The Hazardous Gamble of the Alluring Duchess: A Historical Regency Romance Novel

by Hamilton, Hanna

  “Odd,” Roger said.

  Lord Bochil laughed a little. “He also thought she was making a play for my bed, and I but fifteen at the time.”

  Roger put on his Duke Shelthom face. “Were you?”

  “Bedding her? Lord, no. She was old enough to be my mother. She did have a soft spot for me and turned a blind eye when I went over the wall for a bit of fun.”

  Roger chuckled. “So, it seems that the Duke’s children are not so well-behaved as he would like?”

  “Why, Duke, whatever do you mean?” Lord Bochil’s face was innocently bland.

  Roger sobered. “So, you think you sister has taken off to try to make her way in the world by selling embroidered pillow cases?”

  “That is exactly what I think,” Lord Bochil said.

  “What triggered this start? Ladies don’t usually run off for no reason at all.”

  Lord Bochil looked grim. “Father has taken it into his head that she must be wed this year. My next sister is old enough to be presented in the spring. More than that, in the middle of October, Dahlia will come into her inheritance. She will be a target for every mushroom and April fool in the marriage market, not that it will do them much good.”

  Roger sipped his ale and studied Lord Bochil. “But that isn’t the whole of it.”

  “No. I fear it is not. He is pushing for Dahlia to wed Lord Goldstone, and she cannot stand the man.” Lord Bochil slowly shredded a piece of bread over his bowl, making it into tinier and tinier bits.

  “And you do not like him either,” Roger observed.

  “No, I do not,” Lord Bochil looked at the mess he had made of the bread and dusted his fingers together over the bowl of stew now obscured in crumbs. “Usually, I can get Father to listen to me about these things, but he has dug in his heels. I think Goldstone has something that he is holding over his head.”

  “Blackmail?”

  “Nothing so crass as that. Merely, ‘if you will do this for me, then I will do that for you’, that kind of thing.” Lord Bochil looked bleak.

  “Blackmail. Let’s give the thing the name it deserves. Your sister dislikes the man so much as that?” Roger kept his face calm, even though he could feel a rising tide of worry and anger boiling inside himself.

  “Worse than that,” Lord Bochil replied. “She is afraid of him, and right now I don’t doubt she is afraid of my father. He has never lifted a hand to any of us, but yester e’en he threatened her with a caning, in front of the servants, with the door open to the street.”

  I will call them out. I will call them both out and end them. No female, lady or wench, should be treated so. And this was Lady Dahlia, the beautiful flower he was beginning to love.

  Aloud, he stated, “We must find her. She is gently bred, and has been sheltered. She has no idea what might await her.”

  “Exactly so,” Lord Bochil said.

  “The question is,” Roger said, “Where should we begin looking?”

  Chapter 14

  Mrs. Garrity eyed the candidate the agency had sent. The girl’s clothing was shabby, her boots well worn, but the clothing had been quality at one time. Either she had stolen the clothing, or her last mistress had been one of those cheese-paring young women who tipped her maids with her castoffs. The young woman’s body seemed a bit plump when compared to her face and hands. Wearing all she owns or in the family way. “What can you do?”

  The girl looked up. Her face was clean and very pretty. Her hair was a mass of golden curls, her eyebrows so blond they were nearly white, and her eyes large, blue pools that right now looked rather frightened.

  Her looks are not her fault. But I’ll not parade her before my nephew, the duke.

  “I can dress hair, read with good expression, play the pianoforte, read, write and do sums,” she said.

  “You sound more like a companion than a lady’s maid,” Mrs. Garrity commented, unconsciously echoing Mrs. Benton, the agency owner. “Do you know how to dust?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Can you sew?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I can do a fine running stitch, a back stitch, cruel embroidery, fine embroidery, and excellent French knots.”

  “Hmmm.” Mrs. Garrity considered the waif before her. “Do you knit, do tambour or make lace?”

  “No, ma’am. I have never learned those skills.”

  “Well enough, perhaps I shall teach you,” Mrs. Garrity conceded. “You say you do sums? Do you understand how to keep accounts?”

  “Yes, ma’am. My g…guardian insisted upon it.”

  “I see,” Mrs. Garrity considered the young woman a moment. What was it the girl had been about to say? What besides guardian started with a guh sound? “Well, I might have a position for you. The young master of this house has been unwell for the last two years and has just this August taken possession. The house provisions have been left in a sad state, and he is concerned about the cost of maintaining the establishment.”

  “Yes, ma’am?” The girl looked up at her with those guileless blue eyes.

  Bold little thing. Yes, best to keep her away from Roger. “There are no less than ten linen closets that have been left untended. They need rummaged out, the good items sorted from the hopeless, the salvageable made into patches and the patches applied to the best of the larger items.” And what his mother would have said to the Duke sleeping on darned sheets is more than I can say.

  “Yes, ma’am, I can do that,” the little minx said. “Will they need laundered?”

