Where Dreams Begin(24)

“Maude!” Rose wriggled impatiently beneath the tent of white ruffles.

“And they say Mr. Bronson is the randiest gentleman of all,” Maude said, seeming to relish Holly's expression of quiet horror. “He doesn't scruple between washwomen and duchesses, he'll chase anything in skirts. One of the maids, Lucy, says she once saw him with two women at once.” Realizing that Holly didn't understand her meaning, Maude added in a whisper, “In bed, milady!”

“Maude,” came Rose's voice from the enveloping dress. “I can't breathe!”

While Maude jerked the dress down and busied herself with tying a blue sash at Rose's waist, Holly sat in stricken silence and contemplated the information. Two women at once? She had never heard of such a thing, couldn't imagine how or why it would be done. A decidedly unpleasant feeling crept over her. It seemed that Zachary Bronson was well acquainted with depravity. Uneasily she wondered how she was ever to influence a man like him. Doubtless it was folly to even try. Well, Bronson would have to change his ways. There would be no bad ton invited here, and no gambling or licentious behavior of any kind. The first time she witnessed a hint of something scandalous occurring, she, Rose and Maude would leave the estate at once.

“The master was a prizefighter, had ye heard?” Maude asked Holly, reaching for a comb to attack the snarls in Rose's hair.

The little girl sighed and waited with tremendous patience, her gaze fixed longingly on Miss Crumpet. “Are you almost finished?” she asked, eliciting a laugh from the maid.

“I will be after I've combed these rats from yer hair, miss!”

“Yes, I'd heard something like that,” Holly said, her brow wrinkling curiously.

“For two years or so, the footman James told me,” Maude reported. “A bare-knuckle fighter, Mr. Bronson was, and he took home a purse every time he was let into the rope ring. Can ye believe James actually saw him fight once, long before Mr. Bronson gained his fortune? James says Mr. Bronson is the finest figure of a man he ever saw, with arms ye couldn't close yer hands around and a neck thick as a bull's. And he fought cool as ye please, never putting himself in a passion. The perfect champion of the fist.”

Holly's dismay rose with each word the maid spoke. “Oh, Maude…I must have been mad to bring us here. It's hopeless to try to teach him anything about etiquette.”

“I don't think so, milady,” came Maude's reply, as she cheerfully flipped aside the blond curls that had escaped the front of her coiffure. “After all, the master brought himself all the way from the rope ring to the fanciest estate in London. Surely being a gentleman is only one more step away.”

“But it's the biggest step of all,” Holly said wryly.

Rose picked up her doll and came to the bedside. “I'll help you, Mama. I'll teach Mr. Bronson all about his manners.”

Holly gave her daughter a loving smile. “You're very sweet for wanting to help, darling. But I want you to have as little to do with Mr. Bronson as possible. He's…not a nice man.”

“Yes, Mama,” Rose said dutifully, heaving a disappointed sigh.

As Maude had indicated, no amount of bellpulling could summon a servant to the room, and Holly finally gave up with a sigh of frustration. “If we wait for a servant to bring Rose's breakfast to the nursery, she'll starve,” she murmured. “I'll have a talk with Mrs. Burney this morning, and perhaps she will explain why not one out of a household of eighty servants can manage to climb the stairs.”

“They're no good, milady,” Maude said darkly. “Not a blessed one of them. When I passed through the servants' hall this morning, I saw one housemaid with a belly out to here—” she indicated an advanced pregnancy—“and another giving kisses to a sweetheart—right there in the hall, mind ye—and another girl was sleeping upright at the table. One footman was going about with his hair half-powdered, and another was charging about complaining as how no one had washed his livery breeches on laundry day—”

“Please, no more,” Holly begged in laughing dismay, holding up her hands in a helpless gesture. “There is so much to be done that I hardly know where to begin.” She bent down to her perplexed daughter and kissed her soundly. “Rose, darling, why don't you bring Miss Crumpet downstairs, and we'll try to find some breakfast?”

“Breakfast with you?” the little girl asked in delight. Like most children of her station, she was accustomed to taking her morning meal in the nursery. Eating with adults was a privilege usually granted to children of appropriate age, as well as highly developed manners.

“Just for this morning,” Holly said with a laugh, gently straightening the huge blue bow atop her daughter's head. “And I sincerely hope that you'll set a good example for the Bronsons to follow.”

“Oh, I will!” Holding Miss Crumpet firmly, Rose began to instruct the doll on the importance of ladylike behavior.

Holly somehow managed to guide her daughter and maidservant to the breakfast room, from which an appetizing aroma drifted. The breakfast room, with its tall windows overlooking the sumptuous gardens and walls paneled in gilded fruit motifs, was charming. A side table fitted with plate-warmer drawers had been weighted with domed silver trays and a tiered stand with revolving china compartments. Six small round tables gleamed beneath a crystal chandelier.