by Alyson Chase
One of the letters Liz had been looking at fluttered to the ground. “Twenty . . . They beat you here?” Her voice came out a high-pitched squeak. The steward had spoken of discipline, but she hadn’t understood what it entailed. The idea that Mr. Todd might physically punish her made her stomach turn.
“Of course.” Molly glanced over her shoulder, eyebrows drawn down. “Wasn’t there discipline at Lord Westmore’s?”
“No!” She cleared her throat and bundled the papers up, stacked them on the desk. “I mean, the earl didn’t . . . uh, no. No physical discipline.”
“How strange.” Molly shrugged and turned back to her work. “It’s quite common. Servants, our navies, the primary school lads. We all get it. It’s what makes us British.”
Liz almost laughed. What an odd way to look at it. The servants at her small country home had never been abused, and she didn’t think they were any less British because of it. The upper class were a different breed.
She placed the book back on top of the papers and sighed. No purple seal. Maybe the duke hadn’t received it yet. Or perhaps he destroyed it after reading it. Would he do that if it was a business correspondence? Probably not, but she’d yet to find it with his other letters of business.
She gave the maple desk another swipe. “Well, I’ll be sure to start my duties on time. Thank you for the warning.”
“Cor, it’s not too bad.” Molly’s lips curved. “Sometimes I’ll even break something on purpose just to have a session with Mr. Todd.” She chuckled. “A couple smacks on the rump are worth it to watch the old man hem and haw about ‘order and discipline.’ ” Her voice dropped in a rough imitation of the steward’s.
Liz’s mouth gaped open. She tried not to let the disgust show on her face. To choose to let the steward strike one’s posterior was beyond her comprehension.
The image of the duke rapping his boot with his crop filled her head. The sharp hiss as it flew through the air to her hand. Now, that man looked every inch the stern disciplinarian. If he were to impose the punishment? A heavy feeling settled low in her belly. Cheeks heating, she turned her back on Molly, her fists twisting the rag into a taut rope. That would be . . . awful. Yes, definitely awful. She wouldn’t let herself think otherwise.
Molly’s laugh rang out behind her. “Ah, don’t worry. You’ll see.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “If you giggle while he canes you Mr. Todd gets so red and starts to stutter. It’s right amusing, it is.”
Liz shook her head. Over the last several months, she’d been exposed to so many different breeds of people that she’d previously been sheltered from. If the circumstances hadn’t been so horrible she would have found the experience fascinating.
She reached up to polish a silver candelabra attached to the wall next to a bookcase. Her cloth dragged over it, pulling the candleholder to one side. The bookcase next to her popped open an inch from the wall. “Oh!” She put an eye to the crack between the case and the wall but saw nothing but black.
Molly’s petticoat rustled behind Liz. “That’s one of the old servants’ passages. We don’t use them much anymore.” Her slim fingers reached around Liz and pulled the hidden door open wide. A gust of stale air blew a tendril of hair across Liz’s cheek. She tucked it impatiently behind her ear and stepped forward, into the dark. A hidden passage! Just like a Radcliffe novel.
“Where does it go?” she asked in a hushed voice, one she usually reserved for church.
Molly shrugged. “The kitchens, the ballroom, the guest rooms. It’s a whole maze of passages so that we can feed and clean up after the Quality without them having to look at us.” She rolled her eyes. “But like I said, we don’t use them much anymore, only when the duke has important company. His Grace doesn’t care if he sees us working.”
Molly threw her rag across the room. It landed in her bucket with a definite splash. “Yes!” Skipping across the room, she picked the bucket up, rag and all. “I’ve gotten good at that. Next time I wager Bill in the stable that I can land the rag in the bucket, I’m going to win.” Arching her back to counter the weight of the bucket, Molly waddled to the door. “I think we’re done here today. Let’s move on to the morning sitting room.”
Liz pushed the bookcase flush to the wall, and gathered up her own rags. “Speaking of the stable, I saw two men fighting by it last night. I expected there would be a lot of gossip about it, but have heard nothing. Do you know anything about it?”
