Three Weeks With Lady X(29)

"You might as well get to know me, Fleming. The answer to that is, when hell freezes over."

"Quite right, sir," the butler replied, without flicking an eyelash. He  took the platter and handed it to the footman, who had been trotting  after them like a puppy. "Put this in my pantry, Stevens."

"Why?"

"We have handled it, and the platter must be polished before use."

Thorn was losing interest in silver. "I don't give a damn whether it's polished or not, as long as it has food on it."

"I gained that impression, sir, when you paid Hannam & Crouch,  although they neglected to send you an inventory of the objects you had  bought." Fleming's tone was wry; Thorn suspected they would get on very  well.

He shrugged. "You realize I'm a bastard? It gave my butler in London  indigestion, until at last he left for the good of his immortal soul."

"I too am a chance-child, as we call it in the Highlands," Fleming said.

Thorn broke into a crack of laughter. "How in hell did she find you?"

"I have served under the Marquess of Pestle, and most recently as head footman to the Duke of Villiers."

"Ah, she stole you from my father."

"Everyone in service knows of Lady Xenobia. If a man would like to move  households, he hopes, if not prays, that she will pay the house a visit.  I met her two years ago, when she spoke to every person in His Grace's  household. She did not forget my ambition to be a butler."

"Does she always speak to every person in service?"

Fleming nodded. "From the butler to the scullery maid. You can imagine that she learns quite a bit about the household."

She was brilliant, that woman.

As Thorn entered the library, the image of India in her bed came back  into his head. He would have guessed that ladies wore white flannel to  bed, perhaps with a bit of lace around the neck and the wrists. To cover  up.

India had been wearing pale blue silk. And there had been a lot of lace, and it hadn't been doing much to cover anything up.

A crunch of carriage wheels interrupted that interesting train of  thought, so he went out to greet Rose. She climbed down, clutching  Antigone and looking uncertain. He probably should have traveled with  her, even though Twink and Clara were descending from the carriage as  well.

Thorn stopped and held out his arms. "Rose!"

Her face was tight, and he waited while she thought about it. Finally,  she trotted toward him, and he scooped her up. "How's my girl?" he asked  her.

"I am not your girl," she said, with that awkward earnestness that characterized her.

"You most certainly are," he said. "On loan from your papa."

"Oh." She looked unconvinced. Thorn had never had trouble persuading  members of the female sex to like him. Until, that is, he met Rose. She  held herself apart, no matter how much he tried to charm her.

"We're off to the dower house," he told her, hating that fact. He  understood the necessity, but it didn't suit him to hide Rose away, as  if she were someone to be ashamed of. It made her seem like a by-blow,  whereas she was the perfectly legitimate product of holy matrimony.

But when he had informed Laetitia about Rose and the dower house, she  had nodded instantly. "My mother is . . . difficult," she said, her  voice barely above a whisper. He knew what she was really saying: she  needed him to rescue her, and he would.                       
       
           



       

"Where is Lady Xenobia?" Rose asked now.

"She's in the house, I expect," Thorn said. "Would you like to see her?"

Rose nodded vigorously. "I know that she will want to see the progress that Antigone has made."

Thorn glanced at Fleming.

"Lady Xenobia will undoubtedly join you in the dower house, Miss Rose," the butler said. "For a visit."





Chapter Sixteen

Miss Laetitia Rainsford was supervising as her mother's maid packed Lady  Rainsford's trunk for transport to Starberry Court. This was not  because Abigail needed supervision but because her mother insisted, and  Lala had learned long ago that it was easier to do as her mother willed  than try to resist it.

"Take care with that gown," Lady Rainsford said, from where she reclined  on a day bed across the room. "That is Valenciennes lace on the  sleeves."

Abigail already knew that, and always took care. But Mama liked to  catalogue the valuable things in her possession. Almost as much as Mama  liked to catalogue her ailments. But not quite as much as Lala liked to  make unkind comments in the back of her head, where no one could hear  them.

It was a sin, and she knew it. She nodded, and said, "Yes, Mama," and  watched as Abigail painstakingly folded the gown between lengths of  white silk to keep the lace from snagging or wrinkling.

"I'm still unsure about this visit," her mother said fretfully. "A  bastard, to call a spade a spade! My daughter marrying a child of shame.  Who would have thought it? Not I, not when I was the most beautiful  woman in the ton, and I chose your father to wed."

"Mr. Dautry is the son of the Duke of Villiers," Lala ventured to say, not for the first time, nor even for the tenth.

"Who is as scandalous as his offspring," her mother said, raising a hand  limply in the air and letting it fall. She had applied a paste of  cucumber and fuller's earth, guaranteed to eradicate all wrinkles, to  her face that morning. It had dried solid, and now it had begun  crackling like the bed of a dried-out pond.

"Your father should be appalled at the very idea of linking his blood  with such an immoral man as Villiers, let alone a bastard slip from the  tree."

Abigail had finished the gown and was placing a last layer of silk on  top before closing the trunk's lid. "Papa is quite impressed with Mr.  Dautry's holdings," Lala reminded her mother. She had been repeating two  concepts over and over: "duke" and "wealth."

But she dared not utter any of the things she'd like to say, which  included pointing out that no one considered her more than a pretty  face, if not a dunce. And that her father was weary and gaunt with  anxiety about money. And that he needed Lala to marry quickly, and not  cost him another season.

Frankly, her mother should have been kissing Mr. Dautry's feet. It was a  miracle she'd met Mr. Dautry, given that he hadn't attended the usual  events of the season. He'd never seen her stumbling along in a  conversation, trying to find the right words, trying to come up with  something witty or even merely fitting, and failing. She would try to  say something, and her face would begin to feel tight and she could feel  color creeping up her neck.

But Mr. Dautry didn't seem to expect her to be clever, which made it all  easier. He was so interesting that she found herself actually paying  attention to what he said.

He wasn't a man she would have selected if she'd been given a choice.  She liked men who were far less aggressive and masculine. For almost two  years before she'd debuted, she had been infatuated with their vicar,  who had a slender, intelligent face and no hair on his head at all. She  attended church so regularly that her mother started calling her Goody  Two-shoes.

"Dautry is rich," her mother said fretfully. "But who would have thought  that I, I, would have to sell my daughter in the open marketplace to a  bastard with a purse of gold? My exquisite daughters should have been  snatched up by the highest in the land the moment they debuted."

"Mariah had four excellent offers," Lala reminded her, ringing the bell to summon footmen to collect the trunk.

Her mother's clayey face cracked into a smile at the memory. "Yes,  Mariah is a true beauty. What a wonderful season she had! Everyone was  whispering about her, casting wagers about who she would accept . . ."

Lala didn't know why there had been any speculation: her father had  simply accepted the largest offer for Mariah's hand. Unfortunately, he  didn't think that any of the men who had proposed to Lala had offered  adequate recompense for her beauty. Instead, he held out for a better  offer-and then the season was over.                       
       
           



       

The very thought of having to endure another season made her heart  pound. If Mr. Dautry didn't marry her, she'd have to go through all of  it again, knowing everyone was whispering about her, not because she was  beautiful but because they thought she was a simpleton.

She had even overheard some girls giggling and calling her "a spoony  Sally." She hadn't entirely understood what they'd meant-who was  Sally?-but it was obviously no compliment.

Abigail opened the bedchamber door and stood back, letting the footmen  fetch Lady Rainsford's trunk. It would be sent on immediately, allowing  the gowns to be aired and re-ironed before they followed tomorrow  afternoon.