Page 40 of All Scot and Bothered
Genny greeted them with a delighted kiss on each cheek. “The infamous Red Rogues. Henrietta used to read me your letters about these two.” She bowed to each of them before gesturing to the grand staircase. “Allow me to present the ladies behind the tables. You won’t meet sharper dealers, card sharps, dice throwers, or bookies in all of Blighty.”
A few chuckles echoed in the vast marble entry.
“I’m so eager to make each of your acquaintances.” Cecelia curtsied and petted Phoebe’s hair as she addressed Genny. “But first, I’m here to gather a few of Phoebe’s things. Do you mind if we take her to the residence andthenhave a look around and make proper introductions?”
Genny laughed long and loud. “Why you askin’ me, darlin’? The place is yours.”
Somehow it didn’tfeellike hers. It might have belonged to Genny for all her knowledge and know-how. Her history.
But in truth, it belonged to a ghost. To Henrietta.
“Mademoiselle,” Jean-Yves said close to Cecelia’s ear. “Allowmeto take Miss Phoebe to the residence to collect her things. Then you inspect your new… holdings without a care.”
“You don’t want to stay?” Genny winked at him, flashing brilliant white teeth. “A man as handsome and well turned out as you could make some money here, along with a few new friends.”
“A man as old and simple as I can only appreciate so much beauty at a time, madame, before it becomes a danger to my health.” He bowed over Genny’s hand before gathering up Phoebe’s. “Come along,ma petite bonbon. We can select your favorite things for your new room.”
Cecelia watched them go. She’d long since outgrown the name Jean-Yves christened her with the afternoon they’d met. Cecelia had been a chubby, bespectacled girl drowning her sorrows in bonbons. How lovely that another lost little girl got to enjoy the moniker, the sweets, and all the gentle masculine guidance that came with it.
Between her efforts and those of Jean-Yves, maybe Phoebe wouldn’t so much miss having parents. The idea cheered her exponentially.
“What about you, Duchess, Countess?” Genny offered. “Can I interest you in a little game of chance?”
“I think I’d like that, after our tour.” Alexandra primly tucked a stray curl the color of burnished teak beneath her wide-brimmed hat.
Francesca ignored them all, studying the place and the employees with forthright but indifferent assessment.
A rather resplendent man with a grand mustache toddled down the stairs, begging the pardon of the line of ladies. He was red-faced and sloe-eyed and nearly glowed with a besotted grin at them all as he accepted his hat and coat from a footman and whistled his merry way out the door.
“Was that…?” Alexandra stared after him as a coach trundled up the circular drive.
“It couldn’t be…” Francesca gaped.
Cecelia took her spectacles from her nose to shine on her sleeve, replacing them to search for a royal seal on the carriage.
Genny placed a finger under Cecelia’s chin, urging her mouth shut. “He’s notfirstin line to the throne or anything… and at the rate he’s goin’, his mother will outlive him.”
When none of the Red Rogues seemed inclined to recover from a royal sighting, Genny said, “We keep a fewbedrooms upstairs in case people are disinclined to go home in a state of inebriation.” She linked her arm through Cecelia’s and tugged her past the staircase, where a lady she recognized as Lilly drifted down, lacing a white bodice with pink ribbons.
Cecelia found it difficult to meet the girl’s earnest, smiling gaze as the last time they’d met she’d been bouncing atop an earl. And she was certain the lovely girl had just serviced a prince upstairs.
Both dazed and amazed, she followed Genny past an intricate railing and toward a staircase leading to the lower level, this just as well appointed as the one to the second floor.
Before she stepped out of sight of the main floor, she caught a glimpse of a lithe masculine figure slithering toward the door, more shadow than man.
Count Adrian Armediano donned his hat over a shine of ebony hair and punched his fists into a dark jacket.
He glanced back toward their procession, and Cecelia nearly tripped down the stairs in her haste not to be seen.
“Is that the count from your do last month?” Francesca whispered from behind her. Never one for subtlety, she lifted on her tiptoes to watch him leave. “Where did you find him, Alexander? There’s something so off-putting about him, and yet familiar. As though I’ve hated him before, but I can’t remember why.”
“He’s done business with Redmayne,” the duchess replied pensively. “Supposedly he wields an immense amount of influence both here and internationally. I confess I was barely listening when the duke told me about him, because I was sifting through a trunk of samples sent to me from Syria at the time.”
“Redmayne should know better than to expect to distract you with conversation,” Francesca teased.
“Redmayne knowsexactlywhat to do to distract me,” Alexandra said with a sly wink. “Cecil, you spent some time at the soiree talking with the count. What was he like?”
“Charming,” she answered.And a bit frightening, she didn’t say. Something about him bespoke a darkness—no, a deviousness—that had both intrigued her and set her on edge.
