More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress Read Online Free PDF Page A

impressions were anything to judge by, at least he was not feverish. It was the fever that killed after surgery more often than the effects of the wound itself.
    Jocelyn jerked impatiently on the bell rope beside his bed and then vented his irritability on his valet, who had not brought his shaving water up.
    â€œI thought you would wish to rest this morning, your grace,” he said.
    â€œYou thought! Do I pay you to think, Barnard?”
    â€œNo, your grace,” his man replied with long-suffering meekness.
    â€œThen fetch my damned shaving water,” Jocelyn said. “I have bristles enough on my face to grate cheese.”
    â€œYes, your grace,” Barnard said. “Mr. Quincy wishes to know when he may wait upon you.”
    â€œQuincy?” Jocelyn frowned. His secretary wished to wait upon him? “Here? In my bedchamber, do you mean? Why the devil would he expect me to receive him here?”
    Barnard looked at his master with considerable unease. “You
were
advised to stay off your leg for three weeks, your grace,” he said.
    Jocelyn was speechless. His household actually expected him to remain in bed for three weeks? Had they taken collective leave of their senses? He informed his hapless valet with colorful eloquence what he thought of the advice and interference of physicians, valets, secretaries, and servants in general. He threw back the bedcovers and swung his legs over the side of the bed—and grimaced.
    Then he remembered something else.
    â€œWhere is that damned woman?” he asked. “That interfering baggage whom I seem to remember employing as my nurse. Sleeping in the lap of luxury, I suppose? Expecting breakfast in bed, I suppose?”
    â€œShe is in the kitchen, your grace,” Barnard told him, “awaiting your orders.”
    â€œTo attend me here?” Jocelyn gave a short bark of laughter. “She thinks to be admitted here to ply my brow with her cool cloths and titillate my nerves with her sharp tongue, does she?”
    His valet was wise enough to hold his tongue.
    â€œSend her to the library,” Jocelyn said, “after I have retired there from the breakfast room. Now fetch my shaving water and wipe that disapproving frown from your face.”
    Over the next half hour he washed and shaved, donned a shirt, and sat while Barnard arranged his neckcloth the way he liked it, neat and crisp without any of the silly artistry affected by the dandy set. But he was forced to concede that the wearing of breeches or pantaloons was going to be out of the question. If currentfashion had not dictated that both those garments be worn skintight, perhaps matters might have been different. But one could not fight fashion altogether. He did not possess breeches that did not mold his legs like a second skin. He donned an ankle-length dressing gown of wine-colored brocaded silk instead, and slippers.
    He submitted to being half carried downstairs by a hefty young footman, who did his best to look so impassive that he might almost have been inanimate. But Jocelyn felt all the humiliation of his helplessness. After he had sat through breakfast and read the papers, he had to be half carried again into the library, where he sat in a winged leather chair beside the fire rather than at his desk, as he usually did for an hour or so in the mornings.
    â€œOne thing,” he said curtly to his secretary when that young man presented himself. “Not one word, Michael, about where I should be and what I should be doing there. Not even half a word if you value your position.”
    He liked Michael Quincy, a gentleman two years his junior who had been in his employ for four years. Quiet, respectful, and efficient, the man was nevertheless not obsequious. He actually dared to smile now.
    â€œThe morning post is on your desk, your grace,” he said. “I’ll hand it to you.”
    Jocelyn narrowed his gaze on him. “That woman,” he said.