Lords of Scandal: The Beleaguered Lord Bourne / The Enterprising Lord Edward. Кейси МайклсЧитать онлайн книгу.
Jennie discreetly watching his leave-takings from behind her curtained window, happily waving him on his way. Where he went did not concern her. She was only grateful to have him gone.
Renfrew, on the other hand, had a pretty good idea of just what his lordship’s travels encompassed. Struts down Bond Street on the arms of his cronies, tours through an assortment of low taverns, forays into the world of ivory turners and cardsharps at seamy private gaming hells, hours spent in the blue room at Covent Garden negotiating an opera dancer’s current asking price for her oftsolid virtue, and an innocent prank or two aimed at livening the watch’s dull existence would all number among the earl’s activities, unless things had changed mightily since Renfrew was last in London town.
Natural high spirits and the thrill of being reunited with his boyhood friends might have explained this earnest pursuit of pleasure that nightly had Kit beating the rising sun home by less than an hour, but Renfrew knew there was another, deeper reason.
It was the dream. The dream that sent Renfrew scurrying from his warm bed on the first night of the new earl’s residence at Bourne Manor, the wicked, panic-filled dreams that tore ragged moans and hoarse screams from the sleeping man’s throat until Leon’s soothing voice could penetrate the panic and lull the tormented earl back to sleep.
Leon either did not know or would not divulge the nature of the recurring nightmare that had the earl calling the name Denny over and over again, the memory whose nocturnal reenactment moved the man to dry sobs and broken pleas for help.
The dream seemed to have disappeared, the last nightmare occurring the night before the earl’s marriage, but Renfrew knew it wasn’t so. The earl was fighting the nightmare in the only way he knew—by not falling into bed until he was either too exhausted or too deep in his cups to dream at all.
The old butler, who had served the Wilde family man and boy, could only stand back and let his master battle with his private demons, knowing the outcome but not daring to overstep his place by telling his lordship he was fighting a losing battle.
Renfrew could only watch and hope, believing the gentle child he had watched grow into the giving, compassionate young woman the earl had married was the only key to the man’s salvation. Yet Jennie and Kit might as well have been residing on separate continents for all they saw of each other. It was enough to make a stronger man than Renfrew despair. But not Renfrew—he only bided his time while making plans of his own.
As part of his project designed to invest Jennie with some passionate feelings for this particular Bourne domicile and her position as mistress of all it contained, Renfrew spent three full days acquainting her with every stick of furniture in every room of the mansion, impressing her with the history of this original painting and that priceless set of engraved silver plate.
His efforts were not in vain. Jennie was not impressed by the wealth spread out before her, but rather with the stories of the Bourne ancestors who had furnished the mansion with such care and love. That the responsibility for maintaining the beauty around her as well as placing this generation’s personal stamp on the place by way of worthy additions of art and other accessories that would reflect their times while not detracting from what had gone before was now hers was not lost on Jennie. It surprised her, though, to realize that she was more than eager to take up the challenge.
The more mundane side of running a household, neatly catalogued in a half-dozen closely written ledgers, did not inspire the same creative urges. In fact, after pretending a studious perusal of just two of the big black leather-bound books, Jennie pleaded a headache and Renfrew kindly moved the dratted things out of her sight.
“Renfrew,” Jennie proposed, once the butler had poured her a bracing cup of tea, “I’d like to strike a bargain with you. If you will consent to managing the household accounts, acting as secretary or whatever, I shall, besides offering you my eternal gratitude, undertake the hiring of the additional staff his lordship tells me we require.”
Happy to see her showing such an interest, such a willingness to involve herself, no matter how indirectly, with his lordship’s comfort, Renfrew agreed with alacrity. After all, he told himself airily, what could go wrong in the mere hiring of household staff?
And with that thought Renfrew proved yet again that, be he earl or butler, a male is still a male—never failing to underestimate the tremendous potential for disruption that churns just beneath the surface of those apparently fragile feminine forms men so condescendingly refer to as the weaker sex.
THERE WAS A GREAT DEAL of perverse satisfaction to be derived from flouting your husband’s wishes, Jennie learned as she and Goldie climbed back into the town carriage after concluding her business with the clerk in charge of placing advertisements in the Observer.
She was pleased with the wording of her advertisement—certainly the clerk had seen no reason to change so much as the placement of a single comma—and she rode home secure in the belief that this more personal form of advertising would result in bringing to her door a fair number of robust, hardworking country folk who were new to London and eager for honest work they could not find due to lack of references.
That’s what she wanted. Country folk. Plump, redcheeked farm girls and strong, raw-boned farmers’ sons who’d remind her of home. After all, what did she want with a passel of top-lofty London servants who were known far and wide for aping their masters while at the same time despising the very people who paid their wages?
She had done the right thing, she was sure of it. The fact that she had planned her trip to the newspaper office to coincide with Bundy’s monthly retreat to her couch due to a regular-as-clockwork migraine headache proved nothing to the contrary, absolutely nothing.
As they rode along the crowded street, Jennie rechecked her list. Heading it was the need for a chef—Renfrew had informed her that Kit had specifically requested a French chef—followed by notations calling for three additional footmen, two kitchen helpers, a pair of experienced stable hands, at least two more housemaids who could double at serving table, and, perhaps even a tweeny to run errands between floors if she could find one.
It seemed ostentatious to require nearly two dozen people to care for the needs and comforts of a family consisting of two young, healthy creatures who by all rights should be capable of fending for themselves.
Of course, they weren’t two average people, she amended mentally. After all, how many English couples live in eighteen-room houses containing a conservatory, two separate dining rooms, and a veritable barn of a ballroom? Bundy said the Bourne mansion was no more than a fit setting for an earl and his countess. Jennie wisely refrained from wondering aloud if this particular earl and countess didn’t look just a tad out of place in their grand surroundings—almost like children playing at being all grown up.
Kit, she had to admit, at least looked the part, having visited his tailor before traveling to Bourne Manor so that an entire new wardrobe had been waiting for him in Berkeley Square, but she knew her own simple gowns to be sadly provincial. Which was why the Bourne carriage was just then coming to a halt outside a fashionable shop in Bond Street (this part of her trip also deliberately planned around Bundy’s migraine or else Jennie knew she’d be the first countess in history to be dressed entirely in concealing white dimity gowns matched to sensible, serviceable jean boots).
Goldie was in her glory as she stood gaping and gawking throughout Jennie’s lengthy session with the modiste. A young woman of definite tastes that had previously taken second place to her budget, Jennie worked her way purposefully from one end of the selling room to the other, selecting lengths of material with an eye to color and texture and never once bothering to ask a single price.
In the space of an hour Jennie had matched the materials to sketches the delighted modiste swore on her hopes of heaven were designed with just madam countess in mind. “That exquisite waist! That so entrancing swell of bosom—so innocent, so alluring! The regal carriage of a princess, the fine molded arms of a Greek goddess. The hair of an angel, the skin of a newborn babe. Ooh la la! That the countess would deign to honor this humble establishment with her attention. I will be the making of a poor, struggling widow in a foreign land. Once madam is seen in public