Кейси Майклс – Lords of Scandal: The Beleaguered Lord Bourne / The Enterprising Lord Edward (страница 12)

Looking around, Kit reluctantly realized the wisdom of Ozzy’s warning—while hating to credit his friend with even a small portion of brainpower at that moment—and roughly grabbing the fellow by the elbow, he surreptitiously pushed him along the flagway as if unsure Ozzy wouldn’t bolt if he relaxed his hold.

It took more than one bottle before Kit could find any small bit of humor in the scene lately enacted in Bond Street, but no amount of wine or conciliating chatter on the part of Ozzy would make Kit believe Jennie could be induced to speak to him again much before the first snow of winter.

CHAPTER FIVE

FOR A MAN who had so distinguished himself in battle as to have been mentioned in dispatches more than a half-dozen times, Kit showed a remarkable lack of courage when it came to confronting his wife. Perhaps this reluctance to face her stemmed from the fact that he knew himself to be totally in the wrong—as even the slapdash marital habits of the ton included at least a show of fidelity, certainly during the first flush of the union.

So Jennie was left to wade her way through the long list of applicants who replied to her advertisement—their numbers making a long, snaking line that stretched from the servants’ entrance into Berkeley Square itself—while the earl continued making himself scarce.

Five days after their meeting on Bond Street, Kit at last ran out of diversions and found himself, at only three in the afternoon, at loose ends. Lacking any other alternative, he directed his mount to the rear of Berkeley Square, dismounted in front of the stable doors, turned, and walked headfirst into a mountain.

“What the devil?” Bourne exploded once he had regained his breath. Looking up, quite a good way up, actually, his startled eyes took in the sight of an enormous, hairless, black head fitted with glittering black-bean eyes; a gargantuan head that sat atop the largest man Kit had even seen.

Two hands as large as hams reached out to steady him, nearly crushing his shoulders in the process, as Kit rocked slightly on his heels. The man must be all of seven feet tall, the gaping earl told himself in amazement. I can only hope he’s a friendly beast.

Recovering his dignity and firmly stamping down any impulse to turn tail and make a run for it, Kit inquired softly: “What—er, I mean, who are you?”

“I be called Tiny,” the giant rumbled from somewhere deep in his massive chest.

“Naturally,” the earl quipped ruefully, his quick sense of the ridiculous coming to the rescue.

“I be the earl’s new groom. Who be you, sir?”

“I be—er—I’m the earl, actually,” Kit informed him, stepping out of Tiny’s large shadow and back into the sunlight. “So, you’re my new groom, eh, Tiny? Tell me—who hired you?” Kit held out a hand before Tiny could answer. “No, don’t tell me, let me guess. Lady Bourne, right?”

“Lady Bourne, she be a queen. I be ready to die for her,” Tiny growled passionately. “I be ready to kill for her. With these hands,” he swore, holding out his large fists and then clenching them tight.

Kit swallowed hard and stretched his neck. “Good, Tiny. I like—um—loyalty in a servant. But I asked her ladyship to secure two grooms.” He looked the giant up and down, still amazed by the man’s size. “Or did she think she had?”

“’ullo, guv’nor,” came a thin, high voice as Tiny stepped sideways to reveal the person standing behind him. “Goliath’s m’name and groomin’ nags m’game. Me an’ Tiny ‘ere ‘re a team, ye ken. Worked the trav elin’ circus till it went flat, an’ yer missus took us up. Right pretty piece too,” Goliath added with a wink, earning himself a menacing growl from Tiny.

“A dwarf,” Kit breathed in amazement, looking down on the tiny man. “A bloody dwarf.” And then, remarkably, he grinned. “Why not? Why the bloody hell not?”

“You be wantin’ Tiny ta take yer horse?” the large man asked almost timidly, belatedly remembering his mistress’s hint that the earl was best humored at first, until he felt more at ease with his new staff.

“That’s very kind of you, Tiny,” Kit thanked the man as he turned and headed toward the rear of the mansion. “Just toss him over your shoulder, why not, and carry him into his stall. I’m sure he’ll give you no trouble.”

Goliath let out a giggle and executed a perfect, if compact, backflip. “’e likes us, Tiny,” the delighted dwarf crowed, jumping up and down on his sturdy, stubby legs. “’ome at last we is, boyo, ‘ome at last!”

