For All Eternity (14 page)

Taking Sophie’s arm again and leading her across the bustling kitchen, Terry cautioned, “Watch out for Charlie. He’s a regular devil with the ladies.”

“That Fancy isn’t exactly what I’d call an angel, either,” she retorted. “I can’t say when I’ve met such a termagant.”

Terry sighed as he guided her through a door opposite the one they had entered. “Fancy’s a bit tart-tongued and coarse, but she’s usually not so very rude. No doubt she’s stinging from the prick of the Pixie’s nettle.” Starting up the left side of a double wooden stairway, he added, “Charlie making calf-eyes at you didn’t help matters, either. Fancy has designs on him, and most probably feels threatened by your beauty and breeding.” “Well, she can rest easy on that account. I have no interest whatsoever in Charles. She can have him, and with my blessing.”

“Then, you must strive to convince her of that,” he countered, stepping onto the stair landing. Once again taking her arm, he steered her down a short, barren corridor, stopping before the last door on the right. After pausing to straighten his wig and smooth his jacket, he scratched at the dark wood panel.

“Enter!” responded an imperious voice.

“Ready to slay the dragon?” he whispered, grasping the knob. At her nod he opened the door.

Inside, standing behind a scarred wooden table strewn with clay jars, dried plants, and glass vials, was a mite of a woman in a brown-striped gown. A crisp white cap perched atop her graying carrot-colored hair, its starched flounce framing a tiny, sharp-featured face that justified her nickname.

Looking up to reveal shrewd green eyes, she briskly uttered, “Terence. Finally. I was beginning to fear that you’d run off with a milkmaid or some other such youthful nonsense.”

Terry sketched a meticulous bow. “Never, Mrs. Pixton. I am always at your service.” At his hiss Sophie quickly followed suit and dropped into an elegant curtsy.

“Well, well. And what have we here?” the housekeeper inquired, her gaze critically sweeping Sophie’s length.

Terry gave Sophie a gentle push forward. “Mrs. Pixton, let me present Sophie Barton, our new maid.” “Indeed?” Her gaze moved from Sophie’s face to narrow on her expensive, if spoiled, garments. Raising one eyebrow, she said, “I think that I would like to interview our new maid in private. You, my boy, are excused for now.”

Terry shot Sophie an uneasy look. “But, Mrs. Pixton — “

“Go. I shall speak with you later.”

He hesitated for a beat, then bowed and reluctantly did as directed.

As the door closed behind him, the housekeeper bore her gaze onto Sophie’s and demanded, “Spill it, girl.” “What?” Sophie stammered, genuinely confused. “You heard me. I said spill it.”

“Spill what? I don’t understand.”

Hardening her gaze into a penetrating stare, the woman snapped, “See here, girl. I’m not blind, and my eyes tell me that you’re quality. I want to know who you are and what game you’re playing.”

“My name truly is Sophie Barton, and I’m here to work as a maid,” she replied, growing uneasy beneath the housekeeper’s unblinking scrutiny. No wonder Terry was so distraught at the notion of fibbing to her. She seemed able to look right through a person and into their innermost thoughts.

After several more such moments, ones made all the more disconcerting by the silence, the woman jerked her chin to indicate Sophie’s modish pelisse. “If what you say is true, then please enlighten me as to why a lady like yourself would go into service.”

When Sophie merely gaped at her, trying to concoct a likely tale, the housekeeper looked up at her face again and brusquely answered for her. “My guess is that you’re here to try and trap his lordship’s son into marriage.”

“Son?” Sophie squeaked. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask if the marquess had children. If the son was of marriageable age, as Mrs. Pixton indicated, then he was no doubt in Town for the Season. That meant he knew both the scandal and her identity.

“Yes, son. Young Colin. And if it’s him you’re after, you may as well leave now. Her ladyship received a letter just this morning saying that he’s off to Scotland to fish.”

Colin? Sophie furiously searched her mind for a Colin. The only Colins she could recall were Colin Redmond, a viscount of some sixty years, and Lady Burges’s four-year-old son. Add that to the fact that the housekeeper had prefaced him as young, and she could probably safely assume that he was part of the smooth-cheeked set who favored brothels and gaming hells over ballrooms.

