Regency Rogues and Rakes. Anna CampbellЧитать онлайн книгу.
wonder Lady Warford wanted his grace back from France,” Sophy said. What if Lady Clara succumbed to another, lesser fellow’s lures? Quelle horreur!”
Marcelline saw Halliday withdraw, the discussion over. He signaled to a hovering footman, who approached, took his orders, and hurried away. Not two minutes passed before a great tide of servants began flowing into the entrance hall.
Clevedon approached. “Everything is in train,” he said. “Halliday and Mrs. Michaels, my housekeeper, will look after you. But I’m obliged, as you no doubt understand, to take myself elsewhere.” He relinquished Lucie to her mother, crossed into one of the side rooms on the ground floor, and vanished.
Marcelline hadn’t time to wonder at his sudden departure—not that there was anything to wonder at. She understood that he needed to disassociate himself from them. He was merely providing refuge. It was philanthropy, nothing personal.
That explained, she supposed, why the servants treated them so kindly.
As Mrs. Michaels led them up the staircase, she provided the kind of running monologue housekeepers typically offered when taking visitors through a great house. The Noirot family learned that Clevedon House contained a hundred fifty rooms, more or less—“Who can be troubled to count them all?” Sophy whispered to Marcelline—and that it had been renovated and expanded over the centuries. She led them into one of the pair of wings his grace’s grandfather had added, which extended into a tree-lined garden.
The staff, Mrs. Michaels assured them, were accustomed to accommodating house guests on short notice. “Lady Adelaide, his grace’s aunt, was with us quite recently,” she said as she led them into a set of apartments in the north wing overlooking the garden. “Their ladyships his aunts often stay with us, whether his grace is in Town or not, and we pride ourselves on having the north wing always ready for company.”
In between pointing out some of the more spectacular furnishings as well as works of art, the housekeeper sent maids and footmen scurrying hither and yon, to make up fires in the rooms and find fresh clothing and draw hot baths.
True, the servants couldn’t completely conceal their curiosity about the new houseguests, but they seemed to accept the women calmly enough.
In fact, when Marcelline protested that her assigned bedroom was more than sufficient for them all—it was easily as large as the first floor of her shop—Mrs. Michaels looked shocked.
“We don’t want to cause an upheaval,” Marcelline said. “It’s only for the night.” The bed was enormous, and they’d slept all three sisters plus Lucie in a single, far smaller bed more than once.
“His grace’s orders were quite specific,” Mrs. Michaels said firmly. “The rooms are nearly ready. We’re merely seeing to the fires. His grace stressed the dangers of taking a chill after the recent ordeal. And perfectly right he was. Shocks like that are very weakening to the balance of the body. He was worried, in particular, about the little girl. But we’ve a good blaze now, in the sitting room.” She ushered them into one of two slightly smaller rooms adjoining Marcelline’s bedroom.
The housekeeper’s shrewd gaze went to Lucie, who’d forgotten her initial shyness and was wandering about the sitting room, gaping at the grandeur about her. “His grace said you would want a nursemaid for the young lady.”
Millie had disappeared shortly after Clevedon emerged with Lucie from the burning building. Since the maid was the one who’d let Lucie get away from her, she must have decided not to remain to face the consequences.
“Really, it isn’t necessary,” Marcelline said. “I can manage.”
Mrs. Michaels’s eyebrows went up. “Now, madam, I know you’ve had a dreadful time of it, but here are Mary and Sarah.” She beckoned, and two young maids stepped out from among the swarm of servants and curtseyed—quite as though the Noirots were persons of quality. “Very good with children, I assure you. I know you can do with a little rest and quiet while the maids tend to Miss Noirot. And his grace said particularly that the young lady was to see Lady Alice’s dollhouse. That was his grace’s late sister,” she explained in a lower voice to Marcelline. “He said he thought that playing with the dollhouse would take the child’s mind off her shocking experience.”
She moved to Lucie and, bending down, said gently, “Did his grace not promise you a dollhouse?”
“A dollhouse, yes, he did,” Lucie said. She held out the sooty doll, the doll that had nearly killed her, for Mrs. Michaels’s inspection. “And Susannah needs a bath.”
“And she shall have one,” said Mrs. Michaels, not in the least nonplussed. She straightened and put up her hand, and the two young maids drew nearer. “Would you like to have a bath as well? And then a little supper? Would you like to go with Sarah and Mary?”
Lucie looked at Marcelline. “May I go with them, Mama?”
Marcelline looked at the maids. They had eyes for no one but Lucie, of course. She was recovered enough to be winsome; and bedraggled and dirty though she was, her great blue eyes worked their usual magic on the unsuspecting.
“Yes, you may,” Marcelline said.
She would have added, They are not to indulge your every whim, but she knew that was a waste of breath. They would pet and spoil Lucie, and she would do as she pleased, and probably drive them mad, as she’d driven Millie mad. It was very difficult to discipline a charming child, even when she was extremely naughty. Lucie, who had the passionate nature and obstinacy of her ancestors, was also gifted with their complete lack of scruples. Being a child, she had not yet learned to get everything she wanted by guile. When her charm didn’t work, she threw stupendous temper fits.
Yet she’d had a terrifying time, and the pampering would not go amiss. The dollhouse would draw her mind away from what had happened in the shop. At any rate, it was only for a night, Marcelline told herself while she watched the maids lead Lucie away. And while Lucie played princess, Marcelline would have some quiet time to collect herself and plan what to do next.
It would have been easier if she weren’t under Clevedon’s roof, if her surroundings didn’t remind her of who and what he was…apart from being a desirable man who’d belonged to her for a short, short time.
But that was nothing, she told herself. It was lust, no more. From the start, she’d wanted him and he’d wanted her. She’d had him, and that turned out to be more than she’d bargained for.
Still, no matter what she’d bargained for, he was more than simply a desirable man. He was the Duke of Clevedon. She was a shopkeeper. She could never be anything more than a mistress to him. It was a position any of her ancestors would have accepted. But along with the family she had to consider, she had her own aspirations to keep in the front of her mind: the something she’d made of herself, the greater something she meant to be, the work she truly loved.
What was between them was done. It belonged to the past.
She had to think about the future.
They had to find lodgings. They needed a place to work. Sophy would need to deal with the newspapers immediately. Their story was a nine-days’ wonder, and Sophy must turn it to account…though it might already be too late. Headlines swam in Marcelline’s head. The duke’s heroics—yes, of course—running into a burning building to save a child—but then the newspapers would speculate about what he was doing there at that hour…and why he’d taken the lot of them home with him…and what his intended bride would make of it.
“Oh, my God,” she said. She clutched her forehead.
“What?” Sophy said. “You’re not panicking about Lucie, I hope.”
“It’s obvious that his grace has ordered his servants to dote on her,” Leonie said.
“And what better remedy could she have for her fears than this?” Sophy said with a sweeping gesture at their surroundings. “Nothing but luxury as far as the eye can see. And