The Butler Did It by Kasey Michaels Page A

I think you could be, seeing as how you’re Harry’s boy. Your mother didn’t foist anyone else’s brat off on him, either, for you’re just like him, down to those truly magnificent blue eyes. Made me go weak in the knees, those eyes did, and I didn’t go weak for many of them. I knew Mad Harry quite well. Quite well.”
    Morgan, despite himself, was intrigued. He’d never heard of this woman, but she spoke well, dressed well, and she’d known his father. “You’ve spent a lot of time in London, Mrs. Clifford?”
    â€œAges ago, yes. He was several years my junior, but we traveled in many of the same circles. You weren’t even a glimmer in your father’s eye then. Ah, the world you missed, son. We were young, we were free, we lived. None of this daren’t-show-an-ankle sort of silliness that’s going on now.”
    She leaned forward in her chair. “Do you know, I once rode up on the box with Johnnie Lade, before Letty got her claws in him. Paid the driver for an hour’s use of the Mail Coach, and off we went. I threw my bonnet to some farmer standing on the side of the roadway, goggling at me, and let my hair fly free. I had black hair once,” she ended wistfully. “Masses of it.”
    Morgan lifted one eyebrow but said nothing. He knew about Sir John Lade, and the man’s wife, Lady Lade.Crude, loud, but accepted everywhere, at least until their exploits became too much even for the more rough-and-tumble days of the last century. “Did he truly file down his front teeth so that he could whistle like a real coachie?”
    â€œThat was one of the talents it gave him,” Fanny said, and damn if the woman didn’t wink at him—and damn if Morgan didn’t feel his cheeks growing hot with embarrassment. This was Miss Clifford’s “infirm” grandmother? “But that’s neither here nor there, boy. Have you given us all our congé? ”
    â€œYour notice to quit the premises? I have, yes. Thornley is supervising the packing up of your belongings even as we speak,” Morgan said, putting up his guard, which he had lowered a fraction at the woman’s outlandish bantering.
    She held on to the arms of the chair as she stuck her legs out in front of her and looked at her own bare ankles, admired her own blue kid slippers like a well-pleased child. “We’re not going, you know. Would you like to know why?”
    â€œYou have a receipt, you’d go to the gossip rags, your daughter-in-law is bosom chums with Sally Jersey. Yes, I know. But you’re still going.”
    Fanny shook her head, sadly, as if she actually might pity him, poor deluded fool that he was.
    â€œGood ammunition, I’ll grant you, as I gave it to her, but the girl was outgunned by your perversity, I’m sure.Still, I’ll give her credit for trying. But now it’s my turn, so batten down the hatches, my lord.”
    Morgan lifted his left eyebrow, amused in spite of himself. “You may fire when ready, madam.”
    â€œOh, I’m ready, son. Loaded, primed, and flint at the ready. You know, of course, that we’re here to pop her off. Beautiful girl, you’ll have to agree, even with her pitifully paltry dowry. Spirited, which she got from me. Good name, too. The Cliffords go back to the Conquest, which is more than many can say. Daphne, that’s my featherwitted daughter-in-law, and I are quite set on gaining her a first-rate match, for the gel, of course, but a good marriage would feather our own nest in the long run, and the few feathers we have now are sadly in need of company. Are you on the lookout for a wife, by any chance? You’d do, you know.”
    Morgan glared at her, his amusement gone, and said nothing. This was the frail old lady Emma Clifford had spoken of earlier? Ha! This woman was about as infirm as Alexander the Great in his prime.
    â€œYes, well, you don’t have to