His Naughty Maid: Delightful Doings in Dudley Crescent, Book 3 Read online

  His Naughty Maid

  Delightful Doings in Dudley Crescent, Book 3

  Cerise DeLand

  Copyright © 2019 by Wilma Jo-Ann Power writing as Cerise Deland

  W. J. Power Publisher

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  www.cerisedeland.com

  Images: Period Images

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-7330794-0-2

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Begin laughing!

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  A Nibble of My New Cherry, Coming Soon!

  Who is Cerise DeLand?

  Also by Cerise DeLand

  Begin laughing!

  If you love witty historical romance, starring endearing heroes and sassy heroines featuring (gasp!) servants, this upstairs, downstairs comedy is for you!

  Miss Jessica Archer flees Brighton. Now she must stop acting like a cake and solve a riddle:

  How does she escape the murderer who stalks her if the only safe place she can hide is the London townhouse of the lord who once stole her heart—and gave her up? And must she do it—(she shivers)—as his maid?

  And what is Viscount Rockingham‘s dilemma?

  Confound it! To save Jess from harm, Charles Reed Sandys-Hough—said Lord R— must promise to conceal her identity as a renowned chef! Plus he must keep his hands and his heart to himself. Yes, long ago, Charlie loved her quite madly. But Jess was the cook’s daughter…and society demanded he abandon her. Fie on them! For each day afterward, he drank a bland brew of duty and disappointment.

  Now, with this fine chance to sweeten their lives with love, each faces a decision:

  She, to abandon her successful business? Forgive him? Admit she still loves him? Retire to the country as his mistress and—(oh, my!)—cook for him?

  He, to defy the ton and marry the only woman whose very smile feeds his soul?

  Dear me!

  Will they starve? Or find happiness together from this day forward?

  * * *

  Delightful Doings in Dudley Crescent series:

  Her Beguiling Butler, Book #1

  His Tempting Governess, Book #2

  His Naughty Maid, Book #3

  Though this book is part of a series, it can easily be read as a stand-alone.

  Chapter 1

  Sunday July 8, 1821

  No. 22 Dudley Crescent

  London, England

  Charles Reed Sandys-Hough, Viscount Rockingham, had spent most of his twenty-seven years doing his duty by everyone. At all times of day. At all hours of night. For his rarely communicative father. His disdainful Step-Mama. His demanding and oh, so effective Horse Guards Colonel. And yes, even his wife. God give her clamorous soul rest. The one person from whom he’d rarely heard a demand and yet who merited all his devotion was his younger sister, Lydia. That she should pace before him now, her blue eyes wary and her hands clenched together, told him he’d best grant her request.

  “But, my dear, I have enough servants.” He’d invited her to sit for this sudden visit of hers. She rarely visited him on Sundays but stayed at home with her family. Plus she was within weeks of her lying-in and she looked tired already at one in the afternoon.

  “One more, Charlie?”

  “Liddie—”

  Agitated, she threw up her hands. “You must, Rock.”

  He smothered a grin at her use of his ancient nickname. Odd, that. She’d not addressed him so in years. But he knew she was attempting to lure him to her cause. “Trying to compliment me to get your way?”

  “You are my rock. Were. Always. Until Randolph came along and proved to me he was also a veritable block of granite.”

  He softened toward her and her argument. Her husband, Lord Oxley—Randolph, as she refereed to him—was a stalwart fellow who’d fought like a beast in the wars and waltzed like a rogue right into his sister’s heart. “Honestly, Liddie, I’m trying to pare down my staff. Thinking of living in the country permanently.”

  But she was most definitely not amused. Scowling at him, she strode to the window. She peered out as if to collect her anger, then spun to face him. “How can one more make that much difference? We’re all overwhelmed with new events for Prinny’s coronation. You’ve complained about your cook not being up to snuff and—”

  “That was Rosalyn who complained about Cook, Liddie.” His wife had been an angel in temperament to him, if not the staff. Them, she rode like the very devil. “I am perfectly happy with the woman.”

  “But you’re giving a dinner party the night after Prinny’s crowning. Why not indulge in a new Cook’s first maid who is known for her desserts? One glacé and you are in heaven.”

  “I’m hosting that dinner to thank a few of my friends for their support during my stay in the country.” He’d come up from Crawley two months ago when he’d finally decided to end his official mourning for his departed wife. His former colonel in the Guards, Lord Cartwell, was a neighbor in the country and here in the Crescent. Cartwell’s young wife was a long-standing friend of his from childhood and had urged him to come to town to celebrate the Prince Regent’s formal assumption to the throne. “The menu is set. Or Cook assures me so. Come sit down, for goodness sakes. You’re overwrought, sweetheart, and that’s not good for your condition.”

  “I am not overwrought,” she snapped at him, her black brows arched in a huff. “Sorry.”

  He took her by her wrists and led her to his settee. There he sat beside her and stroked her cheek. “I know you hate that you will miss the big day.”