“No.” Molly clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “But that might explain your cousin’s black eye. He got right miffed with me when I asked him about it in the kitchen today.”
“Second cousin,” Liz replied, the correction coming unconsciously. “I wonder who he’d be fighting.” And why. She followed Molly down the hall, her thoughts racing.
Her contact at Hartsworth didn’t seem like the friendliest of men, and she could well imagine him getting into a mill. But was it a coincidence that the one man who’d been hired by Lord Westmore to spy upon the duke was involved in an altercation? Chewing on her lip, Liz worried about all that she wasn’t privy to. She needed to help her sister, but she didn’t want to be a party to hurting anyone else.
She squared her shoulders. For all intents and purposes, she was a spy now, too. If Pike was involved in last night’s scuffle she would find out. And find out why. She couldn’t cross Westmore or his man, not directly. But if her mission here was putting anyone else at peril perhaps she could obstruct the earl and Pike just the same.
And maybe, just maybe, learn something she could use against Westmore. The earl had taught her a lot about blackmail. He enjoyed applying pressure to people in order to get what he wanted. Why should Liz be any different?
Thoughts rolled around in her head, her mind as turbulent as the sea during a storm. If she couldn’t find the duke’s letter she would need some other way to convince the earl to have her sister released.
She needed to gather as much information about the earl’s intentions as she could. Follow Pike if necessary. Perhaps intercept his missives from the earl. As Westmore was fond of saying, information was power.
And it was time she got a little bit of that power for herself.
Chapter Six
Wasn’t that the way of things? The one person Marcus hoped to avoid, at least until he could sate his appetite at the Black Rose and, he hoped, rid her from his thoughts, greeted him immediately upon his arrival back at Hartsworth.
And what a greeting. Marcus had taken the curved staircase from the entryway to the second floor and found her. Miss Smith was dusting the base of The Rape of Proserpina. On her hands and knees. Bent away from him.
He bit back an oath.
Whipping her head around, Miss Smith caught sight of him standing at the top of the stairs. Her expression remained even, but the palest pink of a flush colored her cheeks. Even she didn’t have the control to stop that reaction.
Pressing her palms flat on the travertine floor, she pushed up to a standing position. She bobbed a quick curtsy. “Good afternoon, Your Grace.” She waited; for Marcus to return the greeting or pass by he didn’t know. Either action would have been appropriate for a man of his station. Standing there ogling the poor chit wasn’t.
Her flush deepened, but her polite smile didn’t falter.
The marble statue behind her dwarfed her frame. Her black gown and hair stood in stark relief to the creamy white stone, and Marcus couldn’t help but appreciate the irony of him finding his new maid in front of this, of all his works of art. The Roman god of the underworld was a lucky bastard. Taking the woman he wanted, and damn the consequences.
“Miss Smith.” He inclined his head. Stepping forward, he willed his feet to carry him past her, to seek his rooms. Like Reginald the pup, they disobeyed and stopped mere inches from his maid. “What do you think of my newest acquisition?”
She cocked her head to the side. Reaching out, Marcus gripped her shoulders and turned her so she faced the statue. �
��This was delivered to me two months ago from a count I know in Italy. Very poor cardplayer. He is most distressed at his loss.”
“And you are most happy with your gain?” She tilted her head back to examine the faces of the man and woman in the statue. A single lock of hair unwound from the tight chignon at the back of her head. It floated out from the knot, a rebel.
Reaching up, he carefully twisted the end of the lock between his thumb and forefinger. “Indeed.” His gaze found each of the pins holding her hair up. He itched to pull them from her head, shake loose the heavy tresses, see how far down her back they fell.
Dropping his hand, he stepped to her side. “It’s a Bernini. I find myself very taken with his work.” Her face was in profile, but he could see her brow drawn low. “Are you familiar with the artist?”