Putting her mind to rest with that conclusion, she shook her head. “I wasn’t aware that the marquess has a son, nor do I care. My only interest is in the position.”

“Indeed? Well, then. Shall I hazard another guess as to why you are here?” Her gaze dropped to eye her belly. “Could it be that you’re with child and have run away from home to escape disgrace?”

“Of course not!” Sophie exclaimed, outraged that the woman would even think, much less suggest, such an insulting thing. “I can assure you that my morals are above reproach, and shall remain so. I am here because I need employment and nothing else.”

“You
need
employment, eh?” The housekeeper viewed her through slitted eyes for a beat, then gave a curt nod. “Yes. I do believe that you truly were driven here by need. Before, however, I consider giving you the position, you must first tell me what trouble brought about your need. And I expect the truth, mind you.” Seeing no other choice, Sophie bowed her head and slowly began to speak. Since telling the truth was out of the question, she made up her tale as she went along. “I need the position because my father lost our home … gambling, and I now have no place to go. Since I also lack money, I have no choice but to go into service if I want a roof over my head and food in my stomach.” She glanced at the housekeeper to see if she bought her story.

The woman’s small, pointy face was completely impassive. “And where was your home?” she prodded.

Where was far, far away? Remembering her geography lessons, Sophie responded, “Durham. My father was a baron there.”

“A baron, you say? Hmm. And what of your mother, the baroness?”

A flash of inspiration. “Dead. She died giving birth to me. I was her first and last child. It was her death that drove my father to drink and game.”

The housekeeper’s eyes began to narrow again, not a good sign. “And where is your father now? Surely he didn’t up and leave you?”

“Um … yes. He did.” It seemed as good an explanation as any.

“And all this happened in Durham?”

“Yes.”

“Then, how did you come to be in Exeter?”

How indeed? Seeing no harm in telling a dash of the truth, albeit a twisted dash, she replied, “I recalled having a … an aunt there … my mother’s older sister. Since I’m her only living relative, I was certain she would take me in. I spent the last of my pin money to go to her.”

She paused to heave a long, heavy sigh for effect. “To my despair, I found that she no longer lives in Exeter. It was while I wandered the streets, wondering what to do, that I happened upon the Mop Fair and decided to go into service. When I told Mr. Mabbet of my fix, he took mercy on me and brought me here.”

“And so ends the sad tale,” the housekeeper concluded. With that cryptic utterance she fell silent, her unnerving stare once again riveted on Sophie’s face.

Again Sophie got the unsettling feeling that she read her thoughts, and it was all she could do not to fidget. Just when she was certain she could bear the tension no longer, the housekeeper blinked and barked, “Are you willing to work, and work hard, girl?”

“Yes. Oh, yes!” she exclaimed with a surge of hope. “And do you promise to follow all my directives?” “You have only to ask for me to comply.”

The housekeeper rubbed her chin as if considering her response, then smiled. “Welcome to Hawksbury Manor, Sophie Barton.”

Chapter 8

It took only a day of drudgery for Sophie’s feelings of gratitude for Terry to wane.

After a full week, one in which each day was more demeaning than the last, she grimly concluded that their meeting wasn’t her prayed-for deliverance, but God’s vengeance for every single sin she’d committed in her seventeen years of life.

Casting the heavens — all right, so it was the beamed kitchen ceiling — a look of tragic remorse, she trudged to the servants stairs and dragged herself up the two flights to the first floor.

For a being touted as kind and merciful, He certainly had a wicked talent for punishment, for what could be crueler or cause greater suffering for an Incomparable than to tear her from the heaven of the Haute Ton and cast her into the hell of servitude? And who, but one with a most spiteful bent of mind, would add degradation to hardship by landing that poor girl in the lowliest of low positions in the hierarchy of servitude?

More angered than humbled by her punishment, Sophie stepped up onto the first-floor landing and stopped before the concealed servants door. Sighing as much from outrage as at the ache in her arm, she set down her heavy bucket and flexed her overtaxed elbow.

