Society's Most Disreputable Gentleman Read Online Free Page B

of his sisters was the mysterious ‘Lady Greaves’ until after he’d taken the edge off his hunger.
    As he removed the cover from the plate, the wonderful odour of eggs, bacon, beef, potatoes, ham and kippers wafted up, along with the sharp aroma of hot coffee and the pungent tang of ale. Inhaling with rapture, he abandoned himself to the pleasure of consuming the first full hot meal he’d had since leaving England eight months ago.
    The food tasted better than any breakfast he could remember. Of course, after months at sea on a diet that consistedmostly of hardtack, boiled beef and an occasional plum duff, it wouldn’t take much for Lord Bronning’s cook to impress him.
    A short time later, his happy stomach replete, Greville broke the seal on the note and, still sipping the delicious ambrosia of hot coffee, rapidly scanned it.
    The signature, ‘Joanna’, indicated his benefactress must be his widowed elder sister, who had obviously remarried. He vaguely recalled that she’d sent him word of her first husband’s death just after he’d taken over as manager at Blenhem Hill. Greville scanned his memory, but could not place any gentleman with the family name ‘Greaves’. Still, by adding ‘Lady’ to her name this time—more dignity than had been due her after wedding a mere younger son from the prominent Merrill family—she must have married well.
    She might even rank higher now than some of the former in-laws who had snubbed her. Greville hoped so.
    If Papa and the rest of the family were still in India—and he had no reason to suppose they had returned—it must have been Joanna who’d pieced together the mystery of his disappearance, then entreated his exalted cousin Lord Englemere to search for him.
    Having dismissed Greville from the job he’d solicited as estate manager at Blenhem Hill for incompetence and embezzlement—the first charge deserved, the second not—Englemere himself was unlikely to have been concerned about, or even aware of, Greville’s precipitous and unwilling departure from England.
    That Englemere had intervened, he was certain. Only a man with the influence and the prestige of a marquess, one who had the ear of the Admiralty board, could have effected his transfer, for the commanding officer of the Illustrious had categorically refused such a request.
    He wondered how Joanna—assuming it was Jo—haddiscovered his abduction. The note didn’t say and his sister indicating only her relief that he was safely back in England, her hope that he would find the trunk of clothes she’d sent useful.
    He felt another pang; absorbed in his own interests, it had never occurred to him to use the close acquaintances with young gentlemen of the nobility, acquired during his university days among them, to try to smooth his sister’s way with her first husband’s family. He was touched, and humbled, that though he’d been oblivious to her plight, she had learned about and concerned herself with his.
    It would be good to visit her, he decided, a curious sense of anticipation stirring at the thought. Maybe the new Greville would learn to value family as his sister obviously did—even such a curmudgeon black sheep as himself.
    He was distracted from his musings by a scratch at the door, which opened to reveal Luke and two other footmen hefting a large copper tub. They deposited it before the hearth, several others following in their wake to fill it with bucketfuls of hot water.
    Greville eyed the steam rising from the tub with as much anticipation as if a naked mermaid might emerge from the mists.
    Well, maybe not quite that much. Still, anxious as he was to redress that lack in his life and much as the spirit was willing, his still-feeble body probably would make better use of the hot water minus a hot-blooded, willing wench.
    â€˜Does you need help climbing in, sir?’ Luke asked.
    â€˜I