  “I must go south. No matter what the king thinks. I cannot stand through that long ceremony. I simply can’t.” She put a hand to her blossoming form and swallowed back tears.

  He put his arm around his sister’s lithe shoulders and hugged her close. Then he dug from his waistcoat pocket his small handkerchief and pressed it into her hand. “Of course not. All those hours.”

  “Clarice hates that I must go. Last night she barged into the house before dinner and argued with Randolph about it.”

  Charlie set his teeth. Their step-mama, a wily widow if there ever was one, had always been a bit of a harpy. Above all else, she loved society in all its folderol and wild extravagance. He’d once had the sky-high bills to prove it, until he put a cap on her monthly household expenses. Worse, that lady’s arguments to get him back to London beginning the day after his wife’s funeral had been irrational. She’d declared that if he did not return to town soon, he’d be persona non grata. In reality, she wished him to break convention and return to society and engagements so that she might have the excuse to do the same. “Ignore Clarice, Liddie. I’m sure Randolph does. You must take care of your baby and yourself. Randolph would not have it any other way.”

  She dabbed at her tears. “He’s been such an ogre about this.”

  “As well he should
be.”

  “I’m grateful to him.”

  “As well you should be.” He patted her hand. “Come now. Tell me why my taking on this maid is so important to you.”

  Her blue eyes went wide as she met his gaze. “You must, Charlie. A favor to me.”

  “If she is so good, why don’t you hire her, hmm?” He graced her with a consoling smile. “You like a good dessert. Especially when you’re expecting a child.”

  “I can’t.” She gulped.

  Her husband, Randolph Sibley, was a kindly fellow who loved his wife, his oldest child Frasier, and his estate, equally. He was the fourth Baron Oxley. With more than thirty thousand a year, the man was as rich as Midas and as liberal with his affections as his money. So adding another maid would be to him a mere trifle. “Is there something wrong with her?”

  “Wrong? Wrong? Oh dear, no, Charlie. She is perfectly wonderful. As ever. But she cannot go down to the country with me. She must stay in London.”

  “Now I’m confused, Liddie.” His housekeeper Mrs. Moseley could be an absolute hellcat about her rule over the female staff. She’d learned how from his wife. He preferred to let the woman do it and not interfere. After all, why should he? The house ran perfectly well. “Why must I have her?”

  Lydia pursed her lips. Blinked. And swallowed once again as if she were tongue-tied.

  “I give up.” He slapped his hands to his thighs. Humoring his sister was the easy route forward. He stood. “Send her to me.”

  “She’s here.”

  “Where?”

  “She came with me. I had Peters put her in the cloak room until you agreed.”

  His butler had uttered not a peep of this, but only announced the arrival of his sister. He would have a word with Peters about this. ‘No surprises’ were Charlie’s first rule of the house. “Dearest girl, you shock me.”

  “Bold of me, eh?” She pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll get her.”

  “No.” He put up a hand. “Stay there. I’ll ring and Peters can fetch her.”

  “Oh, please. I’m not an invalid!” She didn’t wait for his agreement but waddled from the parlor to the hall. In a thrice, she was back and behind her stood a young woman he had not seen in years. Seven. Seven long years.

  A woman so known to him, so unknown, that she offered more than a glimpse of his past. She formed in his mind a portrait in laughter—and a ghost of his youth. Gone. But forever treasured.

  Yet definitely here in her glorious flesh.

  When last he’d had the honor of gazing at her, she’d been a slip of a girl. Oh, her hair had been as golden as now, long strands of it glistening like a kaleidoscope of sunshine. Her oval face had been thinner. Her cheeks pink from her perpetual giggling. Her eyes dark as chocolate nibs. Now, she stood before him a different person than when he’d bid her au revoir. No longer a girl, but a woman. And every feature of her person illustrated how lusciously sensual a female could be. Her lips were as lustrous as ripe strawberries. Her throat, that alabaster column, as flawless as morning cream. And filling out the hideous grey cotton gown, her breasts protruded, proud and round. No longer flat little pancakes, now they were…he licked his lips…plump muffins. They’d overflow his hands. His mouth watered. His fingers twitched to put his claim upon her there…even to reveal her large sweet nipples that once he’d laved and sucked and kissed until she squirmed and he’d nearly lost control and taken her. Taken her completely. As he continued to imagine he could, even now only in his dreams.

  Jesus. Just to look at her once more and he was as hard as his proverbial nickname. And thinking of her in terms of nourishment for his bland existence.

  He dare not move, lest her gaze shoot to his obvious madness to embrace her. She was so astonishingly beautiful and even more arresting than when she’d kissed him goodbye on his way to his regiment, the battlefields of Spain and what he assumed would be his certain death.

  “Jess?” Why should he ask her if she was real? But she breathed. No ghost. No fantasy. But the woman—the only woman—he’d ever wished to see again.

