Free An Accidental Seduction by Lois Greiman Page B

Paris while being as irritating as he wished. “Perhaps you are unaware that before being convinced to come to Knollcrest, Monsieur LaFont was the chef for the Duke of Elbany.”
    She wasn’t exactly sure what he was saying, but sheguessed it had something to do with the reason Cook would not be driving her to Darlington.
    “Very well,” she said, her tone pinched. “Then you shall have to take the ribbons yourself.” She had heard that phrase on the bustling streets of London during one of her performances there and stashed it away for later use. But she couldn’t have foreseen this little eventuality.
    “My lady…” His stare was deadly even. “I do not venture out of doors.”
    Holy hell. She stared back. Was he serious? she wondered, and realized he didn’t exactly seem the type to enjoy a good jest. “I beg your pardon.”
    “And you have it,” he said stiffly, but Lady Tilmont did not back down so easily.
    “Are you refusing to drive me to the village, Gregors?”
    There was, perhaps, a pause for a fraction of a second. “Yes, I believe I am.”
    Even a lady knew when she was beaten, or at least she had to assume so. “Then you must find me a chaperone.”
    He was silent for a full three seconds this time. “A chaperone, my lady?”
    “Dem it, Gregors, I could have sworn there was no echo in this house last we spoke. I do not approve of the way so many demireps go about unescorted these days, and I’ll not be one of them.”
    “Commendable, I’m sure,” he said. “But be that asit may, I fear I have no access to someone suitable for such an—”
    “I will have a chaperone, Gregors,” she vowed. “Or you will be carrying the cabriolet to Darlington on your back. Do you understand me?”
    Apparently he did because not two hours later a chaperone arrived. She was approximately three hundred years old. As far as Savaana could tell, the lady was totally bald, though most of her pate was covered by a powdered wig the size of a bushel basket. Beribboned and plumed, it sat askance on her oversized head.
    Gregors introduced them himself. “Lady Tilmont, may I present Mrs. Edwards.”
    Savaana inclined her head and wondered vaguely if the poor old fossil was about to fall dead at her feet, but Gregors seemed oblivious to the possibility of death and soldiered on.
    “Mrs. Edwards was the lady in waiting for—”
    “My lady!” The old woman’s voice boomed through the house like an errant cannon blast. “I am Mrs. Edwards.”
    Savaana opened her mouth to speak, but the other shrieked on.
    “I was a lady of the bedchamber for Queen Caroline.”
    “Caroline of Brunswick, the Regent’s queen?”
    “Not Prinny’s tramp, of course,” Edwards yelled. “George the Second’s lady wife.”
    Savaana quickly tried to figure out the implications ofthat fact but was boggled by the possibilities. Caroline of Brunswick had died more than seventy years earlier. “Well…” She gave the old woman her most refined smile. “Let us be about our business, then.”
     
    Darlington was little more than a bevy of hovels stuck together with wattle and pig manure. But it had a decent dry goods store, which seemed to sell a bit of everything. They stopped there first.
    Gallagher had changed from his rough leather breeches into Knollcrest’s gray and black livery. She was quite sure he should look servile in the uniform, but somehow it managed the opposite, making him seem like nobility playing in peasant’s clothing. He handed her down, grinning roguishly. Their fingers met for a moment, but she refused to acknowledge the spark of something that zapped between them. For God’s sake, she hadn’t tumbled out of the turnip cart yesterday, she reminded herself, and tugged her hand impatiently from his grip.
    Her grocery purchase took all of fifteen minutes, because, truth to tell, she couldn’t care less if Knollcrest’s larders held nothing more than crickets and dust. But she wouldn’t think of her true