Vixen Read Free Page A

finally been persuaded into the chaise, dabbing at her eyes and pouring forth a stream of benedictions on the dear child she was leaving. She bemoaned the disreputable state of the house, the strangeness of Sir Hugo and his servant, and the significant absence of either housekeeper or a Lady Lattimer. The last words Chloe heard were: “Oh, dear, perhaps I shouldn’t leave you like this … what will the Misses Trent say … but then what will Lady Colshot say … such a bad impression to arrive late … oh, dear …”
    Chloe firmly shut the door of the chaise, putting a period to the vacillation, and called good-bye. The coachman cracked his whip and the vehicle and its still indecisively bewailing passenger disappeared from Denholm Manor.
    Thoughtfully, Chloe turned back to the house. It did seem that there was no Lady Lattimer, although it had been assumed at the seminary that there would be. Chloe had never heard of Sir Hugo Lattimer until her mother’s will had been read. She had no idea why her mother had chosen him, but then, she knew almost nothing about her mother, having spent no more than afew days a year with Elizabeth since she was six. The only thing she knew at the moment was that this change in her circumstances could only be for the better.
    She knelt down by the hat box. The cat’s labors seemed to be over and Chloe counted six damp kittens squirming at her belly. They were curiously repellent, she thought, absently stroking the cat’s head, more like baby rats than the entrancing creatures they would soon become.
    “Best get that lot out to the stable before Sir ’Ugo comes down.” Samuel’s gruff voice came from behind her and she stood up, brushing the dust off her skirt.
    “I don’t think we should move her outside just yet. She’ll feel threatened and she might abandon them.”
    Samuel shrugged. “Not an animal lover, Sir ’Ugo … except horses, of course.”
    “Doesn’t he like dogs?” Chloe caressed Dante’s massive head, pushing against her knee.
    “Not indoors,” Samuel informed her. “Gun dogs is fine, but their place is in the kennels.”
    “Dante sleeps with me,” Chloe stated. “Even the Misses Trent accepted that. He howls all night otherwise.”
    Samuel shrugged again. “I’d best get back to me kitchen. Sir ’Ugo’ll be wantin’ his breakfast when he wakes.”
    “Don’t you have a cook?” Chloe followed him out of the hall, down a long corridor to the kitchen at the rear of the house.
    “Who needs one? Wi’ just the two of us?”
    Chloe looked around the room with its huge fireplace and spit, the massive table, the array of copper pots. “Only you and Sir Hugo live in this house?” It seemed very odd, but one could become used to anything.
    “Tha’s right.” Samuel broke eggs into a bowl.
    “Oh.” Chloe frowned, nibbling her lip. “Well, perhapsyou could direct me to my bedchamber. I could move some of my things out of the hall, then.”
    Samuel paused in his beating of the eggs and gave her a searching look. “You reckon on stayin?”
    “Of course,” Chloe said with an assumption of confidence. “I have nowhere else to go.”
    Samuel grunted. “There’s sixteen bedrooms. Take your pick.”
    “Sixteen!”
    He nodded and dropped a pinch of salt into the eggs.
    Chloe stood uncertainly for a minute, but when it seemed that the man had nothing further to say, she left the kitchen. The events in her life so far had not encouraged her to expect warm welcomes or particularly friendly exchanges, so she was not unduly troubled by the oddities of her present situation. She was a pragmatic soul and accepted that now:, as always, it was up to her to make the best of things and improve on them as and how she could. Anything … anything … was an improvement on the Trent Seminary for Young Ladies in Bolton, where she’d been immured for the past ten years.
    The most important thing was to ensure she was not returned there. To that end, she went in search