Page 12 of Reforming Lord Ragsdale
At what point did I lose control of my life?he thought as he started toward the front door.When did everything become an exertion?He rubbed his forehead and wished that the rain did not slither down his clothes and onto his back. He knew that he could not face his grandmother.
He stared hard at the house again, and there was Emma standing in the window. She stood as he was already used to seeing her, with her hands folded in front of her, the very stillness of her impressive to him, for all that he disliked her. He could not make out any of her features, but he knew it was Emma.
As he watched, he thought she raised her hand to him in a small gesture of greeting. He could not be sure, because the light was so dim, so he did not return the gesture. Besides all that, she was his servant.
My servant!he chided himself as he lifted his hand to the knocker, and Applegate—grayer but supercilious-looking as ever—allowed him to enter.Why on earth didn’t I just let Robert lose her at the turn of the card? He might even have won, and either road, I would still have my horses.“Yes, what, Applegate?” he asked in annoyance.
“I merely wished you good evening, my lord,” Applegate repeated, sounding, if anything, even more disdainful than Lord Ragsdale remembered.
“Oh, very well,” Lord Ragsdale snapped. “Applegate, am I in my usual room?”
“Of course, my lord,” the butler replied as though he addressed a dim-witted child. “My mistress wishes to see you first, however. If you will follow me, my lord?”
“I’d rather not,” John said honestly as the footman grasped the back of his coat and helped him out of the wet garment.
It was Emma. “She especially requested that you visit her in the blue room, my lord,” she reinforced as she held out her hand for his hat.
He handed it to her. “No relief for the wicked, eh, Emma?” he asked, no humor in his voice.
“Not in your case, my lord,” she replied promptly.
Applegate coughed and looked away as Lord Ragsdale nailed Emma with a frown. John slapped his gloves in her hand. “I should have left you at the Norman and Saxon,” he murmured.
“It’s a mystery to me why you did not,” she responded, the lilt in her voice so prominent.
He shook his finger at her, ready to give her a share of what remained of his frazzled mind. Applegate coughed again, so he swallowed his angry words and followed the butler down the hall. He looked back at Emma once to give her another evil stare, but there she stood again, as calm as usual.Curse me, but you are irritating, he thought.
To his infinite relief, only Grandmama waited to pounce on him in the blue room. He was spared more of Sally’s tears and Robert’s distemper. He would have liked a pitcher of whiskey, but his grandmother handed him a cup of tea.
“Well, John, what do you have to say for yourself?” she demanded after the maid fled the room.
He took a sip of the tea and pronounced it insipid. In silence for a moment, he gazed back at his relative, wondering what imp was suddenly at work in his brain. “Grandmama, why do you always greet me that way?” he asked, determined not to be afraid of her this trip. “I cannot remember a time since I was out of short pants that you addressed me otherwise.” He sat down beside her. “It is not my fault that our American relatives are sadly wanting.”
There, he thought,I have counterattacked.He took another sip and regarded his relative, noting that all the females of the Whiteacre side of the family were blessed with pretty faces, from Grandmama to Sally.I wonder why I never saw that before, he thought as he took another sip, winked at the old lady, and set down the cup.Of course, they don’t have Emma’s high looks, but—whatis in this tea? I must be losing my mind. Emma has put an Irish curse on me.He stared into the tea, his hastily acquired aplomb in serious danger already.
If he was going insane right there in the blue room, Grandmama did not appear to notice. She choked over her tea and glared at him. “It is ill-bred to wink, John,” she reminded him.
Recovering, he smiled to himself, happy to have set her off guard. “Tell me what you think of the Claridges, my love,” he said, delighted to watch her choke again at his unexpected endearment.
She scowled at him. “Pathetic!” She wagged a heavily ringed finger in front of his face. “And so I told my daughter it would be when she insisted on marrying that American.” She snorted in disgust. “Sally cried until my ankles started getting wet, and Robert could only say how ill you had treated him.”
“Silly of me, wasn’t it?” he commented. “I wouldn’t let him gamble his servant away to a lecher.” He paused and took a thorough, if covert, look at his grandparent. It was always hard to measure her mellowness, but Lord Ragsdale turned on his most blinding smile and ventured. “By the way, Grandmama, how would you like another maid around the place?”
Grandmama let out a crack of laughter. “Not so easy! She’s all yours, John! I hear from my daughter that you spent a fortune in horseflesh for her.”
“I didn’t have any choice!” he shouted, his desperation returning. “Grandmama, what am I going to do with Emma Costello?”
“Buck up, John,” she retorted. “I never would have taken you for a whiner.”
She finished her tea, refilled it half full from the pot at her elbow, and handed the cup to him, gesturing with her head to the cherrywood cabinet against the far wall. “Put in a drop of brandy before your mother returns,” she ordered. “I expect you’ll find some use for Emma, if you’re any grandson of Lord Whiteacre. Besides all that, she’s prettier than your mistress.”
He stopped at the sideboard, his hand on the brandy, and then poured in more than a drop. “Madam, pigs will fly before I would even consider kissing Emma Costello’s cheek!” He doused his own tea with enough brandy to cause a blaze if he sat too close to the fire.
She took the tea and nodded at him, triumphant to have the upper hand again. “It doesn’t surprise me that you should mention pork when you think of your light-skirt.”
He glared at her in exasperation, wondering why he could not ever win an argument with this feeble old woman. “Fae is a fine-looking woman,” he said, trying to inject the proper amount of injury into his voice and avoid any suggestion that he was getting a little tired of her. “Ipreferwomen with a littleavoir du pois,” he stated. That was true enough. However, the Irish woman did have a pleasant shape, even if she was a trifle thin.
But this was no time to allow the mind to wander, and his cause was not being served by the fumes that rose from his teacup. “If you will not help me, m’dear,” he said after a long, thoughtful sip, “give me some suggestions. Mama has already arranged to have a lady’s maid waiting for Sally when we return. You know, someone who knows the ins and outs of life here better than Emma would. And I assure you I will not leave Emma within ten miles of Robert Claridge, no matter how she irritates me.”
