Page 109 of Brave New Earl (The Way to a Lord's Heart 1)

“I don’t mind.” He looked at his father. “I took those things away.”

“Did you?”

Geoffrey nodded. “To my own room.”

“Good.”

“Good,” Geoffrey repeated, satisfied.

With her free hand, Jean reached for Benjamin’s. The three of them stood together, hand in hand, gazing at the past and toward the future.

Twenty

“It’s a disgrace!” declared Clayton. “A member of the peerage to be married—before all his people—looking like an unshorn sheep.”

“Mr. Clayton!” Sarah was shocked at his outspoken criticism. Especially here and now. They sat in one of the rear pews of the village church near Furness Hall.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Dennison, but I feel the matter deeply,” replied Lord Macklin’s valet.

“Lord Furness isn’t your charge,” Jean Saunders’s lady’s maid pointed out to him.

“In a way he is. Or has been, I’m relieved to say, as we depart tomorrow.” Clayton seemed unable to let go of his grievances. “Because he is my lord’s nephew, I extended myself to help. It’s not a thing I would do for just anyone, you know.”

Sarah acknowledged his condescension with a nod.

“If he had been willing to listen to me… But he seemed to take the matter as a joke. Or an irritation, depending on the day.” Clayton’s lips thinned. “And I have to say, Miss Dennison, that your suggestion about his hair was useless.”

“I am sorry, Mr. Clayton. I didn’t know then that my young lady thinks Lord Furness looks like a knight of old.”

“With his hair straggling down his neck and about his ears?” Clayton sniffed.

“Seems they wore it longer in ancient times.”

“Itseemsthey were careless in their personal habits.”

“Well, they had to wear suits of armor, didn’t they? Helmets and all. Perhaps their hair was a kind of padding.”

“That would explain it, I suppose,” answered Clayton grimly. He shrugged. “It’s your problem now. I wash my hands of it.”

“We’ll find a likely young fellow and train him up to be a decent valet,” Sarah answered.

“Train,” repeated Clayton. “More like keep him under your thumb.”

“Why, Mr. Clayton, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t you just.”

Sarah suppressed a smile. “Shh. They’re starting.”

Benjamin took his place at the altar of the village church, waiting for his bride to come to him. Only a few more minutes, and they would be married at last.

“Nanny said I mustn’t fidget,” declared the small figure at his side. “I don’t fidget.”

Glancing down at his son and groomsman, Benjamin smiled. In his new coat and breeches, Geoffrey looked like a miniature town beau.

“What’s ‘fidget’?” Geoffrey added, somewhat spoiling the effect.

“Moving about, making faces, twiddling your fingers.”

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