“I recognize the name.” She glanced over at him. “Early-seventeenth-century Italian sculptor? Known for his realism?”
“I’m impressed.” He’d learned from Mr. Todd how Miss Smith had come about her position in service. That her father had been a man of business, but his untimely death had forced her to find work as a maid. A pity. A woman as educated as she should have had more opportunities.
Her shoulders stiffened. “I should return to dusting it.”
Marcus studied her. “You don’t like it.”
“It is beautifully rendered.”
“Ah.” He waited for Miss Smith to look at him. “So it’s the subject matter you object to?”
“I have no objections, Your Grace.” She balled the dustrag in between her fists, shrugged. “How you decorate your house is your concern.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t answer my question.” He waited. He was an expert at waiting. Most people couldn’t abide silence.
Silence was where he did his best work.
After a minute, she huffed out a breath. “It’s obvious the lady is unwilling. I believe most people”—she darted a glance his way—“would object to that situation.”
Clasping his hands behind his back, Marcus nodded solemnly. Her subtle rebuke had the opposite effect of what she must have intended. Her challenge invigorated him, made him want to spar with her more.
“Perhaps,” he said. Rocking onto his toes, he watched Miss Smith from the corner of his eye. “Or perhaps that is only what Proserpina wants us to think.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “Why?”
“Proserpina, or Persephone to the Greeks, is being abducted to the underworld by Hades.” Taking her elbow, he drew Miss Smith to one side of the statue. “Do you see how Bernini depicts her flesh? The skin of her thigh yields to Hades’s plundering fingers. The quality of the carving is such that it is always a surprise to me when I touch her leg and feel cool marble instead of heated skin.” He placed his palm above Persephone’s knee. After a moment, Miss Smith reached her hand out, as well.
Their hands rested on the statue, side by side. His large, rough, and tanned. Hers small, the back of her palm almost as pale as the marble, the tips of the fingers rubbed pink from her work.
“The texture of her skin is exquisite.” He pointed up with his free hand, his arm wrapping around her back and shoulder with the motion. “The ropes of her hair flying about her face, beautifully wrought. Bernini made this work sensual. The way Hades clasps Persephone to him, almost romantic.”
She stood inches from him, the heat from her slim body warming his front. If he breathed deeply his chest would rub her back. If he shifted the smallest bit his groin would find its home in the crease of her bottom.
He tightened his fingers on the marble. Lowering his head, he whispered in her ear, “Bernini was a master. If he’d thought the story one of brutality he would have shown that. He wouldn’t have made the statue . . .”
“Seductive,” she said in a breathy voice. Rubbing her thumb over the crease where Hades’s finger dug into Persephone’s thigh, Miss Smith loosed a deep breath. “But Bernini was a man. Don’t men find these things appealing? Even if the woman objects?”
“Not the right man,” he growled. Christ, who had she met in her short life to teach her such a thing? The world could be brutal, especially to an unprotected female, but he didn’t want to think of her as one of its victims.
His breath blew a stray hair across her jaw. “Some people believe that the underworld was representative. An allegory for man’s, and woman’s, darkest desires. Everyone has them. Forbidden thoughts. Impure needs. Fantasies that would shock the senses.”
She swallowed, the slim column of her neck flexing. His position over her shoulder gave him the perfect view of her chest, rising and falling, the pace erratic. Christ, was he flirting with her? One of his maids? What the blazes was the matter with him? He should step back, leave her to her duties.
His nose brushed her hair, and another lock escaped its bindings, drifted over her shoulder to rest on her breast. They were small, pert. A perfect mouthful.
He leaned forward, his body nestling into hers. “The underworld represents the desires that most people fight against. By dragging her down to his world, Hades is forcing the woman he loves to acknowledge that part of herself.”
He trailed his fingers along the smooth thigh of Persephone until his hand reached Miss Smith’s own. He covered it. She smelled of soap and a hint of vinegar, but beneath that was a layer all her own. Something sweet and delicate. He wanted to bury his nose at the pulse point in her throat, and breathe her in until her scent consumed him.
