Her Beguiling Butler Read Online Free PDF Page A

skidded to a halt before he rounded the threshold of the drawing room. Good thing too.
    The siblings talked. And not simply between them…but to Grimes. In long low tones.
    Why?
    “So you like the man, do you?” Mr. Macomb asked.
    “I do.”
    “Why so?” the lady drew him out.
    “He’s fair.”
    Finnley nodded.
    “He’s funny.”
    Really? Thought that drained out of me on the plains of Waterloo.
    “Anything else?” That was the man once more.
    “He’s taught me much.”
    Wonderful!
    “And how does Lady Ranford get on with him?”
    “Well. I suppose.” Grimes didn’t sound happy.
    I’m not either.
    “She’s suffered terribly,” the woman said.
    Has she? Why? She did not care for her husband in any wifely way.
    “With her husband’s passing, I do mean,” said Miss Macomb.
    “I suppose so.” Grimes hemmed and hawed a bit. “She’s worn her black and now her grays and violets. Like a proper lady.”
    “So I have heard,” said Macomb. “You do look well, Grimes.”
    “It’s nice ‘ere, it is,” the footman told them.
    How would Macomb be so familiar as to ask after Grimes’ health?
    “Good table downstairs, is it?” the lady asked.
    “Yes, miss. Better than the country.“
    “How good for you,” the lady seemed to purr like an old cat.
    Finnley smelled a rat. He picked up his feet to imitate steps and came round the corner.
    “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
    The two visitors had the polish not to blink at his appearance so soon after their grilling of Grimes. The gentleman stood by the mantel, fingering the gold clock.
    “That is perfectly fine, Mr. Findley,” said the woman who feigned a smile from her chair.
    ”That’s Finnley, ma’am.” He told her with a strained smile and a wish to hustle her to the door.
    She offered him a disdaining glance, as if to say she could care less.
    That makes two of us. Except for your uncanny interest in our footman, you would have been shown toward the street a lot sooner.
    “I have news from her ladyship. I’m afraid she is indisposed today. She does wish to see you and is grateful for your concern. She will invite you to call upon her when she is much better.”
    “I say,” said Mr. Macomb, facing Finnley fully now, “what ails Lady Ranford?”
    Had Grimes told them she’d fallen?
    “She does not wish to be so indelicate as to say. I’m certain you understand,” Finnley told them with finality and inclined his head toward the hall. “Shall we?”
     
    As soon as he shut the front door upon them, he turned for the servants’ stairs to go down and find Grimes. He wanted answers and he’d get them. This business with the death of Lord Ranford, the departure of his valet, and the death of the previous butler was too coincidental. On top of that was the secondof Alicia’s recent accidents and that frightened him. He flared his nostrils. He did not like to be frightened. It brought out the beast in him.
    He found the footman seated in the servants’ hall eating an apple by the fire.
    “I say, Grimes. Having a rest?”
    “Yes, sir. My shoes give me blisters.”
    “You should have new ones made.”
    “I will, sir. When I’ve got more money saved up.”
    “Do we not pay you enough?”
    “I get by.” The footman rolled a shoulder. “Not so much to buy two pair of shoes a year.”
    “I see.” Finnley sat down in another of the fireside chairs and reached for an apple from the bowl. He considered the flames for a few minutes. “Those two callers were friendly, weren’t they?”
    “Yes, sir.” The young man glanced away.
    “I had the impression that you knew them.”
    “Knew them?” He chewed on his apple.
    “Do you?”
    “Aye, sir.”
    “How’s that?” Finnley picked up an apple from the bowl on the table and took a bite from the fruit. With a nonchalance he did not feel, he crossed one leg over the other and brushed his trouser legs with one smooth move. “How do you know them?”
    “My father was in service to their