After directing where her things were to go, avoiding Mr. Sparks gaze and pretending not to see the butler’s ever-so-slightly raised eyebrows, James ordered brandy in the drawing room and let her precede him up the stairs.
He tried to keep his eyes off her swaying rump.Really, he did!
***
GLYNNIS COULD RELAXfor the first time since arriving in Brighton. Actually, for the first time since leaving London for Bath. She reconsidered. Her tension went back farther than that. The last few weeks in London had been terribly strained, with her dodging creditors on the doorstep and shoving bills that arrived daily under the disinterested nose of her brother.
Her current situation might only be temporary, but it was a welcome respite from worry. That must be why she was feeling such tenderness for the viscount who had gone against his better judgment to allow her into his home.
It wasn’t as if she intended to stay forever!
But she gladly would, if she could.
After an evening of brandy and cards, with Hargrove behaving so gentlemanly and stiffly, not a word could be misconstrued, no action misinterpreted, and almost no fun at all, she’d gone upstairs to find someone had arranged all her things in the spacious guest room. It reminded her of happier times when she’d been able to use her pin money for actual hatpins and notions and not to keep their staff employed, those plump-in-the-pocket times when she had a lady’s maid.
Almost as soon as she had removed her shoes, there was a tap on the door.
Her heart raced in a burst of anticipation, thinking it must be—
“Miss?” came the maid’s voice.
“Come in,” Glynnis told her. “Were you the one who put away my clothes?”
“Yes, miss.” The young woman was a few years older than Glynnis, with her hair in a tidy plait that had been wound upon her crown and pinned.
“I thank you kindly. Do you work for Lord Hargrove?” For some reason, she had a hard time imagining the apple-cheeked girl in London proper.
“While his lordship is here, miss, but I come with the house.”
Glynnis thought it an odd way to put it, as if the maid were a piece of furniture.
“All the staff does, except his lordship’s valet, who arrived with him.”
“I see.” Glynnis would get no information from this one about Hargrove’s personal life back in London, nor whether he had an arrangement with any lady of theton.
“I am here to help you undress and put on your nightgown, miss. I’ve had little work to do recently.”
Glynnis shook her head. “You can’t possibly be happy I’m here to give you work to do,” she said, even as the maid stepped forward to lift the gown over her head.
“Oh yes, miss. Brighton is a fine town, but it gets lonely here when the Prince Regent is elsewhere and the houses are all empty. And then instead of a family, Lord Hargrove showed up. Not that I’ve been lollygagging about or twiddling my thumbs,” she added, perhaps worried she would be accused of laziness.
“No, of course. I know there’s always something to do. What’s your name?”
“Polly, miss.”
They fell silent as the maid worked swiftly, and soon Glynnis was in her night-rail with her dressing gown over the top. Polly took out the hairpins, and Glynnis’s long dark-brown hair came down, some of it in braids, some loose as she’d worked a while to create the pleasing style before going to Lord Dodd’s.
Without asking, the maid undid the plaits.
“Shall I brush it, miss, and rebraid it? I set your toiletry articles upon the chest of drawers.”
“No, I’ll do it.”
“Very well, is there anything else?”
“No, Polly, I am quite self-sufficient. Thank you.”
Despite having said that, the maid retrieved the soiled gown from the chair. “I’ll get this stain out, miss.”
