Page 86 of Better Than a Duke
“All is forgiven, Mr. Fredericks,” he said, nodding. “I believe Mrs. Silbern is here to drag you and Master Edmund back to Grove House for dinner.”
“I need to help Becks finish,” Edmund countered, speeding his writing again.
“Edmund, the Raines household needs to sit for dinner, as well,” Iris pointed out.
“But we need to have these sent out as soon as possible. The party is tomorrow.” Rebecca hunched over her invitation, looking like she meant to begin pummeling anyone who tried to drag her away from her task. Something she’d learned from Iris, no doubt.
Clearing his throat, Beckett caught Iris’s gaze. “I’m happy to have Edmund and Mr. Fredericks remain for dinner if it aids this enterprise. They can finish afterward, and return to Grove House by nine o’clock, say?”
She grimaced. “Yes, I imagine that is the most logical course of action.”
“You’re invited, as well, Iris,” he went on. “Always.”
“Oh, I doubt that, but tonight I’ll accept,” she said, sending him a swift smile that had him looking at her mouth and thinking about kissing again.
Yes, the inevitable continued to stomp behind them, closing on them with every step. But they hadn’t been caught just yet.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Leaving Lady Becks’s bedchamber as her father strolled in, book in hand, Martha Brubbins dipped into her own bedchamber beside the nine-year-old’s and collected her notebook. Then she left again, shutting the door behind her so it looked like she’d retired for the evening.
Martha was quite aware that most governesses did not reside in large, well-appointed bedchambers on the same floor as the family. She also knew Lord Hentrose relied on her being close by Rebecca, especially on mornings when he had to leave the house early or on evenings when he attended a soiree and returned home late.
Padding as silently as she could down the curved staircase, she headed toward the back of the house where the kitchen and the servants’ quarters lay. This was where she would end up after the wedding, if she was lucky. From what she’d observed of Lady Pauline, and more significantly what she’d been able to coax from Lady Becks, neither she nor the marquis’s daughter would remain under his roof for any longer than was absolutely necessary for appearance’s sake.
Becks would be sent off to boarding school under the pretense that it was for her own good, the little dear, and with no daughter on the premises, there would be no need for a governess. That distressed Martha, of course; she’d been with the Raines family since a month after Rebecca’s birth. It wasn’t merely about her employment, though; the Raineses had become her family. And though she was far from a fashion icon or an authority on the rules of aristocratic femininity, she’d learned what she could and done her best to follow the marquis’s wishes—to help Rebecca become a kind, thoughtful, independent, and well-educated lady.
She adored Becks, and the idea of sending that imaginative, sensitive young lady into a den of self-concerned, strict, unimaginative teachers and cruel, judgmental peers made her shudder. It could not be allowed. If it wouldn’t have meant destroying any trust the girl had in her, and quite possibly upending the relationship between Becks and her father, she would have gone straight to Lord Hentrose and told him everything she knew. In this instance, though, straightforward honesty didn’t seem to be the wisest course of action. For once, she found herself agreeing with Lady Rebecca that a more… imaginative approach was required.
Walking into the kitchen, she took a seat at the table. “I apologize for my tardiness; Becks is still up in the rafters about the party being tomorrow.”
“I don’t doubt it, precious thing,” Louise Alliday, the longtime Raines House cook, cooed, smiling. “Both of those children are adorable. And kind, and—”
“Yes, we’re aware, Louise. On with it, Martha.” John Butler took a drink of tea and opened his own notebook. “And Bradley, you still aren’t forgiven for spilling the oranges when the squirrel attacked Lady Pauline.”
“I didn’t have time to tell you the plan,” Bradley Jones retortedwith a grin. “I didn’t evenknowthe plan, except that I was to help with any mayhem that might occur.”
“I don’t ever want those two youngsters mad at me.” Across from Martha, Mr. Fredericks leaned over to light his cheroot against the candle and sat back to take a puff. “Little devilish geniuses, they are. I’ve never been prouder.”
“We haven’t accomplished anything yet,” Martha Brubbins pointed out, “other than ruining Lady Pauline’s coif. Now. From what Becks overheard at her grandmother’s luncheon, Pauline is frustrated, and is willing to… do something to force Lord Hentrose’s hand. I believe it’s the children’s plan to thwart this, and instead arrange for their parents to be the ones compromised together, leaving them no choice but to marry.”
“Replacing one scandal with another doesn’t seem much of a solution.” The butler waved his hand through the faint smoke cloud of Mr. Fredericks’s puffing.
“I agree.” Martha nodded, unsurprised to have a consensus. Servants tended to reflect their employers, and Lord Hentrose was a fine, caring man. “In my opinion, a union should be up to them. I’m only here to give the children a fighting chance, and to be certain they aren’t blamed for any of this.”
“Then we spend the evening making certain no one has a moment alone with anyone else.” Butler made a note in his book. “That’s accomplished easily enough.”
“Yes, up until the moment someone asks you to leave the room.” Martha shut her eyes for a moment. “We are staff. We cannot defy orders without a damned good reason to do so.”
“What do you suggest, then?” Mr. Fredericks asked.
“We will need to involve the children, I’m afraid. And as determined as Lady Pauline seems to be, someone will more than likely end up being the object of gossip. I think it should not be either Lord Hentrose or Mrs. Silbern.”
“If it isn’t both the Grenedy woman and the duke, we haven’t prevented a marriage.” Mr. Fredericks eyed her. “You know what we need to do, Martha.”
“Oh, goodness.” Mrs. Alliday fanned herself with both hands.
Butler cleared his throat. “I generally don’t condone such nonsense, but servants talk, you know. I may not know much about Lady Pauline except for what Lady Becks has disclosed and the one exchange I witnessed, but I have heard several tales about the duke. He would not make a good match for Mrs. Silbern.”