JENNIE PACED the drawing room in mounting apprehension. Kit’s behavior had been courtesy itself since their unfortunate meeting in Bond Street, not only refraining from taking out his threatened revenge on her person, but allowing time and distance to separate them from the nastier memories of that meeting.

Since she had spent a very busy week interviewing possible servants for the mansion, Jennie’s memories of that fateful meeting had been given a chance to mellow, so that now she could recall little of her former anger, concentrating instead on the ludicrous image of her infuriating urbane husband at a total loss for words. Of her other, more unsettling feelings at having spied two obvious ladies of the evening dangling from her husband’s sleeves, she refused to think at all. It only confused the issue, whatever it was.

She’d been granted time, and time was what she had needed. Time to complete her new wardrobe, and time for some of her new things to be delivered, so that she could, when the time came, face him in her new finery. That was important. She needed the outward trappings of her new title about her when her husband confronted her demanding she explain about the servants she had hired.

Oh, yes, she mused knowingly, there would be quite a grand to-do then. She was not a complete fool. But she must make him understand her reasons for hiring Tizzie and Lizzie, Tiny and Goliath, Charity—the poor, dear thing—Bob, Ben, and Del, and Irvette and Blessing. Even Montague, the French chef Kit had particularly requested, would require a good deal of explaining on her part, she knew.

Now the time and space Kit had granted her began to wear on her nerves. She yearned to have him summon her, ring a peal over her head, and have done with it.

Bundy had told her he would. Even Goldie had clucked her tongue at the sight of Charity—the poor, dear thing. Renfrew, Jennie silently blessed the man, had said nothing, possibly because Del’s happy “Mornin’, guv’nor” as he took up his proper footman position in the foyer had robbed the majordomo of coherent speech.

Deep in her heart of hearts, Jennie knew she had grossly overstepped herself. She had been commissioned to hire the servants, of course she had been, but she had not been given carte blanche to employ the odd assortment of humanity she had chosen. But they had needed jobs so desperately, she consoled herself. All those other, qualified applicants, who had presented themselves, references in hand, would have no difficulty in finding positions.

But Tizzie and Lizzie, for instance, had little hope if she turned them down. Where could two overage, out-of-work Shakespearean actresses find work if even the lowest traveling troupe would not hire them? And as for Charity—the poor, dear thing—she might well expire in a filthy gutter if Jennie hadn’t taken her on as tweeny. Not that Charity could climb the stairs very much in her present condition.

Surely Kit would understand. Jennie picked up a Dresden statuette of a young maiden and scowled into its placid, peaceful face. And a herd of elephants might dance on the head of a pin. Of course Kit wouldn’t understand! Why should he? Hadn’t the man already proved himself to be a heartless beast capable of compromising an innocent maiden, marrying her, and then deserting her in the midst of a strange city?

Jennie rapidly worked up a full head of steam, all her heart directed at her cruel husband, the heartless monster from whom she must protect her latest batch of ugly ducklings and pitiful misfits. How dare he question her judgment! Who was he to set himself up as arbiter of all that was required to make a good and loyal servant? Well, she thought, now in a high state of temper, just let him say one word against her choices. Just let him dare!

Kit’s entrance into the drawing room at that precise moment was not exactly a triumph of superb timing. “Good day, m’love,” he began cheerily enough. “And what are you about today?”

Jennie whirled on him in some heat. “And just what is that snide remark supposed to mean?” she sneered, her green eyes narrowed into wary slits. “How unhandsome of you, Kit, how very unhandsome of you!”

“I make you my compliments, ma’am,” Kit drawled, executing an elegant leg in her direction. “That is quite a novel greeting. Am I, I sincerely trust, going to be given an explanation for it, or am I to be summarily executed for my sins without even so much as a hearing?”

Jennie tossed her blond curls and sniffed. “Oh, you think you’re so very droll, don’t you?”

She ain’t exactly falling over herself to be nice to me, Kit told himself, hiding a smile. Possibly she feels attack to be the best defense. I wonder what she believes herself to be guilty of, for I doubt I have been in Berkeley Square frequently enough to have done anything too lamentable. “What is it, puss?” he prompted, lowering his rangy frame into a chair and stretching his legs before him. “Have you overspent your allowance? If so, don’t fret, for if that fetching creation you are wearing is part of the reason I forgive you with all my heart. You really do clean up quite nicely, pet, if I must say so m’self.”