To Tame a Rogue by Kelly Jameson Read Free Book Online

gently guiding her, his large palm pressed into the curve of her back. The sight that greeted Camille in the sun parlor made her gasp in surprise.

 
     
     
     
     
    8
     
    Josephine Huxley was, as usual, impeccably dressed. She wore a white muslin walking dress with a spencer of lilac sarcenet, diamonds glittered on her long, graceful fingers, and her silvery-grey hair was swept up tidily. Sparkling ear pendants of a prodigious length hung from her dainty ears.
    She looked, for all intents and purposes, as if she were about to jaunt off to one of her famous garden parties, flitting between her guests like a honeybee sampling the sweet nectar of the spring flowers. Only it was five o’clock in the morning. And she was smiling. Smiling!
    Henree was sure she had gone completely mad. Summoned, he now stood uncertainly in the doorway to her bedchamber. It took him a moment or two to realize the sound he was hearing was laughter. She placed the single eyeglass she wore, suspended from a long golden chain around her neck, to her eye. She arched a delicate brow.
    “Why Henree, you do look uncomfortable. Whatever is the matter?”
    “Madame, I…nothing is the matter.”
    For a woman just turned sixty, Josephine was still quite handsome. Henree had been her steward for thirty years, so he knew her quite well and had always admired her beauty from a distance. It was a cold, stern sort of beauty that had always intrigued him. Her late husband had never appreciated it.
    “Shall I wear my white scarf with the embroidered flowers, or the green one?”
    “The white,” Henree replied. “White looks lovely on your flawless skin.”
    “You have impeccable taste. Now I want you to relax.”
    Henree started to perspire. He hoped she wouldn’t notice.
    “I want you to tell me what the servants are saying about me.”
    “Madame?”
    “Come now, Henree. How long have you known me?”
    “Thirty years this Christmas, madame.”
    Josephine sighed.
    “Thirty years, Henree. And in all that time, I’ve been a heartless, thoughtless bitch.”
    Henree nearly gasped. “Madame, certainly you have not…”
    “Bah, Henree. Don’t deny it. For thirty years, everything in this house has had to be just so. I’ve had to be the perfect hostess, the stodgy and dignified Josephine Huxley. I’ve demanded perfection from myself and those around me. I was so concerned with manners, with what others thought of me, with trying to impress my father—who wasn’t happy about my marriage and never thought I’d amount to anything. Well, I tell you, I am not that woman anymore.
    “So tell me. What are the servants saying?”
    Henree fidgeted. “They are saying…they are saying you are not yourself.”
    Josephine sighed and rolled her wide green eyes heavenward. “You can do better than that, Henree. There’s twenty dollars in it for you.”
    Now Henree was positively convinced the woman had gone silly. She counted every coin and spared no extra, unless she was acquiring the newest evening gowns trimmed with satin rouleaux, corkscrew gauze, or frills of blonde lace to impress her well-to-do guests. She had always had an eye for fashion.
    “Loosen up old chap, or I’ll find a new steward.”
    Henree’s jaw dropped.
    “That was a joke, Henree. You have served me faithfully and well, and I fully intend to make up for my years of stinginess. Now tell me what they are saying.”
    Henree cleared his throat.
    “They are saying you should have…should have fallen on your arse a long time ago.”
    Josephine laughed so hard that tears threatened to spill down her ruddy cheeks.
    “I should thank that old, crotchety horse,” she remarked, “for dumping me on my backside. Henree, I saw my whole life flash before my eyes.” She looked away for a moment, tiredness having leapt into her eyes. “And it was empty. Empty .”
    Josephine had always been an avid horsewoman. The fact that she had fallen off a horse one week ago had been a shock to everyone,