Free The Butler Did It by Kasey Michaels

And it’s thanking you I am,and reminding you how I’ve been so very pleased to serve you, sir.”
    â€œYes, yes,” Sir Edgar said, keeping his back turned. “See me later for your penny. Now go away.”
    As he scrubbed, Sir Edgar could hear doors opening and closing along the hallway, and knew that he should hurry if he wished to not miss whatever was going to transpire in the drawing room. A wise man never missed anything.
    Which explained just how wise Sir Edgar believed himself to be…and how wise he actually was…as he left the key to his small dressing closet sitting on the washstand instead of replacing it in his pocket as he headed downstairs.
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    E MMA STOOD with her arms crossed just beneath her bosom while Thornley explained to everyone else what he had explained to her just a short hour ago—it had taken Daphne a little while to complete even a cursory toilette, and Mrs. Norbert had refused to join the group until after she’d breakfasted on a thick slice of ham, a half-dozen coddled eggs and a lovely sugar bun.
    â€œâ€¦and so, sorry as I am, I must ask you all to leave. Now, before the master awakes.”
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    M ORGAN SAT BOLT UPRIGHT in bed, his skin crawling, his nerves jangling as the echoes of a scream that could only have been produced by a considerable multitude of pigs simultaneously stuck in a grate shattered his peace.
    â€œWhat in bloody hell—?”
    He threw back the covers and headed for the door.
    He came back before reaching it, still as naked as the day he’d been born, and slammed into his dressing room, to wake a sleeping Wycliff.
    â€œClothes, man. Get me clothes.”
    The valet who, Morgan was disgusted to learn, slept in a voluminous nightshirt, a large white nightcap with a point on it and displaying a tassel on the tip of it, and a violet-colored satin mask with no eyeholes in it, turned over on the narrow cot and continued to snore.
    There was another female scream. Less bloodcurdling, but still with the power to reach his ears from a considerable distance.
    â€œTesting me. That’s what it is. The Fates are testing me, my resolve,” Morgan grumbled, spying the pantaloons and shirt Wycliff must have laid out before going to bed last night.
    Morgan looked at his hose and tossed them into a corner before pulling on his pantaloons over his bare bottom. He punched his arms into the sleeves of the freshly ironed white shirt and, without bothering to either button it or tuck it into his waistband, slammed out of the dressing room, through his bedroom, and out into the hallway.
    By the time he got to the closed doors of the drawing room, five of the servants he’d brought with him from Westham were crowded around those doors, gigglingand snickering and then quickly remembering that other duties called them when they saw their master descending on them like a devil just raised from Hell.
    Morgan caught one of them by the sleeve as he tried to bolt. “What’s going on, William?”
    â€œLady screaming, my lord,” the under-footman said quickly. “Lots of talking.”
    â€œThat’s it? A lady, not one of the staff?” He hadn’t been in town long enough to have offended a lady. “Wait a minute. How did this lady get in here?”
    â€œCouldn’t exactly say, sir. Can…can I go now?”
    Morgan let go of the boy’s sleeve and looked down at his own bare feet. A lady? Visiting at this time of the morning? And how did she know he had come to town? And why had she screamed?
    He turned for the stairs, knowing he should finish dressing, but then he heard a very clear, well-modulated female voice say from the other side of the doors: “Mama, one more outburst like that and I shall be forced to send you to your rooms. I will handle the Marquis of Westham.”
    Mama? There were two ladies in his drawing room.
    I will handle the Marquis of Westham.
    The words danced around