Read Online Sherri Cobb South by French Leave - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: French Leave
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imagination.”
As if in confirmation, the carriage rolled slowly to a stop. Lady Helen rapped on the panel overhead. It opened on the instant, and the coachman peered down at his passengers.
“Yes, my lady?”
“What is the matter, Dixon?”
“Looks like a farm cart’s met with an accident up ahead. There’s turnips all over the road.”
Lady Helen made an impatient noise, to which the coachman was quick to respond. “Shall I make a detour, ma’am?”
“Yes, please.”
The overhead panel closed, and the carriage inched forward until it reached the intersecting street. The coachman swung the carriage off the main thoroughfare and onto a narrower residential lane. Progress along this street was of necessity slower, but it was still progress of a sort. Lady Helen sank back in her seat and strove to bear with patience the little bit that remained of the long journey. As the carriage turned onto Green Street, however, she sat up abruptly. The door of a pleasant house had swung open, and on the threshold there appeared a carelessly dressed, dark-haired man of medium height, bidding farewell to a stunning titian-haired woman. Lady Helen silently chided herself for her own foolishness. What would her husband be doing in Green Street, of all places, where resided some of the most notorious courtesans in England, including the Duke of York’s mistress, Mary Ann Clarke, and Lord Waverly’s erstwhile paramour, Sophia Hutchins?
Even as she dismissed the notion, the pair embraced shamelessly upon the front stoop. Lady Helen’s first thought was for Lisette, to make sure her young guest was not subjected to a scene of such gross impropriety. Then the hat fell from the man’s head, and all other considerations fled from her mind but one: the curly-haired man kissing Sophia Hutchins so passionately was unquestionably, undeniably, her own husband.
For Lady Helen, the remainder of the trip passed in a blur. A strange buzzing noise filled her head, almost drowning out the lilt of Lisette’s French accent as she chattered cheerfully, unaware that her hostess’s world had just come to an end. After what seemed to Lady Helen like an eternity, the carriage drew to a halt in front of 23 Grosvenor Square and the door was opened. At the sight of the footman waiting to hand her down, however, twenty-five years of training came to the fore. Smiling serenely, she placed her hand on his proffered arm and inquired into the health of his widowed mother as she stepped lightly down.
Once inside, Lady Helen flung herself with a passion into the details of housewifery, seeing her children settled in the nursery and the best guest chamber prepared for Lisette, conferring with the housekeeper and the cook, and seeing to the bestowal of her muslins and silks in the clothes-press. In this manner she contrived to keep herself busy for some time until Sir Ethan, returning home late after dining at his club, was informed by the butler that Lady Helen was now in residence, having arrived that very afternoon, a full three days earlier than anticipated.
“ ‘as she, now?” he asked with every appearance of pleasure, surrendering his hat and gloves to Evers’s care. “I wish you’d sent a message to me at Brooks’s. I’d’ve been ‘ome sooner.”
“I’m very sorry, sir. I should not have wished to bother you.”
“No bother at all,” his master assured him. “But never mind. I’ll go up at once.”
As if in proof of this statement, he took the stairs two at a time. He found his wife in her bedchamber, wearing a lace-trimmed dressing gown and arranging her combs and brushes on an elegantly carved rosewood dressing table. These had already been put to good use, for Lady Helen’s honey-blond hair was unpinned and tied with a ribbon at the nape of her neck.
“ ‘elen, me love!” he said, gazing at her in a manner evocative of a starving man invited to a Carlton House banquet.
A silver-backed brush slipped from Lady
As if in confirmation, the carriage rolled slowly to a stop. Lady Helen rapped on the panel overhead. It opened on the instant, and the coachman peered down at his passengers.
“Yes, my lady?”
“What is the matter, Dixon?”
“Looks like a farm cart’s met with an accident up ahead. There’s turnips all over the road.”
Lady Helen made an impatient noise, to which the coachman was quick to respond. “Shall I make a detour, ma’am?”
“Yes, please.”
The overhead panel closed, and the carriage inched forward until it reached the intersecting street. The coachman swung the carriage off the main thoroughfare and onto a narrower residential lane. Progress along this street was of necessity slower, but it was still progress of a sort. Lady Helen sank back in her seat and strove to bear with patience the little bit that remained of the long journey. As the carriage turned onto Green Street, however, she sat up abruptly. The door of a pleasant house had swung open, and on the threshold there appeared a carelessly dressed, dark-haired man of medium height, bidding farewell to a stunning titian-haired woman. Lady Helen silently chided herself for her own foolishness. What would her husband be doing in Green Street, of all places, where resided some of the most notorious courtesans in England, including the Duke of York’s mistress, Mary Ann Clarke, and Lord Waverly’s erstwhile paramour, Sophia Hutchins?
Even as she dismissed the notion, the pair embraced shamelessly upon the front stoop. Lady Helen’s first thought was for Lisette, to make sure her young guest was not subjected to a scene of such gross impropriety. Then the hat fell from the man’s head, and all other considerations fled from her mind but one: the curly-haired man kissing Sophia Hutchins so passionately was unquestionably, undeniably, her own husband.
For Lady Helen, the remainder of the trip passed in a blur. A strange buzzing noise filled her head, almost drowning out the lilt of Lisette’s French accent as she chattered cheerfully, unaware that her hostess’s world had just come to an end. After what seemed to Lady Helen like an eternity, the carriage drew to a halt in front of 23 Grosvenor Square and the door was opened. At the sight of the footman waiting to hand her down, however, twenty-five years of training came to the fore. Smiling serenely, she placed her hand on his proffered arm and inquired into the health of his widowed mother as she stepped lightly down.
Once inside, Lady Helen flung herself with a passion into the details of housewifery, seeing her children settled in the nursery and the best guest chamber prepared for Lisette, conferring with the housekeeper and the cook, and seeing to the bestowal of her muslins and silks in the clothes-press. In this manner she contrived to keep herself busy for some time until Sir Ethan, returning home late after dining at his club, was informed by the butler that Lady Helen was now in residence, having arrived that very afternoon, a full three days earlier than anticipated.
“ ‘as she, now?” he asked with every appearance of pleasure, surrendering his hat and gloves to Evers’s care. “I wish you’d sent a message to me at Brooks’s. I’d’ve been ‘ome sooner.”
“I’m very sorry, sir. I should not have wished to bother you.”
“No bother at all,” his master assured him. “But never mind. I’ll go up at once.”
As if in proof of this statement, he took the stairs two at a time. He found his wife in her bedchamber, wearing a lace-trimmed dressing gown and arranging her combs and brushes on an elegantly carved rosewood dressing table. These had already been put to good use, for Lady Helen’s honey-blond hair was unpinned and tied with a ribbon at the nape of her neck.
“ ‘elen, me love!” he said, gazing at her in a manner evocative of a starving man invited to a Carlton House banquet.
A silver-backed brush slipped from Lady
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