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.”
Having successfully taken himself out of the pan and placed himself squarely in the fire, Kit subsided into silence, content to watch the sparks now emanating from his wife’s eyes.
Plopping down on the settee opposite his chair, Jennie spat nastily, “Oh, do be quiet. I know very well you have just come from the stables, dressed as you are. Don’t tell me you don’t have something cutting to say to me about our new grooms, for it won’t fadge, Kit, truly it won’t. Well,” she nudged, “go on—have done with it. Tell me I am the greatest fool since time began—even Bundy would not gainsay you.”
Kit had the audacity to assume a crestfallen expression. “How low your opinion is of me, ma’am. I had nary a thought but to praise you on your finds. What splendid grooms Tiny and Goliath will make. Goliath can tend horsey hoofs all the day long without ever complaining of a sore back, and Tiny—why, the man is invaluable. If one of my blacks comes up lame I’ve simply to set Tiny between the shafts and I’ll have the fastest curricle in all London, possibly all England.”
“Don’t you make fun of them,” Jennie shot at him angrily. “Don’t you dare make fun of them!”
The smile left Kit’s handsome face. “I do not make fun of them, Jennie. It is you who demean them by thinking they are in need of your protection. It is you who sees them as different, not me. Oh, I admit to being momentarily startled by their rather, er, different appearance, but I believe I recovered in time so as to not embarrass either them or myself.” He leaned back and crossed his legs at the ankle. “Actually, pet, it is you who should be apologizing to me for believing I would let some sort of prejudice against people who are a bit different influence my consideration of their talents. If they prove to be good grooms, they shall stay. If not—” his voice hardened fractionally “—no power on earth will induce me to keep them on. Do we understand each other?”
Jennie had the good grace to feel ashamed of herself, and said so—quite prettily—causing Kit’s smile to return. It was then, as she was enjoying this show of friendly compatibility, that she decided to press her luck.
“Tiny and Goliath are not the only servants I have hired. You may not be so generous when you have met them.”
“Again you malign me before the fact.” Kit sighed theatrically. Really, this getting along with wives was not so bad after all. Jennie was proving quite easily maneuverable. She was also, as he had observed earlier, growing to be quite easy on his eyes. Marriage certainly did have its compensations. Hard as it was to believe, he was beginning to truly enjoy her company.
What a pity she was not more worldly or he might be tempted to bed her. Yet, he surprised himself by thinking, he was glad she was not worldly, had little experience of men such as himself. Disturbed by this train of thought, he swiftly turned his mind back to the subject at hand. “Tell me about the rest of our staff, pet. If I am going to live here I guess I should make myself at least tokenly acquainted with them.”
Look at him, Jennie told herself irritably, sitting there looking so smug and self-satisfied—and so wretchedly handsome, she added reluctantly. Oh, he thinks he’s got me right in the palm of his hand. The high and mighty Earl of Bourne, condescending to be nice to his simple, countrified wife. How dare he try to manipulate me this way! Even worse, how dare he succeed so handily!
She would have verbally taken him to task then, but she could tell, by the disgustingly satisfied smile on his face, that she might just as well save her breath to, as Goldie said, cool her porridge. Well, if he intended to be disobliging she saw no reason not to do likewise. “I see no need to give you a recital of our serving staff, seeing as how you are home so seldom and unlikely to run into other than those on duty after midnight.”
So it sits like that, does it, Kit mused, raising one speaking eyebrow as he took in Jennie’s flushed cheeks. The kitten has her back up yet again. “I would perceive the wisdom of your words, kitten,” he told her with a maddening smile, “except for one thing. I have decided to change my ways, knowing myself to be guilty of shamelessly neglecting you. Dear me,” he exclaimed, feigning astonishment as Jennie leaped to her feet and stared down at him openmouthed, “I do believe I have said something to upset you. Is it the thought of our finally acting the part of man and wife that so discommodes you? Or, might I hope, do I misread your agitation? Perhaps, be still my foolish heart, you too wish for this closer association?”
Jennie stomped away from the settee and took up a position nearer the doorway to the foyer. “There are times, my lord, when you can be unbelievably crude,” she said crushingly.
Before Jennie could make good her exit, Kit leaped up from his chair and loped across the room to capture her shoulders in his strong grip. He did not know what imp of mischief had possessed him—surely he had not entered the drawing room with any such thoughts in mind—but suddenly he felt himself overpowered by an undeniable need to feel Jennie’s softly pouting mouth beneath his own.
He told himself he was merely kissing her as a means of shutting her up, but he knew he was lying. The high life he had been living ever since he came to London had included being in the company of many beautiful women—women who neither railed at him nor accused him of every evil under the sun. No, the women he had spent time with were all generous females, giving to a fault—for a price. Yet he had not once sampled their wares, even though his pockets were now well lined enough to set up his own stable of fine fillies. He had flirted, he had teased—but he had not bedded a one of them.
Jennie, her heart fluttering madly, stared up into Kit’s strangely staring face, unable