Never in her life had she imagined there to be a hierarchy among the servants. Why, the very notion of such a thing was beyond absurd. Any fool knew that a servant was a servant, and thus all equal in their inferiority. That the servants at Hawksbury chose to believe otherwise was vexing to the extreme … almost as vexing as the manner in which they ordered their preposterous society.

Unlike the ton, whose members were justly ranked according to breeding, appearance, and wealth, one’s status downstairs was determined by nothing more discerning than position. Hence, the housekeeper and Dickson, the majordomo, reigned as king and queen; the valet and lady’s maid as duke and duchess; and so on down the ranks until you reached a level commiserate in the ton to the by-blow of an Impure: the maid-of-all-works. Her, Sophia Barrington, granddaughter of an earl and the Toast of the ton.

She sniffed at the gross injustice of the system. Any servant with half a wit could see that she was his superior, and thus above him and his silly order. It was galling beyond tolerance how the Hawksbury staff chose to ignore her obvious preeminence.

But tolerate it I must, at least for a month, she reminded herself, shifting her light supply basket from her untaxed left arm to her overtaxed right one. After opening the hidden panel before her, she hoisted the bucket with her left hand and stepped into the dimly lit corridor.

Down the long hallway she plodded, past plants and paintings, sculptures and chairs. When she rounded the West wing corner, she let her nose guide her to her final destination: a dog-fouled carpet near the marchioness’s chamber door. As she stopped before it, grimacing at the stench, she found herself wishing that Fancy were there so she could dump it over her head. The spiteful cat was responsible for this mess, and nothing she could say or do would ever convince her likewise.

Snorting her contempt for both the woman and her actions, Sophie kneeled beside the excrement to prepare for her vile task.

No one with an ounce of wits could possibly believe Fancy’s tale of the gardener’s terrier wandering into the house, not if they considered the lateness of the hour and the fact that all the doors, save the Dickson-guarded front one, were routinely locked at ten. No. Someone had deliberately set the animal loose. Someone who disliked Sophie and knew that the disagreeable chore of cleaning up after him would fall to her.

That person had to be Fancy. No one else bore her such enmity. Besides, this wasn’t the first bit of nastiness she’d inflicted on her. Indeed, so often did she sabotage Sophie’s labors, then finger her as the culprit of the resulting disaster, that she was beginning to think that the shrew spent every waking hour plotting to make her life miserable.

Sighing her self-pity, Sophie pulled a rumpled sheet of newspaper from the basket and scooped up the bulk of the mess. Ah, well. She only had to endure the jade for three more weeks, a month, at the longest. What were a few more weeks when she’d already endured so much?

Sighing again, she set aside the soiled newspaper, then dug a worn scrub brush, a cracked ball of Ox Gall soap, and a clean rag from the basket. Assuming the wretched mien of a condemned martyr, she wet the soap and rubbed it into the remaining dung. As she did so, she dolefully added the terrier accident to the list of trials she’d suffered since coming to Hawksbury. And, oh! What a list it was, recording the most unimaginable sorts of atrocities.

Take her sleeping arrangements, for example. Had she even suspected that she’d have to share a bed, and a lumpy one at that, she’d have dismissed this maid business the instant it entered her mind … especially if she’d known that her bedmate would be a laundry maid named Pansy.

Talk about a trial! The creature was a most tiresome chatterbox. From the moment their heads hit their pillows, it was prattle, rattle, natter all night long, and always on the subject of some farm laborer the chit loved. How she could think her interested in a romance between nobodies, she didn’t know. All she knew was that she hadn’t had more than four hours of sleep on any given night since coming to Hawksbury.

Shaking her head, Sophie picked up her brush and dipped it into the bucket of water. Of course, in all fairness, she couldn’t lay the entire blame for her sleeplessness at Pansy’s door. Were she allowed to sleep until a decent hour, say, eleven or twelve, Miss Tittle-Tattle’s gab would be more an annoyance than a trial. Unfortunately, such was not the case, which was a trial unto itself.