  “No doubt they will, but you will also be mending tapestries and I do not want your hands roughened. They will catch on the silks. You will send the linens to the wash room. One of the footmen will take them down for you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the girl said demurely. “When should I start?”

  “No time like the present. You will have your room in the little attic just off the seasonal linen storage. Do you have any luggage?” Mrs. Garrity eyed the girl, who stood twisting her fingers together nervously.

  The silly miss dropped her eyes and blushed. “I have got some bundles under me skirt, ma’am. I did not have much, and I could only bring what I could carry.”

  “And are these your only clothes?” Mrs. Garrity looked sternly at the brown cotton walking dress.

  “Two dresses, if you please, ma’am. I…I am wearing them both.”

  “I see.” Mrs. Garrity tsked her tongue against her teeth. “Well, we shall get you measured for a uniform, but that will be a day or two arriving. Unless you would care to make it yourself?”

  “Oh, no, ma’am. I never made no dresses.”

  “Very well. I shall send out for a seamstress then. Meanwhile, what shall we call you?”

  “Da..Daisy Smith, Ma’am. From Dorchester.” Lady Dahlia thought desperately to herself. Was that what I told the woman at the agency? Or did I say Dorset?

  “Miss Daisy Smith from Dorchester, we shall get you started at once. Until your uniform arrives, you shall work in the upper linen closets where you are unlikely to be seen. The housemaid will show you where to start.” Mrs. Garrity stood. The interview was at an end.

  Chapter 15

  Dahlia swept her arm across her face.

  It was hot and dusty in the attic linen closets. The housekeeper, if that was what she was, had not exaggerated the neglect of the linens. Some of these cupboards had not been rummaged out in the last century. There were sheets, pillowcases, embroidered towels and more in most of them.

  In addition, there were personal things for women, piles of blankets that could only be for infants, as well as narrow bands of fabric, little shoes and several odd things for which she could puzzle out no purpose.

  It was a daunting task, and unlike in the fairy tales her old nurse used to tell, there was no handy Rumpelstiltskin or other bargain-making fairy at hand to make it easier or shorter.

  Thinking back on tasks that Miss Emma had set her charges, for she would not countenance an untidy classroom, Dahlia had begun her work
by using an extremely moth-eaten blanket to sweep back the thick layer of dust that was on the floor. Then she spread two marginally clean sheets on the freshly swept boards.

  There, just as I am sure any well-trained housemaid would do it.

  That had been several hours ago when the whole affair had seemed more like a lark than something serious. Now, she had a very small pile of sheets and pillowcases that were intact, a somewhat larger pile of sheets that had some holes or tears, and a very large pile of linens that were so moth and mouse eaten that they were more like lace than fabric.

  Dahlia had also created a stack of the baby things, another of lady’s personal items things, and had brushed over into one corner a heap of odd rubbish that seemed to have no purpose at all.

  The rays of sunlight that had shown cheerfully through the windows, now open to let in some air, were beginning to cast slanted shadows across the floor. Dahlia was tired, hungry, thirsty and covered with dust. She was increasingly glad that she had been allowed to stop in the little garret that was designated as hers to shed a few layers of clothing and her bundles.

  I would give almost anything for a bath. Anything save being married to Goldstone.

  The little housemaid who had shown her to the attics several hours ago popped her head up from the stairwell and surveyed the room. “Coo! You’s a worker, you is. Mrs. Garrity sent word by the butler that you are to bring down the whole linens and then to have your supper with us below-stairs.

  “Supper sounds wonderful,” Dahlia said. “My stomach is rubbing against my backbone, and I think I could drink several flagons of tea.”

  “Oh, my! I should have thought. Should have left you a pitcher of water, I should. It is that dry and dusty up here; I do not wonder that you are thirsty. I’ll help you make bundles of the good linens, and we can take them down to the washroom. It is just off the kitchen on the way to our tea room, so’s it won’t take us long to get there.”

  “My name is Daisy,” Dahlia said. “This is very new to me, because I was My Lady’s maid. I don’t think I’ve ever been in an attic like this one.” At least not to work. And when my brother, sisters and I played hide and seek in the attics at home, I do not think they were this neglected.

  “I am Betsy,” the maid replied. “We will most likely work together a lot. I was the junior most maid until you came.”

  “It is nice to meet you, Betsy. Thank you for helping take these things downstairs.” Dahlia indicated the smallest pile. “These are the only ones that are whole. The rest are sadly ravaged, I fear.”

  “Coo! Listen to you talk!” Betsy commented. “I always wanted to be a Lady’s maid, but they said I talked too rough. Can you teach me?”

  “Willingly.” Dahlia laughed. “First lesson: stop saying ‘coo’ at the beginning of your sentences. I am not certain what it means, but my Lady never said it, so I am sure you and I should not either.”

  “C..” the maid caught herself at the first consonant. “What should I say instead, then?”

