The look of shock on Molly’s face wrenched at the countess’s heart, but she retained a rather languid, unaffected gaze.
“But, ma’am,” Molly protested with a proud little title of her chin, “what is it I have done? Have I offended in some way?” Her eyes travelled from one sister to the other and then to the countess herself. “If you will but tell me what it is, ma’am,” she said quietly, “I will endeavour to set things right.”
“No,” declared Miss Portia with a shake of her little grey head, “I am afraid, Molly, that you must leave us.”
“Kindly pack your things,” ordered Miss Clarissa. “Princeton will see that you are paid in full. You may go now, Molly.”
“Yes, madam,” murmured Molly with a slight curtsey, and pausing only to give the copper-haired, blue-eyed, beautifully-groomed lady an angry glance, she left the room.
“Thank you for informing us,” Miss Clarissa pronounced. “That you should be so good to…”
“Do not think a thing of it, my dears,” declared the countess, rising. “I shall find my own way out. Clarissa, Portia, it has been a pleasure to make your acquaintances.” It took every bit of self-control the countess possessed to descend the staircase and depart the premises with seeming nonchalance. She ordered her coachman to drive around the square and to come to a stop some several houses away. “There will be a girl who exists through the rear door, Donovan,” she instructed the footman quietly. “She will have baggage with her. You will approach her and bring her to me here.”
“Yes, my lady,” nodded Donovan, wondering what on earth was going on, but game to a fault. He strolled off up the street and took a stance, his shoulder leaning against a light pole, where he could see the rear entrance to the Conover house. Within fifteen minutes he saw the girl, accosted her as she reached the street, and, taking a battered case and a bandbox from her hands, escorted her to the countess’s carriage.
“How dare you!” Molly declared roundly, exasperation showing on her smooth, round, and very pretty face. “First you get me dismissed, and now you send someone to abduct me? Madam, you are the most officious, interfering lady I have ever come upon. What have I ever done to you?”
“Come inside, my dear, and I will tell you,” grinned the countess, amused by the stern and righteous look on Molly’s face.
“No, ma’am, I will not. If you wish to speak to me, you will do so now, as we are.”
“Donovan,” said the countess, “please be so kind as to convince the young lady to enter the carriage.”
Donovan, his dark locks brushed into a coup de vent, smiled a very handsome and confident smile and set Molly’s case and bandbox inside the carriage. And before she could comprehend his intention, he swept Molly up into his very muscular arms and set her inside the carriage as well. Then he raised the steps, closed the door, and gave John Coachman the office to depart.
Molly would have screamed, would have opened the door again and jumped from the coach, would have shouted out the window for help, but across from her a very elegantly clothed lady with great blue eyes and glorious copper curls laughed gaily at her.
“You find this amusing, ma’am?” she asked, glaring into the blue eyes that reminded her of someone, though she was entirely too angry to contemplate who that might be.
“You are almost as fierce as your uncle looks,” the countess laughed. “I do apologise, however, for Donovan’s enthusiasm. He should not have picked you up so. Are you alright, Miss Blake?”
“How come you know my name, madam, and my uncle’s?”
“Why, I have met your uncle, and he has told me your name. I do like to know someone’s name before I employ them, my dear. You will allow that having gotten you dismissed, I really ought to see to your future employment.”
“Is it not bad enough that you interfered in the first place, without thinking it gives you the right to direct my life?”
“The fact of the matter is, Miss Blake, that I am in need of an abigail, a position which pays a good deal more than chambermaid to the Misses Conover. And you, my dear, have the particular qualifications I require. I confess it was wrong of me to trick them out of you, but were they to discover I wanted you, they would have clung to you like little leeches.”
“But I am not an Abigail,” Molly declared. “I am only a chambermaid and have just learned to do that.”
“I know,” grinned the countess, “but Mrs. Ware and Patrice and I shall teach you how to go on admirably.”
“Are you roundabout in your head, ma’am?” Molly asked impatiently. “Certainly someone of your obvious wealth can well afford to hire an Abigail already qualified.”
