But first, she moved to the bell pulls on the wall. She was sorely in need of some bracing tea as well as a serious discussion with Young Rutherford.
Obadiah could wait no longer.He'd exhausted all the tasks he'd set himself for Adrienne's day with the earl. He'd inspected all the back gates, mews, and kitchen gardens of all five different townhouses to ensure there were no weak places in fences or gates that would be their undoing in case of another attempt on one of the mistresses' lives.
He had nowhere else to go. He couldn't stand outdoors all evening. The nightwatchman patrolling the streets surrounding Grosvenor Square would become suspicious if he saw him hanging about after dark.
He trudged slowly back to the door of No. 1 Grosvenor Street...and gritted his teeth as Young Rutherford opened the door for him.
"Where are they?" He growled low at Adrienne's butler.
Young Rutherford remained silent, but raised he eyes slowly to the floor above where Adrienne's bedchamber was located. He raised an index finger quickly in the direction of her boudoir and then lowered it before disappearing toward the pantry at the rear of the townhouse.
Since there was nothing in the entry hallway that could survive a fierce blow from his fists, he set about checking all window and door locks on the ground floor before trudging slowly up the back servant staircase toward his own bed in the chamber designed for the master of the house. Who obviously did not need the room, because Lord Framlingwood spent all of his time in Adrienne's bedchamber.
He was careful to enter the master chamber by way of the servant's entrance farthest away from the joint dressing room door shared with the mistress's chamber. Once inside, he shucked off his uniform jacket and sighed. He carefully brushed off the coat and matching breeches before laying them out over a chair until morning.
He was so weary from a day spent in hard labor trying to forget what was going on behind the door of No. 1 Grosvenor Street, he was grateful he'd probably be asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow in the gargantuan master's bed.
He crawled under the counterpane and lay there for a few minutes contemplating the lush, moss green draped fabric inside the canopy covering the bed. He forced himself not to imagine images of what was going on over in the mistress's chamber and rolled to his side, punching the pillow a few times, pretending the feather-filled concoction was the earl's head. And then he heard something so loud, it had penetrated both doors at either end of the dressing room connecting the bedchambers.
The sound was one he knew well: the hiccuping sighs and moans of Adrienne in the throes of being thoroughly fucked. But why, in the name of all that was holy, did she have to be so loud?Had she been that loud whenhiscock was thrusting inside her? He sat straight up in the earl's bed, the thought of sleep flying out of his head. Hell, he might never sleep again.
9
8 SEPTEMBER, 1826
HOUSEKEEPER'S PARLOR
Grosvenor Street Townhouses
Despair had never been something Cassandra Collins had contemplated. But now, with the most unaware, sensuous man she'd ever known sitting across from her, despair swirled around her like swells on a becalmed sea. He was a good man but really nothing more than just another entitled man. Entitled men had been the bane of her existence for so long, she'd nearly forgotten her first encounter.
And now nothing more than a ridiculously fragile tea table was all that separated the two of them.
She'd grown up the daughter of a whaling sea captain, despising the way she and her mother were forced to fend for themselves for months, sometimes years at a time. And then, inexplicably, she'd forgotten all that when a tall, dark-eyed English merchant captain had romanced her away from what she now realized was a safe and comfortable existence on Nantucket.
With all the confidence of a girl of sixteen, she'd told her mother she'd never stay home waiting for a man to return from the sea. She'd sail with her husband, they'd be partners. Hermother had simply shaken her head and pulled young Cassie close for a kiss before sending her off to sea with her love.
He'd died in her arms a year later in Kingston, Jamaica, shaking with chills on the hottest night she'd ever endured. She was left alone, not even allowed to stay aboard the ship, her only home. She'd considered writing to her mother for help, but hated the thought of the pity she'd see in her mother's eyes.
She'd soon found a position as housekeeper on a sugar plantation on the north side of the island. For the first year, she'd been happy managing the large house and setting to rights the neglect of previous housekeepers. And then the young, aristocratic master had arrived from England to take over management of the thousands of acres owned by his family. Her thoughts shuttered at that point in her memory. What happened next was too painful to bear revisiting.
Lord Framlingwood finally looked up from the stack of household reports he'd been carefully reading. His dark blue eyes were like the dangerous, deep pools at the bottom of waterfalls in Jamaica. The beckoning hue of the water seemed like an invitation to lose oneself by diving into the depths, but the rocks hidden beneath could be lethal. Cassandra knew better, but she couldn't help being pulled into the earl's quirky charm, not unlike that of a small boy whose antics you forgave in spite of his naughty pranks.
He was always the consummate gentleman during their frequent talks about the state of his mistresses' dwellings. However, she knew enough of the ways of men to not be duped. He wanted her.
An earl, of all men, would never stoop to going over the minutiae of household management, week after week. No, he was not interested in how many bottles of wine were consumed amongst the five townhouses. He wanted her. If she were truthful, she'd admit to a great deal of wanting on her partas well, but that way lay disaster and ruin, a sad lesson she'd learned well.
"Is anything amiss, milord?"
And then he did the very thing she'd feared from the beginning. He slowly moved his hand across the tea table until it gently closed over hers. "Didn't I ask you to please call me by my first name when we're here, away from all the formal twiddling of the rest of the world?"
She stood suddenly, gently disentangling her hand from beneath his, his hand with the long, tapering fingers tanned from days aboard his beloved ship. She walked away from the table toward the long parlor window overlooking the kitchen garden. She had to have her say without staring into his dangerous blue eyes, and she had to do it quickly.
"Derek...there's something I have to tell you. And please don't interrupt until you've heard me out."
"I'm sorry...," he began.
"Don't...please, just listen." She pulled a handkerchief from inside one of her sleeves and dabbed at her eyes. "I have a great deal of respect for you as my employer and I'm so grateful to have found this position, but I cannot endanger my standing here, or my reputation." She turned then and added, "For any reason."
