradbourne? I should have thought you equal to anything. There are times when you put me forcibly in mind of my sister.”
    “I doubt that that is a compliment,” she said thoughtfully, “for I must tell you, sir, that whenever you have put me in mind of my brother, it has not been because of anything particularly admirable in your behavior.”
    “Then shall we consign our relatives to perdition? Talking of one’s family can only be boring to anyone else.”
    “But families are important, sir.”
    “Are they?” He smiled at her. “I cannot agree, but in any case, I did mean what I said to you for a compliment.”
    She could not resist returning his smile wishing she were worthy of such praise. It must, she thought, be an excellent thing to be equal to all the challenges one encountered. She had already discovered, however, that quite frequently she was not.
    They passed along a narrow, whitewashed corridor to a door leading into the stair hall, and there Nell paused to gaze about her, astonished by the faux-marble walls and the would-be stone steps. The house was very quiet.
    “Are there truly no servants, sir?”
    “Only the cook and a scullery maid. Shall I send for one of them? Are you nervous, ma’am?”
    “No, not at all. I was not raised to be missish, you know. My mother died when I was quite young, and my father went through a flock of housekeepers before I took the reins myself. For some reason, any number of them seemed to think he might marry them. I could never understand such misplaced optimism.”
    “Could you not?” he asked.
    His tone was cynical again, and she laughed. “If you mean to imply that he gave them cause to believe such a thing, you really ought not to say such things to me.”
    “I made a point of not saying any such thing to you.”
    “Well, yes, but …” She chuckled again. “You are quite abominable, sir. In point of fact, although I have no good reason to believe that my father’s actions raised false hopes in his housekeepers’ breasts, the possibility does exist. Still, they must have been daft if they believed him.”
    “No doubt, but people do believe the oddest things.”
    She agreed, gazing at the pictures on the stair wall, where hunting scenes and sketches of Bath hung cheek by jowl with ponderous family portraits. It was as if someone had simply stuck every picture in the house up there without order or reason. Oddly, the effect was both interesting and decorative.
    Manningford was watching her. “My sister Sybilla decided that the stair hall was tiresome, and since my father never sees it, she saw no reason not to alter it. I like the result. We go up this second flight now. His rooms are on the top floor.” He paused on the landing and looked at her searchingly. “I hope you are not having second thoughts, Miss Bradbourne. He will not be grateful to you, nor pleased to see you, I might add.”
    She smiled at him. “He will not frighten me, sir.”
    He looked long at her, then said slowly, “No, I begin to think nothing does frighten you, though I cannot help but think that one or two events in your past might well have frightened a person of less resolution.”
    “Goodness, sir,” Nell said, striving for a lightness in her tone that she could not feel, “You will put me to the blush.”
    “You must forgive me.” He gestured for her to precede him, adding gently, “When one has racketed about as much as I have, ma’am, one learns to pay as much heed to the things people don’t say as to those they do. You flout convention by walking alone in a public garden, but you carry a pistol in your reticule. You behave like a lady of quality, yet you agree without a blush to a scheme that would mortify many other young women. You laugh easily; yet I sense sadness and tension beneath the laughter.”
    There was nothing Nell wished to say to that, least of