Learning to love (Part Book 1) Read online

All of his servants without exception, they were about twenty people, were scattered around his garden while checking hedges, trees and hiding places. Most of them were foolishly tiny hiding places even for a child. Even the stable boy was taking it too seriously. He had climbed to the top of a tree as if it were a mast and he was scanning the property in search of the child. A child who had to be really smart as well as small, as so many servants were unable to find the child in the small private garden.

  But what seemed really stupid to him was that his servants were down on their hands and knees and were even getting inside the hedges looking for the child. Did they really think that such a creature could hide there without being seen? What kind of incompetent servants had he in his service?

  "Can you see him, Williams?"

  The sweet voice brought him back to reality and he realized that there was a woman under the tree where his stable boy was perched. He could not see her face because she was facing the opposite direction, but he could realise that she was too young to have a child older than four years old. How old was she when she had the child? But above all he was interested to know why his butler had told him about her as a Miss.

  For a few seconds he stared at her small body that seemed to tempt him, which was strange as he had always preferred plump women. But what caught his interest from the very first second was that she knew the name of his servant and that she was taking such liberties in a house that was not hers. No doubt that this false lady might be trickier than he had imagined.

  "Not yet, Miss Grayson, but he might be very close to us." The stable boy replied after taking one last look around the garden.

  No longer able to hold this impropriety from a stranger, he stepped forward to grab her attention.

  "Excuse me. I am lord Brandbury and you have entered my property without my permission." Perhaps he was not been very diplomatic with his neighbour in that first encounter, but his patience had reached the limit and he could not help it.

  "Lord Brandbury, thank goodness you are here!" The young lady cried as soon as she heard him. Then she turned around and stood before him.

  Braxton saw in that moment the heavenly face of a girl who must have been between seventeen and nineteen years old. She was blond, with bright eyes which caught everybody’s attention, and a heart-shaped face that made her attractive to any man. Luckily, he had always liked brunettes more than others as it was the case with his Charlotte.

  "I..." She began to say.

  Just one second after looking into his eyes, and for some reason he ignored, the girl was petrified and silent. She seemed to have suddenly seen something that left her paralysed because of the surprise. However, that unacceptable behaviour did not make sense for him.

  Braxton did not know how to cope with such a stare from an unknown person in such a blatant way. That young lady had even forgotten to close her mouth, and also blink as he could see. Uncomfortable with her scrutiny, he coughed and changed the weight of his body from one foot to the other like an involuntary nervous twitch.

  "Could you explain to me why all this display of resources?" He asked, hoping to make her stop looking at him so disrespectfully.

  The girl blinked and started to move her mouth but no sound came from her throat. Desperate, and feeling increasingly uneasy, Braxton intended to be as rude as possible in order to get rid of her.

  "I do not think that a respectable lady should go from house to house altering its proper functioning, nor is it advisable to let her educate a small child when her lack of decorum is so obvious.”

  Braxton's words caused the expected effect, as the young lady gulped and looked away showing that she was embarrassed.

  "I am sorry my lord. I know I am committing an unforgivable offence appearing before you without having been first duly presented, but I hope you can understand that this is something exceptional and I should act quickly."

  The eloquent words from the young lady made young Braxton feel embarrassed because he realised that she was right. Even so, proud as he was, he did not want to withdraw from his words, as it was his right to be angry with the strange lady who had entered his home and was altering everything.

  With a straight face he stared at her to show her how it was when somebody looked at you blatantly. But his surprise was even bigger when the girl, in a completely shameless way, smiled.

  "It's okay!" He said energetically while blushing for the first time in his life. "We'd better end up with this as soon as possible!"

  "I agree! I do not want to take advantage of your hospitality any longer."

  That little witch was making him feel nervous. Even if she was a girl who barely reached his shoulder. Undoubtedly, she must be an impoverished noble from the countryside who had come to the city looking for a husband, to leave him penniless in a few years.

  With nothing else to say, and hoping she would take the hint and leave as soon as possible, Braxton grunted, stretched his chest out, and folded his arms behind his back with the intention to stand firm. If that Ms. Grayson thought that he would be looking for her little one like one of his servants, she was completely wrong. He was the eighth Earl of Brandbury, and he would not be manipulated by her or by anyone else. He was a man with worldview, a visionary, and nothing would make him look like a fool in front of his employees.

  "Well" Jane said ignoring Braxton thoughts. "When Bolita smells a cat in heat he gets very nervous and he often runs away." Jane moved closer to him to whisper in his ear. "You know how male cats are when female cats are in heat."

  Petrified, the eighth Earl of Brandbury, for the first time in his life, looked like a fool with his mouth open. Not knowing how to react to such impropriety, and for his greater shame, he could only gape like a fish out of water, while reviewing word after word what he had heard from the mouth of that young lady. But that was not all: the insolent girl gave him a smile that eclipsed the sun and left him even more perplexed.

  "But do not worry." She kept saying. "Luckily, the poor little cat is too lazy and he does not usually go far away."

