Romney Marsh Trilogy: A Gentleman by Any Other Name / The Dangerous Debutante / Beware of Virtuous Women. Kasey Michaels
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the waist. Her father’s education had been centered mostly around things religious, and he had told her about the rituals of many other religions, most especially the “poor heathens” who worshipped strange gods, indulged in magic and other “fanciful nonsense,” as her father had termed it. Wearing an alligator tooth seemed to fit this description. “Odette came here from Haiti, didn’t she?”
“From Saint-Domingue,” Callie said. “There were many problems there, many wars, but Odette doesn’t like to talk about Saint-Domingue, or what is Haiti now—or anything that happened on the island. Very bloody times. I don’t remember them at all, because I was just a puling infant when we left there and came here. That’s what Jacko said. A puling infant. I don’t think that’s nice, do you?”
Julia remembered Jacko. “That was probably only friendly banter,” she said, hiding a wince. While Callie jabbered away like a magpie, Julia gathered up the underclothing and the gown she had thankfully taken the time to lay out before at last crawling into bed last night. She stepped behind the screen in the corner and hastily dressed herself, trying to pretend she was unaware that nature was calling to her.
Callie shrugged as she climbed down off the bed. “Jacko loves me,” she said, buttoning her night rail once more. “And Odette says people can’t help what they look like, so even if Jacko looks like he eats little girls for breakfast, that doesn’t mean he does. I have to go now, before someone comes to see how I feel today and I’m not there to tell them. You really should go downstairs, Julia. We’ve got coddled eggs today. Aren’t you hungry?”
“I’m famished,” Julia said, realizing that was true. “How do I get to the kitchens?”
“Why would you go there? I heard Edyth tell Birdie that she’s supposed to move your things downstairs to the bedchamber next to mine so that Edyth can stay up here with baby Alice, like she did when I was a puling infant. Papa’s orders.”
Julia’s heart managed a small hiccup in her chest. “I’m…I’m to be moved downstairs, with the family?”
Callie nodded. “Papa says you’re Chance’s very good friend and our guest and you’re going to be a wonderful companion to us girls while you and Chance are here. I’m going now. Remember, you didn’t meet me yet.”
Julia gave the girl a small, weak wave, then sat down on the bed. Guest? Wonderful companion? Very good friend? Good God, it was happening. She was being introduced to this family as Chance Becket’s mistress. What sort of ragtag family was this?
And she shouldn’t tell anyone she’d seen Callie. Of course not. She hadn’t seen those boys on the Marsh. She must pretend she doesn’t know that there’s something decidedly havey-cavey about Jacko and Billy. She shouldn’t ask questions about anything, anyone.
No, she shouldn’t. What she should do is finish her toilette as quickly as possible, pack up her belongings and demand to be taken to the nearest coaching inn. That’s what she should do!
But she wouldn’t.
“I’ve never been quite so fascinated in my life,” Julia told her reflection in the mirror above the bureau as she dried her face after splashing it with—how wonderful!—the warm water she’d found in the pitcher.
Although even the presence of that warm water bothered her. How had the servant who’d brought it done so without waking her? Did the servants in this household wrap their footwear with strips of blanket to muffle the sound?
“Stop it, Julia,” she told herself as she rummaged through her bag for her brush. “You’re being fanciful. You were exhausted and you slept like the dead. Someone could have run through this room shouting that the Frenchies were coming and you wouldn’t have budged.”
She sighed, decided she’d convinced herself, and then brushed her hair, smiling at the thought that straight-as-sticks pale hair could possibly be better than Callie’s marvelous tumble of warm golden-brown curls.
She pulled back her hair with both hands, preparing to twist it into a bun, then stopped. If she put up her hair, Chance—dear Lord, she was now very easily thinking of the man as Chance, not Mr. Becket!—might decide to tug it all loose again.
Was that a good thing or a bad thing? And would she go straight to hell for even asking herself that question?
Hastily tying her hair at her nape with a green grosgrain ribbon that matched those on her three-year-old gown, Julia made up her bed and packed up the remainder of her belongings, not much caring for the idea that anyone else would see her meager wardrobe with its discreet patches and darns.
Before heading downstairs, she then pulled back the heavy drapes on one of the large windows, her breath catching as she saw the sand-and-shingle beach not one hundred yards away and the Channel beyond, brilliant sunlight dancing on the water and not a hint of mist in sight.
How beautiful. How wonderfully, wildly beautiful.
She leaned closer to the glass. Yes, that was a ship out there, moving parallel to the shore. “I can almost make out the flag….”
“It’s French. But not to worry, we’re not about to be invaded. They just like to sail back and forth out there beyond the range of our guns and make a grand show once and again.”
Julia spun around, one hand to her chest, to see Chance Becket standing not three feet from her. “Does everyone tiptoe here?”
Chance smiled. “Your eyes look even more green this morning. I imagine it’s the gown. Pretty. Did you rest well?”
“I did, yes, but I will probably never sleep again, unless I find a key for the door,” she told him, doing her best to ignore the fact that Chance had forgone his city attire in favor of fawn nankeen breeches above shiny black top boots, his full-sleeved white shirt open at the neck. He wore a dark brown leather vest he’d left unbuttoned. It looked as soft as newly churned butter.
She could see a thin strip of well-worn dark leather hanging around his neck and wondered if an alligator tooth hung at the end of it, then realized she’d been staring. Would like to continue staring. She folded her hands in front of her, then looked at those hands with some intensity.
Chance watched as Julia bowed her head, the sunlight streaming in through the window setting off small sunbeams in her hair. No bun today, which was a large improvement, but all her glorious hair still, alas, swept tightly away from her face. His fingers itched to release that confounding ribbon. Amazing how women could drive a man nearly wild by showing themselves to be so obviously chaste.
He’d been too long without a woman. Either that or Julia Carruthers was a witch.
“Yes,” he said, turning his thoughts away from treacherous territory, “I know you had a visitor. I stopped to see Cassandra on my way up here. She told you Ainsley has stuck his thumb in my business?”
Julia busied herself in taking off and folding up her paisley shawl that she’d believed she might need downstairs. Silly. It was warm in Becket Hall. Excessively warm. At least in this suddenly very small room. “I’m to be moved to a bedchamber downstairs, where I, as your very good friend, will be treated as a guest while I amuse your sisters. Yes, I know. Will you provide me with a tambourine? Trained monkeys usually have those, I believe.”
“Such a sharp tongue. I don’t know what made either of us believe even for a moment that you had the makings of a nanny.” Chance sat down on the edge of the bed, patted the smoothed coverlet. “Didn’t you sleep in here last night?”
She rolled her eyes. “Some people take care of their own needs. I slept in that bed and I made up that bed this morning. I’m more than capable of caring for myself. And while we’re on the subject of acceptable manners—you don’t belong here.”
“Here being this room, sitting on this bed? Or here being Becket Hall?” He stood up. “No, don’t answer. I’ve come up here to tell you that Dickie and Johnnie, their mother and the remainder of her brood are already traveling north to my estate. They were escorted on their