The Six Month Marriage by Amanda Grange Read Free Book Online Page B

uncle’s servants what he had
seen.’ She shook her head and shivered, suddenly feeling cold. ‘I should have
known he would not let me go so easily.’
    ‘He told you this?’ asked Philip curiously.
    ‘No.’ Turning to Jenny, Madeline said, ‘It was Jenny who
told me. She came to warn me that my uncle had discovered my whereabouts.’
    Noticing Jenny for the first time, Philip said, ‘That
explains it.’ He became thoughtful. ‘Well, it is a good thing Jenny is here,’
he said at last. ‘You are in need of a maid.’ He turned to Jenny. ‘I take it
you do not wish to go back to Mr Delaware ?’
    ‘Oo, no, sir,’ said Jenny, agog with all she had just
witnessed.
    ‘Then that is settled. I have some business to attend
to,’ he said to Madeline, ‘but we will speak again after lunch. There is still
much we have to discuss.’
     
    ‘Only
think, miss,’ said Jenny as she dressed Madeline’s hair some half an hour
later. She had followed Madeline up to her bedroom and helped her to dress
properly, lacing her corsets for her, before repairing the ravages done to her
hair. ‘Now you’re the Countess of Pemberton I’ll have to start calling you “my
lady” instead of ”miss”.
    ‘No, Jenny.’ Madeline watched her maid’s deft fingers
arrange her hair, ‘I am not the Countess of Pemberton.’
    ‘But the Earl said . . . ’
    ‘I know what the Earl said, but he only did it so that
Gareth would leave me alone. I am not the Countess of Pemberton, although . . .
’
    ‘Yes, miss?’ asked Jenny.
    ‘Although the Earl has asked me to be his wife. He needs
to arrange a temporary marriage in order to claim his inheritance,’ she
explained, ‘and he has asked me to be his temporary wife.’
    ‘Oh, I see,’ said Jenny. ‘So,’ she went on, ‘when is the
wedding to be?’
    ‘There is no wedding,’ said Madeline.
    ‘But you just said . . . ’
    ‘I said he asked me,’ said Madeline. ‘But I have
refused.’
    ‘Refused!’ Jenny’s busy fingers fell idle in amazement.
    ‘Of course I have refused,’ said Madeline.
    ‘But the Earl isn’t like your uncle, miss,’ said Jenny,
shaking her head as she continued with her work. ‘He’s a different sort of man
is the Earl. They all say so, all his servants, and servants always know. I’ve
been friendly with Hinch, the parlour maid, for a long while now. We met by
accident on our afternoon off some months ago, and struck up a friendship, and
that’s how I got in, miss; as soon as I heard where you were I came at once,
and Hinch, she let me in at the back. She’s always spoken well of her master.
Treats his servants well, he does, and –’
    ‘Servants are one thing,’ interrupted Madeline, not
wishing to talk about it. ‘Even my uncle treated his servants well for the most
part. But –’
    ‘Not just his servants,’ said Jenny resolutely,
arranging Madeline’s hair into a chignon and pushing in pins to hold it in
place. ‘His friends . . . and his women friends, too,’ she added boldly. ‘Treats
them courteous, like, and friendly, not showing them up and humiliating them,
like your uncle. And not just his friends and his women friends. He treats his
sister well, by all accounts.’
    Madeline was interested, despite herself. It was not a
small thing for a man to be loved by his servants. Servants were always in a
position to know what a man was really like. But marriage . . . that was too
great a risk.
    ‘No, Jenny, I cannot do it. If I marry him, he will have
too much power over me. I have asked him to provide me with a reference and I
intend to find a position as a governess instead.’
    Jenny said nothing, but her silence spoke volumes.
    ‘As a governess I will be respectable,’ said Madeline. ‘I
will be able to earn my keep. And I will be safe from my uncle.’ As she spoke
she realised that she was trying to convince herself, rather than Jenny. ‘And
perhaps, in time, I may be able to open a small school of my own.’
    ‘Just