Read Online All for Love by Jane Aiken Hodge - Free Book Online

surprising about that, perhaps. Josephine’s idea of what was important and her own had always been totally different.
    Anyway, she had little enough time for brooding as she inched her way, step by cautious step, into her role as Josephine. Inside the house, things were not too bad. She had managed to put names to most of the servants by now, and besides, ‘I forget sometimes myself,’ Josephine had said cheerfully. ‘They breed so fast.’ Josephine had also warned her not to interfere with old Venus’s running of the household: ‘I made a few changes when I first arrived ... My little suppers; a few things like that. But in the main the only thing is to let her carry on in the old way; she’s capable of nothing else.’
    This was obviously true enough, but just the same it irked Juliet’s tidy French soul to see the scrambling style of things, with three servants, in a muddled kind of way, trying to achieve together what one alone could have done much better. The food was delicious, but as it was cooked in a sinister shed in the back yard, and then brought laboriously indoors and upstairs, invariably cold.
    ‘Just as well it’s all going to be cold anyway for the party,’ she told Anne over the late, luxurious breakfast in bed, which at once followed Josephine’s habit and avoided the chance of meeting Hyde before he went out in the morning.
    ‘Yes.’ Anne looked anxious, as well she might. The party was now only two days off. ‘Do you think you will be able to manage if madame doesn’t get back in time?’
    ‘I think I shall have to. It will be a miracle if she does, and I don’t much believe in miracles. So come to the window, Anne, and let’s see who is going by.’ She pushed the tray down to the foot of the bed, reached for the swansdown-trimmed negligée that she privately detested, and swung her legs out of bed.
    ‘It’s a pity Mr. Purchis didn’t build his house in one of the busier squares,’ said Anne, joining her at the boudoir window. ‘Now if we were in Reynolds, with the Planters’ Bank, we’d have everyone by every day, but over here it’s not so easy. Still,’ brightening up, ‘there’s Mrs. Richardson getting into her carriage.’
    ‘Oh, I know her. But who’s that with her?’
    ‘In the blue? Why, Mrs. Bolton of course.’
    ‘Mr. Jay’s sister? Anne, what in the world am I going to do about Mr. Jay?’ On one pretext or another about the party, he had been a daily visitor, his infatuation almost comically obvious.
    ‘What else can you do but what madame did? Let it go on and pretend to take no notice. It will do him no harm, poor young man. They all go through it, some time or other.’
    ‘Yes.’ Doubtfully. She had not managed to bring herself to tell Anne about Hyde’s sudden, frightening fit of rage that first night, but thinking it over afterwards, had almost decided it must be due to jealousy. It was an alarming thought. If he was capable of jealousy still, could Hyde really be the passionless husband in name only that Josephine had described? She could hardly help a wry and private smile as she thought to herself how extraordinarily inconvenient it would be if Hyde should choose this particular moment to try and re-establish his relationship with his wife. She stopped smiling soon enough. Inconvenient? It would be disaster.
    ‘Talking about the Planters’ Bank,’ she plunged into speech to drown her thoughts. ‘What in the world am I to do about money, Anne? I simply must have gloves that fit for the party! And the pairs I brought the other day for morning wear have exhausted the money Josephine left me. And I won’t borrow your savings, either,’ she anticipated Anne’s next remark. ‘You’re an angel, but I won’t.’
    ‘You’re sure you couldn’t manage madame’s signature? At the bank?’
    ‘Quite sure. It’s one thing to write little notes to her friends. Josephine’s and my hands, both being French, are like enough to another, and unlike