Page 12 of To Break the Rules

“Indeed,” she said, releasing the breath and gathering her courage. She was so close to her goal, there was no backing down now. “Once more unto the breach, dear friend, once more!”

Matilda grinned and grabbed hold of her arm, towing her from the room. “Or close up the wall with our English dead!” she exclaimed, finishing the quote with a flourish and laughing as they ran together down the stairs.

Chapter 4

I do hope that Lucia is careful at the Ulceby ball. Mr Bindley has proven himself to be a despicable man and the rumours about the father suggest the apple did not fall far from the tree. I have a terrible foreboding that something bad is coming.

Dearest Prue, tell me I’m worrying over nothing…

―Excerpt of a letter from Mrs Alice Hunt to Prunella Adolphus, Duchess of Bedwin.

6th July 1814. Cavendish House, The Strand, London.

Fred was beside himself with glee. He’d known it would take some time for his new master to get to grips with having a valet look after him. Despite being raised as a gentleman for half his life, the fellow seemed to take a perverse pleasure in dressing as if he’d lived the entirety of it in the gutter. However, something had moved him to attend the Earl of Ulceby’s ball this evening, and Fred’s services had not only been allowed, but requested.

To date, Fred had made great strides with the careful pressing and laundering of the viscount’s clothes, and had even persuaded him into purchasing new shirts and cravats. There had been something of a tussle over the boots, but they had compromised. Silas refused to buy new ones, but would allow Fred to polish the old ones to his heart’s content. However, he had, until this evening, refused to have his hair cut.

Now, the thick, dark locks—which had curled about his neck in such a profusion that it had made Fred’s fingers itch with the desire to reach for some scissors—lay scattered about the floor at his feet.

“You needn’t look so bloody smug,” Silas grumbled, folding his arms and looking belligerent. “I’m not doing it for you.”

“No,” Fred replied, his grin widening. “For some fancy piece, I don’t doubt, and she has my undying thanks.”

Fred watched curiously as the viscount’s thick eyebrows drew together, and wondered who the lady was that had wrought such a change in his master. Perhaps not a fancy piece, going by that troubled expression. To Fred’s knowledge, Silas had never kept a mistress, and he certainly wasn’t said to be in the petticoat line.

So… perhaps it was something more serious?

“What’s she like?” Fred ventured to ask.

With any other employer, Fred would never have dared speak so freely. Indeed, the old viscount would have thrown something at him for such audacity. Yet Fred had known this man since he was a babe, and despite the fellow’s fearsome temper and scowling countenance, there was an air about him that tugged at some fatherly sense of obligation in Fred’s heart. God knew the poor blighter had seen little enough affection in his young life, and Fred reckoned there’d been little more since he’d run from home. If ever a man needed a confidant, it was Silas Anson.

Silas frowned harder and shifted, folding his arms.

“Who says there’s a woman?”

Fred met his gaze in the mirror and raised one eyebrow.

Silas huffed. “No one you know,” he muttered.

“Is she beautiful?”

Fred combed through the thick strands, ensuring the ends were all even, and waited for a reply.

“Yes,” came the grudging answer. “Too beautiful for a man’s sanity,” he added, surprising Fred with the admission.

“Ah,” Fred said with a sigh. “A dangerous proposition, then.”

He removed the towel from about Silas’ neck and carefully removed every tiny strand of cut hair from his shoulders and neck with a soft brush.

“I must be out of my mind,” Silas said, and Fred stilled, pleased and touched by the fact the man honoured him with his private thoughts.

“Is she worth the risk?”

Fred watched as a slow smile curved over a mouth which was generally stern and uncompromising. “Yes,” he said simply. “But the little devil is up to something, I’d stake every penny I own on it.”

“Not a lady with a fortune at her disposal, then?” Fred guessed. For any lady of high birth and wealth the game would be obvious: catching herself a wealthy, titled husband. “You sure? She sounds like the tricksy sort that’ll have you marching to the altar before you can say knife.” He gave Silas a direct look, wagging the brush at him. “Going on the change she’s wrought already, I reckon she’ll have you leg-shackled before the season is over.”

Silas glowered a little and snorted as he got to his feet, stretching and rubbing a hand over his shorter hair. “I’m hardly about to race up the aisle, Fred,” he said, sounding amused. “And as for having a fortune, I would say not. She appears to be a woman of means, but there’s something about her. She’s all prickles and defiance, very much on her dignity.”