Page 6 of The Butler's Forbidden Fancy
He’d checked the street. His usual practice when he went anywhere, even when home from France. Even when not tracking a quarry. He tipped his hat and slid his eyes toward her lady’s maid steps behind her. “My lady, delightful to see you so well.”
“Mary,” Eliza said whipping around toward her servant. “Go buy us a tin of biscuits at the shop on the corner. Go on. I will come to collect you. Shortly. Go.”
The girl, with a surreptitious glance at him, bobbed. “Yes, milady.”
Eliza spun back to him, her whole being devoted to him, swaying to him as if a magnet drew them together. “You look splendid, Octo.”
“As do you.” What a lie. She wore a dark purple ensemble that set her pink cheeks to perfect contrast. And her hair! Well, that was always a firestorm of color and curls. Even with a terrible hat. She’d been a skinny whirlwind of a girl. Full of adventures to the pond to catch toads and bring them home to shock her mother. Then she’d grown taller, a willow, all grace and elegant charm. She’d changed, grown marvelous breasts, plump and round, and legs that went on forever. A colt with a delectable bosom. One look at her and his mouth had watered.
They’d enjoyed a quick tea. He’d made excuses and walked her to the little bakery where he left her to fetch her maid and carry on with her shopping. He’d also hoped the maid had some discretion and would say nothing to Leith about Eliza’s tea with a young man. Such revelations always sparked the intemperate earl to violence. For thatroué, such acts were normal when it came to attempting to tame his headstrong daughter. The two times Simms had managed to end the man’s attacks on his child were, Simms was certain, not the only attempts by that creature to maim her.
“Simms?” She stood before him now, ready for the evening reception. “Am I early?”
He shook himself to attention. “On time, my lady.” He lifted his hand to aid her down the last few steps.
“Thank you, sir.”
Yet when she stood beside him, she did not move. “Lovely home. You’ve done a very good job of keeping it in order.”
“When were you last here?” he asked, not because he wished to compare his efforts with staff to the previous butler’s. But because he was a fiend to wish to keep her talking to him.
“Last summer? I cannot recall the date. Where were you then, darling?” This last she delivered with her characteristic drop in volume so that no one else might overhear.
“France,” he told her and he shouldn’t have.
She gave him her twinkling moue with a shrug of shoulders and narrowed eyes. “As I suspected. Did they decorate you for your works?”
“They don’t do that, Eli—my lady.”
“I hope to hell they gave you a decent bonus.”
He had the very devil of a time containing his laughter. “Stipend.”
“Ah.” In a pique, she picked up her fan and whipped the air. “Is that what they call it? Bravo for their stingy hearts.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw another at the landing. “More arrive.”
She glanced up to offer a ready smile to the elderly woman. “Lady Bridgewater. How are you, madam?”
Bridgewater, he had learned, was an older version of his Eliza. An elderly gremlin, a minx, a menace, one for drama and offering no apologies for it, either, Bridgewater must be eighty, at the least. She was a very fine friend of the Countess of Marsden and often came for visits. Though she might be considered past her prime, Bridgewater showed it only in her thousand and one facial wrinkles. And although she loved her pot of rouge excessively, none of her wrinkles did she take any care or need, it seemed, to hide.
Simms extended his hand to help her down the last few steps. “Good evening, my lady. Enjoy your rest?”
“I did, my man. You’ve done a superb job here. I shall sing your praises to Lady Marsden.”
“Thank you, madam. The honor is mine.”
The tiny woman leaned into them. “I say, have you two met before?”
Clamping down on his horror at such notice, he shook his head. “No, ma’am. We were conversing.”
“Hmm. Rather intimately, if you ask me.”
“Oh, no,” he objected.
“It’s fine, Simms.” The woman grinned at him and her wrinkles multiplied in her smiling face. “We are all friends here. Especially ones so fine as you and this lovely lady.”
Eliza chuckled in a contented way. “Thank you, Lady Bridgewater.”
