A Matter of Honor Read Online Free

bed curtains and waving my razor around as though it had gone mad.”
    “If Dillydums was bad, it was your fault,” said a shrill young voice.
    Aggie turned in dismay to see Ceciliestanding there. Evidently the commotion in the hall had wakened her, and , without robe or slippers, she had come to f i nd out what it was about. She stood in her long white nightdress, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and glaring at his lordship. “I think you are a mean, nasty man,” said Cecilie with the blunt honesty of the young. “And you’re not too smart either.”
    A gasp from Bates was not stifled quite in time and Aggie shuddered. It did little good to reflect that his lordship had brought this on himself. And, she supposed, he would discover soon enough that this was the wrong way to approach Cecilie .
    “Anyone with any sense at all,” continued the girl, “would know better than to yell at Aggie. It’s not her fault if Dillydums got out. Nor that you don’t like monkeys.” She gazed reproachfully at the Earl. “Besides, if you’d come home at a decent hour, I wouldn’t have sat up half the night waiting and slept so late this morning. And then he wouldn’t have gotten out at all.”
    The Earl’s look of dire wrath did not seem to bother Cecilie one bit. “It’s no use your glaring at me like that. I only said what’s true. Dillydums is a little dear. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
    She took a step closer and gazed at his lordship with wide curious eyes, as though she had just then become aware of his state of undress. “How very curious. Do all men look like that?” she asked, her gaze held by the mat of dark curly hair that covered his chest.
    “No!” said his lordship sharply. “Bates, we will finish dressing now.” His eyes met Aggie’s and for a moment she thought she saw a hint of merriment there. But surely that was impossible. And anyway, the Earl’s eyes were deceptive. A woman should never trust what she saw there. Never.
    “I suggest,” said the Earl in an even tone, “that you ladies also dress and meet me in the breakfast room. We shall continue our discussion of monkeys there.”
    “Very well, milord.” Aggie shepherded an unwilling Cecilie back to the room where she carefully shut the door before releasing the monkey. They were certainly not off to the best of starts.
    “I don’t like him,” said Cecilie. “He’s all puffed up with his own importance. And he doesn’t like animals.”
    Aggie forced herself to smile. “His lordship was startled,” she explained. “He did not expect to f i nd a monkey in his rooms - and armed with a razor. It was really rather natural for him to be upset.”
    “He does it very well,” observed Cecilie. “Being upset, I mean. Papa was never very good at it.” Her eyes widened. “Imagine him having a chest like that. Still, he’s a mean man and I shan’t like him.”
    Aggie judged it better not to discuss his lordship’s chest, which for some odd reason seemed to have impressed itself firmly in her mind. “It doesn’t matter what you think of him. You must be careful not to aggravate him. You were lucky today. Remember, Cecilie , he is able to deal with you quite severely. And what he says in a temper he may well stick by, even though he later regrets it.”
    “He doesn’t scare me, ” said Cecilie, combing at her tangled blond curls while the monkey perched cheerfully on top of the mirror, his ordeal quite forgotten.
    Aggie shook her head. How could she persuade her young charge that Denby was a very different man from her father? Smiles and pouts, Cecilie’s chief weapons, would be lost on the Earl, Aggie feared. There was no doubt that Denby was a hard man, quite accustomed to having things his own way. How irritated he must have been to have the guardianship of a young girl thrust so summarily upon him. And a willful, stubborn girl, at that, she thought, as she slipped into a morning dress of rose-sprigged muslin, one of the few pretty