“Waters, ma’am,” the youth said, bowing as he laid her pelisse over his arm. “I’ll be taking you upstairs now and turning you over to, that is to say, where Mr. Thorndyke will announce you to his lordship. And thank you again, ma’am.”
“You did as you were trained, I’m sure,” Jessica told him, handing over a coin. “The error was mine. Was his lordship that rough on you?”
Waters bowed again, not quite fast enough to hide his relieved smile. “His lordship could blister paint with that tongue of his, ma’am. But not on me, ma’am. Not this time. It was Mr. Thorndyke what explained how I was wrong. He’s not half bad.”
Jessica shot a look up the staircase, to where she could see a tall, gray-haired man, most probably Thorndyke, waiting for her. She was being passed along to the Upper Reaches. How fortunate she was.
“Really? In other words, Waters, he’ll be escorting me into the lion’s den. Lucky for me, then, I’m no lamb.”
“Ma’am?” the footman all but squeaked, looking nervous once more.
“I’ll make my own way up the stairs,” she told him. “Just don’t put my things too far away, as I might be needing them again quite shortly.”
So saying, she lifted her hem a fraction and her chin a fraction more before heading up the staircase, her gaze already locked with that of the butler, or majordomo, or whatever the man considered himself, and by the look of him he considered himself at least two social levels above that of his lordship’s visitor.
And all for the lack of a maid, or a maiden aunt, or some paid companion. Really, society was a set of ridiculous rules. She was well out of it. Were she a man, none of this would apply, and she’d already be sitting in the drawing room with one leg draped over the other, sipping wine instead of the tea she’d be offered, if she was offered anything at all.
And from the looks of Thorndyke, she wouldn’t be.
“Mrs. Linden to see his lordship, who already knows I’m here, so that we’d all three of us be wasting our time pretending he doesn’t,” she announced before Waters, who had quickly divested himself of her belongings and was hurrying up the stairs after her, could open his mouth. “Just point me in the right direction and you can go back to polishing the silver, or stealing it, whichever pleases you.”
The butler opened and closed his mouth a time or two before drawing himself up even straighter than before and motioning to the pair of closed doors to the left of the wide hallway.
“Good. At least we’re done with foolishness,” Jessica declared, her head positively spinning, and knowing she was being ridiculous. But as ridiculousness seemed to be the order of the day, why should she attempt to put a stop to it now?
Of course, that left her with either throwing open the double doors in some dramatic gesture of defiance or knocking on one of them and waiting to be admitted. She probably should have thought of that. She probably should give some thought to the embarrassing realization that she hadn’t been thinking at all since first encountering the Earl of Saltwood, devil take his hide.
CHAPTER THREE
“ALLOW ME, MA’AM,” Thorndyke said, stepping ahead of Jessica. He opened a single door and stepped inside. “My lord? I’m happy to say, sir, Waters caught her for you.” He then stepped back out and bowed her in, his smile and rather knowing wink nearly causing her to trip over her own feet as she entered the drawing room, only to be stopped again, this time by a pair of sniffing, tumbling dogs.
“Brutus! Cleo! Withdraw!”
The dogs, large puppies, really, and of some indeterminate breed, immediately turned their backs on her, to take up positions on either side of the Earl of Saltwood, who was standing in the very center of the enormous room, looking for all the world as if he’d only lately crawled out of bed.
Gone was the impeccable attire of the previous evening; this was a gentleman at home, and making himself very much at home, indeed. Clad only in buckskins and a white lawn shirt, and minus waistcoat, jacket and cravat, his hair a tumble of dark curls, he held a glass of wine in one hand and something rather limp and filthy in the other.
“I was led to believe I was expected,” Jessica said, staring at the limp and filthy thing. “Is that dead?”
Gideon held up the object in question, which proved to be a crude cloth replica of a rabbit, half its stuffing gone. Both dogs, still sitting up smartly, began to whimper piteously, one of them wagging its tail so violently its entire back end shook. “This? I’m merely training these two young miscreants to avoid temptation.”
Jessica eyed the back-end-wriggling dog. “I see. It’s always good to avoid temptation. And how is that going?”
“It could be better.” He tossed the rabbit in the general direction of the windows as two canine heads whipped about to follow its arc of flight. The whimpering increased. The dog on the left, the back-end wriggler, began to inch across the carpet on its rump. “Brutus! Stay!”
The dog looked to its master, its brown eyes eloquent with pleading, before scooting sideways another inch.
“St-ay,” Gideon warned again, dragging out the word.
“It’s late for a wager, I know, but a fiver the male gives in and the bitch stays put.”
“Your blunt really just on Cleo, as that idiot Brutus probably won’t last more than another ten seconds,” Gideon said, nodding.
“Less. Ten seconds is an eternity. And the bitch resists. That’s the wager.”
The earl nodded. “All right. Done.”
Brutus tried, he really did. His agony was palpable, his need immense. He actually made it for another four seconds (Jessica counted them off aloud), before he gave in to temptation and pounced on the rabbit.
Cleo watched, yawned widely and then turned in a circle before settling herself in front of the fireplace.
Jessica approached his lordship, her hand extended, palm up. “That’s five pounds you owe me, my lord. Men always give in to temptation, and for the most part, sooner rather than later.”
His smile had something clenching deep in her belly. “With women more apt to follow orders. Obey.”
She rallied at this suggestion, clenching belly ignored. “Hardly. She’s merely waiting for a better offer, one she doesn’t have to share.”
“And now we’re not speaking of dogs,” Gideon said, waving her to the nearest sofa. “Please, be seated.”
She waited for him to say something about his attire, some sort of offhand apology for appearing without jacket or waistcoat, at the least. But he looked so at his ease she didn’t really expect it. Rather, it was as if he was saying, this is my home and I do what I want, when I want, where I want, up to and including tossing filthy cloth rabbits in this splendidly appointed drawing room.
“Comfortable, Gideon?” she finally asked as, still holding his wineglass, he took up a seat on the facing sofa.
Once again he smiled, and once again, that certain clenching feeling took hold in her belly. “I was wondering how long it would take until you had to say something. All I can answer is to quote you, I suppose. I dislike encumbrances.”
“Loathe. I believe I said loathe.”
He shrugged. “A female word. In either case, let it be said we both enjoy being comfortable. There’s a reason gentlemen stand so tall in their finery, you know. Mostly it’s because we can’t bend, or even remove our own jackets, and risk slicing off our earlobes with our shirt-points if we turn our necks independently of our head and shoulders.”