The Marquess and Miss Davies Read Free Page A

response to the second coming of the Lord would have included a note of utter gloom, but still—the back staircase certainly needed attention.
    “Call for the carpenters, then,” said Lord Leighton. “There’s no reason to put this off further.”
    “Yes, my lord,” said the steward. “There is also the matter of new firebrick for the kitchen hearth.”
    “So Cook has told me. I’ve sent for the supplies already.”
    They decided that re-glazing the windows in his own suite could wait until warmer weather, but that Jo’s old bedroom should be stripped down and cleaned, and the south windowsill repaired, now that she was gone. Finally, Grimes bowed himself out.
    The marquess sighed and rubbed his temples.
    Clare Manor was a rambling old mansion, the sort of house that is sometimes called a ‘pile’, and much as Anthony was fond of the place he was often beset by the thought that without the unending vigilance of the steward and himself, not to mention the work done by a small army of servants, the home would fall down around all of their heads. London weather was difficult; the roof lost one slate after another, the glazing in the windows suffered in the winter, not to mention the bane of their housekeeper’s existence, the London soot. It collected endlessly on every surface, and heaven help the young lady who reclined against an undusted table wearing a white cambric dress. Not that Mrs Bess would allow such a circumstance—
    Oh, dear gods, Mrs Bess had asked specifically that he call for the sweep, and the marquess had entirely forgotten the matter in the hubbub over Jo’s wedding. Although the housekeeper normally saw to daily hires, the sweeps were a different matter, as Lord Leighton disliked that children did the work, and insisted that he or Mr Grimes be present during a cleaning. He sent one of the footmen at once to the address in question, a brief note of explanation and apology to Mrs Bess, and turned his attention to the accounts. Once these were cleared, and the most pressing repairs completed, Lord Leighton had promised himself a respite from town, and a return for some months to the family estate, in Suffolk.
    Eyes of sapphire blue.
    Lord Leighton sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. He had not forgotten the young woman who offered him breakfast and a coat that morning. What must she be thinking of him? That he was merely another of London’s sots? Did she know, did she suspect, that he was something more than that?
    “Ha,” he said, aloud, surprising Odysseus, the enormous mastiff who accompanied him everywhere in the house. The dog raised his head and regarded his master for a moment, then sank back into the carpet. “Yes,” he told Odysseus, “I am a model of fine and aristocratic respectability. How could she not see it?”
    Oddy may have missed the sarcasm.
    Lord Leighton possessed many of the biases of his class and time, but he had never been foolish or self-centered enough to believe that being a marquess made one, by default, a better man. He’d seen entirely too much of the ton for that.
    Perhaps she thought nothing at all. Perhaps she had forgotten him entirely. This bothered his lordship more than he wished to admit, and sometime after nuncheon he gave up attempts to put the incident out of mind, and sent round another of the footmen to St James Street, to determine, with all due discretion, the ownership of the house in question. Then he turned his attention to the back staircase, and to the supervision of the carpenters who had now arrived, resisting the impulse to wield one of the hammers himself, and to use his own two hands to tear out pieces of the rotted wood.
    * * * *
    The footman returned, unfortunately, just as he and his mother were sitting down to tea.
     “Cardingham House,” said Robbie. “Belongs to ‘is lordship the Viscount of Cardingham.”
    Lord Leighton nodded, and thanked the man, avoiding his mother’s eye. To no avail.
    “Do you have business