3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

H e heard the scream before the thundering of feet echoed down the corridor into his study.

Leaving his study door open so he could listen to what was happening in the drawing room at the front of the castle had either been a wise choice or a stupid one.

Judging by how quick the scream came after he left the drawing room, it was probably both of those things.

Thomas had barely looked up from his desk when his maid appeared in the study doorway, a long scratch across her cheek oozing fresh blood.

“She’s wild, m’lord. Rabid!” His maid’s hand went to her cheek, her voice screeching. “I’ll not deal with her. I refuse it. I’m leaving.”

“Miss Rella?—”

She disappeared from the doorway before Thomas gained his feet, before he could get her name out.

He’d half-expected this, though he knew he had to attempt to have Miss Rellaston give his relation a proper bath. And he’d almost had himself convinced it would work.

His knuckles fisted down onto his desk, a heave lifting his chest. He wasn’t about to call Miss Rellaston back and try to convince her to give it another go. He had one maid and he wasn’t looking to lose her. He’d already had to replace his driver more than once since the incident a few months ago. He didn’t need the hassle of finding a new maid that lived close enough to Ravenstone that she could come and clean but didn’t have to live here at the castle.

Which left him as the only one to intervene with that feral mess in his drawing room if he didn’t want to be constantly scratching at his skin for the next month.

Digging through the drawers of his desk, he found scissors and strode out into the hallway toward the drawing room.

Stopping in the doorway of the drawing room, he assessed the situation as he rolled up the sleeves of his lawn shirt—he’d stripped off his coat and the appearance of a lord the moment Mr. Smith had left. The furniture in the room had been pushed to one side, the carpet rolled, though he’d thought the better of it and would just have that removed right away, as lice loved to hide in carpet.

In the empty half of the room, the copper tub that had been brought in was filled to the brim with steaming salt water to kill the lice, with lots of it splashed onto the stone floor.

The feral girl, Izzie, had moved farther back into the corner. Curled again into the same ball she’d been in, while he, Jensen, and the new driver had moved the furniture.

His mouth pulling to a thin line, Thomas set his fingers into the scissors and walked across the room to her. He grabbed a fistful of her ratted nest hair and moved to set the blades of the scissors to it, when a crazed scream, high pitched and furious, flew from her lips.

Izzie sprang into motion, scratching at his hand and drawing blood as she screeched, a wild harpy. “No, no, no!”

Jumping back, surprised she had such power in her lungs, Thomas released her and she used the opportunity to run across the room, screaming, and then hid behind the settee.

Fucking hell.

He needed to cut her hair off—shear it close to her scalp—so he could get rid of the lice, then hold her under water, drowning the evil parasites that were crawling all over her body.

Damn feral girl.

He stalked around the settee, reaching out to grab her by her hair again, but she twisted her head at the last second and her teeth found his little finger. She bit down hard, making him jerk his hand away, and she skittered away from him, crouching under the edge of a round mahogany side table.

He looked down at his free hand. Streaks of blood across the back of his hand from her claws and now drops of blood pooling along his finger from her teeth.

This wasn’t working.

He stifled his rage at her infuriating actions. He could catch her, yes—kneel on her and shear her. But to what end?

She was going to do whatever it took to evade him at every turn, that much was obvious.

The brute force approach wasn’t going to work.

Seething breaths, he backed out of the room, then closed the door on her, his mouth pulled in a determined line.

That puny little girl wasn’t going to best him.