Australia: In Bed with Her Groom: Mischief and Marriage / A Marriage Betrayed / Bride of His Choice. Emma Darcy
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effect. Not only with Gordon Payne. She was acutely conscious of a sense of tingly anticipation, as though she knew intuitively that his startling actions were only the forerunner of more startling actions.
He aimed another quirky smile at her, his bright blue eyes twinkling with unholy mischief. He gestured to the door and commented, ‘I thought him a mite touchy.’
Ashley couldn’t help being amused. To describe Gordon Payne as touchy seemed a masterful understatement. ‘I shouldn’t have lost my temper,’ she said with a rueful grimace.
Cliffton looked sympathetic. ‘Touchy people are often aggressive and unpredictable.’
‘It was stupid of me.’
One eyebrow lifted in considering assessment. ‘Perhaps a tad impetuous, madam. Still, there is an arguable case for throwing caution to the winds and letting fly. Gets a load off the chest, so to speak.’
Ashley could barely stop her mouth from twitching. He was so attractive, so…debonair. Another word she had never applied to a man! Not in real life. Her mind drifted to the Scarlet Pimpernel and she hastily pulled it back to a somewhat frayed level of common sense. Don’t forget dangerous, she cautioned herself.
‘What would you have done if he hadn’t let you take the Lladro clown?’ she asked.
‘Broken his wrist most likely,’ came the imperturbable reply. ‘Brings to mind the incident with Good Queen Bess,’ he mused. ‘My ancestor, Hugo, broke the wrist of the Spanish ambassador who presented a gift to the queen, then tried to take it back when she dismissed his king’s request.’
Ashley’s mind slipped again. Spanning centuries seemed quite normal with Cliffton. ‘If you’d done that,’ she said, trying to latch onto something practical, ‘the figurine would have fallen and broken.’
He grinned. ‘Never missed a catch at first slip. I used to play in the first eleven cricket team at school.’
Ashley had no trouble imagining Cliffton being first at a lot of things. But he didn’t seem conceited about it. Nor did he emit an air of superiority. Not like Roger. Whatever his abilities, he simply accepted them as completely natural.
Which brought her back to the questions that needed answering. She couldn’t let this discussion run on as though they were old and intimate friends. Common sense insisted she had to establish who this man was and what he was doing here.
‘I could be a mite touchy, too,’ she warned. ‘About having a stranger invade my home and eavesdrop on a private conversation.’
‘No, no, madam. I would not be so ill-mannered as to enter anyone’s home uninvited. Master William let me in.’
‘Master William?’ She wondered how her nine-year-old son had reacted to being addressed in such a fashion!
‘He was playing cricket next door. Has the makings of a fine batsman,’ Cliffton remarked admiringly. ‘He played a superb hook shot, which I happened to catch before it hit the windscreen of the Daimler that was parked at the kerb outside your house.’
‘Oh, Lord!’ Ashley breathed, relieved that Gordon Payne didn’t have damage to his car to add to his list of grudges against her.
‘I explained to Master William that I was on a mission from England and needed to call on you. He told me to wait in the lounge until you were ready to receive me. I was about to enter that room, as instructed by Master William, when a highly unpleasant voice penetrated to the hallway, listing a most unseemly set of threats.’
He put on a mournful face. ‘I do apologise for eavesdropping, madam. Most reprehensible of me. It reminded me of a situation that confronted my ancestor, Stafford, with the sheriff of Nottingham over a man called Hood. But right won out in the end, madam. We Clifftons have a way of making things turn out right in the end.’
Ashley was still trying to swallow that story as he went on.
‘I must also confess to falling into a trance of admiration at the spirited way you took the gentleman to task. Not a nice gentleman at all, I must say. Then when you cried out…’ He shrugged appealingly. ‘I thought I could be of service to you.’
‘Yes. You were. Thank you.’ His voice was wonderfully musical, quite enthralling to listen to. ‘What mission?’ Ashley asked belatedly. ‘Who are you?’
‘Butler to the English branch of the Harcourt family.’
He really was a butler!
‘A hereditary position, madam. I come as an emissary from the last of your Harcourt relatives in Britain.’
Ashley stiffened, snapping herself out of her bemused daze. Roger’s mother must have been telling the truth about being connected to a line of landed gentry in England. Although that still did not give her the right to have adopted the attitude of being better than anyone else.
It was an attitude that won no sympathy whatsoever from Ashley. She herself might bear the Harcourt name, keeping it because it was her son’s birthright, but it held no sway with her. The reverse, in fact.
‘In the current circumstances, your son, William, is the master of Springfield Manor’s only heir, madam, and he would like you both to take up residence at the manor, his country home. I am assigned to help you settle your affairs and expedite your journey to England.’
Typically high-handed, Ashley thought, her backbone getting stiffer by the second. No Harcourt was going to tell her what to do with her life. She had had her fill of that, thank you very much.
Cliffton gave her a smile of such charm the stiffening almost came undone. ‘For however long it takes to accomplish that, madam, I am to stay here as your butler,’ he declared winningly, ‘to serve you and Master William as you will.’
FOR AS LONG as it takes…
What monstrous arrogance!
Ashley saw red for several seconds before the brilliant blue eyes of the butler drove the red away. Not Cliffton’s arrogance, of course. He was merely carrying out his master’s instructions. Although why a man like Cliffton could be content to serve a Harcourt…Imbued with the English class system and centuries of tradition, she supposed, excusing him on the grounds of having been brainwashed from birth.
One thing was certain. She was not going to be carted off to England and suffer the condescension of the gentry installed in Springfield Manor. If William was an heir, he could wait until his inheritance was free and clear of every other Harcourt before considering what it involved and what was best done about it.
In the meantime, Ashley had to decide what to do about Cliffton. Outright rejection of his mission probably meant he would have to return to England to report failure, and she wouldn’t see him again unless she followed. That scenario had no appeal whatsoever.
Ashley had never felt so drawn to know more about a person. Cliffton was, without a doubt, the most fascinating man she had ever met, and she didn’t want him to drop out of her life before she had the chance to…well, explore possibilities.
He was special. Far too special to be a butler. Maybe a short sojourn in Australia might show him other ways of life that could be far more rewarding than being a butler, yet she could probably only keep him with her if she appeared to be considering the proposition, perhaps needing some persuasion from him to make up her mind.
For as long as it takes…
That suddenly became a highly seductive little phrase.
Taking her years with Roger and his mother into account, Ashley had no problem in reasoning that the Harcourt family did owe her some recompense, and Cliffton clearly didn’t mind being her butler for a while. He would be very handy to have around