“Yes, I certainly can. But I cannot well afford to hire someone who would be continually condescending to my son, Miss Blake. And unless I have very much mistaken the matter, you will not.” The blue eyes glistened merrily in the beams of sunlight entering the carriage windows. “I am the Countess of Rutlidge, and I wish you will do my son Geordan, the Earl of Rutlidge, and I the great favour of coming to work for us. Oh, and Tony – he is my younger son – says I am to be sure to tell you that he is not a highwayman. Do you have any idea what that means?”
“Oh my!” gasped Molly. “Geordie told us he was an earl, but we thought he was only pretending!”
“Yes, well, if he looked as much of a ragamuffin as he usually does, I do not blame you for doubting him. Oh, we are here already. Please come inside, Molly, and at least consider the matter. I owe you all so much for keeping Geordan safe, and Geordie would so greatly love to have you here.”
As if to confirm her words, Geordie bounded through the front entrance and down the stairs into the courtyard. He swung the carriage door open, kicked down the steps, and confronted Miss Blake with a second pair of wide, dark blue eyes. “Mama, you have b-brought her!” he exclaimed. “Are you g-going to s-stay, Molly? Uncle James s-said you m-might. P-Please say yes!”
“Geordan, let us out, darling,” the countess laughed, pushing her son gently aside so that she might descend the steps, and turning to help Molly descend herself. “Molly and I are going to discuss the matter.”
“Oh,” sighed the earl, his eyes suddenly studying the courtyard stones.
“Why, Geordie, whatever is the matter?” asked Molly, surprised to see his enthusiasm fade so quickly.
“N-Nothing,” the earl murmured without looing up.
“Yes, there is something,” said Molly, putting a slim gloved finger beneath his chin and forcing him to meet her gaze. “Tell me what it is.”
“It is j-just that when p-people say they are g-going to, to d-discuss things, m-most of the t-time it turns out bad.”
Molly grinned and leaning forward, kissed his cheek softly. “You are a gudgeon,” she proclaimed. “When a person is about to accept a position, there are many things which need to be discussed. Your mama and I must decide what it is I am to do and how much I am to be paid and when I am to have a day off and, oh, scads of things.”
“You are g-going to s-stay?” the earl asked, once again excited. “R-Really?”
“Geordie,” the countess interrupted, taking Miss Blake’s arm and ushering her towards the front entrance, “run and tell Uncle James that I am returned, and do not disappear, for you and he and I have things to discuss as well, and we shall do so directly. I can see you are fond of him, Miss Blake,” the countess smiled as the earl charged off in the direction of the stables. “And I thank you for disregarding my high-handedness for his sake. He would be crushed, you know, to think you did not wish to be his mama’s abigail.”
“Ma’am,” Molly said, entering through the door Simpson had come to hold for her, “it is you who may be crushed when you discover how little I know about being an abigail.”
When Molly finally left Rutlidge House, ensconced in the countess’s carriage to be carried safely to her uncle’s lodgings, all had been settled satisfactorily between them. The countess then turned her attention to the young gentleman who was herded gentl
y into the front drawing room by his uncle’s careful hand. “So, my dear,” she said with a smile, “our Molly is to come to us. Are you pleased?”
“Y-Yes,” Geordie grinned.
“I thought you might be.” The countess pointed to a large blue-brocaded chair facing her. Geordan, having been pointed into things by her in that exact manner for most of his life, sat down. “Now, you and I and Uncle James have some very particular things to discuss, my love.”
“Indeed,” mumbled Uncle James gruffly, sitting up the settee beside his sister. “We did not wish to ruin your evening for you, Geordan, and so we have waited until today to speak of it. Have you the least idea, sir, how much disruption you have caused this household and how much you have worried all of us?”
“I have never seen Tony more upset,” the countess added, her hands clasped primly in her lap. “Do you know, Geordan, that he strangled the man he found with Mouse because he thought that person had harmed you in some way?”
“T-Tony?” Geordan asked breathlessly. “S-Strangled somebody? Like in the b-book about the M-Midnight R-Rider? T-Tony?”
