by Connie Lane
“He’s Jem.” The door opened just enough to let a bright stream of light onto the front stoop along with Willie. She put a reassuring hand on the boy’s shoulder. “His name is Jem, m’lord, and as to what the devil he’s doing here, that is simple enough. Jem is your new footman.”
7
In the week she had been in residence as housekeeper, butler, cook and maid-of-all-work, Willie had learned a great deal about Somerton. She knew that if it was cooked properly and seasoned liberally, he liked leg of mutton for dinner, and that the sight of kippers too early in the day made him blanch. She knew he preferred silence to noise—especially on those mornings when he was looking a little the worse for wear—and though she tried her best to stay out of his way and keep the clamor of her work to a minimum, she also knew that in a place as vast and as quiet as Somerton House, she would have gone stark, raving mad if she worked in silence.
She knew that Somerton was not an especially friendly man and though once or twice she caught herself regretting his lack of sociability and wishing for more from him than a distracted good morning or a hurried good night, she also knew better than to expect too much from the master-and-servant relationship they had established.
And if occasionally she found him casting a glance at her when he thought she wasn’t looking?
Then and now, Willie set the thought aside as nothing more than a figment of a too-active imagination.
Yes, there were things she knew about Somerton.
But she never realized he had so great an amount of self-control.
And she was never so grateful for it as now.
His expression devoid of emotion, his posture as steady as any man’s could be considering that he had been out with his friends all night and that meant he was undoubtedly foxed, Somerton looked from Willie to Jem and back again to Willie.
“My footman, you say?” One of his golden eyebrows slid up in an expression that teetered between amusement and bewilderment. “And when did I engage a footman?”
“You did not engage him at all. I did.” Willie returned his look with one that was far steadier than she was feeling. For most of the day, she had been much too busy to think what might happen when the moment arrived and Somerton returned home. Now that the moment was here, her stomach felt a bit as if it had been tied into one of the elaborate knots Somerton used to arrange his neckcloths. “You will recall that we discussed it. Engaging a staff. You will also recall that you told me to take care of the details. Jem is one of the details.”
“Is he now?” Somerton turned to his friends. “She’s taken care of the details,” he told them before he turned his attention back to Willie. “Would you care to elaborate?”
“Certainly.” Taking one breath for courage and another to calm the sudden pounding of her heart, Willie stepped back. Since that moment earlier in the day when there was a knock on the kitchen door and she’d decided her prayers had been answered, she’d been assuring herself—and the people she’d found standing out on the back stoop—that things were going to be as right as a line. It was time to prove it. To them and to herself.
With a look that served as a gentle reminder of all she’d drilled into him in the past hours, she told Jem that it was time for him to take over.
Watching the boy steady himself with a deep breath—much as she’d just done—Willie couldn’t help but smile. What the lad lacked in training, he certainly made up for in panache. Just as she’d instructed him to do, he marched to the door with his head high and his shoulders as stiff as a soldier’s. He opened the door and with a flourish of his hand that looked a little less like the grand obeisance it was supposed to be and a little more like a rude gesture he was—no doubt—more used to making, he stepped back to allow his master and guests into the house.
Somerton tipped his head, instructing Willie to go first and it was just as well, for when he stepped into the doorway, glanced into the imposing entryway and caught sight of people he neither knew nor expected to see lined up on either side of the magnificent, winding stairway that led up to the first floor, he stopped as if frozen.
Never one to let something as simple as another person’s stupefaction impede her when there was work to be done, Willie motioned, first to the men who waited in a straggling line to the left of the stairway, then to the women who stood in a slightly more orderly fashion on the right. “M’lord, allow me to introduce your new staff,” she said.
“My new—” Somerton might never have moved at all if not for a poke from behind from Hexam. Jolted into action, he stepped over the threshold and into the entryway and once his friends were in behind him, Willie reminded Jem to stop staring and close the door.
“M’lord…” Willie motioned toward the man who waited closest to the door. He was a bull of a fellow, compact and muscular, with a crooked nose, a bruised jaw and one eye swollen shut. “This is Mister O’Reilly. Your new valet.”
“O’Reilly?” Somerton looked the man up and down, which really took no time at all considering that he came no higher than Somerton’s shoulders. “Not Charlie the Rooster O’Reilly? The prizefighter?”
“Sure and you have a memory there, sir! Imagine the likes of you remembering the likes of me and my bit of a career.” The valet’s smile showed that his front teeth were missing. He touched a tentative finger to his left eye and winced. “Retired, as it were, sir. As of last night.”
“And this…” Before Somerton could comment, Willie moved to the next man in line. “This is Mr. Finch. He will be your butler.”
Though he would be the first to admit that he had been inside the home of more than one aristocratic gentleman in the course of his career, Finch might also confess that he had never actually been formally introduced to anyone of standing. Because he didn’t know what else to do, he grabbed Somerton’s hand and pumped it. “Five Fingers Finch, they call me,” the butler said. “But don’t you pay that no mind, guv. All that talk of cat burglary and larceny. All in the past, guv. All in the past.”
There was no point in staying too long with Mr. Finch. The look on Somerton’s face told Willie as much. Anxious to distract him, she looked down the line of waiting men. “The others are footmen, coachmen and such,” she said. “You will meet them all in good time. But there is one other I would like you to meet now. This…” She stepped back and did her best to sound chipper as she introduced a tall, rail-thin man with a pallid face and sunken eyes. “This is Mr. Marquand. Your cook.”
“Marquand? Simon Marquand?”
Willie cursed Somerton’s memory. She’d hoped the absence of Mr. Marquand’s Christian name would circumvent explanations that were better given later. Or never at all.
