Page 126 of The Ladies Least Likely
“I will agree wit dat.” The butler, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a patch over one eye, strode into the room with a large silver tray laden with more breakfast items. He placed each woman’s favorite before them, starting with the countess and working around the table, before unloading the rest of the tray among the other dishes on the sideboard.
“Good morning, Abassi,” the countess greeted him.
She tapped a fold of the paper beside her plate.
“Can you countenance, there is another advertisement in the Intelligencer today looking for a runaway male slave. ‘Black skin, missing one eye, of low, mean countenance, escaped from the Zong eleven months ago.’ But that cannot be you, Abassi, as your countenance is in no way low or mean.” She smirked at her butler as he refilled her chocolate, and he grinned back, showing a gold-capped tooth.
“My word, after eleven months you’d think Mr. Gregson would accept defeat,” Melike observed. “A Barbary pirate would have moved on long ago.”
“This man, he must be very valuable,” Abassi said in his soft Caribbean accent. “P’raps he was a pirate once too, eh? Or very strong.” He flexed unnecessarily as he picked up the empty tray.
“You might join us, Abassi.” The countess waved for him to pull up one of the extra chairs stationed against the wall. Quite against all usual protocol, and one of the many reasons her household was considered so outrageous, the Countess of Calenberg dined and conversed with her employees.
“ Non , dis morning I teach Jock and Beater how to shoot.” Abassi pretended to sight a gun with his good eye, pointing his finger toward a portrait of the long-dead Count of Calenberg that graced the wall above the fireplace mantel. “They need much practice.”
“Well, go somewhere quite safe, and don’t blow the wigs off any passersby.
” The countess handed Abassi the offending paper.
“What’s next for you now, Hari?” she asked, returning to what was apparently the morning’s theme.
“Netting Renwick was an unsafe bet from the beginning. Consider what you might do with your salacious sketches, however.”
“The ones of the Graf von Hardenburg were very like,” Darci agreed with a wide grin. “And very—instructive?”
“And vulgar, as our dear gossip called them.” Harriette put her letter aside to read later.
It had done wonders for the Graf von Hardenburg’s popularity when sketches of him in dishabille proved the latest fad among London’s print-hungry populace, but she hadn’t thought her hand would be quite so easily exposed, or she would meet such censure for them.
Before last night, she would have agreed with Sorcha and Natalya that they rubbed along just fine without need of Polite Society.
But she had seen the disdain of the ladies of fashion—all except Lady Bessington, bless her heart—and the indignation of being herded out of the Countess of Renwick’s house cut deep.
Harriette had never cared about her reputation until she realized that, in the eyes of many, it made her unfit to associate with the Earl of Renwick.
And then there were the practical concerns.
“I can’t make a fortune on pennies from sketches.
” Harriette pointed to the dark, yellowing image of the Count of Calenberg, her great-aunt’s long dead and not-much-lamented husband.
“A commission for an oil that size could fetch me hundreds of guineas. A little less for a pastel or gouache, but still a fine price.”
“I’ll p-p-ay it.”
From the doorway came a deep voice that was not the butler’s, though Abassi stood behind, examining the small white calling card the visitor had produced.
Every woman in the room straightened, even Sorcha, who, after losing a child and several years of her life, had sworn off both gin and men.
Darci smoothed a hand over her plush curls.
Melike touched her throat. Natalya thrust out her breasts, the most prominent of her many admirable features.
Princess slipped her feet back into her slippers and adjusted the enormous amethyst collar that hung about her throat.
Even the countess took a long moment to inspect the newcomer and appreciate the splendid figure he cut.
Harriette stared at him greedily. He was more striking in the light of day, his features sharply defined and animated by the warm intelligence in his eyes.
He filled out a butter-yellow morning coat and breeches with a sleekness that hinted at the muscle of exertion, not the fat of indolence.
Instead of a wig he wore his own hair, lightly powdered, and his neckcloth had fallen out of its elaborate twist.
