The Butler Did It. Kasey Michaels

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СКАЧАТЬ take no more walks until this fog is dissipated, I promise. I was foolish to insist, but I do so hate being cooped up inside, ever, no matter how pleasing my surroundings. And I’m very sorry you were frightened out there, Claramae,” she apologized in her pleasing voice.

      Indeed, all of Miss Emma Clifford was pleasing, to the ears, to the eyes. Even to the mind, unless one was the sort to be frightened by an intelligent female. Still, for all her perfection, she hadn’t got her mother’s dimples, which at least Thornley could only consider a pity. A bleeding pity.

      “Yes, miss,” Claramae said, stuffing a soggy handkerchief back into her apron pocket even as she dropped into a quick curtsy. “’Tis just that robbers and murderers lurk in the fog. Everyone knows that.”

      “Possibly, Claramae, but if those cutpurses and cutthroats encountered the same problems we had in seeing even two feet in front of us, I imagine they’re all still out there, bumping into each other, cutting each other’s noses off, and no worry to us.”

      “Yes, miss. I’ll take your things, miss? Everything will need a good brushing, as it’s so dusty out there.”

      Emma handed over her bonnet, gloves and pelisse, and Claramae scuttled off toward the baize door under the stairs, leaving Emma to follow in her mother’s wake.

      She could hear Daphne Clifford still nattering nineteen to the dozen to Thornley.

      Emma sighed, shook her head and mentally attempted to compose a small homily that would convince her mother that, while Thornley was admittedly a well-setup gentleman, he was their butler, not their host.

      Not that this would matter a whit to Daphne, Emma realized on yet another sigh. She had never before noticed her mother’s proclivity to gush, to eyelash bat, to simper and giggle. At home, Daphne concentrated on her embroidery. At home, Daphne still spoke well of her husband, dead these three years. At home, Daphne behaved herself.

      Here, from absolutely the first moment her mother had set eyes on Thornley five short days ago, the woman had been afflicted with some strange mental aberration that had her believing she was a young girl on the flirt.

      It was embarrassing, that’s what it was, and that Daphne’s old chum, Lady Jersey, seemed to encourage her was only to be considered criminal. Emma knew that Sally Jersey was laughing behind her hand at Daphne, but Sally Jersey had also issued them all vouchers to Almack’s, so Emma had steeled herself to overlook the woman’s rather perverse humor. But only until she had snagged herself a suitable husband. After that, she would cut Sally Jersey dead, and hang the consequences, no matter how much her mother seemed to admire the woman.

      Emma entered the large main drawing room just as her mother was asking Thornley to please “play Mother” for them and pour the tea. She’d stopped short of asking the man to sit down, spread a serviette over his knee and join them in their refreshments, and Emma could only be grateful for that small favor.

      The butler, his ears rather red, cited his inability to linger, as he had pressing duties, and avoided Emma’s gaze as he walked, stiff-backed, from the room.

      “Mama, you really mustn’t do that,” Emma said, sitting down on the facing couch, the silver tea service between them.

      “Really mustn’t do what, dear?” Daphne asked vaguely, making a great business out of attempting to lift the teapot before sitting back, sighing. “Much, much too heavy. You know, Emma, this is a very pretty place, by and large, but I don’t understand opulence if it’s too heavy to use.”

      Emma bit her bottom lip, reached forward to place a cup beneath the spout of the teapot, then tipped the pot on its cradle to pour the tea…as the pot was designed to do. “Here you are, Mama. You must be chilled. Drink up.”

      “Oh, my,” Daphne said, giving the teapot a little push with her spoon. “Would you just look at that, Emma? What will they think of next?”

      “I have no idea, Mama,” Emma said, straight-faced, then looked up as her grandmother entered the room.

      She resisted sniffing the air for the scent of mischief, because she didn’t want to know, and because she was a well-bred young lady. Which didn’t mean she could overlook the rather shrewd look in her grandmother’s lively eyes. Living with Fanny Clifford was rather like being in charge of maintaining the night fire in a forest, so that it didn’t go out and wolves were able to approach. One could not rest easy, ever.

      “Fresh from your nap, Grandmama?” Emma asked, her voice deliberately vague, only mildly and politely interested in whatever answer her grandmother might offer.

      Because Fanny Clifford never napped, and Emma knew this. What she didn’t want to know was where her grandmother had been the past hour, or what she’d been doing. No sane person would. It was better to pretend to believe a lie, and much easier than trying to explain any of her grandmother’s activities to Daphne Clifford.

      “A lovely rest for these weary old bones, yes, dear,” Fanny lied smoothly as she lowered her small, paper-thin self onto the couch beside Daphne. “And you two were out mucking about in the fog again, I suppose? You’ve a smut of coal dust on your nose, Daphne.”

      Daphne quickly raised her serviette to her face, exclaiming, “Oh, no, no! No wonder he looked at me so oddly. I could just Expire. I’m So Ashamed.”

      “Twit,” Fanny Clifford muttered, winking at her granddaughter. “There’s no smut, Daphne. I was merely checking to see if you’re still so arsy-varsy over Thornley. And you are. And still making a cake out of yourself, I have no doubt. My wastrel son must be spinning in his grave, that you’d think to replace him with a servant. Of course, Thornley is butler to a marquis, could even be called a majordomo, so that might have Samuel not rotating quite so fast. The boy always was hot for titles.”

      “I am not making a push for Thornley, Mother Clifford,” Daphne protested, but she did not look the older woman in the eyes. “Doesn’t he have the loveliest posture? Samuel always slouched so.”

      Emma added two sugars to her tea. “Grandmama, remember, we are not to specifically mention the marquis in public unless forced to do so, and then just to say that he is our unfortunately absent host. Thornley was adamant about that. I think the poor man must be strapped for cash, which is the only explanation I can find as to why he leases rooms to perfect strangers for the Season. We were even quite vague with Lady Jersey on her single visit here, as you might remember, although she is much too interested in herself to notice where she is when she’s telling all and sundry how very wonderful she is. But we must protect the man’s reputation.”

      “Humph. If it’s his reputation he’s worried about, you’d think he’d at least vet whom he leases to better before allowing them to run tame in his household.”

      Emma put down her spoon very carefully, trying to hang on to her composure. She had two choices: ignore what her grandmother just said—hinted at—or ask the woman what she meant. She must be feeling daring, or else the fog had muddled her mind, because she then took a deep breath and asked, “What have you done this time, Grandmama? Waited until either Mrs. Norbert or Sir Edgar went out and about, and then pored through their belongings?”

      “Oh, don’t be silly, Emma. Your grandmother would never do any such thing. It would be unladylike, and too shabby by half,” Daphne scolded, brushing pastry crumbs from her skirt. “Would you, Mother Clifford? Sneak about, that is, and poke into drawers and such?”

      “Here’s СКАЧАТЬ