by Allison Lane
“The schoolroom is there,” Mrs. Tweed informed him. “And storage, but that is part of Miss Hope’s establishment.” Her sarcasm was patent.
Five bedchambers.
Ten people.
Temptation urged him to flee, but he stiffened his spine. Dependability was the one aspect of his reputation he could point to with pride. Losing it would cost him far more than a little pique over cramped quarters. It made no difference that Ashburton had lied. Offering that excuse to cancel the party would make him an object of pity. Poor Merimont. He can’t do anything right. Even his estate is a ruin, and he let a pair of females turn his friends away. No backbone…
Imagined laughter echoed through his ears. His father’s voice drowned it out. Stay home so I can keep you out of trouble. You are a hopeless bumbler, Maxwell. I won’t tolerate another scandal…
A quick shake of his head banished the voices, but they had hardened his resolve. His course was set.
“I need a staff,” he said as they descended the stairs. “Cook, butler, maids, footmen – and at least two more stable boys.”
“Can’t be done.” Not even her puffing disguised the implacable refusal.
“Of course it can. Just last month, Lady Bentley assembled a staff of twenty-seven overnight.”
“In the city, mayhap that’s true,” she said, glaring at him. “But that many servants don’t change positions around here in a year. The hiring fair was last week, so the few who might be interested won’t be free until next quarter day. Those not already in service won’t work for libertines and fallen women. Even Miss Hope’s uncle never tried nothing this bad. The poor girl will be ruined.”
He bit back a sarcastic response. He had forgotten that domestic contracts expired on the quarter days, particularly in the country. Trained servants would not be available again until Christmas. If he had more time he could order his valet to produce a staff – Wilkins often wrought seeming miracles – but Wilkins was with his baggage coach. His friends could arrive any minute.
He cringed, recalling the dust covers hiding the furniture in his five bedchambers. “We must find someone. What about the tenants? With harvest over, they have little enough to do.”
She muttered what might have been a curse. “No.”
“No what? Are you saying the tenants are too busy?”
She shook her head. “No one who knows Miss Hope will work for you, and there’s some as might call you out for harming her. Have you no decency? How can even a London lecher force his sins on an innocent girl?”
“It is not your place to judge, Mrs. Tweed,” he reminded her through gritted teeth. “Your place is to obey orders. Anyone who wishes to protect her should welcome the chance to move in.”
“I work for Miss Hope, not you,” she said stubbornly. “And for Mrs. Ashburton. They don’t need more grief. Haven’t they suffered enough? Enduring twenty-five years of spite should entitle them to peace.” Tears dripped down her cheeks.
“Just find me some servants.” He ignored her tears as the tools of manipulation he knew them to be.
She cried harder.
“Enough!” he snapped, exasperation unraveling his temper. “I have no wish to harm Miss Ashburton or distress her mother. But my guests will arrive very soon. Without a staff, we are bound to disturb them. Where can I find servants?”
She sniffed into her handkerchief. “The nearest registry is in Exeter, but it takes them a week to respond and then it’s only to say they’ll keep you in mind. You would do better to send to London.”
“Impossible, as you well know. Do not allow loyalty to blind you, Mrs. Tweed. Surely there are local girls who would work.”
“No.”
Taking a deep breath, he seated her in the drawing room, choosing the chair across from her for himself.
“Mrs. Tweed, we are speaking at cross purposes. Miss Ashburton ordered you to help me. I own this house. I will be living here for the foreseeable future, and I intend to entertain my friends whenever I choose.”
“And highly improper it is,” declared the housekeeper, displaying not the slightest awe at his position. “How dare you corrupt Miss Hope’s home?”
“This house now contains two homes.”
She snorted.
“Dividing buildings is a common enough practice in London,” he declared. “My guests and I will remain in the west wing. They needn’t even know she is here.”
“What will Mrs. Ashburton think?” she wailed, again breaking into tears. “Beset by the very beasts she was raised to avoid. Provoked beyond bearing by the tools of Satan. Held captive while evil men ravish her only daughter.”
“That is more than enough,” he snapped, his temper shattering. “Since you harbor such a low opinion of me, perhaps you will believe this: Either you find me the staff I need, or I will seduce Miss Ashburton, ruining her in truth. Is that clear?”
She gasped, recoiling from his glare. “M-my lord!”
“Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Max watched her march away, already hating himself for threatening her. Touching a well-bred innocent was the last thing he wanted to do, for it would tie him to the chit for life. Not that he had the slightest intention of carrying out his threat. He would turn his friends away first.
But Mrs. Tweed’s implacable stubbornness could not be tolerated. Servants had to remember their place.
Shaking his head, he strode back upstairs. Intimidating servants was not something he could point to with pride. Nor was anything else he’d done today. But it was too late to turn back.
Grumbling, he jerked covers off the furniture, piling them in the hall. Then he threw open the windows, coughing to remove dust from his throat. These rooms had not been cleaned in years.
But beyond baring the furnishings, he was helpless. None of the beds were made up. He did not even know where the linens were kept, let alone what to do with them. Poking about his own room revealed other deficiencies. Where were the washbowls and chamber pots? What about pillows and towels? He threw himself into a chair, then sprang back to his feet as something stabbed his backside.
