Sheri Cobb South Read Online Free Page A

compliance which even the sympathetic Lady Farriday would have deemed excessive.
    “Ethan, the servants will see us,” she protested half-heartedly, leaning back against her husband and cradling the arms that imprisoned her.
    “Let ‘em see,” was his reply. “If they ‘aven’t figured out by now that I’m ‘ead over ears in love with me wife, they’re too stupid to be working for me, anyway.”
    They were already two months wed, but had lived as man and wife for only half that long, and he still found her maidenly modesty enchanting, secure in the knowledge that he could coax her out of it later, in the privacy of the bedchamber.
    At length, however, her heightened senses detected something not quite right about the sleeve of his coat beneath her fingers. Freeing herself abruptly, she turned to cast a disapproving eye over his baggy coat, whereupon he pulled her against him in a face-to-face embrace.
    “Ethan!” she scolded, putting up only a token resistance to this high-handed treatment. “While I have no objection to you dressing for comfort in the privacy of your own home, you promised to wear coats that fit properly when you are out and about in public!”
    “I’d ‘ardly consider a visit to me ware’ouse a social call,” he protested.
    “For that matter, I would hardly call it a visit,” retorted Lady Helen. “You’ve been gone all day.”
    “Aye, that I ‘ave,” agreed her much-maligned spouse. “I’d a few things to take care of before we leave for Brighton in the morning. I want no interruptions on me ‘oneymoon,” he added, covering her mouth with his own before she could voice further grievances.
    Lady Helen, however, could find nothing in these sentiments with which to take issue, and so returned his kiss with every appearance of enthusiasm.
    And so it was that Evers, after admitting the visitor to the hall and taking her bonnet and shawl, climbed the stairs to the dining room and discovered master and mistress locked in a passionate embrace. This had become a common occurrence over the last month, and in that time Evers had perfected the art of becoming blind and deaf. Stepping back into the corridor, he cleared his throat quite audibly to notify them of his presence before re-entering the room. The tableau which met his eyes this time was quite different.   Lady Helen’s floral arrangement evidently possessed her undivided attention, although her heightened color and the gleam in her husband’s eye betrayed their interrupted embrace.
    “Begging your pardon, sir,” Evers addressed Mr. Brundy, “but there is a young, er, person below who is wishful of seeing you.”
    “A ‘person,’ Evers? Don’t be so vague! ‘oo is ‘e?”
    Evers felt obliged to correct his employer’s erroneous assumption. “She, sir. Owing to the unexpected nature of the young woman’s arrival, I fear I neglected to inquire as to her name. Shall I do so now?”
    “No, just show ‘er into the drawing room. I’ll be there directly.”
    Bowing his acquiescence, Evers betook himself from the room, only to climb the stairs again a moment later with Polly in tow. That intrepid young lady trudged upward in the butler’s wake, trying valiantly not to gawk at the opulence of her surroundings, from the elaborate plasterwork ceilings over her head to the thick Aubusson carpet beneath her feet. Only now, when it was too late to turn back, did the enormity of her undertaking begin to dawn. Surely it was unlikely that any man living in such a house could feel any degree of sympathy for an unknown and penniless girl! Dear, good Reverend Jennings, on the other hand, might not have lived in grandeur, but he would have given his last crust of bread to any soul in need. Polly grieved anew for the one person who might have acted in the place of a male relation and shielded her from men like Mr. Minchin.
    At the top of the stairs Evers opened the door of the drawing room, and Polly entered a tastefully appointed