The dowager let out the most amazingly long-suffering sigh, as if a lifetime of aristocratic privilege was just too much. “Yes,” she agreed gracelessly, “if only because I can’t bear to look at your thumb.”
Grace chuckled. And she must have been feeling especially bold, because she did not even attempt to stifle it.
“Are you laughing at me, Miss Eversleigh?”
“Of course not!”
“Don’t,” the dowager said sharply, “even think about saying you’re laughing with me.”
“I was just laughing, ma’am,” Grace said, her face twitching with the smile she could not keep contained. “I do that sometimes.”
“I have never witnessed it.” Said as if this meant it couldn’t possibly be true.
Grace could not say any of the three rejoinders that immediately sprang to mind-
That is because you are not listening, your grace.
That is because I rarely have cause to laugh in your presence.
or
What of it?
So instead she smiled-warmly, even. Now this was strange. She’d spent so much of her time swallowing her retorts, and it always left a bitter taste in her mouth.
But not this time. This time she felt light. Unfettered. If she could not speak her mind to the dowager, she didn’t much care. She had too much to look forward to this morning.
Breakfast. Bacon and eggs. Kippers. Toast with butter and marmalade, too, and…
And him.
Mr. Audley.
Jack.
Chapter Nine
Jack staggered out of bed at precisely fourteen minutes before seven. Waking had been an elaborate undertaking. He had, after Miss Eversleigh had departed the night before, rung for a maid and given her strict orders to rap on his door at fifteen minutes past six. Then, as she was leaving, he thought the better of it and revised his directive to six sharp raps at the appointed time, followed by another twelve fifteen minutes later.
It wasn’t as if he was going to make it out of bed on the first attempt, anyway.
The maid had also been informed that if she did not see him at the door within ten seconds of the second set of raps, she was to enter the room and not depart until she was certain he was awake.
And finally, she was promised a shilling if she did not breathe a word of this to anyone.
“And I’ll know if you do,” he warned her, with his most disarming smile. “Gossip always makes its way back to me.”
It was true. No matter the house, no matter the establishment, the maids always told him everything. It was amazing how far one could travel on nothing but a smile and a puppy-dog expression.
Unfortunately for Jack, however, what his plan boasted in strategy, it lacked in eventual execution.
Not that the maid could be blamed. She carried out her part to the letter. Six sharp raps at fifteen minutes past six. Precisely. Jack managed to pry one eye about two-thirds of the way open, which proved to be just enough to focus upon the clock on his bedside table.
At half six he was snoring anew, and if he only counted seven of the twelve raps, he was fairly certain the fault was his, not hers. And really, one had to admire the poor girl’s adherence to plan when faced with his somewhat surly No, followed by:
Go away;
Ten more minutes;
I said, ten more minutes; and
Don’t you have a bloody pot to scrub?
At fifteen minutes before seven, as he teetered on his belly at the edge of his bed, one arm hanging limply over the side, he finally managed to get both eyes open, and he saw her, sitting primly in a chair across the room.
“Er, is Miss Eversleigh awake?” he mumbled, rubbing the sleep from his left eye. His right eye seemed to have shut again, trying to pull the rest of him along with it, back into sleep.
“Since twenty minutes before six, sir.”
“Chipper as a bloody mockingbird, too, I’m sure.”
The maid held her tongue.
He cocked his head, suddenly a bit more awake. “Not so chipper, eh?” So Miss Eversleigh was not a morning person. The day was growing brighter by the second.
“She’s not so bad as you,” the maid finally admitted.
Jack pushed his legs over the side and yawned. “She’d have to be dead to achieve that.”
The maid giggled. It was a good, welcome sound. As long as he had the maids giggling, the house was his. He who had the servants had the world. He’d learned that at the age of six. Drove his family crazy, it did, but that just made it all the sweeter.
“How late do you imagine she would sleep if you didn’t wake her?” he asked.
“Oh, I couldn’t tell you that,” the maid said, blushing madly.
Jack did not see how Miss Eversleigh’s sleep habits might constitute a confidence, but nonetheless he had to applaud the maid for her loyalty. This did not mean, however, that he would not make every attempt to win her over.
“What about when the dowager gives her the day off?” he asked, rather offhandedly.
The maid shook her head sadly. “The dowager never gives her the day off.”
“Never?” Jack was surprised. His newfound grandmother was exacting and self-important and a host of other annoying faults, but she’d struck him as, at the heart, somewhat fair-minded.
“Just afternoons,” the maid said. And she leaned forward, looking first to her left and then her right, as if there might actually be someone else in the room who could hear her. “I think she does it just because she knows that Miss Eversleigh is not partial to mornings.”
Ah, now that did sound like the dowager.
“She gets twice as many afternoons,” the maid went on to explain, “so it does even out in the end.”