Glaring at the broken chair, he considered the larger problem. How the devil was he to feed his guests without a cook? He hated confronting Miss Ashburton again, but that was preferable to another meeting with Mrs. Tweed.
He was beset with troubles, without a solution in sight.
* * * *
“You should not have argued with him, Mrs. Tweed,” said Hope when the housekeeper finished pouring out her woes. “He owns the estate, which means he can stay here.”
“It’s not right,” insisted the woman.
“Perhaps not, but he is within his rights to increase the staff. We can only hope that he honors his vow to remain in the west wing. Did you find servants?”
She nodded – reluctantly. “But the girls won’t stay in the house at night.”
“I cannot ask them to. Nor can he. Whom did you find?”
“The Prices,” she said, naming the neediest tenants. “Mrs. Price will cook, though it will be cottage fare, and the girls will clean. Henry Oates will double as butler and footman.”
“It will do. If the service is less than they prefer, they can take themselves elsewhere.” It was her fondest hope, and might yet come to pass. Two maids and a fourteen-year-old butler would hardly manage the work generated by ten people. But using tenants would protect her. They were so grateful for her past help that they would say nothing to damage her reputation.
“He’s an odd one,” said Mrs. Tweed, relaxing for the first time since returning from the Prices.
“How so?”
“You’d have thought him the most arrogant lord on earth when he was threatening me, yet when I sought him out to introduce the Prices, he was trying to open the bedchambers by himself.”
“Really?” Definitely odd.
“He’d piled the dust covers in the hall. Of course, he’d taken no care to fold the dust insi
de.” She laughed. “They’ll be sneezing for a week on what he dumped on the beds alone.”
Hope chuckled. “I wonder if he knows that none of the beds are made up.”
“He can’t have missed it. Half of the coverlets are mixed with the dust covers.”
“The poor man.” He’d been waited on since birth, so he would be helpless on his own. Yet he deserved credit for trying.
“Don’t you go feeling sorry for him,” warned Mrs. Tweed. “He brought this on himself. ’Tis you I fear for. You’ll pay dearly before this is done. Mark my words. When I think what your mother—”
“I haven’t forgotten,” said Hope, hastily interrupting. “But this is one situation I can’t control. Have the Prices taken over the cleaning?”
“Most of it.” Her eyes lit up. “We found him under a bed, trying to reach a chamber pot. He was relieved to hear that his luggage had arrived, for he was head to toe cobwebs and dust.”
Hope grinned. The arrogant Lord Merimont covered in the dust rolls that collected under disused beds was a sight she wished she’d seen.
But she had her own preparations to make. Sending Mrs. Tweed to help the Prices, she resumed moving pots, dishes, and cutlery into the stillroom. Its fireplace contained the chimney crane and spits she needed. Now she had to prevent anyone from wandering into it.
The ground floor was a maze of rooms leading into one another. The kitchen, laundry, and servants’ hall were in the west end, with the stillroom, dairy, and apartments for the housekeeper and butler in the east. The door connecting the laundry and the stillroom was the only way between them, but it had no lock.
The Prices knew she remained, of course, but visiting servants would dine with Merimont’s staff. It would not do for these intruders to guess she was here.
It was later than she’d thought, she realized, catching sight of the kitchen clock. Postponing the job of sealing the door, she built a fire and prepared a simple meal. An hour later, she carried a tray to her mother’s room.
“She’s said nothing for hours, Miss Hope,” said Rose, rising stiffly from the chair near the bed. “I believe her fever is worse.”
The scarlet patches on those pale cheeks confirmed the diagnosis. “Send Ned for more willow bark. Dinner is in the morning room, then I need you to watch Mother while I speak to Lord Merimont.”
His guests had not yet arrived. She hoped they had been delayed by the afternoon’s storm, for there were details she must discuss with him.
She should not have fled their last meeting, but frustration had threatened her with tears. Breaking down in his presence would reveal a weakness that he would exploit.
Rose was right about her mother, she realized as she tried to coax food into the lady. The chill had clearly worsened. Dr. Jenkins employed none of the time-tested remedies Dr. Willit had favored. Unfortunately, Willit had died three years ago. As her mother’s health failed, she had to question the new doctor’s competence.
Which added to her fears. Like her uncle, Merimont might force her into marriage the moment her mother was gone. She didn’t know why, but he wanted this house, and not just for his party. He would do whatever was necessary to gain control. A rake would not bother with scruples. His easiest recourse would be paying someone to wed her – by force, if she objected.
“Stop looking for new trouble,” she muttered as the last of the tea trickled down her mother’s throat. She had more immediate problems, like setting up rules for managing this dual household. Since that would require cooperation, she must ignore the fact that Merimont was her enemy.
He was in the office, sprawled negligently across a wing chair near the fire – which he had lit, though she could not afford coal so early in the season. Between her mother’s room and the kitchen, she was already burning too much.
Biting back a protest, she reminded herself that they needed to work together.
“Allow me to apologize for losing my temper this afternoon,” she said, taking the other chair.
