George frowned as he tried to recall why that name was so familiar to him. Lady Scarlet Jameson was—
She was the courtesan that had married an Earl. That had been a true scandal, though it was many years ago now. Nothing could prevail the ladies of Almack’s to give her a voucher, but time had that inevitable way of smoothing over even the most shocking of scandals. To be sure, most people thought her coarse and vulgar, but George had never thought much about it.
“Is she not a little old?” he asked eventually.
“Old?” Maisie’s hand covered her mouth. “She’s past forty!”
“An unusual match, I suppose, but he’s entitled to marry whom he chooses.” The conversation was boring him again, and he eyed her cupid bow’s mouth with the thought of kissing it again. “And if she captured an Earl once, I suppose it stands to reason she might have captured a Marquess this time.”
Maisie pressed her hands against his chest and reached up; he took hold of her elbows to guide her into the kiss, but she tilted her head back. “It’s not merely that he married a—aloose woman,” she said. “It’s the fact that first, he courted her daughter!”
That caught George’s attention. “Has a daughter, does she? Is she as fast as her mother?”
“Oh no,” Maisie said. “She’s quitestaid.”
George had no interest in staid and otherwise perfectly dull young ladies. “Why are you telling me about other women?” he murmured, taking hold of her chin and kissing her thoroughly. She posed no objection and merely angled her face so he could better reach her mouth. “You know I have interest in none but you.”
The laugh, slightly breathless, that Maisie gave suggested she knew full well he was lying, but it seemed churlish to mention that fact now. He was altogether too busy kissing her, and reaching around to find her rounded—
“Excuse me.” The voice, utterly in frigid accents, could only belong to one person. Old Foley. Cursing, George disentangled himself from Maisie, who had uttered a horrified squeak.
“Foley,” George said.
Foley turned dark eyes, blazing with anger, to him. “You will address me as Sir. As for you, Maisie—run along now. You can be sure I’ll be speaking to Mrs. Rogerson about you.”
“Don’t blame her,” George started, but the butler merely moved aside for Maisie to squeeze past him, one hand over her face in shame.
Confounded man. Unless he was very much mistaken, she wouldn’t risk being seen him with again, if she even kept her position.
Once he was free of this place, he would offer her another place where she could start anew. Anywhere would be better than a household that was quite so stern about a small dalliance. It wasn’t as though Maisie was married or promised or even walking out with anyone.
In anticipation of the lecture he was about to receive, George rolled his eyes. “Spare me your sermon. I’m not here to learn morals.”
“It would do you a great deal of good if you did.”
He smirked. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“I’ve got a good mind to turn you off now without a reference.”
“Then do it,” he said, shrugging lazily. He’d had the warning several times in his first week, and it had all come to nothing. “Unless you don’t want to fire the son of a Duke.”
Foley raised a bushy eyebrow. “This again? The son of a Duke would not debase himself so, and perhaps would know how to behave with common courtesy.”
He stiffened with anger. “Perhaps the son of a Duke might not be so courteous when forced into a situation so beneath his station.”
Foley’s dark eyes glared into his, and he forced himself to return the stare with just as much ire. Soon, he would be free of this place. Two more weeks, and he would return to his mother’s Manor and demand she receive him. And if she dared chastise him for not playing her game, he would show her what influence the third son of a Duke, and the current heir apparent, could wield in London.
“Luckily for you, the wedding is in two days and we don’t have time to find a replacement,” Foley said, his words clipped. “Get out of my sight and conduct yourself with more fitting deportment. You are a footman, not a spoiled lord.”
While George did not consider himself spoiled, as indeed he was not, he was most certainly a lord, and he had every intention of making it known, even if every member of this God-forsaken house refused to believe him.
By the time he was finished making his mark on the world, no one would dare insult him, in this house or any other.
ChapterTwo
Lady Sybil Wilson, daughter of the Earl of Jameson, heiress to a considerable fortune, wanted nothing more than to never show her face in public again.
Ideally, before this ridiculous wedding between her mother and a man four years her junior could begin.
