“Of course, my lady.” Of course they would have everything she’d need. How very plebian for Merry to even think anything to the contrary. In possession of a title that went back to William the Conqueror, the Holmans held a level of wealth that people like Merry and her family could never dare wrap their minds around. It had been just one reason why she’d never been so foolish as to entertain the possibility that there could be more between her and the middle Holman brother. She’d not been so naïve as to think their futures could intertwine.
The countess set her spectacles atop her neatly stacked folders. “In the unlikely chance you can’t find something you need, you may simply pass word to Blake, the butler, who will pass word to the maids and footmen, and they’ll procure it for you in an instant.” With that, Lady Maldavers started to sweep off. She paused in a whir of skirts. “Ah, there is one more thing.”
“Yes, my lady?”
“Lord Grimslee.”
Stiffening, Merry looked about for the gentleman and found just she and the countess remained the sole occupants of the room. “What of the viscount, my lady?”
“Lord Grimslee will be helping you.”
Merry had oft suspected that when the countess had welcomed her firstborn into the world, she’d likely greeted him by his title.
The countess had turned to go when the implications of the matriarch’s previous statement knocked Merry back on her heels. “I… what was that, my lady?”
The countess paused and faced Merry once more. “Is there a problem, Miss Read?” she asked in no-nonsense tones that brooked zero tolerance for so much as a question.
At any other moment, Merry would have cared about her place versus the countess’ in this household. This, however, was decidedly not one of those moments. She plastered a smile upon her lips. “It is just… I take it I heard you wrong. For a moment, I thought you said—”
“Lord Grimslee will be assisting you.”
“Your son?” Merry sought clarification, because… well, it really merited that elucidation.
Lady Maldavers sent a snowy-white eyebrow up in a terrifying arch. “I daresay there isn’t another Lord Grimslee?”
No one—and certainly not Merry—would ever dare construe that droll retort as warm ribbing. Merry turned a palm up. “It is just… I’d be more efficient if I were to see to this alone.”
“Ah, but you’ll be as efficient as I tell you to be, Miss Read.” Once more, the countess made to leave.
Merry quickly placed herself in Lady Maldavers’ path. Her mother would have been horrified by her insolence, but there was no way Merry would be saddled with an underfoot gentleman, particularly one wholly uninterested in mirth and merry cheer at the holidays—or for as long as she’d known him, really. “I’m so very grateful for that offer. However, I trust Lord Grimslee has far greater responsibilities to see to.”
The countess muttered something that sounded a good deal like One would think. Which was as preposterous an idea as the lady doing something as improper as muttering, and yet there it was.
Merry strained her ears. “What was that, my lady?”
“It wasn’t an offer,” the countess said coolly, perfectly composed once more. “As you well know, I do not make ‘offers.’ I place demands.”
She tried again. “My lady—”
“I’ve already advised Lord Grimslee of your arrival. He is, as we speak, awaiting your presence in the front hall. He will show you a proper tour of the household.” With a finality to those directions, the countess was gone.
Merry glanced down at the map in her hands. Frowning, she tipped it upside down and then right side up before abandoning those efforts. There were far more pressing matters to focus on—primarily the assistant she’d found herself saddled with.
Lucas Holman, the Viscount Grimslee, a gentleman she’d known since she’d been a babe. The earliest memory of her interactions with him went to the day she’d been fishing and had caught him lurking in the trees, all but crashing through the brush and leaving a calling card in the form of broken sticks and dried leaves. She’d called for him to join her.
“Do you intend to hide there all day, staring, or will you join me, Luke?”
There was a long pause.
Merry rolled her eyes. Did he truly believe she didn’t know he was there?
“I wasn’t staring. I have far more important things to do than hide or stare.”
Only, he’d lingered for a long moment, and she’d been so very convinced he intended to join her. In the end, he’d stomped off and rejoined his tutor for some natural science lesson. It had been foolish to expect or believe he’d ever engage in any frivolous activity, such as fishing, for the sheer enjoyment of it.
“And now I’ll be decorating the household with him?” Merry said quietly to herself.
She shuddered.
She’d been unable to reason with the mother, but mayhap she’d have luck with the son. After all, she’d known Lord Grimslee since they were children. As such, she’d wager her soul on Sunday that he had even less interest in assisting her than she had in having him underfoot while she transformed the earl and countess’ Mayfair residence.
With that plan formed in her mind, she set out in search of the viscount. Yes, he might not have been the friendliest of males to her growing up, but he had been nothing if not reasonable. He could be reasoned with. Merry made her way back down the same windy trail she’d taken, finding herself lost at only two turns, before she reached the corridor that spilled out into the massive foyer. And stopped at the sight before her.
Lord Grimslee. Never had the grim in his name suited him more.
This was the man she’d be taking her help from?
It had been bad enough when she’d imagined receiving help from the stuffy, proper, more than slightly condescending in his stare Lord Grimslee.
But this?
To be saddled with a slumbering, disheveled Lord Grimslee stinking of spirits?
As if adding a punctuation mark to her rapidly spiraling horror, the prone figure on the too-small-for-him wooden entryway bench emitted a shuddery snore.
Merry narrowed her eyes.
Well, be he a viscount or future earl or the damned King of England himself, she’d not spent all those years studying in Europe to return to play nursemaid to a spoiled, indulgent man-babe.
Marching over to the tall and narrow foyer table, with the expected gold inlay, Merry grabbed the tolling bell there. She caught the clapper to keep it from chiming just yet, and then standing over Lord Grimslee’s makeshift bed, she swung it hard.
With a gasping snort, the gentleman toppled off of the bench and landed hard on the floor.
Tightening her mouth, Merry leaned over her thirty-four-year-old charge. “Good morning, Lord Grimslee.”
Chapter Three
Luke had believed his body couldn’t ache any more than it had when he’d first opened his eyes that morning.
Only to find, sprawled upon the marble foyer of his Mayfair residence, just how wrong he’d been. From his hip on up to his neck and on to his skull, he ached from where he’d struck the floor.
Which begged the bloody question: Why in blazes was he in the foyer… on the floor?