people to think. And again—he wore the golden rose.
“I have to get Adam out of there, no matter what I must do to best the man!” she exclaimed aloud, punching her gloved fist into her palm, refusing to consider she might be sounding very much like some overwrought and probably hare-witted heroine in a melodrama.
Still, her determination lasted throughout the quarter-hour journey to Portman Square through the heavy midmorning traffic. But when the coach halted, and she was helped down to the flagway in front of the imposing facade of the Redgrave mansion, a tiny voice in the back of her head whispered less confidently, “How do you propose to do that, exactly?”
Shaking off the question, she reminded herself her brother was behind that large black door with the lion’s head knocker. She put out her chin as a mental battering ram and headed inside as if she was accustomed to being welcomed in the finest London houses.
“Mrs. Linden, to see his lordship,” she said imperiously as she stripped off her gloves and untied her bonnet, even as she belatedly realized Doreen should be standing just behind her to take possession of the things. Stupid! How could she have forgotten she was to be chaperoned at all times? This was what living her catch-as-catch-can life for the past five years had done to her; she kept forgetting she wasn’t supposed to be able to fend for herself. She should have brought Seth, that’s what she should have done. Protection, indeed! She’d never needed more than Richard and his heavy club at the gaming house. Here in Portman Square, an entire regiment of Seths probably wouldn’t come amiss!
She shoved both bonnet and gloves at the footman. “His lordship, young man. See to it.”
“If you was to wait here, ma’am,” the fairly astonished-looking footman said, indicating the open door to what had to be the ground-floor room reserved for tradesmen and those petitioners seeking interviews.
Her fingers still at her throat, as she’d been about to untie the closing of her pelisse, Jessica looked through a dull red haze of anger to the curving staircase that led to the first floor, and then to the small room. “Oh, I think not. I’ve reconsidered my visit. Kindly inform his lordship I have been and gone.”
So saying, she retrieved her bonnet and gloves from the clearly relieved footman, and quit the house. She stood on the top step of the portico as she retied her bonnet and pulled on her gloves, realizing that the coach was now slowly circling the square, so that the horses should not be forced to stand while she was inside.
Well, that presented a problem, didn’t it? Not to mention putting quite the crimp in her grand exit. She wasn’t about to go running after it, crying yoo-hoo, waving it down. Besides, she’d had just about enough of his lordship’s courtesy for one morning. She had two feet, and she knew how to use them.
She looked to her left, and then to her right. Two feet, yes. Now if only she knew what direction in which to point them… .
“Ma’am?”
Jessica turned about slowly, to see that the footman had opened the door behind her, probably to warn her to take herself off, as loitering on his lordship’s doorstep was not allowed.
“I’m going,” she said tightly. “You don’t have to apply the boot.”
“Oh, but, ma’am, you’re to come inside. Please.”
She whirled about in her anger, skewering the footman with a look meant to set him back a step, which it did. “I am, am I? You’d be wrong there. I don’t have to go anywhere. That might be something you could tell his lordship. I’m not his to command.”
“No, ma’am. That is to say, ma’am, it was me what thought to put you in the…that is to say, his lordship is awaiting your pleasure in the drawing room. Ma’am?”
All the anger in Jessica drained away. The footman had made a valid assumption. She wasn’t dressed in the first stare, Lord knew. She’d arrived unaccompanied. What else was the man to think but that she’d been summoned, perhaps to interview for some domestic position? Ha! If the earl were to do the interviewing, a position would definitely be involved!
“Very well.” She reentered the mansion, feeling slightly abashed, which was enough to bring back her anger. She’d no idea she was so prickly; she’d always believed herself to be a pleasant person at the heart of the thing. “What is your name?” she asked the footman kindly as, yet again, she handed over her belongings.
“Waters, ma’am,” the youth said, bowing as he laid her pelisse over his arm. “I’ll be taking you upstairs now and turning you over to, that is to say, where Mr. Thorndyke will announce you to his lordship. And thank you again, ma’am.”
“You did as you were trained, I’m sure,” Jessica told him, handing over a coin. “The error was mine. Was his lordship that rough on you?”
Waters bowed again, not quite fast enough to hide his relieved smile. “His lordship could blister paint with that tongue of his, ma’am. But not on me, ma’am. Not this time. It was Mr. Thorndyke what explained how I was wrong. He’s not half bad.”
Jessica shot a look up the staircase, to where she could see a tall, gray-haired man, most probably Thorndyke, waiting for her. She was being passed along to the Upper Reaches. How fortunate she was.
“Really? In other words, Waters, he’ll be escorting me into the lion’s den. Lucky for me, then, I’m no lamb.”
“Ma’am?” the footman all but squeaked, looking nervous once more.
“I’ll make my own way up the stairs,” she told him. “Just don’t put my things too far away, as I might be needing them again quite shortly.”
So saying, she lifted her hem a fraction and her chin a fraction more before heading up the staircase, her gaze already locked with that of the butler, or majordomo, or whatever the man considered himself, and by the look of him he considered himself at least two social levels above that of his lordship’s visitor.
And all for the lack of a maid, or a maiden aunt, or some paid companion. Really, society was a set of ridiculous rules. She was well out of it. Were she a man, none of this would apply, and she’d already be sitting in the drawing room with one leg draped over the other, sipping wine instead of the tea she’d be offered, if she was offered anything at all.
And from the looks of Thorndyke, she wouldn’t be.
“Mrs. Linden to see his lordship, who already knows I’m here, so that we’d all three of us be wasting our time pretending he doesn’t,” she announced before Waters, who had quickly divested himself of her belongings and was hurrying up the stairs after her, could open his mouth. “Just point me in the right direction and you can go back to polishing the silver, or stealing it, whichever pleases you.”
The butler opened and closed his mouth a time or two before drawing himself up even straighter than before and motioning to the pair of closed doors to the left of the wide hallway.
“Good. At least we’re done with foolishness,” Jessica declared, her head positively spinning, and knowing she was being ridiculous. But as ridiculousness seemed to be the order of the day, why should she attempt to put a stop to it now?
Of course, that left her with either throwing open the double doors in some dramatic gesture of defiance or knocking on one of them and waiting to be admitted. She probably should have thought of that. She probably
