He needed his house, his valet, a hot tub and a hot meal. He had no time to be corralled by some curious peer who wanted nothing more than a fine bit of gossip with which to regale his companions at tonight’s dinner party, tonight’s ball.
Valentine heard a muffled giggle from behind him, and turned back sharply to remind Miss Becket that someone in her tenuous position should have precious little to laugh at. But then he smiled, for the young woman who seemed completely at ease in her uniform, riding astride, was pointing toward the public fountain featuring the figure of a small boy urinating into the water.
“The Mannekin-Pis, Miss Becket,” he told her, and watched as she blushed furiously and dipped her head so that he couldn’t see her face. “Very famous. It amuses you?”
“No, my lord,” she muttered, and for the first time since Valentine had met with him today, Rian Becket grinned, looking young and eager, and more than happy to join in the joke at his sister’s expense.
Good God, Valentine thought, turning front on his mount once more, I am a nursemaid. Jack, my friend, we are even, more than even. He touched his heels to the gray’s sides and pushed ahead through the congestion, and a few minutes later they arrived at the narrow house he’d rented.
Not waiting for the other two to dismount, he tied Shadow to the black iron railing fronting the street, and bounded up the full flight of stone steps to the bright red door, banging down three times with the knocker.
The door opened to reveal his man, Wiggins, looking comfortable in shirtsleeves, two buttons open at his neck, his usual lace cravat nowhere in place. “My lord! You…you were not expected.”
“I should never have guessed,” Valentine drawled, stepping past the short, red-haired man and into the infinitesimally small foyer. “Rouse the cook, Wiggins, as I’m starving. Oh,” he added, turning back to look at his two charges, “and…do something with these, if you please.”
“Do something, my lord?” Wiggins asked, but he’d asked it of his lordship’s back, as the man had already bounded up the stairs. “Um…” the servant said, turning to smile rather weakly at Fanny and Rian. “Would…um…would you two gentlemen care to follow me?”
“The one gentleman might, Wiggins,” Fanny said, used to the free and easy way of the Becket servants—actually referred to as the crew by the Becket family, who had all been raised to lend a hand whenever one was needed. The protocol between London society master and servant was totally lost on her. She looked up the empty staircase, longing to know if this small household boasted more than one bathing tub. “However, I, lady that I am beneath this dirt and uniform, would much rather be pointed in the direction of my chamber so I can wash off this dirt. Would that be possible, please, Wiggins?”
The servant pushed his head forward on his short neck and goggled at her. “A lady, sir? Never say so.”
Fanny looked to her brother. “At last, Rian, someone who believes my deception. And at entirely the wrong time.”
Rian stepped forward, taking the servant by the elbow and walking him to the other end of the foyer—not a large distance. “My sister, Miss Becket, is in dire need of food, a bath and a change of clothing. Mostly, Wiggins, that change of clothing. Now, how do you suppose two intelligent gentlemen like ourselves are going to manage that, hmm?”
While Fanny kept her head lowered, pretending not to hear, Wiggins said worriedly, “Why, sir, I surely don’t know. Your sister, you say?”
“Wiggins!”
All three people in the foyer lifted their heads to look toward the upstairs landing where the Earl of Brede stood, stripped to trousers and shirt. He tossed a folded square of paper over the railing. “Take this to my sister in the Rue De La Fourche, if you please, and fetch her back here with you. Don’t allow her to say no or I may have you flogged. And where in bloody hell is my supper?”
He disappeared again, that disappearance followed quickly by the sound of a slamming door, and Fanny rolled her eyes in disgust. “What a monster he is,” she told Wiggins, who was in the process of hastily rebuttoning his shirt. “Wiggins, do as he says or else he’ll most likely bite your head off. My brother and I will find our own way to the kitchens, as we’re able to more than bellow to fill our bellies. We’ll even fill his for him before he tears down the house.”
Wiggins looked caught between loyalty to the Earl and his need to take the note he clutched in both his hands to the man’s sister. “I…um, that is…thank you, miss. I’d say I shouldn’t be a minute, but the good Lord knows Lady Lucie can’t so much as say good day to a person in less than ten, so I don’t know when I’ll be back.” He pulled a plain brown jacket out from behind a small marble statue of some Greek goddess and slipped his arms into it. “Did his lordship say anything about…That is, he’s not usually so…so in his altitudes. The battle comes soon?”
“It would seem so, Wiggins,” Rian said, motioning for Fanny to join him, as he’d opened a narrow door, exposing a set of equally narrow stairs leading down, and from the smells emanating from beyond, felt certain he’d found the way to the kitchens. “So, your master isn’t always so unfriendly?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Becket, sir, I wouldn’t want you to think that,” Wiggins said, winking. “He’s always so unfriendly. He just usually takes pains to hide it better. We’re sorely short-staffed, what with the city so crowded. So I thank you for your help, sir. We’d best feed him. Soon.”
FANNY KNEW SHE WASN’T a patch on her sister Elly when it came to organizing a household. But she’d watched her enough, and had spent enough hours in the kitchens at Becket Hall to know the rhythms and routines of that particular area, usually chopping up carrots as punishment for something she’d done and would doubtless go off to do again once Bumble released her from her stool and pile of vegetables.
Within the hour she had struck up a smiling, gesturing friendship with a buxomy old woman named Hilda, who spoke no English. As for herself, she spoke no German or whatever language the woman kept tossing at her. She’d washed her face and hands at the wooden trough in a corner of the narrow kitchen, shoved some lovely fat slices of ham into her cheeks and made certain a heavily loaded tray had been sent up to the Ogre in the Tower, which is how she’d decided to think of the Earl of Brede.
Her filthy scarlet jacket draped over the back of one of the high-backed chairs, Fanny sat cross-legged on her chair—wonderfully comfortable in her uniform trousers—and looked across the scarred wooden kitchen table at her brother, once again urging him to, for pity’s sake, stop pouting and eat something. After all, it wasn’t the end of the world, was it?
Rian sat back in his chair, shaking his head at her. “You have no bloody idea how difficult you’ve made things, do you? Just as long as you’re happy.”
“Rian, that’s not true,” she said, waving a fork at him, the threat lessened quite a bit by the small roasted potato stuck on the tines. “I said I was sorry, and I am. But we’ve suffered no major setback, now have we? I’ve seen you, I’m safely here with the Ogre, and you’re to be joining Wellington’s staff in the morning, or even later tonight. I know how happy that makes you. I’ll pen a note to Papa tomorrow and I’m sure the Ogre will frank it, so there’s nothing to worry about there. All in all,” she said, pushing the potato into her mouth and maneuvering it against the inside of her cheek, “daring to overlook my punishment when I get back to Becket Hall, I’d consider the exercise a success.”
Rian gave up his moody pose and smiled. “As I remember the thing, you also thought coaxing Molly safely
