Chapter 1
December 21, 1815
Marsden Hall
North Steyne
Brighton, England
The moment he’d learned that Lady Elizabeth Kent accepted the Countess of Marsden’s invitation to her Christmas house party, Octavian Simms had merely blinked. That had been more than two weeks ago at half ten in the morning. A Wednesday, it was to be precise. He’d stood before his employer in her grand salon and accepted her announcement with aplomb.
Yes, he was proud he’d shown no emotion at the sound of Eliza’s name.
Arrival of said young woman,Incomparableas she was said to be by theton(and as Simms knew her to be from personal acquaintance), was of no more note than the arrival of the other twenty-odd invited guests to the venerable lady’s grand mansion along the North Steyne. Simms was prepared for anyone’s arrival. Anyone’s.
He proved it now as he stood at the ready on the front portico of Marsden Hall, his back straight, his gaze focused solely on the drive.
Not her coach.
No.
He reassured himself of the perfection of the next eight days. Preparedness was his watchword. His rule. His by-word. Indeed, he lived and breathed by the exact rhythm of the household over which he was overseer. To be any less would demand he leave the Countess’s employ. And head back to…well, that was the problem, wasn’t it? He knew not precisely what that was. And the war was now, blessedly, done.
But here he had done his very best and prepared the staff for any eventuality. Every maid had been inspected down to the cleanliness of her fingertips. The footmen’s navy blue uniforms were pressed, brushed, quitede rigueur. So too was the housespotless. The entire manse, top to bottom, sparkled. The chandeliers and the mirrors squeaked with cleanliness. The woodwork polished so brightly one could see one’s reflection in the grain. The bedrooms sported freshly laundered and ironed linens. The boudoirs were well stocked with soaps of finest mill and scent. The carpets had been hung, beaten and laid once more. The chamber pots and thebourdalouespositioned at the ready. His silver, all of it, was polished to a blinding sheen. His tableware, pristine. The tablecloths, white as a newborn’s arse. He’d filled his wine cellar to the gills. The angel’s share was so fragrant inside, the alcohol made him giddy.
Not silly.
Not moonstruck over the arrival of a young woman who should not mean a tuppence to him. Must not.
No. He straightened his back, arched a dark brow, and noted the huge red and black escutcheon on the travel coach rounding the drive. The shield of the Earl of Leith. And inside the earl’s daughter.
He narrowed his gaze straight ahead. Not toward the coach. After all, she would arrive in due time. Minutes. Rather…one…minute.
And then he would greet her as any other guest for this eight-day party.
She was a lady. The one he’d known since she was one day old and he, six years old.
She’d been his friend. One he’d valued since the day she, at age four, had ambled into his father’s vicarage and handed over the whelp of the litter from the big house.
She’d been his charmer. One who met him in the garden—in the maze really, hidden from all—and taught him how to gamble. He’d caught the trick early. She never had…and they had laughed over her lack of shrewdness.
He had been the man who’d shown her how to wrestle…and how to kiss. He’d even allowed her to kiss him back and he should never have continued that daring pastime.
“Ho! Here,” her coachman drew his horses to a stop.
In the brisk December air, the horses snorted and stomped.
One of Simm’s footmen stepped forward, at the ready to catch and sort the lady’s luggage, then hurry it up to her rooms.
Her coachman jumped down from his perch.
A rustling in the carriage alerted them that she prepared to alight.
Simms held his breath. And winced at his reaction to the impending meeting.
The inside of the conveyance was bright for this early hour of the afternoon. The windows were wide and no curtains obstructed the view inside. Even so, Simms glimpsed the lady’s sweet profile. Her outline was enough to discomfit him, damn him. Whatever she wore, it would highlight her bright red hair that was the envy of every Scottish lass north of the border. The willow green silk of the interior coach walls and forest green velvet of the squabs, as Simms remembered the decor, would put complement to her complexion and her large lustrous eyes.
He swallowed, hard put to stifle the sound as he gulped. She was a woman like others. So many others whom he’d valued for their education and wit. So unlike others whom he’d dismissed, their allure temporary, shallow, useful to him and once used, discarded.