“If you will forgive my own lapse. This predicament caught us both by surprise.”
“Very well.” He must also have realized that they had decisions to make. “We will start over. I presume you want control of the central block?”
“Of course.” But a sudden frown creased his brow. His voice lacked his usual arrogance when he continued. “Are there other stairs you can use?”
She nodded. “We also need to separate my house from yours. Imaginary lines will not be enough. I cannot allow others to infringe upon my wing.”
“I already vowed that we would not.”
“Yet here you are.” She gestured to the room and fire. “Lounging in my office, burning coal I can ill afford.”
“But—” He stopped, running his hands through his hair. Without a hat, it was luxuriously wavy. “I didn’t think.”
“Not surprising. In my experience, gentlemen rarely think except in their own self-interest.”
“Harsh words, Miss Ashburton.” His voice revealed the control he was exerting to be pleasant, reminding her that he could destroy her. There wasn’t a soul who could help if he chose to ravish her. “A gentleman’s word is his bond. I take that seriously.”
“So your threat to seduce me was a promise.” She should not be goading him, but neither could she expose her fear – which was growing as she recognized a new danger. Her hands had wanted to follow his fingers through that wavy mass of hair, petting him as she would a cat. But this was no harmless tabby. He was an unconscionable rake who proved his prowess by inciting appalling ideas she had never dreamed she could entertain.
He flushed. “I must apologize for that remark,” he admitted. “I would never consider actually doing so, but spoke in the heat of the moment. The woman’s intransigence bested my temper.”
“She has a name,” she reminded him. “Mrs. Tweed may have overstepped her place, but she was trying to protect us. Even you cannot deny that this situation is highly irregular.”
“We will remain out of your way.”
“So you said, yet here you are,” she repeated.
“I— You are right. I did not think.” He sounded harried.
“Which will happen often in the days ahead. Redrock would be small for a house party even if you had full use of it. As it is, you will long to escape the crowd, as will your friends. How am I to avoid encroachment? How can Mother remain undisturbed? Even if your friends scrupulously follow your lead, can you say the same for your other guests? They will occasionally seek privacy, for they cannot wish to remain in a gentleman’s company every moment of the day. Or are they all official mistresses?”
He shook his head, his cheeks suspiciously pink.
She continued relentlessly. “Then there are your personal servants, who will fill the attics of both wings. How will you confine them to your own servants’ stairs when it will frequently be more convenient to use mine? And how will you hide my presence when I must be in and out of rooms all day?”
He took a turn around the room. Several minutes passed before he resumed his seat.
“The house is falling apart,” he announced. “Portions of it are too dangerous to enter until I can make repairs. A water leak rotted floors and ceilings. I will block the hallways with wardrobes, obstructing the view.”
She reluctantly nodded. “I suppose that will work, though I am not sure we have enough wardrobes to do the job. There is one in the attic that I removed from my sitting room. And there is another in the governess’s room. Miss Ellis thought it almost decadent to have a real wardrobe instead of pegs on the wall.” She smiled, recalling her governess’s pleasure. The girl had shared a bed at the vicarage with three sisters.
“We need only block two halls.”
“But the wardrobes are narrow and together will barely fill the hall upstairs. You will have to devise something else for this floor. We also need to block the door between the laundry and still room. This door locks.” She pointed to the one leading to the entrance hall.
“As does the dressing room door that leads from my spare room into the central block.”
“More problems,” he muttered, sounding as beleaguered as a general surrounded by enemy troops.
“But you will contrive.” The words surprised her, for she could hardly trust him. Again he was affecting her strangely. She rose. “I must see to Mother.”
He also rose.
“How is she?”
“Worse. As the fever climbs, she grows increasingly restless. And her breathing is more labored.”
“My sympathy, and another apology for creating trouble when you have problems enough already. I regret placing you in this position more than I can say, Miss Ashburton. If there is anything I can do – order medications, summon a doctor, whatever – please ask.”
“Thank you.” He seemed sincere. On the other hand, taking his party elsewhere was the best help he could offer, but he refused to consider it.
“And keep her warm.” He glanced at the fire. “Do not fret about coal. I like comfort and will lay in a good supply. Make use of it. Do not scrimp on anything she might need, Miss Ashburton. I intend to restore Redrock, so next year’s income will be higher.”
This time shock left her speechless.
“May we meet briefly in the morning? I would like to know as much as possible about the estate before meeting Watts.” He smiled.
“Very well. I must go now. Rose needs rest, or I will have another invalid on my hands.” She was babbling, trying to ignore the effect of that smile.
Danger, warned a voice in her head. No wonder Agnes had fallen top over tail for the man. That smile was a formidable weapon.
He bade her good night and left, apparently not seeing her sudden confusion. Locking the door behind him, she slipped out the other door and up the servants’ stairs.
His words echoed in her mind as she kept vigil at her mother’s bedside. He intrigued her, infuriated her, and terrified her. She would do well to remember her mother’s warnings. London gentlemen are evil sinners, she would say, repeating tales she’d heard in her youth. Selfish. Arrogant. Liars. Cheats. They will drive you down a path to perdition. Stay safe, Hope. Never allow one to approach you.