About a KissA companion story to About a Rogue
Caroline Linden
Caroline Linden
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
About a Kiss © 2020 by P. F. Belsley
Cover Design © 2020 Erin Dameron-Hill of
EDHProfessionals
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
1. About a Kiss
About a Rogue
About the Author
Also by Caroline Linden
There’s something magical about a kiss…
When he accepts a job as Maximilian St. James’s valet, Kit Lawrence doesn’t expect it to last. But then he meets Jennie Hickson, maid to the new Mrs. St. James, and suddenly he’s hoping to be near her for the rest of his life…
About a Kiss
The best thing that ever happened to Christopher Lawrence was getting sacked.
He hadn’t thought so at the time, when his employer, Lord Percy Willoughby, was frantically throwing belongings into a trunk and shouting at him to hire a carriage. His main hope, of being paid his wages owed, was dashed when Lord Percy rushed out the door, mumbling a half-hearted promise that he would send for Lawrence as soon as he smoothed things over with his father.
Kit knew that for a lie. Lord Percy would be quite some time explaining this mess to the Earl of Hulme. He had returned from Vauxhall Gardens the previous morning, so drunk he was barely on his own two feet, moaning about a disastrous run of cards. The scribbled debts of honor had been presented the following morning and sent Lord Percy haring back to Northumberland.
Which left Kit unemployed and desperate when Maximilian St. James offered him a position. He’d accepted on the spot.
Aside from recognizing Mr. St. James as a friend of Lord Percy’s, Kit knew little about him. Another gambler, he’d supposed, probably a rogue, too. He’d resigned himself to seeking another position within the year.
It turned out, though, that Mr. St. James needed a valet because he was to be married. Kit was somewhat confused about who the bride was, but when all was said and done, he found himself installed in a quaint half-timbered cottage in the tiny town of Marslip, sharing the laundry and the servants’ stair with a girl called Jennie Hickson, lady’s maid to the new Mrs. St. James.
After that, Mr. St. James could have stopped paying him, cursed him and thrown things at him, and Kit would have stayed. Because Jennie was there.
Jennie Hickson was elated to be promoted to lady’s maid. At Perusia Hall, where her parents were butler and housekeeper and her cousin Ellen was ladies’ maid to the Misses Tate, she had only been Ellen’s assistant. That meant she was assigned the worst chores, like laundry and mending, while Ellen got to learn hair arranging and how to make cosmetics.
When Miss Cathy Tate was supposed to marry Mr. St. James, Ellen had begun instructing Jennie in those skills, somewhat smugly. Ellen was a bit full of herself, soon to be maid to Mrs. St. James, while Jennie would be left behind at Perusia Hall.
Then Miss Tate eloped in the night with the curate, Miss Bianca married Mr. St. James in her sister’s place, and everything was turned on its head. Now Jennie was moving to Poplar House with the new and unexpected Mrs. St. James, while Ellen was left to sulk at Perusia Hall with no lady to attend at all, which reduced her to parlor maid.
“Are you ready for this, daughter?” her mother asked as Jennie excitedly bundled up her possessions.
“As ready as ever, Mam! ’Tis still Miss Bianca, whom I’ve waited on these ten years.”
Her mother raised an eyebrow. “Waited on, when she never wanted her hair done or an elegant dress! You’ve had it easy, Jennie, and now she’s a married lady. It won’t be the same.”
“Mam!” Jennie laughed. “Didn’t you hear her going at it with Mr. Tate this morning? She’s the same as she was.”
Mrs. Hickson frowned in reproof. “Aye, but Mr. St. James is a London gentleman. He’ll want his wife dressed finer than any Marslip lady. And mark my words, no matter how they cut up at each other today”—no one had missed the black looks Miss Bianca had given her new husband at the wedding breakfast—“she’ll come around. Miss Bianca—no, Mrs. St. James!—has a good heart. She won’t stay angry at him forever.”
Jennie rolled her eyes. “I know! And here I am, your own daughter, hoping to hear you wish me luck, instead of hearing all the ways I’m not ready and not good enough.”
At this, her mother smiled. “Of course you are! You’re ready, and good, and I am very proud of you.” She hugged Jennie and kissed her cheek. “Say farewell to your papa and be on your way. Mustn’t keep Mrs. St. James waiting!”
Jennie laughed, and her father helped carry her things down the hill to Poplar House and into her little room at the top of the back stairs. The window looked out on the hill toward Perusia Hall. She gazed at it and smiled as her father pointed out that she could see her parents’ windows in the servants’ wing from here. “Give us a wave now and then, Jennie,” he said as he hugged her before heading back to the main house.
She hummed as she unpacked her things. Ellen had bragged about this room, thinking it would be hers. It was neat and comfortable, and larger than her old room in Perusia. Jennie grinned at herself in the small mirror,
