Page 3 of Reforming Lord Ragsdale
Sally goggled at that. “Aunt Staples, he is a marquess!” she gasped.
“A title never gave anyone brains,” his mother remarked, her words crisp. “Bear that in mind, Sally, as you begin your own adventure here this Season.” She looked at her son again. “My dear, I was merely suggesting that we all drive down to Oxford to install Robert. It will give your cousins the opportunity of seeing their Grandmama Whiteacre, whom they have never met.”
“Then brace yourselves,” he murmured, wondering what the waiting woman was making of this family talk. “I think it an excellent idea. Once you have met the family Gorgon, you will only be too grateful for Charon to row you across the River Styx and into the quad of Brasenose.”
The blank stare that Robert returned made Lord Ragsdale sigh inwardly and long for the comforts of his liquor cabinet. Obviously his alma mater would be suffering one more fool gladly.
“Provided Mr. Claridge can find the coin necessary for the boat ride.”
It was said in such a low tone that he doubted Emma’s words carried much beyond his own ears. He grinned appreciatively. “A hit, a palpable hit,” he whispered back and was rewarded with that fleeting dimple again.What have we here?he asked himself.A servant who knows her Greek mythology and Shakespeare too?
But there was something else about her softly voiced reply that set off a bell in the back of his brain. He knew the lilt in her voice.
“Emma, where are you from?” he asked suddenly, his voice too loud in the quiet room. He knew his question was inappropriate, and a rude interruption to his mother, who was saying something to Sally about Grandmama Whiteacre. Besides that, he could not think of a time when he had ever asked a servant anything that personal. And here he was at his most strident, demanding an answer.
She was as startled as he was. The dimple disappeared, and she looked in dismay from Robert to Sally, as though waiting for a reprimand.
“Come now. It’s an easy question,” he said, egged on by some demon that seemed to be amplifying his voice until he sounded almost like he commanded troops again. He could see his mother coming toward him, alarm on her face. He held up a hand to stop her. “I want to know where you are from and what is your name.”
The servant’s face had drained of all color now. She swallowed several times, and if anything, her carriage became even more regal. She looked him right in the eye, something he had never seen before in a servant. She spoke quite distinctly.
“My name is Emma Costello, sir, and I am from County Wicklow.”
“Well, curse you, then, and all your bog-trotting relatives,” he said, and he turned on his heel and left the room. In another moment he slammed out of the house, ignoring his mother, and hurried down the sidewalk. He was too upset for Fae. It would be White’s and a bottle of brandy. Maybe two.
Chapter 2
Even the relative serenityof White’s in midafternoon could not assuage Lord Ragsdale’s curious combination of vast ill-usage and shame of the dreariest sort. After a brief appearance in the main hallway, where the billiards players lounged between games and laid outrageous wagers on the evening’s activities, he eased himself into the reading room. He sank with a sigh into his favorite old leather chair (wondering all over again why ordinary homes didn’t have such simple pleasures), snapped open theTimes, and burrowed behind it.
There were several articles that should have interested him. Napoleon had left the French Army under the tender mercies of Marshal Soult in Spain, and Soult had cat-and-moused General John Moore all the way to La Coruña in swift retreat.
“Bother it!” John Staples growled as he turned the page. And here was Napoleon in Paris again, enduring another diplomatic minuet by the lame but adroit Talleyrand. “Spit on all Frenchmen!” the marquess muttered and buried his face in the announcements of weddings and engagements.Yes, spit on the French, he thought as he perused the closely written lines to read of friends about to succumb to one stage or another of matrimony. If the French had not nosed about the Irish in the last century and given them cause to revolt,he would still be looking at the paper with two eyes instead of one. And he might still have an army career.
He folded the paper and rested it on his chest, allowing reason—or a close cousin to it—to reclaim him.John, you idiot, you have made a scene in front of a servant, he chided himself. He winced at the memory of the shock on his mother’s face and Robert’s frank stare. Like all good butlers, Lasker had developed sudden amnesia, irreversible until the evening meal belowstairs in the servants’ dining room, Lord Ragsdale was sure.
Lord Ragsdale knew that once Lasker spread the word belowstairs about the master’s rudeness (probably with raised eyebrows and then the sorrowful pronouncement that the late Lord Ragsdale would never have exhibited such rag manners), he would suffer several days from a slowdown in domestic efficiency. Until the staff recovered from this attack on one of their own, the maid who delivered the morning coal while he still slept would rattle it a little louder in the scuttle; his shaving water would be only lukewarm; there would be scorch marks on his neckcloths; and the béarnaise sauce would be soupy. Such were the subtle punishments handed out by powerless people.
He had only managed the barest glance at Emma Costello when he flung himself out of the gold saloon and was rewarded with a look of bewilderment. If he had suddenly struck her with his fists instead of his words, she could not have looked more surprised. He thought about Emma Costello and County Wicklow and doubly swore at himself for being a fool. He had spent his lifetime upstairs and far from servant gossip, but he knew enough about the hierarchy belowstairs to assure himself that Emma would not be treated well there, either. No one liked the Irish. He should never have shouted at her.
He sighed again and rubbed his forehead above his dead eye. It seldom pained him now, but he massaged the spot out of habit. When his eye was still a raw wound,some imp—was it too much laudanum?—twitted his agonized brain until he began to think that if he rubbed hard enough, his sight would return. It never happened, of course. When the pain lessened, he could only wonder at his foolishness.
So much self-flogging made him restless. With an oath, he got up, listened to the leather chair sigh for him, and moved to the fireplace, where he stood staring down at the flames. Rain scoured the windows again and matched his melancholy.
As soon as the rain let up, he would return to Curzon Street and apologize to his mother and Robert Claridge. An apology to Robert’s sister probably wasn’t necessary. Sally had watched his brief explosion with the wide-eyed stare of someone destined always to be a fraction late with the news. One didn’t have to apologize to servants, of course, so he needn’t say anything to Emma.
He returned after dinner at White’s and a brief visit to Fae Moullé. She had opened the door to his two-rap knock with her usual cheerful demeanor and helped him out of his overcoat, chattering half in French and half in English about some neighborhood happening. In the early days of their relationship, her bilingual patter had amused him. Now as he allowed her to unwind his muffler, he felt only a certain irritation that she couldn’t confine herself to one language or the other. Hot words rose to his lips, but he forced them back. No sense in tempting another work slowdown among those he paid; one from Fae would be much more uncomfortable than lukewarm shaving water. He kissed her instead, allowed her to lead him toward the bedroom, and then changed his mind.
He sat next to her but placed her hands carefully in her lap. “No, Fae.”
Her lower lip came out in that familiar pout. He looked at her and wondered why he had thought that expression so attractive.Grow up, you silly widgeon, he wanted to shout. Hetook her hand instead, noting how shapely it was, how each nail was filed to a softly rounded tip. Such effort was probably the work of an afternoon for Fae.
He turned slightly to face her. “Fae, my love, what do you think about when I am not here?” he asked.
A number of expressions crossed her face, but the one that kept recurring was a vague puzzlement that sank his spirits even lower. She just looked at him, as though wondering what he wanted her to say.
“Really, Fae,” he plunged ahead, warming to his topic. “When we’re not together, what thoughts cross your mind?”
Again that silence.I don’t pay you enough to think, do I?he considered, and the realization made him rub his forehead once more.
