The Butler Did It Read Free

the man’s tall, reed-slim and rather badly proportioned body, his bald pate that looked so naked even beneath the man’s low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat (held up mostly by Wycliff’s astonishingly protrudent ears), and the fellow’s narrow, pasty face that must have been turned to the wall when lips were being handed out. “That said, and considering your truly humbling loyalty to my person, you won’t mind overmuch if I toss you to the first ones we meet, will you?”
    The valet laughed. Giggled, actually. Nervously. Partly because he was a nervous sort, but mostly because he was one of those unfortunate souls born without the ability to recognize sarcasm, although he did laugh at odd moments, as if he sometimes had inklingsthat he should. “You are so droll, my lord, I always say so. Brilliant wit, my lord! I am so proud to be in your employ. Indeed, sir, I exist only for the pleasure of serving you.”
    â€œMy, aren’t I the lucky one.” Morgan smiled thinly, and urged Sampson ahead once more. “Do try to keep up, Wycliff.”
    â€œYes, my lord, indeed, my lord. Keeping up, my lord,” Wycliff answered, digging his heels into the gelding’s flanks, which served to break the patient horse into a slow and rather bumpy trot.
    Wycliff was in the way of a test, and the marquis had employed the man three months earlier because, and not in spite of, the valet’s grating effect on his lordship’s nerves. It wasn’t the man’s features that annoyed him; he wasn’t that shallow. It was the nervous, always inappropriate giggle, and the perpetual doomsaying, and, mostly, the man’s creepily subservient ways that set Morgan’s teeth on edge.
    The way Morgan saw it, if he could make it to London without pummeling the man heavily about the head and shoulders before sticking him skinny-shanks-up in a trunk in the boot of one of his two traveling coaches, he should be able to handle any provocations being in the metropolis for the Season might toss at him.
    Because he was about to become one of the most sought-after bachelors of the Season, Lord help him.
    Morgan knew he cut a fine figure atop the bay stallion, dressed in his best hacking clothes, finely polished Hessians, and his favorite curly brimmed beaver. A five-caped dusky gray driving coat fell in neat folds from his shoulders and cascaded over Sampson’s twitching flanks.
    A fully loaded and ready brace of pistols nested in special pockets built into the saddle in case any of Wycliff’s feared brigands dared approach, and the gold-tipped sword cane had been slid into its holder, also incorporated into the saddle.
    He wore dove-gray gloves on his hands, covering the gold-and-ruby signet ring that had been his father’s, and had tucked a fine wool scarf beneath his coat, knitted by his mother and handed over two days ago with the admonition to wear it or Catch His Death Of Cold (A pity Lady Westham’s health did not support a sojourn to London; she would have had Kindred Spirits waiting for her there).
    A handsome man, in his prime at thirty, the marquis could lay claim to startling blue eyes, a thick mop of blacker-than-black hair, a truly glorious, aristocratic nose, a firm, strong jaw, and the physique of a true Corinthian: broad shoulders, narrow through the hips, long, muscular legs.
    He knew he turned heads; he had always turned heads, even in the nursery. He had always been lucky, and popular with the ladies, and having a title and not inconsiderable wealth had done nothing to diminish the highregard in which he had been held during his first and only London Season.
    There were even those who had congratulated him on the outcome of his duel with Perry Shepherd, the truest friend one man could have.
    Fools. Sycophants. Morgan was not looking forward to meeting any of those people this time around, or in following any of the pursuits that had engaged him for most of that first