Candice Hern by The Regency Rakes Trilogy Read Free Book Online

contain an active, agile brain," Sir Percy said. "Emily has been invaluable to me in suggesting story lines, plot twists, characters, dialogue, and such. Her ideas have quite revitalized my writing. My publisher has been most pleased with the early chapters." He nodded his thanks to Miss Townsend, who nodded in return. "Do you think, my dear, that I might impose so much as to send you the drafts of the later chapters while you are in London? I would so appreciate your continued advice."
    "Of course, Sir Percy," Miss Townsend said. "I would be happy to read them. But I doubt that you really need my advice."
    "I welcome it, nonetheless," Sir Percy said as he rose to leave. He went to the dowager's side, offering her a chaste kiss on the cheek. He then turned back to Emily, took her hand, and brought it to his lips. "I trust we can have a few more visits together before your departure, my dear?" he asked.
    "Of course, Sir Percy."
    "I shall look forward to it," he crooned.
    As the baronet departed, Robert turned to Miss Townsend and said in an undertone, "I see my grandmother is not the only one with doting admirers."
    Emily scowled at him in mock distress.

Chapter 4
     
    The next morning found the dowager's household in a flurry of activity. The removal to London was to be a major undertaking, since the dowager insisted on taking with her every item or person necessary to her comfort. Emily frequently found herself with one of the dowager's many lists, checking off things to be done or made or purchased or packed prior to leaving Bath.
    Emily had somehow become in charge of the entire operation, and although the household staff was under the direct supervision of either Mrs. Dougherty or Barnes, everyone cooperated without complaint to Emily's requests. Emily found great pleasure in the kindness shown to her by the dowager's staff, something she had not always experienced in the other households in which she had been employed.
    She supposed the staff expected someone in her position within the household hierarchy to put on airs, to avoid association with the lower servants completely. Such behavior was common enough for those staff members with a special exalted status— like Anatole, the chef, or Tuttle, the dowager's dresser. Emily, however, found her life was made easier by treating all members of the staff with the same level of courtesy. She knew that only by such behavior was she able to rely on their full cooperation on major undertakings like the removal to London.
    She would have been aghast to know of the specious rumors circulating belowstairs regarding her background.
    Later that morning, during a rare moment of quiet, Emily found herself marveling at the good fortune that had brought her into the dowager's employ. As she sat in the window seat in her bedroom, a slim volume of poetry propped open on her lap, she gazed out the window as she pondered all that had happened during the last few days. Emily was secretly as excited and as nervous as a schoolgirl about the impending trip to London. She had never been to the capital, although she remembered clearly all her mother's stories about her own Season in Town. Her father had frequently absented himself in Town for weeks, but never spoke about whatever business took him there. In fact, before her employment had brought her to Bath, Emily's only taste of Town life was an occasional shopping trip to Bury St. Edmonds. And so she looked upon the prospect of a visit to London as something of an adventure into the Unknown. Although Bath was far from a rural backwater, she knew it to be a sleepy village as compared to London. The dowager warned her to expect to participate in the full social whirl of the Season's activities. This thought sparked a frisson of apprehension.
    Emily thrust aside this wayward fear as childish and unwarranted. She was, after all, a paid companion who would likely melt unnoticed into the background. She knew Lady Bradleigh well enough to know that