Read Online The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane by Kasey Michaels - Free Book Online

dressing down a mere paid companion (poor
relation or not) delivered one little bit. She did not believe for
one minute that Miss Emily would come to any harm in the hoax she
played with Mr. Harlow—surely everyone must know that—and besides,
if she and Leo were to ever have enough put by to get hitched,
there was no other way to make extra money than by letting all
those young swells reward her for her help. What harm was there in
a bunch of drippy lovey-dovey poems, anyway?
    But Tansy’s musings that morning did not go
so far as to believe she had gained an enemy in Comfort.
    That enemy was not alone in her feelings.
Farnley, the Duke’s valet, had made it plain he considered Tansy a
harbinger of bad luck, but his mad dashes to avoid crossing her
path and his ridiculous gestures meant to ward off the “evil eye”
merely amused her.
    A slight rumbling in her stomach caused Tansy
to leave off her reminiscences and made her bold enough to descend
to the kitchens to see what bit of food she could possibly coax out
of Cook before luncheon. After all, hadn’t she earned a bit of
special treatment for allowing Cook such generous use of Pansy’s
finest talents?
    Tansy had already met Cook on her original
tour of the house, but her good impression of the woman was not
matched by her opinion of the food served at the Duke’s table.
Quite often the beef was stringy, the fowl tough, and the
vegetables—though heavily disguised with flavorful sauces—did not
always taste quite fresh. Yet, since no one else had seen fit to
complain, and heaven knew she was no gourmet, Tansy kept her
thoughts to herself.
    Once seated at the huge, well-scrubbed table
in the center of the kitchen and munching greedily on a raspberry
tart, however, Tansy’s eyes could not help but notice the seeming
scarcity of foodstuffs usually to be found in abundance in such an
affluent household.
    “Hasn’t anyone been to the market today?” she
asked Pansy, who was concentrating on digging an eye out of a
potato while causing as little waste as possible.
    Pansy finished her task and smiled smugly at
her achievement before casting her eyes around the room and through
the opened doors that revealed the pantry and meat locker. “Yes’m,
Miss Tansy. Sally went to market at first light. Everything’s here,
just like always.”
    Upon hearing this piece of information, Tansy
decided a closer investigation was called for, and set forth at
once to make what soon became an extensive inventory-taking of
foodstuffs, cleaning supplies, candles, linens, and fuel. She even
climbed to the top of the house, where she inspected the
furnishings in the servants’ quarters. When she was finished she
returned to the morning room at the back of the house and gave the
bell-rope a mighty pull.
    “Send Mrs. Brown to me at once,” she ordered
the footman who answered her call.
    “Mrs. Brown, ma’am? There’s no Mrs. Brown
what lives ’ere,” the footman answered in confusion.
    Tansy’s foot was tapping now. “The
housekeeper, you goose. I want the housekeeper.”
    A light went on in the footman’s vacant eyes.
“Oh, you’d be meaning Mrs. Green, then, Miss,” he corrected.
    “Green, brown, purple, I don’t give a bloody
damn what color she is! You just get her thieving arse to anchor in
here in less than three minutes, or I may start giving you the
drubbing I have planned for her!”
    To say the least, the very least, Miss Tansy
Tamerlane was upset. The footman stumbled wildly for the door, but
still heard the irate woman’s parting order. “And tell her to bring
the household books with her if she values her skin!”
    Tansy spent the next few minutes stomping up
and down the morning room in a high flight of agitation, until a
loud voice cut into her thoughts by demanding stridently, “Just
what is the meaning of this outrage?”
    Tansy halted in mid-stomp and whirled upon
the speaker, her eyes raking the tall, raw-boned figure of the
housekeeper. Mrs. Green