  Dahlia thought fast. Miss Emma had discouraged what she called meaningless noise, but many of the young ladies she had met had no such constraints. “La,” she thought aloud, “You can say, ‘la.’”

  “La, Daisy.” The little maid laughed. “If we don’t get these linens downstairs, they will send the footmen looking for us.”

  “If they do, we can make the footmen carry the bundles down to the washroom,” Dahlia said confidently.

  * * *

  Dinner in the underservants’ hall was plain, but good and filling. The simple stew had more turnips than meat, the bread was a bit coarse, and there was bacon grease instead of butter. The sweet was plain treacle served over the coarse bread. Still, it was nourishing, well prepared, and there was plenty of it. Dahlia thought she had never tasted anything so good. The tea was a pungent mint that did a nice job of clearing the dust out of her sinuses.

  Dahlia was able to wash her face and hands in the washroom. A low fire smoldered on the hearth there, and a cauldron of water hissed and bubbled on the hook over it. Tall barrels were filled with strong smelling vats of wood ash and water, strong lye soap and water, and finally a smaller container of more delicately scented soap.

  “For Mrs. Garrity’s dainties.” Betsy giggled, dipping some of the sweet-scented liquid out of the small pot. After refilling the liquid with plain water, Betsy helped Dahlia brush the attic dust off her walking dress, then they washed their hands and faces in the scented water. When they were both presentable, the young women went to table with the other lower hall servants.

  At first, there was little conversation. All the servants had worked hard that day, and food was to be revered with rapt attention. But as appetites were satisfied, and they moved on to the sticky treacle and bread, talk began to start up.

  “His Grace came in all of a pother,” one of the stable lads commented. He tuk Mr. Herbert with him today, ‘stead o’ one of us.”

  “Lauk a-mercy,” exclaimed the scullery maid, “Why on earth would he do that? Mr. Herbert is his valet.”

  “Well,” said the stable boy, “I think it had to do with them burrs that were under his mares’ harness when he came in last night. He’d been squirin’ some gentry mort an’ her brother to the market. When he came home, they was burrs under the harness – rubbed the poor fillies raw, they did.” The boy took a big bite of his bread and treacle, and chewed vigorously with his mouth open. Not waiting for it to clear, he went on, “Word is, he’s sweet on her.”

  Dahlia put her eyes on her plate, and busied herself with spreading a little of the bacon grease on her bread. She found the sticky treacle no more appealing on the coarse bun than when the stuff was made into a tart. She wondered why this unknown Duke, whose house this clearly must be, might have been made a victim of such an ordinary, but dangerous, prank.

  “I think I need some air,” she said. “The attics were very dusty today. Would it be wrong of me to walk a little in the stable yard?”

  The tall young footman who was in training as under butler, and therefore presided over the lower servants’ table, considered that briefly. “Stay inside the walls. The Duke does not set limits on where we go or what we do, but the cook said that you wandered into Covent Garden today afore you were hired, and that one of Mrs. Benton’s footmen brought you.”

  “Oh, dear.” Dahlia blushed, “Word does spread fast.”

  “Right gabble monger, that one,” the footman remarked. “I’d not have him on staff, were I in the business of hiring out servants. All the same, I’d rather not be looking for you in the dark, country miss that you are.”

  “Thank you for thinking of me.” Dahlia wiped her mouth with a bit of toweling that served this table as a napkin.

  “Think nothing of it.” the footman nodded as graciously as if he were the Duke himself.

  Betsy tugged at Dahlia’s sleeve. “Daisy,” she whispered. “If you require the necessary, it is at the foot of the garden, just inside the wall. It’s a lot easier to go there than to carry your chamber pot down all those stairs in the morning.”

  Dahlia paused. This was something of which she had not even thought, she had been so focused on being free of Goldstone. “Thank you,” she whispered back.

  How often did Suzanne regret having to empty my chamber pot? She had always taken it for granted that there would be a fresh, clean ceramic container for her personal needs, along with an ewer and a basin of clean water. I’ll have to carry my own now, I guess.

  As Dahlia stepped out into the mews behind the townhouse, she drew a deep breath of air. Even tainted as it was with the scent of the stables, it was a relief to draw a breath that was not full of dust. The stables stood to one side of the back drive, and the kitchen garden stretched away in the gloom on the other side. Dahlia could just make out the little house at the foot of the garden.

  As she walked down the garden path, the hem of her walking dress brushed against the herbs on either side of the path, releasing the scent of
thyme, rosemary, mint and lavender. They did not quite mask the pungent aroma that rose from stable, the little building at the end of the walk, or the ash heap beside it. She wrinkled her nose at the midden stench, then weighed the thought of carrying a container of her own waste down the many stairs from her attic room.

  “I can do this,” she muttered to herself. “It won’t take long.” More than that, she could learn to be a good serving girl. It had to be easier than submitting to Lord Goldstone.

  The air, sweet with herbs and redolent with the miasma rising off the waste dump that was near the neat little necessary, was the scent of freedom.