  The girl kept looking at him with confidence as if she had not said anything inappropriate for a lady. She stood before him, looking at him without any regret on her face, as if he was someone extraordinary whom she had never seen before.

  He wanted to say something to put her in her place, but the aura of sweetness that surrounded her, together with the dimples that appeared when she smile at him, and her pose of innocence while holding hands like a well-behaved child, forced him to swallow his complaints and there was only one thing left to say:

  "I can not believe it! Is everything going to happen to me today?"

  No one who knew Jane would say she was a romantic or sentimental girl. In fact, you could say the opposite, because at the age of eighteen she had already rejected a relevant number of suitors unashamedly, and she felt no emotion or need to find a husband.

  On the contrary, the situation was rather the reverse, because miss Grayson was a girl of unparalleled beauty, who made men bow down before her and fall at her feet. Something that exasperated her and which she hated with all her soul. But she could not be considered vain or arrogant, because Jane's heart was incapable of containing any kind of evil feeling.

  There was something else that she possessed which made her a highly desired conquest for young singles in England: it was a succulent dowry that her loving father had given her, which consisted of three thousand pounds. Amount desired by a number of suitors like nobles, knights, and wealthy merchants, who came daily to her mansion to compete for her attention since Jane had the tender age of fifteen.

  If her beauty captivated everybody, her temper made everybody fall in love with her, and her fortune impressed every single person, however there was something that miss Grayson had in abundance and it was not appropriate for the youngest daughter of a baronet. Jane, in addition to intelligence, enjoyed a rebellious, adventurous, quarrelsome and especially captivating spirit, which made impossible not to fall in
love her as soon as you met her.

  Despite everything, she had a delicateness and an innate elegance that she could not hide, no matter how hard she tried. Unlike other girls her age, she did not want to be the beneficiary of all the attention from the opposite sex. Something that her two older brothers and her father had had very present, and the reason why they had kept her safely in their property of Greenville Hills since she began to grow into a woman.

  Her hair was golden with curls that cascaded to her waist. Her skin was soft to the touch and similar to the most beautiful porcelain. Her eyes were sky blue, if you looked into them you could see paradise. It was definitely the most perfect creation made by God to drive every single mortal crazy with desire. Unfortunately, to everyone’s disgrace, her only thought in life was to be free to do what she wanted.

  With the arrival of her eighteenth birthday, her father, sir Richard Grayson along with miss Spencer, governess, confidant and friend of Jane since she was left motherless at the tender age of five, had agreed that the moment to find a husband for Jane was a priority for the whole family, and therefore they had decided that she had to choose an appropriate suitor.

  But Jane found no reason in smiling at inepts who only knew how to recite horrible verses with an easy rhyme and give flowers or chocolates. Therefore, with the season about to start in London, and Jane reluctant to choose a husband, father and governess had agreed to move to the capital and begin the search for the perfect husband for their child.

  Sir Grayson, along with his eldest son James, and Alice, the young wife of this one and future carbine of Jane during the season, as well as Miss Spencer, and of course Jane, had ventured to the capital followed by a retinue of servants, trunks and utensils that were received in London with curious looks from passersby and neighbours.

  Although such display was common at this time of the year, when large families arrived to their homes in the capital to attend the season, and although the street where the Grayson family would stay was one of the most illustrious, they had never seen such a squandering of resources and pomposity. Thereby, they were raising speculation about who could be the cause of such a waste and ostentation.

  If high society was known for anything, it was for the taste of good gossip, breaking news to enliven the long social evenings. And it could not be otherwise, Mayfair was the center of every gossip, scandal or event occurred in London. Even more as it was widely known that among the neighbours there was one of the wealthiest families in the country with a beautiful marriageable daughter looking for a husband.

  Something so exceptional could not be overlooked and soon the social agenda of young Jane was too tight. Countless invitations to dances, dinners and walks piled up on her desk, when in fact what she just wanted was to meet a special man to share her hobbies with. But that was impossible, because finding a husband involved the obligation to bear the same praise from men who loved her beauty, her sweetness, or as she thought more likely, her fortune.

  But in all these evenings Jane never met a man who could be considered the appropriate candidate for marriage. Even though she struggled to find something nice in each of them, she never managed even to find something appealing or permissive. On the contrary, she used to encounter defects that made them vulgar to her eyes and therefore inadequate.

  As time was passing by and she was failing to find the ideal man, she began to give up finding love and now her dreams were focused on locating a kind, attentive and caring man to make her feel comfortable and valued.

  She had also imagined a peaceful life with him, as appreciation would appear over the years, and a peaceful harmony would give her the happiness she craved. But she could never have supposed that she would feel a shock with a simple glance of the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen.

  That was the reason why that morning, in the garden of her neighbour the Earl of Brandbury, she had finally found a gentleman who had pierced her heart harshly and who had turned upside down her principles. Something that surprised her and left her not knowing what to do or say.

