The Lady Tamed Boyd, Heather (reading list .txt) 📖

and make sure he said nothing to detract from his performance later. He smiled, determined to ignore Fenton’s sour mood. “Lady Rivers is fond of geese. She keeps one with a broken wing in London. Vicious, evil-tempered thing it is too,” Jeremy confided.

Fenton grunted. “Probably too tough to make a decent meal.”

He chuckled. “I’d say so. She calls it Fent—”

Jeremy buttoned his lips and shut his eyes briefly in horror. She called the evil thing Fenton. Lady Rivers had named the goose after the Stapleton steward, and Jeremy had just told him. How would he react? Insulted?

But Fenton started to laugh and said no more about the naming of the goose as he drove them toward the manor.

Stapleton grew closer and larger. Jeremy started counting windows and had to give up at six and twenty, but there were plenty more to be seen after that number had been surpassed.

They came to a halt before an impossibly wide set of doors.

“Well,” Fenton grumbled. “Out you get.”

Jeremy climbed down, clutching the small traveling case under his arm. His driver stayed on the bench, and no servants came out to help, so Jeremy had no choice but to retrieve his own trunk from the back of the conveyance. Once he had that, Fenton slapped the reins over his mount’s hindquarters again and drove off without another word.

Jeremy stood on the drive, watching him go with annoyance. He was accustomed to being treated rudely in London. He knew what people would believe about him when they met him here, too. He was an outsider, someone who didn’t belong. He still found it odd that Lady Rivers had asked him to come to the country and not someone more experienced.

He glanced around slowly, taking in his surroundings. The Stapleton Manor grounds were extensive and very, very empty of people. Eerily empty, in fact. He very much longed to be indoors. “Guess I’ll have to knock on the door myself,” he muttered under his breath as he started forward.

Before he could pull the bell, the great doors opened wide and a trio of servants trotted out.

A pair of liveried footmen hefted his trunk between them and hurried back inside at a run.

A third man lingered near Jeremy. “May I take that for you, sir?”

The case had been entrusted to him. He’d made a promise to never let it out of his sight for a moment. “No.”

“Very good, sir. If you will follow me.”

Jeremy entered Stapleton’s front hall, prepared for anything, but he couldn’t have stopped the whistle that left his lips. He had never seen such a beautiful chamber in all his life, and this was only an entrance hall.

The footman turned to him. “Wait here, please.”

“Of course,” Jeremy agreed.

He looked around, up at the high walls decorated with plaster moldings of birds and what he assumed were family portraits. A wide staircase rose to the next level, where he’d been told all guests would sleep. Jeremy’s last bed had been on the floor in a corner of the stage.

“You must be Mr. Dawes.”

Jeremy smiled pleasantly and turned around to find a tall man emerging from a nearby room. He was big, bigger than Jeremy by half a head at least, older by at least a dozen years or so, and might just be the butler. “Indeed I am.”

“May I be of assistance?” the fellow asked in a bored voice.

“Yes, well, if you could tell me where I am to go?”

“The servants have taken your trunk up already. I can show you the way.”

Relief filled him. “I would appreciate that very much. Thank you.”

The man inclined his head and started up the stairs. “This way.”

Jeremy followed, encountering no other souls on the way to a large light-filled room with a massive bed placed in the center. He stared at it in shock. At least four of his fellow actors could have shared that bed and been very comfortable still. He could hardly believe the bed, the chamber, would be his for two whole weeks. But his trunk was being unpacked, and his new possessions were already being put away.

The fellow turned to him, one brow lifting. “Was there really just the one trunk?”

“Yes, of course. How many did you expect?”

“Several, I imagined.” The fellow prowled about the room, observing the servants at their work and nodding. He turned to Jeremy suddenly. “I’m surprised you’ve acquired so little, given the length of your association with Lady Rivers. She is usually much more giving to someone like you.”

Jeremy straightened to his full height, offended by the remark. “I have everything I need.”

The man stroked his long fingers over the trunk’s lettering. J. K. D. “What does the K stand for?”

“It is none of your business what my full name is.”

“What if I think it is?”

Jeremy was taken aback by the man’s tone. “Look, you had better mind your own business and get on with it. Lady Rivers would not be pleased to learn I’d faced an inquisition from you.”

The fellow smiled slowly. “Will you tattle on me?”

Jeremy looked the man up and down. “No, but…”

“Lady Rivers is easily taken advantage of,” the fellow announced.

“You could say that of everyone.”

“And yet you have your hand out to her.” The fellow drew close. “Just another attention-seeking fop intent on spending a fortune on fine hats from Lock’s and frequenting the very best tailor her money can buy. Weston, I believe you’re wearing.”

Jeremy brought his face within inches of the fellow’s, his hands curling into fists. “Hold your tongue unless you want trouble from me.”

“Oh, do you see yourself as a buck then? Do you attend Gentleman Jackson’s, too?”

The fellow didn’t even look alarmed that he was still being glared at, but the other servants had all paused to watch the confrontation. They seemed alarmed.

Jeremy quickly got his temper under control. “No. I’m only an actor, and Lady Rivers my patroness. She is a great lady and spoken of with respect. Especially by those who’ve known her longer than I probably