Read Online Miss Molly Robbins Designs a Seduction by Jayne Fresina - Free Book Online Page B

happily busy. It was important she begin dressing herself with more style, as everywhere she went she was an advertisement for her own business. In the past, her skills and services were reserved for her mistress—a good servant was not meant to be seen or heard. Now, however, Molly could no longer hide in the wall paneling, hoping to be forgotten. A transformation must take place if she was to be welcomed into those grand houses and not endure every footman and lady’s maid looking down their nose at her.
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    “I want you to round up as many of those able lads as can be found and, if they show interest, send them to the Sussex estate,” Carver explained to the startled Edward Hobbs. “They can join the other boys there.”
    “More children, my lord? The estate has already taken in a large number of orphans since you became earl. As it is, Phipps struggles to find work for all of them until the harvest.”
    “Then Phipps needs to use his imagination and initiative. The boys can learn valuable skills on the stud farm, or around the house if they are not working the land. I’m sure many of these children show aptitude for other lines of work where they can earn a wage. They need a fresh start, away from these streets where bad influences are rife.”
    “There are indeed a great many homeless children running about the streets of London,” Hobbs replied steadily, and yet with a tone of weary acceptance, as if he knew the pointlessness of his own words. “I hope you do not think to help them all.”
    “I mean to help as many as I can. I’ll get Rothespur involved. I’m sure he could find work for a few hands on that massive estate of his. Someone has to start somewhere, or nothing will ever be done. We must move forward, Hobbs, and stop merely discussing the problems. Change is the essence of life.”
    The solicitor shuffled his papers worriedly. “Indeed, my lord.”
    “Since parliament takes so bloody long to move its feet, someone has to take matters personally in hand.”
    “Yes, my lord, that was what you said ten years ago when you began the enterprise. The estate has now helped a great many more than one child, but they all enjoy it there so much they seldom move on. Where Phipps manages to put them all, I can’t imagine.”
    “Nonsense. It’s a six hundred-acre plot of land, Hobbs.”
    “The last time Lady Mercy paid a visit, she was increasingly perplexed by the number of small children running about the place. Phipps was obliged to make up some outlandish stories about a spate of sudden births in the village. And I believe it led to her lecturing quite a few confused inhabitants on the subject of abstinence.”
    Carver laughed at that. “Yes, well. I can’t have her knowing what I’m up to. She’ll only try to meddle and tell me I’m doing it all wrong.”
    Hobbs sighed. “No doubt.”
    “I’m sure you and Phipps can find somewhere to put them all.” Carver waved his hand through the air, dismissing the counselor’s concerns. “You can do anything, Hobbs.”
    “If you say so, my lord.”
    “And I’m thinking about a school too,” Carver muttered, rubbing his chin. “Somewhere these children can go for a basic education, but not in subjects like Latin, that will be of no use to them.”
    This was far enough for poor Hobbs, who had been caught in the midst of his breakfast. “My lord, your father would never have condoned a school for the poor.”
    “Exactly. My father was stuck, Hobbs my good fellow, in the past.” And he was not. Not anymore.

Six
     
    She came to him at the end of the month. Carver had just returned from a ride with the Baroness Schofield and had not yet wiped the mud of Hyde Park off his boots. Or grass stains from the knees of his breeches. As he marched into the drawing room, she stood from the chair in which she’d waited and gave the usual bob curtsy.
    The butler’s warning had prepared him, of course, but he was still startled by her appearance in a