Read Online Miss Darby's Duenna by Sheri Cobb South - Free Book Online Page B

now.
    Shaking these self-recriminations aside, he scribbled a brief but explicit message, underscoring certain words for emphasis.   Then, pronouncing this model of the epistolary art complete, he shook sand over his handiwork, folded it so as to conceal its contents, and sealed it with red wax.
    “See that it is given to Higgins, my—my grandson’s valet,” he instructed Charles, the footman.
    Some two hours later, after the ladies had long since repaired to their beds, a knock fell upon the door at the rear of the house which was designated the servants’ entrance. Coombes, having been instructed to await the arrival of this nocturnal visitor, flung open the door. As the newcomer stepped into the light, the butler’s eyes bulged. A lifetime spent in domestic service had brought him in contact with many ladies’ maids, but never had he beheld a specimen like the one who now stood before him. The creature’s lanky form was swathed in ill-fitting skirts which barely reached the ankles.   Furthermore, the servant had apparently made free with the dowager’s cosmetics, for the lean cheeks were liberally stained with rouge. A cheap straw bonnet covered curls of an improbable yellow hue, from under which peeped strands of salt-and-pepper gray.
    “Well,” pronounced this vision, glaring at his mesmerized host, “are you going to stand there staring all night, man, or are you going to conduct me to her ladyship’s chamber?”
    “Of course, sir—ma’am,” Coombes replied hastily, recalled to the responsibilities of his position. If the old lady wanted to smuggle her paramour into the house by putting him in petticoats, well, that was no business of his. Besides, he had always known the Quality were a strange lot. “Right this way.”
    The abigail followed Coombes up the back stairs to the first floor, then down a luxuriously carpeted corridor which could not disguise the fact that the lady’s maid was possessed of a decidedly masculine tread. At last they paused before a paneled door at the end of the hall.
    “Her ladyship’s chamber,” announced Coombes before beating a hasty retreat back to the servants’ quarters to regale the housekeeper with a description of the dowager’s peculiar servant.
    Casting a furtive glance up and down the corridor and finding it empty, the abigail rapped sharply on the door. Upon being bade enter, she opened it, darted quickly inside, and shut it firmly behind her.
    “Higgins, you look positively breath-taking,” remarked Sir Harry, surveying his servant appreciatively. He had divested himself of his wig and his evening gown (albeit not without difficulty), and now sat at the foot of the bed wearing nothing but his breeches and a wide grin.
    “You may well say so, sir,” responded Higgins with an affronted sniff. “Ladies’ maid, indeed! Just how long do you think you can keep up this charade, if I might ask?”
    “As long as necessary,” said Sir Harry with steel in his voice. “Until the day of my nuptials, if need be—upon which occasion I shall double your wages.”
    “And if the lady discovers the rig you’re running and cries off?” Sir Harry’s grin faded, to be replaced by a worried frown.
    “Ah, Higgins, that don’t bear thinking of!”
    * * * *
    On the day following the Covent Garden outing, Lord Mannerly paid a call on his maternal aunt, the dowager duchess of Ramsey. Upon reaching her residence in Grosvenor Square, he was met by a butler who was starchier than his uncle, the late Duke, ever had been. This awe-inspiring personage conducted him to the Chinese Saloon, where her Grace was receiving.
    His mother’s elder sister, although on the shady side of sixty, still retained her slender figure, and although her fair complexion was marred by the faintest of lines about her eyes and mouth, her exquisite bone structure guaranteed the sort of beauty that age cannot destroy. Her present surroundings complemented her personal attractions, for the red