by M C Beaton
At last Chemmy spoke. “You’re both right,” he yawned. “You flirt too much, Sally, and Perry, you’re a cursed old maid, and what’s more neither of you should marry anyone. In fact, I don’t know how Jennie can stand having you around the house, Sally.”
Sally gave him an amazed look and burst into noisy tears.
“Now, look what you’ve done,” shouted Perry. “How dare you insult her. Sally is an angel and I only said that about her gown because I was jealous. Any man whom Sally weds could count himself blessed.”
“Oh, Perry,” sniffled Sally. “What a beautiful thing to say.”
“And you shall not stay here and be insulted,” said Perry, raising her to her feet and putting an arm around her waist. “I shall escort you to your parents. As for you, Chemmy, unless you apologize to Sally I shall no longer be your friend.”
“Oh, run along, do,” sighed Chemmy rudely. “Or are you going to prose on all night?”
Perry silently led Sally from the room, his back rigid with outrage.
Jennie collapsed into giggles. “Oh, how awful, Chemmy. You were so rude!”
“How else was I to put a stop to their cursed quarreling?” grinned the Marquis. “Come, my dear.”
“The servants…?” whispered Jennie as they mounted the staircase.
“Sent them all to bed and told ’em to stay there,” yawned Chemmy. “We shall not be disturbed.”
He moved through his sitting room, tearing off his cravat and coat and leaving a trail of clothes behind him, which ended in a small heap at the foot of the bed.
He climbed wearily into the bed and, to all appearances, fell soundly asleep.
Jennie followed him into the bedroom and stared at his sleeping figure, anger blazing in her eyes.
“If I were Alice Waring, you would not lie so like a great pig,” she said loudly, but only her husband’s gentle breathing answered her.
Jennie took off her heavy tiara and slung it carelessly over the bed post. “But I shall sleep with you, my lord,” she said grimly, turning to the looking glass and unfastening her necklace, “for you are my husband, though you behave like an unfeeling boor. Men,” said Jennie bitterly, stepping out of her dress and walking over it in all the glory of one of the latest scanty petticoats.
She sat down on the edge of the bed furthest away from her husband and began to unroll her stockings, suddenly staring down at the arm which had crept around her waist.
“Oh, you cheat!” cried the Marchioness of Charrington as she was slowly pulled into bed.
“It’s not decent,” protested Jeffries, the lady’s maid. “They’ve been locked up in that bedroom all day and now it’s nearly night again.”
“I call it very decent,” said John, the Marquis’ groom, who had met the lady’s maid when she was taking an evening walk in the gardens. “They’re husband and wife, after all.”
“But it’s my imagination that’s not decent, Mr. John,” wailed the lady’s maid.
John raised a calloused and tanned hand to hide the smile on his face.
“Come along ’o the kitchens with me, Mrs. Jeffries,” he said, “and we’ll share a glass of shrub and forget about the carryings-on of our betters. Come, it calls for a celebration,” he added with an amused glance up at his master’s bedroom window.
“The more they keeps occupied, the less the work for us!”