  She felt her pulse quicken, her hands began to sweat and her legs felt like jelly. There was no need to be very smart to know that before her she could see the gentleman with whom she eventually would get married, because she was sure that the heartbeats she felt was love.

  Luckily, she remembered on time the words of her governess, miss Spencer, advising her to be sweet, demure and delicate in the presence of a gentleman whom she wanted to please. Nervous and determined she got ready to use all her weapons of seduction and she gave him one of her most dazzling smiles. One that she had already tested on a trial basis and had made the gentleman in question kneel down at her feet.

  She was not expecting that the Earl would propose marriage to her right there, but what really shocked, and pleased her at the same time, was that the gentleman looked at her in an aggressive and reproachful way. For the first time in her life there was a real man in front of her, a man who would not be intimidated by dimples and a little strawberry mouth.

  Convinced that she had found her ideal suitor, Jane told him clearly and eloquently that she was looking for Bolita, who had escaped because of the street female cats in heat. Her brothers knew that gentlemen liked simple and clear things and they hated insecure women who could not think for themselves. What she did not expect was the way he answered, in a manner so inappropiate for an aristocrat.

  "I can not believe it! Is everything going to happen to me today?"

  "Sorry! What have you said?"

  Lord Brandbury looked at her in a very serious way and folded his arms to emphasise his anger.

  "Are you telling me that you have asked all the staff in my house to serve you, preventing them to do their work, for the sole purpose of finding your cat? Not to mention that a lady should never speak with a gentleman about certain subjects, especially if he is a complete stranger."

  Jane stayed thoughtful for a moment trying to remember what she had said which was so improper. Then she looked around and noticed that everyone was listening discreetly while seeking the animal in a distracted way, looking at them sideways.

  "I must admit that you have been pretty close to reality, although I would not have explained it that way. Besides, I find nothing inappropriate in what I have just revealed. I have just clarified the situation in which I find myself." Jane said gently offended.

  The Earl raised his eyebrow indicating that he was curious to know how she would explain it and Jane had no problem to show it.

  "To tell the truth, everyone has been very kind to me as soon as I have arrived here and they have known about my problem, and therefore I would appreciate if you would not take into account this little break in their duties. But Bolita is not a simple cat, my lord, but a partner who has been with me since he was born and whom I brought up with great affection. I feel very attached to him and I can not leave him when he needs me." A pitiful wail expressed by a maid who supposedly was not listening stopped her emotional speech for a few seconds. "It is therefore absolutely vital to find him before he dissapears and I lose him forever."

  The Earl’s eyebrow was still raised when Jane finished her explanation, so she did not know if she had convinced him or if there was anything else to say. She just hoped not to spoil a future marriage agreement with a minor incident.

  "So everybody has neglected their obligations to look for your cat." He insisted.

  "Well, you could say that. But I would rather say that..."

  The Earl raised one hand indicating her to stop her attempt to cajole him, as he was not willing to be convinced.

  If he had not been so handsome, so virile and so distinguished, Jane would have finished her hasty infatuation straight away. But she feared that it was already too late, because it was impossible not to feel the need to throw herself into his arms and kiss him every time he looked at her, scolded her, and what was more surprising, when he made her feel angry. Undoubtedly, that had to be love or at that point she would alre
ady have called him ill-mannered and she would have turned her back on him.

  "Could I convince you to settle for the help of two of my servants to search for your dear companion? And in addition, I would appreciate if you could deprive me of the pleasure of knowing about... the private life of your cat."

  Jane did not take into account the irony in his voice and she had no choice but to accept his suggestion. In the end they were at his home and she had no authority there. Yet she could not help herself and she answered him with the same irony.

  "It would be a noble gesture on your behalf to go without the necessary services of two of your most loyal servants, and even more if the sole purpose is to ease my sorrow for such a great loss. In relation to your second request, do not doubt that my mouth and Bolita’s one will remain closed in this matter which is so... tricky to my lord."

  When Braxton opened his mouth to answer the young lady who was challenging him in such impetuous way, he was forced to remain silent at the sight before him of the raised hand of the girl asking him to be quiet, considering that she had not finished her explanation yet. Incredulous, he kept quiet and listened to the harpy with dazzling eyes that was amazing him. By doing this, she was making his anger fade away as it was impossible not to recognise the courage which that brazen girl was proving.

  "In presence of such a kind gesture on your behalf, my lord, I will be eternally grateful, as well as Bolita will be."

  Braxton could not hold himself back any longer and a hint of a smile appreared in the corner of his lips. Only the poorly concealed laughter of the stable boy, still on the tree, and the perplexity of the unalterable butler, made Braxton contain himself and not yield to her.

  ‘Then, miss Jane Grayson, what about counting on the monkey which is up on the tree and apparently is in my service, and on one of the maids?’

  Jane tried not to smile because she knew that was what the Earl wanted, and she gladly agreed to his request.

  "I think it is perfect, my lord. If you allow me, I will choose Rose from your servants to join Betty and me."