“Well, he did not strangle him dead, Geordan,” Uncle James clarified, attempting to subdue a smile. “He merely throttled the ruffian to within an inch of his life.”
“Which is nothing to look ecstatic about,” his mama glared.
“Oh, I am n-not es-es-tatic, Mama,” the earl blinked innocently at her. “It is only that I n-never supposed T-Tony to b-be such a, c c-cock of the h-hill!”
James Farber took a quick glance at his sister, choked on a chuckle, and coughed rather violently. “You must not say that in front of your mama, Geord,” he managed to explain between coughs.
“N-Not say what?”
“Cock of the hill, Geordan,” the countess answered, slapping her brother rather violently on the back. “It is cant, my dear, and not for ladies’ ears. There, are you better, James? Good. Now, where were we? Oh, yes, your brother was so terribly frightened for you, my love. He thought something very bad had happened. And it very well might have done.”
“It made your mama cry as well, young man,” Uncle James added with the lift of an eyebrow, “to hear upon her arrival that you had vanished.”
“I am s-sorry, Mama. I did n-not mean to make you c-cry.”
“Of course you did not,” responded that lady, “but Geordie, you must understand. London is not at all like Westerley. All the people who live here are not our friends. Some of them would think nothing of dragging you off and holding you captive for ransom. And some might murder you! London is a dangerous place!”
“It is b-because I am an earl, ain’t it?” Geordan asked, leaning his elbow on the chair arm and his chin on his fist. “That is w-why they would d-do those th-things.”
“Indeed, sir,” nodded his uncle. “This London air is ripe with rebellion, and many men would gladly see aristocrats slain. And there are robbers, boy, who would not care if you lived or died so long as they got their money.”
“So you must not run off alone, Geordan. Not for any reason. Do you understand?” asked the countess in a very serious voice.
“Y-Yes, Mama.”
“And I have your word, sir, that you will not do so?” Uncle James asked gruffly.
“Y-Yes, sir.”
“Very well, but before we end it, your mama and I wish to know why you ran off in the middle of the night, of all things?”
“I, I, I did n-not,” Geordie stammered, sitting up very straight in his chair. “It was n-not the m-middle of the n-night, and, and, I did n-not run off. I thought it was the d-day I p-promised to r-ride with M-Miss Mapleton, and, and I could n-not find Martin, so I m-meant to r-ride to B-Brook S-Street by myself. But, but, I g-got lost.”
The countess watched, bemused, as her son’s eyes darted between herself and James, and his fingers dug into the chair arms. “Geordie,” she said, when he had finished his explanation, “if you did not run off in the middle of the night, why was your bed not slept in? Tyler swears it was not, you know.”
“I, I f-fell asleep in my ch-chair, Mama, b-by the f-fire.”
“I see. You will not go off alone again, however, no matter what, will you, Geordan?”
“N-No, Mama. N-No matter what.”
“Thank you, my dear. I feel very much better knowing you will not. Now run along and tell Mrs. Ware I wish to speak to her in my workroom, will you, please?”
“Y-Yes, Mama.” The earl rose from the chair as if he had been sitting on hot coals and dashed from the room.
James Farber waited until his nephew had closed the door behind him, then he leaned his head against the back of the settee and roared with laughter.
“James, stop it,” giggled the countess, punching him in the arm, “he will hear you.”
“No, he’s up the stairs by now, m’dear, as fast as he was moving. I never thought I should see the day. Geordie has managed to tell his very first lie. Not at all well, mind you, but still it appears he is growing up, Cecily.”
“He looked like a cornered mouse thinking how to escape the broom,” the countess laughed. “But he tried to do it correctly, James.You do not think we ought to confront him with it.”
“No, m’dear, I do not. I think Geord has a problem he wishes to solve for himself, and he will never learn to do so if we do not give him the opportunity to try.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“I SAY, Miss Mapleton, why so blue-devilled?”
“Oh, I am so sorry. I have not been paying you the least attention, have I?”
“No, Miss Mapleton,” agreed Viscount Eliot, urging his pair of high-stepping greys around a stopped curricle. “And I must say it is most inconsiderate of you. I have been making such incredibly interesting and droll comments for the last mile.”