He grazed the tip of his nose along the shell of her ear, so lightly he didn’t know whether she’d feel it.
She shuddered. Tilted her head, exposing a length of creamy neck to him. “But”—she licked her lips—“but she’s crying.” Her voice was soft, but he heard her easily. Marcus had blocked out all other sounds. He and Miss Smith were in a bubble, shielded from the outside world. All he heard were her breaths. Her words.
“Not all tears are bad,” he told her.
So much. There was so much he could show her, this maid who kept her passions banked. Everything about the woman appealed to him. Her mind, her self-possession, her spirit. If she’d been one of Madame Sable’s girls he would have blown through his fortune before getting his fill of her.
Marcus took one last drag of her scent, one more second of her heat cradling him. Then he forced himself to step back.
And the outside world came crashing in. Todd was yelling at a footman down below. Something thunked to the floor amid much cursing, and Marcus guessed a piece of furniture was being moved. No one had seen them up on the balcony.
The consequences of being found pressed against his maid were nonexistent for Marcus. For Miss Smith, they could be devastating. She wouldn’t lose her position, of course, but a lost reputation could be much worse.
He took another step back.
As she turned to face him, a moment of confusion crossed her face before her forehead smoothed into its placid lines. “Is there anything else I can help you with, Your Grace?”
As if she had just informed him of the time. As if moments before she hadn’t been panting for him. Damn, she was good.
He shook his head. “As you can see, I am very fond of this work of art. Thank you for your attention to it.”
She curtsied, slow and deep, not her customary bob. If he didn’t know her better he’d swear she was mocking him.
But he knew. Like him, she needed to reestablish their boundaries. Inclining his head, he spun on his heel and headed for his rooms.
The duke and the chambermaid.
The fates were a bitch.
* * *
Forks clanked on plates and the kitchen hummed with the chatter of the servants eating their dinners. At the far end of the rough wood plank table, Mr. Pike dug his teeth into a chunk of brown bread, tore off a bite with a vicious twist of his head. His left eye was surrounded by puffy, bluish skin, and his beady eyes glared at anyone who dared stare at him.
“Peggy, do you know what happened to Mr. Pike? He l
ooks most ill-used,” Liz whispered.
The cook paused, the spoonful of soup halfway to her mouth. “Well, some say he was cheated at a card game down at the village tavern and he didn’t take kindly to it. Others think the husband of a woman he . . . that he . . . well, that he got in a fight with a husband.” The lines on Peggy’s forehead deepened into grooves.
“I’m sure that’s not the case,” Liz said. Not because she thought the man had any morals, as Peggy clearly wanted to believe, but because she couldn’t imagine any woman choosing to consort with Pike.
Peggy dragged her spoon through her soup, drawing a figure eight. “Well, maybe. Others think he stepped on a rake.”
Liz hid her smile behind her fist. She wished that were the case. The ignominy of being beaten by a rake would do the dour groom good. But she knew the true explanation wouldn’t be so amusing.
“Poor man,” Peggy said. “The duke doesn’t have much patience for his servants getting into trouble. I hope Mr. Pike doesn’t lose his position over his troubles.”
A languid shiver traipsed down Liz’s spine at the mention of the duke. She’d tried to ignore the shifting feeling near her heart whenever she thought of him, tried to forget his sweet and spicy scent. To no avail. He was constantly in her thoughts. What had he meant by his attention? He’d pressed indecently close against her, spoken of such indelicate matters. Did he feel the same longing as she when he looked upon her?
Chewing on the inside of her cheek, Liz let Peggy’s cheerful voice fade to the background. The duke’s notice couldn’t lead to any proper outcome. But did that necessarily mean that his intentions were improper?
She interrupted the older woman. “Peggy, can I ask you a rather delicate question?”
The cook pursed her lips. “I don’t see why not.”
“I know in some homes a maid might have to worry about unwanted attention.”