Mayhem in Bath by Sandra Heath Read Free Book Online Page B

Hordwell’s carriage or Lord Benjamin’s. Having been convinced he’d find Nutmeg straightaway, he soon wound himself up to a pitch, and it wasn’t long before his frustration boiled over. Nothing would do but that he caused as much petty mischief as possible for the innocent grooms, coachmen, and other such staff whose domain the unhelpful mews were.
    There was no one about as he muffled horses’ hooves with rags, or when he moved the animals from stable to stable. Come the morning, Dominic’s coachman, the hard-pressed Jeffries, would find four bay horses where there should be grays, and so on. Not satisfied with this, the boggart-brownie then tied numerous door handles together, tipped over some troughs, and hid some well-chosen items of harness beneath the hay in the largest loft. Chance decreed that because he was so busily engaged upon this nuisance making, he neither heard nor saw Polly’s carriage being brought around to the stables appertaining to 1 Royal Crescent. When he deemed that sufficient temporary disruption would result from his mean-minded handiwork, he stomped off to Zuder’s to console himself with as many free sweet things as possible.
    While all this was in progress, Dominic was taking a second bath, being quite convinced that the faint aroma of farmyard still clung to his person. The bath was in a small third-floor room set aside for that purpose. Blue and white tiles covered the walls, and there was a fine washstand and shaving mirror. A wall cupboard contained shelves of freshly laundered white towels, and the curtains were drawn at the window that looked out from the back of the house.
    As he languished in the cologne-scented water, resting his head against the thick towel draped over the elegant copper bath, he felt that all trace of pig was at last being removed, but he remained considerably annoyed with Polly for permitting the farmyard incident to take place. Miss Peach might be pretty, but she was also prejudiced and totally without conscience. By what right did she judge him? If ever a young woman was in need of a sermon on the sins of presumptuousness, it was she!
    He didn’t open his eyes as someone came into the room to take towels from the cupboard and place them on the chair beside the bath. Nor did he glance around when the window curtains were drawn more neatly, but he sat up sharply when he heard a long female sigh. A maid had come in while he was totally undressed? He turned to remonstrate with the girl for breaching such an obvious unwritten rule, but was in time to see the door closing. Had she seen more of his anatomy than was seemly? At that he smiled philosophically. If she had, it had hardly been his fault, and if she’d sighed, maybe it was because she was so overwhelmed with admiration and desire! He laughed and lay back again.
    A footman suddenly spoke from beyond the closed door. “Begging your pardon, sir, but a Major Dashingham has called.”
    Harry, his closest friend in the regiment! Dominic reached delightedly for a towel. “Show him up, show him up!”
    “Very well, sir.”
    Dominic heaved himself from the bath and grabbed one of the towels that had been placed nearby only a moment before. He dried himself briskly and had just donned his dressing gown when the major was shown in.
    Major Henry Dashingham—Harry to his friends—was a Scotsman of medium height, with sandy hair, hazel eyes, a mustache, and side-whiskers. He was in his hussar uniform of a gold-braided blue dolman jacket, a wide red-and-gold sash, tight white breeches, and spurred cavalry boots, with a fur-trimmed pelisse fixed over his left shoulder. A saber and flat leather purse embossed with his regimental badge was suspended from his waist, and beneath his arm he carried a fine plumed bearskin. He grinned at Dominic. “It’s been a long time, you old rogue.” His Edinburgh accent was very pleasant, his smile and easy charm even more so.
    “A long time indeed! How are you. Harry?”