That brought a smile to her very kissable lips, and he winked at her. “Much better,” he nodded. “Now tell me what I may do to drive the devils off entirely.”
Amelia looked up into his fine, handsome, and very appealing face with a sad little shake of her head. “You cannot drive them off entirely, I am afraid. They are sitting, those little blue devils, one upon each shoulder.”
“Oh, no! I refuse to allow them there. And here we are at the Park already. Everyone will think that I am responsible for not entertaining you properly. You must smile, Miss Mapleton, for my sake if not for your own.”
Amelia smiled, but her heart was not in it. Each time he stopped the phaeton to converse with some of their acquaintances, she called herself to strict attention that she might not betray her own uneasiness. Still, once they continued the promenade, she fell into her own thoughts. All of them, it seemed, centred upon Mr. Anthony Andrew Talbot. She was positive now, at least, that his designs upon the earl were not at all what she had imagined them to be. No one who had witnessed the fear in those usually enigmatic eyes at being unable to find Geordan, and the loathing for the man who had appeared from nowhere with the earl’s horse, and the relieved and unrestrained happiness at Geordan’s reappearance could doubt in the least his affection for his brother. A flicker of mirth lit her eyes when she thought of the dinner in the Rutlidge House kitchen and the very gentle and good-humoured man who had joined little Davey in surveying his asparagus, but the mirth flickered out at the thought that Talbot had not spoken to her since that night. Geordie had come to ride with her again and Ashton-Croft, Martin riding a discreet distance to the rear, and the earl had tried hard to be as sweet and diverting as ever, but something within him had definitely undergone a change. “It is T-Tony,” he confessed to her when finally she had asked. “I do n-not know how t-to help him.” But he would say nothing more, and she could not guess why Tony should require anyone’s help.
She had gone to Almack’s on Wednesday night in the company of Lady and Miss Sonnesby, and shortly before eleven, Mr. Talbot, elegant in knee breeches and long-tailed coat, had entered. His eyes had caught hers for a brief moment, and he had nodded, then walked off into the cardroom
. Twice while she had danced, she had seen his dark, brooding and extremely romantical figure leaning slightly against the far wall, watching her from behind slightly lowered lids. But he had not approached her and had left well before her own party departed. Her mind pricked at her to discover what she had done, what unthinking thing she had said, to end the friendship that had begun between them as she had assisted in the search for Geordan. Whatever it was, she thought wretchedly, I shall never know.
“Miss Mapleton,” Viscount Eliot called to her laughingly, “are you there? Northampton has been here for three minutes already holding a very one-sided conversation with you.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Amelia, seeing Northampton’s wind-rosy face grinning at her. “Robert! I am so very sorry! How wonderful to see you. But where is Angelique?”
“She is back in Paris, m’dear,” drawled Northampton, “which you would know if you had been listening to me. I swear, if I were Eliot, I would put you down at once and leave you here to find your way home without me.”
Amelia grinned at that. “Oh, yes, I have no doubt,” she agreed. “Both you and Dvid would do so, having not the least pity. Luckily, Lord Eliot did not grow up running tame at our house or he would do likewise.”
“Never,” interjected Eliot. “I dote upon you, Miss Mapleton. I could never be so cruel. I will drive you about the Park whether you wish to acknowledge my presence or not.”
Amelia blushed prettily to think how awful she had been to ignore the gentleman and both Northampton and Eliot laughed to see it. “No, you have not been as bad as that,” Eliot assured her. “Why, you have spoken to me at least twice that I recall. And you have been gracious enough to bestow your smiles and conversation on everyone we have met except Northampton, and one cannot blame you for that. He is generally such a dull fellow.”
“I protest,” Northampton laughed. “Angelique does not think me a dull fellow at all.” He stared at Amelia from atop the dark brown mare he had chosen to ride and shook his head sadly. “You are as distracted these days, Amelia, as Talbot. Have you the least idea, m’dear, what has his nibs in such a brown study? I have not had a rational word from him in over a week.”
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