Authors: Heather Cullman
“You are?” She couldn’t have looked more astonished if he’d ordered her boiled in oil for her infraction.
He nodded as he escorted her up the stone stairs to the main forcing house entrance. “Of course I am. I would have to be deaf not to be. Why, I heard Fancy shouting for Edith to help her turn my mattress this very morning, and I was at the opposite end of the hall at the time.”
Sophie sighed, as if greatly pained. “I told Fancy not to shout like that, not if she’s serious about becoming a lady’s maid. She promised to watch her tongue.”
“I take it that you and Fancy are on better terms these days?” he inquired, ushering her through the tall glass-paned door.
“Much better, thanks to you.” She paused to smile her gratitude, a smile so breathtakingly lovely that his heart danced an odd little jig in response. “Fancy and I had a long talk Sunday night, and do you know what?” “No, what?”
“We found that we rather like each other. She seems truly sincere in her desire to become a lady’s maid, and has asked my help in refining her person. She wishes to be polished enough to take Miss Stewart’s place when she finally marries John. Of course I promised to help her, though I must admit that it’s proved a challenge thus far. She can’t read a word and, well, you’ve heard the way she speaks. I must constantly remind her not to drop her g’s or say the word bloody.”
Nicholas couldn’t help chuckling at her comical expression of distaste as she uttered the word
bloody.
“If I remember correctly, there are several good reading and grammar primers in the schoolroom. You have my permission to use them or anything else you find there that might aid you in your endeavors,” he said, leading her from the exotically tiled palm court, which served as an entry hall for the forcing pavilions, and into the first of the seven adjoining buildings.
“Why … thank you,” she sputtered, looking genuinely surprised by his offer. “Having the proper books shall make my task ever so much easier. The only ones we have in the servants hall are a dreadful novel called
Pamela,
and the Bible, neither of which — oh!” She stopped short, gaping at her surroundings in awe.
Nicholas followed her gaze with his own, his chest swelling with pride, as it always did when he viewed Hawksbury’s impressive collection of rare trees and plants.
To his right loomed a row of prized banana trees, to his left a dense stand of fig trees. Both sides boasted tracts of pineapples, trellises of passion fruit vines, and colorful expanses of tropical flowers. Before him, stretching on as far as the eye could see, was hothouse after magnificent hothouse, each sheltering fruit, vegetables, and flowers beneath their curving glass ceilings.
“Oh — oh!” she softly exclaimed. “I’m in paradise.”
“I take it you approve?” he said, pleased by her enthrallment.
“I more than approve, I — ” She shook her head, clearly at a loss for words.
“I love it, too. I always have. My father used to bring me here when I was a babe and let me play among the foliage. Indeed, one of my mother’s favorite tales involves me crawling off and getting lost among the man-gosteen trees in the East Indian Pavilion.”
“Well, I can’t say that I blame you. I wouldn’t mind being lost in here myself,” she murmured, cranking her head first this way, then that, as if trying to take in all the wonders at once.
Nicholas chuckled. “I spend so much time out here when I visit, that my mother has accused me of trying to do so again. Indeed, this is the first place John looks every time she sends him to find me.”
“I’ll remember that if she ever sends me instead.” She almost sighed the words as she closed her eyes and tipped back her head, deeply inhaling the air. “Oh, but it smells glorious in here.”
So beautiful, so very artless and dreamily content did she look in that pose, that he was struck speechless by the picture she made. He was also struck by a powerful urge to kiss her. Tempted beyond reason, he inched his face nearer to hers, his gaze hungrily riveted to her mouth.
Oh, how he longed to claim those lips with his, to sweep her into his embrace and show her the untamed passion that raged beneath his civilized facade. He yearned to plunder the warm honeyed depths of her mouth with his tongue, and hear her moan of surrender as she melted against him. He —
“My lord?” called a masculine voice.
His head snapped up, his forehead narrowly missed colliding with Sophie’s as she, too, came to attention. In the next instant his senses returned, and he realized what he’d almost done. To say that he was mortified didn’t begin to describe the depth of his shame. That he’d almost stolen a kiss from a woman he knew found him physically repulsive, well — he shuddered to think of how she might have reacted had he succeeded.
Cursing himself for his lapse and praying that Sophie hadn’t noticed it, Nicholas turned toward the advancing footman. “Yes? What is it, John?”
John sketched an elegant bow. “It’s the Duchess of Windford and her daughter, Lady Helene, my lord. They have arrived.”
“They have?” He frowned, trying to pull his mind from his near embarrassment to the business at hand. “I thought they were to arrive tomorrow?”
John nodded. “So did the rest of the household, my lord. It seems, however, that the marchioness mistakenly wrote the seventeenth instead of the eighteenth when she made out the invitation.” He shrugged. “And, well, today is the seventeenth.”
Though Nicholas was tempted to curse aloud, he bridled the urge and replied, “Tell my mother that I shall be along shortly.”
“Very good, my lord.” Another bow and the footman was gone.”
The next few moments passed in silence as Nicholas grappled for something to say. Exactly what one said to a woman from whom he had almost stolen a kiss, he didn’t know. He’d never been in such a position before. Utterly at a loss, he looked everywhere but at Sophie, and rather inanely muttered, “Well, I suppose I should prepare myself to meet Lady Helene.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
Damn it. He had to say something more. He couldn’t just walk off and leave her standing there like that. Even if she hadn’t noticed his amorous advance, he had to say something to bring closure to the episode … if not for her sake, then for his own.
Closure? H-m-m. Yes. Remembering their errand, he said, “You’ll find the strawberries you seek in the third pavilion. Wait there, and I shall send a gardener to assist you.” Oh, bloody hell! He hadn’t meant that last to come out like an order.