  “Good afternoon, Lord Rockingham.”

  * * *

  He reared back at her addressing him by his title.

  “Sir.” She curtsied to cement the class divisions between them. What once barred them from each other still did. Never would that change.

  His aura of assurance shook her to the core. He was as beautiful as when he’d been sixteen. And twenty. And ten. But now he was devastating. Hercules, Apollo, any god of fame—not in ice, as she’d often carved him for banquets—but in sinew and blood. Jess could not get enough of him, eating up every morsel of his masculinity in his fashionable navy clawhammer frock coat and silver blue waistcoat. All power and privilege, he took her breath with his height and suave demeanor. Never had he been without grace and charm. In the years since last she’d seen him, he had acquired the mien of a man of consequence. And she was captured. Again. She had dubbed him ‘Rock’ when they were children, but now in his towering height and muscularity, he personified the essence of strength and stability. And if he also conveyed the promise of safety to her, well, she needed that now more than ever in her life.

  He took the two steps forward and grabbed her hands. His warmth—in his words and his eyes—undid her. She set her teeth and willed away surprising tears. Oh, how she had fought coming here. Argued with Liddie. How she had not wanted to see him again—and yet, she craved the sight of him. As she always had. Like manna to her starving soul.

  “Jess, I cannot believe it’s you.”

  Valiantly, she tried to smile. But the past few days had not been kind. Frightening. Cruel. After refusal at the servants’ registry and Liddie’s surprising pregnancy that required her to leave London and escape the demands of the Coronation, Jess needed to be welcomed. Somewhere. If only to feel refreshed long enough to brave the future.

  “Come, come sit down.” He led her past his sister toward a chair near the tall windows. There, he let go her hand and stepped backward to regard her.

  She had forgotten him. Told herself that fairy tale. His coal black hair, the errant curls that graced his broad brow. His azure blue eyes, the color of bluebells. His incomparable shoulders. The way he stood, one foot forward, in a regal attitude no other man could imitate. He was older, more virile, and even more compelling than when he left her in his kitchen garden seven years ago.

  Now she admitted that in the intervening years, she’d told herself a lie. She’d not forgotten one bit of him. How his left eye closed nearly shut when he grinned. How his smile brought out the dimples in both cheeks. How he pursed his lips when he forced back something he should not say. Or ask. But then, he did.

  “Why come to us like this?” He crossed his arms. Not angry at her, no. But curious.

  Jess caught her breath, unable to take her gaze from his. To see him and hear him was such bliss. She’d forgotten…and not, even as she had yearned for him.

  “Jess? Why?”

  “I needed help.”

  “She needs your help, Charlie.” His sister had taken up a chair near Jess. “When I told her that Randolph and I were to travel south tomorrow, she would have left me. And I couldn’t let her go. You know after the friendship we three enjoyed as children that I couldn’t. I had to bring her here to you.”

  “I’ll gladly help you, Jess. If you will be so kind as to start at the beginning and explain why you need my assistance.”

  Through all this, he kept his sweet blue gaze on hers. His focus made her eyes burn, her heart pound, her breasts tingle. Memories of his ardent kisses swept through her. Hot remembrances of his lips on her cheek, her throat and her breasts gushed through her. She pushed straighter in her chair, trying to assuage the demands of her body to fill herself up with all that he was. That was the very reaction she’d feared when Liddie demanded they come here.

  “I will tell it,” she said on a whisper when it was Lydia who opened her mouth to answer her brother. “I had to come t
o London because I left my work in Brighton. I need to secure a new post and hoped that—that Lady Oxley—”

  “Lady Oxley?” he asked, feigning to scold her.

  She understood his disbelief at her formal address of his sister. She’d never used titles for Liddie or Charlie. The three of them had grown up together, for goodness sakes. “I hoped Liddie might be able to offer me a post. When she told me that she and her husband were to retire to their country estate, I told her I could not return. I prefer London.”

  He tipped his head, his consideration of her done with a knitted brow. “Why?”

  “I’d like to learn the city.”

  He pursed his lips, examining her as if she were a specimen under glass. “From what I understand, in Brighton you were becoming a noted chef pâtissière.”

  He knew that? How? “You credit me greatly.”

  “Do I?” He cast her a wary eye. “I’ve read of your work for Prinny at the Pavilion. How you provided cakes and sculptures for special occasions. I read just recently that the owner of the shop where you worked was ill and thoughts were you would buy him out.”

  Or open my own business. But that was a dream gone now. She cleared her throat. She would make her story credible. “That is gossip.”

  “Is it?” He was even more chary now. She wished he’d sit down, leveling their relationship and making him less intimidating. “Once upon a time, I knew old Monsieur DuVal. He would not hire any bumpkin. Nor would he keep you on all these years to train if you were not in line to succeed him. He lost his family to Madame Guillotine. He cared for few but when he did, he kept them close and happy.”