The Anonymous Miss Addams. Kasey Michaels

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СКАЧАТЬ silenced the man with a look. “Turn this equipage about at once, if you please. I have a sudden desire to return to Standish Court. And don’t spare the horses,” he ordered the driver as he swept into the coach, the young woman lolling bonelessly in his arms.

      Beneath his breath he added, “I do begin to believe my loving parent has put a fatherly curse on me. I am suddenly overrun with unlooked-for Good Deeds. But, being a loving son, and not a greedy man, I also believe that at least one of these humanizing projects rightfully belongs to him. Duvall,” he called out, “tell the coachman that Jeremy is to ride atop with him.”

      CHAPTER THREE

      “COO, GUV’NOR, would yer jist look at dat! Dat gentry mort looks jist like yer—wit a coffin o’ snow plopped on ’is ’ead!”

      André Standish leveled a cool, assessing look at the untidy urchin perched on top of the traveling coach, then descended the few remaining steps to the gravel drive and addressed his son through the lowered coach window. “An acquaintance of yours, Pierre? He has an interesting way with description. Have you lost your way and must retrace your steps, or have you somehow learned that cook is preparing your favorite meal for tonight—a lovely brown ragôut of lamb with peas—and it is your stomach that brings you back to me?”

      “My current favorite meal is rare roasted beef with horseradish sauce,” Pierre corrected, “although I know it is rude of me to point out this single lapse in your seemingly faultless store of information about me. And no,” he said, shifting the human weight in his arms in preparation for leaving the coach, “much as I love you, I have not lost my way. May I infringe upon your affection by prevailing upon you to open this door?”

      André complied with a courtly bow, flinging open the door and personally letting down the steps. A moment later, Pierre was standing beside him in the drive, the young woman still lying limply in his arms.

      The older Standish gently pushed back the hood of the grey cloak, revealing the young woman’s face. “I detect the smell of brandy. I foolishly thought I had raised you better than this. Surely you haven’t taken to drugging your females, Pierre?”

      “Not lately, Father. My coachman nearly ran over her as she lay in the road.”

      “Unconscious? A head injury?” André asked, not wasting time in useless questions as to how the female had come to be in the road in the first place.

      “Most definitely unconscious.”

      “Have you learned her name?” André asked as the two men hurriedly mounted the steps to the house, Jeremy Holloway at their heels until Duvall stuck out one foot and tripped him so that he landed facedown in the drive.

      “I like to think of her as Miss Penance,” Pierre replied immediately. “Whether she is mine or yours remains to be seen. Duvall,” he called over his shoulder, “I saw that. For shame. I would not have believed it of you. Now wash it and feed it and put it to bed.”

      Duvall, having no trouble in understanding who “it” was, tottered over to lean against the side of the traveling coach and buried his head in his hands.

      “SHE’S STILL SLEEPING?” André asked the question three hours later as Pierre entered the drawing room, having excused himself after dinner to check on their patient.

      “Hartley assures me that she’ll sleep through to the morning,” he told his father. “It may only be a butler’s opinion, but as the doctor said much the same thing before he left, I believe we can safely assume it’s true. She’s got a lump the size of a pigeon’s egg on the side of her head.”

      “Poor Miss Penance,” André commented, accepting the snifter of brandy his son offered him. “She’ll have a bruiser of a headache when she wakes, I fear. Now, do you think it’s possible for you to tell me about the urchin? We somehow neglected to speak of him over dinner, perhaps hoping to preserve our appetites, for he was most unappealing when last I saw him. Duvall appears to dislike him, a lack of affection that seems to be mutual. I happened to pass by the bedroom as your man was giving the boy a bath, you see. The language spewing forth from the pair of them was enough to put me to the blush.”

      Pierre took a sip of brandy. “Duvall likes everyone very little, save me, of course, for whom he would gladly die if asked. A man could become quite full of himself, knowing that. But to answer your question, young Master Jeremy Holloway is a runaway—having escaped the life of a chimney sweep, if my powers of deduction are correct. He chose my coach as his route to freedom when we stopped for luncheon.”

      “An enterprising young lad,” André remarked, watching the burnished liquid swirl and gleam as he rubbed the brandy snifter lightly back and forth between his palms. “Oh, by the by—young Master Holloway would like to have a hot poker inserted in an area of Duvall’s anatomy that is not usually spoken of in more polite circles. Duvall, in his turn, would like the boy deposited in a dirty sack posthaste and drowned in the goldfish pond—as I am convinced my understanding of gutter French is still reasonably accurate. My goodness, I begin to feel like a spy reporting to his superior.”

      “Duvall likes to think of himself as bloodthirsty,” Pierre remarked calmly. “Even taking Duvall’s sensibilities into account, however,” he went on silkily, “I do believe I shall take Jeremy as my Good Deed, and leave the disposition of Miss Penance to you.”

      André blinked once. “Indeed,” he drawled, setting the snifter down very carefully. “And might I ask why I’m to be gifted with an unknown female with a lump the size of a pigeon’s egg on her pate?”

      “Of course.” Pierre lifted his own snifter and tipped it slightly in André’s direction. “I won’t even remind you of how you maneuvered me so meanly once you learned about Quinton. Shall we drink to poetic justice, Father?”

      THE MORNING ARRIVED very early, very abruptly and in full voice.

      “How dare you! Get your hands off me! At once! Do you hear me?”

      Obviously the injured young lady had come to her senses with a vengeance. Mere seconds after her screams had stopped, Pierre—who had been sleeping most peacefully in the adjoining chamber—skidded to a halt just inside the bedroom that had been assigned to Miss Penance, still tying the sash of his maroon banyan around his trim waist.

      “I imagine you can be heard in Bond Street, brat,” he commented, running his fingers through his sleep-mussed hair and ruefully looking down at his bare legs and feet. Raising his head, he addressed the butler, whom he espied backing toward the door to the hall, a china cup and saucer nervously chattering against the silver tray he was clutching with two hands, his face white with shock. “Ah, Hartley, dear fellow, what seems to be the matter?”

      Hartley’s lips moved, quivered actually, but no words came forth.

      “What seems to be the problem?” the woman asked. “What seems to be the problem! I awoke to see this man leaning over my bed! That’s the problem! And why are you asking him? And who are you? You’re not even dressed, for pity’s sake. What has the world come to when a lady can’t get some sleep without all the world creeping into her bedchamber, with only the good Lord knows what on their minds, that’s what I want to know. Well, don’t just stand there with your mouths at half cock. You both have some explaining to do!”

      “Hartley, you may retire now,” Pierre offered kindly as the elderly butler looked about to expire from mingled shock and indignation. “And СКАЧАТЬ