That would be exceedingly bad form, as the English liked to say. No, she’d get sacked tomorrow or the next day for not knowing white kid gloves didn’t go with a fur-trimmed gown or yellow hair ribbons were never worn on Wednesdays. Something ridiculous. Sheneededthis job. Needed it badly. Very well, she would help the lout with his boot. Perhaps after that, he would listen to reason when she told him he was in the wrong room.
She crossed over to stand in front of his booted foot. She knelt next to him and held the thing on both sides while he attempted to tug his foot free. He grunted and pulled. Nothing happened.
“Perhaps if you try from this side?” he suggested, gesturing to the front of his boot.
Her face flaming (and her face never flamed), Danielle stood and straddled his leg with both hands holding down the boot. At this point, she wanted the boot off, the man put to bed in the correct room, and to be done with this entire, unpleasant business. “Pull,” she commanded.
He did so and his foot came free. He toppled back upon the bed, upending her, and she flew backward with him, onto his lap.
“Thank you,” he said, his hands on her hips. Her backside cradled intimately against him. “You might be loud and more than a bit overbearing, but I can’t say I mind this particular side of you.”
“Vous pouvez etre tres beau, mais vous etes un ane complet,” she muttered.
“You think I’m handsome?” came his overly confident voice. “Why, mademoiselle, I am flattered.”
She turned her head to glare at him. “If you understood the first part, you must have understood the second,monsieur.” This was it. She was sacked.
“Oui,” he replied. “But I was purposefully choosing to ignore the part where you called me an ass.”
She blinked at him and pushed herself up on her elbows.Mon dieu!This was a nightmare. One she was certain to wake from at any moment. She was literally lying in bed with her drunken employer. She had to get out of here immediately. What would Lady Daphne do when she discovered her husband had made an inappropriate advance on her maid? She’d be sacked for certain. She also couldn’t stay in a house where her employer was so exceedingly inappropriate. She could handle herself, of course, but she doubted very much that a swift jab to the ribs to the man who paid her salary would be met with anything other than a dismissal.
A loud gasp at the doorway drew her attention and Danielle was horrified to see Lady Daphne standing there in the bright pink silk gown that Danielle had helped her into earlier.
Danielle scrambled off the bed. “My lady, you must believe me. I didn’t mean to—” Danielle stopped and gasped. Next to Lady Daphne in the doorway materialized none other thanLord Cavendish.
Danielle glanced back at the man whose lap she had recently vacated and then at the man standing in the doorway, her eyes huge. What in the world? How could they both be…? Wait. Now that she studied him more closely, the man behind her had longer hair than Lord Cavendish, a deeper tan than Lord Cavendish, and a much more mischievous look in his eye than Lord Cavendish. She’d been distracted by the blood earlier or she certainly would have noticed the differences.
Lady Daphne managed to find her voice first. “I’m so terribly sorry, Danielle. Allow me to be the first to apologize for the behavior of my husband’s twin brother.”
CHAPTER SIX
Twinbrother? Danielle couldn’t help it. Her mouth remained open as she glanced back and forth between the two men.
Lady Daphne calmly walked into the room and tugged Danielle’s hand, pulling her farther from the bed. The woman’s pretty gray eyes glared daggers at her brother-in-law. “Cade!” Lady Daphne looked as if she might stamp her foot. “Do you have something to say to Danielle?”
Cade? That was his name? Cade?
Cade leered at her. “Of course I’ve got something to say to her.”
Lady Daphne crossed her arms over her chest, still glaring. “Yes?”
Cade stood, pulled at his lapels to straighten his dusty, ripped coat, and bowed. “Mademoiselle Danielle, you have the most enticing backside I have ever encountered.” He fell backward onto the bed, snoring, his hand still bleeding.
Danielle couldn’t help but press her lips together to hide her smile. The man was positively outrageous. Now that she knew he was Lord Cavendish’sbrother,the situation wasn’t nearly as awful as she’d thought. He was still rude. And an ass. And inappropriate. But she could handle a rude houseguest.
Lady Daphne gasped and gave her husband a look that clearly implied that he best come deal with his kin before she murdered him with her bare hands.
“He’s been hurt,” Danielle said, gesturing to Monsieur Cade’s hand, trying to diffuse the tension.
“In a tavern fight, no doubt,” Lord Cavendish said, coming over to stand next to the bed and stare down at his drunken sibling. He shook his head. Then he turned to Danielle. “I cannot tell you how utterly sorry I am for his ill behavior.”
“Please, Danielle, don’t leave us over this,” Lady Daphne said. “I promise to speak with him tomorrow. I’ll secure his solemn promise that he will never address you in such an inappropriate manner again.”
“I saw him bleeding in the hallway and came in to see to his hand. I thought he was you, my lord.” Her face heated as she nodded toward Lord Cavendish.
Lady Daphne turned red. “Oh, of course you did. An honest mistake. Just so you know, my husband would never be so… inappropriate. His brother is staying with us while he’s in London and let’s just say the two are quite… different.”
“That’s an understatement,” Lord Cavendish added.