She rose and moved toward him without conscious thought, her head filled with the memory of his arms about her, his mouth on hers, the evidence of his desire for her pressing against her hip.
His dark blue eyes, riveted on her, held the same memory, and a languorous curl of desire woke and stretched in her belly.
She might very well have walked straight into his arms and kissed him again, losing her head completely, if Abassi hadn’t spoken.
“The Earl of Renwick, your ladyship.”
Harriette pulled herself up short before she did something that even in her aunt’s permissive household might be considered unorthodox.
But the urge to touch him was too much to deny.
She was not a creature to deny herself anyway, a trait her aunt had cultivated.
She tidied his cravat, reshaping its stylish twist, and let her fingertips brush the warm skin above his collar.
His eyelids flickered, and a small, wicked triumph joined the other emotions swirling in her lower regions.
He was affected by her, as she was by him.
And he was here, when she thought she might never see him again. “You found us.”
“The Countess of Calenberg is well known, it seems.” He bowed to her aunt, who responded with a gracious incline of her head.
“Aunt, this is my Ren. Renwick, my great-aunt, the Countess of Calenberg.” That slipped out; he wasn’t ‘her’ anything. Having ceded to the impulse to touch him, now she could not seem to take her hand away, and let it linger on the embroidered lapel of his waistcoat. Heat. Strength. Maleness .
Goodness, she’d never been made giddy at the mere presence of a man before.
She was acting like a wet goose. “Ren, these are my friends. Miss Darci Kilcannon, who sculpts. Miss Melike Yilmaz, who does exquisite miniatures. The High and Well-Born Natalya Dobraya, our model. And Miss Sorcha Cowley, who makes scones that will make you think you have died and gone to heaven. Oh, and I have saved the highest among us for last: Her Royal Highness Casimira, Princess of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. You may simply call her Princess, as we all do.”
Ren regarded her with interest. Princess stared boldly back, an approving smile curling her lips as she studied him from wig to boots.
“I have not heard of your pr-pr—” Harriette caught the slight pause as he gathered himself. “–that principality, your Highness,” he said politely.
“It is quite new,” Princess responded. “Created by the Hapsburgs in the Partition of Poland. Fond as I am of the formidable Empress Maria Theresa, my family lost a great deal of their lands and dignity when the greater powers carved up my country, and so I decided to live abroad for a time.”
Harriette spotted the letter she had left by her plate, and her insides twisted.
Princess’s plight mirrored her mother’s own background, what little she knew of it.
Displaced nobles were a common sight across a Europe being almost continuously reshaped by wars and alliance.
Harriette had always suspected her mother had fled her homeland not because her noble name was in danger, but because she was hiding an illegitimate child.
Her aunt had never said anything more than what Harriette’s mother told her, except to insist that their family was good enough for her to be accepted in the best circles, and good enough for Harriette to receive schooling at the very selective Miss Gregoire’s Academy for Girls.
But her unknown birth was another strike against her.
She was not the well-bred, mannerly type of society wife that Renwick required for his countess.
She was neither an able housekeeper nor a proper hostess, and she hadn’t the smallest streak of decorum in her bones.
No matter how high her mother’s rank, an illegitimate daughter would never be good enough for the Earl of Renwick. Not while Lady Renwick lived.
“Does your mother know you’re here?” she asked Ren.
She loved how that wry smile quirked up one corner of his mouth. “My mother does not direct me, Rhette. I own the roof she lives under and I pay for the servants who attend her. We had a dis-discussion about it last night, after you left.”
She knew by this that he must have had an out-and-out row with his mother, and she flattened her palm against his chest in a soothing gesture. That must have hurt him. The Ren she knew hated rows, and above all hated disappointing his parents.
“You’ve come to call?”
This smile lifted both sides of his mouth, and her lungs emptied at the beauty of him. “You asked to paint me. I consent.”