“Thank you, my lord. I shall do that.”
He lingered a moment more, wondering how to proceed. Then he decided it best to retreat before he did or said anything else stupid. Thus he nodded and turned on his heels. As he did so, he couldn’t resist stealing a final peek at Sophie.
She caught him and smiled. So soft, so genuinely sweet and full of fondness was that smile, that he suddenly felt like the most desirable man in England. That smile won his forgiveness …
And his heart.
Chapter 16
“And then Lady Helene say — “
“Said,”
Sophie corrected, looking up from the lace she was repairing on the marchioness’s night rail.
“Said. Lady Helene
said.”
Fancy nodded her comprehension, then scrunched her face into a caricature of their guest’s supercilious expression and mimicked, “You there, girl.” She scowled and snapped her fingers at Sophie and Pansy, who sat beside her in the airy servants hall, doing their respective mending. “Look at this bedsheet. Just look at it! A crease.”
Three more finger snaps, this time directed at an imaginary bed. “I cannot sleep on that crease. I simply cannot! It shall rub my skin quite raw.” An imperious wave of the hand. “Take it away! Take it away this very instant and see that it is properly pressed.” She resumed her normal expression and tone to add, “It were her own — “
“Was,”
Sophie interjected.
“It
was
her own fault that the sheet were — uh
— was
wrinkled. She spent half the bleedin‘ afternoon wallowin‘ — “
“Fancy — “
“I know. I know.” A sheepish grin of apology. “Sorry. I’m not surposta say bleedin‘.”
“You’re not
supposed
to say bleeding. Also pigs
wallow,
and ladies
lounge.”
“It looked like wallowing to me,” Fancy retorted, frowning at the pillowcase she was mending. “You should have saw
— seen
her rolling around on the bed with that ugly little rat of a dog of hers. Why, you’d have thinked that — “
“Thought. “
“
Thought.
You’d have
thought
that rat dog were —
was
her lover the way she was hugging and kissin‘ — kissing it on its mucky mouth, and making those queer booby… boo-by … Mingy noises she’s always makin‘ — making to it.”
“No!” Pansy looked up from the stocking she was examining, her face a mask of horror. “She don’t
really
kiss
it
on the mouth?” Like many of the servants, Pansy was unconvinced that Lady Helene’s odd-looking pet was a dog. Thus, she had designated the animal an
it.
Fancy nodded. “Square on the lips, like this.” She demonstrated an exaggerated kiss, complete with loud, wet smooching noises. “And she don’t — ur —
doesn’t
wipe the drool off its face first, either. She kisses it, muck and all.”
Pansy looked as nauseated as Sophie felt. “Gar! I ‘ope she washes ‘er face ‘fore she kisses ‘is lordship. Yeech!” Sophie froze mid-stitch, stricken by the notion of Lyndhurst kissing Lady Helene … or anyone else for that matter. Well, anyone but herself.
Fancy shrugged one shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry over much on his lordship’s account. I doubt there’s been any billin‘ and cooin‘ goin‘ on between them two.”
“An
exchange of affections
sounds more genteel than billing and cooing, Fancy. And it’s
those
two, not
them
two.” Though she knew that she should discourage such talk, and perhaps even chide the pair for their unseemly speculation, Sophie couldn’t resist asking, “What makes you think that his lordship hasn’t kissed Lady Helene? She is lovely, and he seems quite taken with her.”
As much as it pained her to admit the last, it was true. Not only was her ladyship a beauty in the purest sense of the word, Lyndhurst seemed exceedingly appreciative of that fact. Indeed, he’d spent so much time dancing attendance upon her the last few days, that you’d have thought they were pinned together. To say that Sophie was miserable about it was akin to saying that the devil was a naughty fellow: a huge understatement.
“Taken with her?” Fancy sniffed. “Shows what you know about his lordship.”
“Oh? And what, pray tell, makes you such an authority on him?” she retorted. The instant the words left her mouth, she was struck with a most wretched suspicion. Could he and Fancy …
Apparently her face reflected her thoughts, for Fancy drew back, frowning. “You think that me and his lordship — ” she broke off, shaking her head over and over again.
Pansy, too, shook her head. “Fancy … and Lord Lyndhurst?” She and Fancy exchanged an incredulous look then threw back their heads and howled with laughter.
Sophie glanced from one woman to the other, growing more chagrined by the moment. “I don’t see what is so very funny. It isn’t exactly unheard of for a nobleman to dally with his maids.”
“It is if the nobleman you’re talkin‘ about is Lord Lyndhurst. Why just the thought of him — ” Fancy made a choking noise and succumbed to another fit of hilarity.
“Talking, you mustn’t drop your
g’
s,” Sophie snapped. “And what is so ludicrous about the notion of his lordship turning a serving girl’s head? In case you haven’t noticed, he is a charming and handsome man.” She could have bitten off her tongue the instant she uttered that last. A few more remarks like that, and everyone would know of her feelings for him.
“Oh, ‘e’s turned their ‘eads right ‘nough,” Pansy chortled.
Fancy nodded. “It’s true. Plenty o
‘ — of
servant girls have thrown themselfs at him over the years. But his lordship, well, he gives them a pretty speech on how he don’t bed women he don’t —
doesn’t
have feelings for, and how he’s got too much respect for them to treat ‘em like whores. Of course, he don’t —
doesn’t
say whore. He’s too much of a gentleman for that kind of language.”
“They offer themselves, not themsel/s. And he
has
too much respect, not he’s
got
too much respect,” Sophie muttered, feeling like the world’s biggest goose. Whatever could she have been thinking? Of course Lyndhurst didn’t trifle with the maids. He was a fine, honorable man … a gallant through and through. Hardly the sort of man to use a woman for a casual game of…
daisies.