Though he lost none of his legendary aplomb, she couldn’t help but notice that Somerton’s skin went a bit pale. “Simon Marquand the—” Rather than deal with questions that might be as unfortunate as they were embarrassing, Willie breezed over to where the ladies waited.
She stopped before the first of them and smiled at the woman who, all along, had been anxious about what Willie saw as a most commonsense plan. She was not above reminding Willie that she was surely jeopardizing her own place in the viscount’s home for want of helping the rest of them. All day, Willie had defended her decision and she stood by it even now. Still, she knew that of all of them, this was the most crucial introduction she would make to Somerton.
“M’lord…” She offered Somerton a cordial smile, hoping it would pave the way. “This is your new housekeeper. Madame Brenard.”
“I say!” Before anyone else could move, Latimer stepped forward, his eyebrows nearly as high as his voice. He peered at Madame, who all along had been too nervous to do anything but look at the floor.
As soon as she looked up and saw the handsome young duke, Madame’s face lit with recognition and her eyes beamed as bright as her painted cheeks. “Evenin’, Your Grace, been a while and no mistake.” Remembering herself, Madame slipped into a French accent that was as heavy as Willie knew it to be spurious.
“That is, bonsoir, Monsieur. Enchanté!” She dropped him a curtsy and held out her hand and ever the gentleman, Latimer smiled and kissed her fingers. Madame grinned and apparently feeling on more solid ground, gave the duke a knowing wink. “Just ’ere to ’elp out, so to speak,” she told him in a stage whisper. She tipped her head farther down the long line of waiting servants. “Me and the girls.”
“Girls?” The muddled smile Hexam had been wearing since he walked into the house widened into a look of absolute delight. “Look at that, will you!” Grabbing on to Palliston’s sleeve and tugging him along, he hurried down the line of waiting servants and stopped in front of four women who giggled in unison.
“It’s Flossie!” he said. “Flossie, Bess, Marie, and Clover!” He looked from the yellow-haired girl with a gap-toothed smile to the black-haired beauty whose substantial bosom could not be concealed, no matter how expertly Willie had attempted to tie the white apron over Bess’s low-cut gown. From there he cast a glance over petite, frisky Marie with her dancing eyes and ready laugh to Clover, a quiet girl with wide hips and a mane of curly hair the color of strong coffee.
“Good God, man…” When he turned away from the girls and toward Somerton, Hexam’s expression was beatific. “Flossie, Bess, Marie, and Clover! All together! Right here under your roof. It’s like a dream come true!”
“Indeed.” The expression on Somerton’s face did not match the anticipation of Hexam’s expression, the amusement of Latimer’s, or the laughter of Palliston’s. His hands clutched behind his back, his voice as calm as if they were discussing nothing more significant than the day’s weather, he strolled over to where Willie was standing.
“We need to talk,” Somerton said, his words as clipped as his jaw was tight. “Now.”
As many times as Nick thought about that night, he was never quite sure how he got to the library. He didn’t remember marching up the steps. He didn’t remember grabbing on to Willie’s hand and hauling her up behind him, either.
He did remember—or at least he suspected—that he must have held very tight to his temper, because he knew for a fact that upon finding a second-story man, a prizefighter and a madam suddenly on his staff and in his home, his first inclination was to give Miss Culpepper the verbal drubbing of her life.
He didn’t, though he couldn’t imagine why, just as he couldn’t imagine why once the library door was closed behind them and he turned to face Willie, he found himself with his breaths coming hard and fast, his heart pounding double time and her hand still clutched in his.
As if it were as hot as coals, he dropped her hand and moved back a step, away from the unseen but all too real aura that seemed to hover around Willie like the heat off a candle flame.
“What the devil—” Nick caught himself just as a stream of invective was about to leave his lips. It wasn’t that Willie didn’t deserve every last word he was tempted to hurl at her, it was just that watching her watch him—her arms tight against her sides, her chin high and steady though her lower lip trembled the slightest bit, her simple and prim hairstyle looking even more simple and prim framing a face that, in this light, looked to belong to a goddess—he suddenly realized that he did not have the heart.
“Would you like to explain what’s going on here?” Nick asked.
“Explain?” Willie laughed nervously. “I am sorry, m’lord,” she said instantly, and some of the starch went out of her shoulders. “It’s just that I’m a bit surprised. I did not think you would give me the chance to explain before you threw open the door and kicked me down the front steps and into the street.”
“Really?” Nick whirled around and walked over to the magnificent mahogany desk that took up a good portion of the far wall of the room. It had once belonged to his father and his grandfather before that. He wondered what either of them would say if they knew that now that they were at their rest, the family home was filled with the likes of Rooster O’Reilly.
Nick laid his palms flat against the desktop. “I never realized I was such a turk, or that you thought I could be as heartless as that.”
“Heartless, no. Practical, yes. Especially when it comes to your home. And I was afraid when you met the new staff—”
“Who are wholly unsuited.”
“Who are wholly unsuited. Yes, I do quite agree with you there. Which doesn’t, of course, mean they cannot be trained or that they shouldn’t be given a chance.” She pulled in a breath. “I was afraid when you met them you might—”
“Toss them out right as you hit the bottom step?”
As much as she was trying to put up a brave front, Nick couldn’t help but notice that Willie swallowed hard. “There are a good many of them,” she said. “And I think you’ll agree, m’lord, that I am the only one who deserves tossing. From a practical standpoint, there is only one of me. It would be far easier for me to find my way on my own than for all of them, all at once, to be searching for work. If anyone is to go—”
“It should be you. Yes. Yes. I couldn’t agree more.” It was the truth and Nick knew it. Which didn’t explain why the knowledge sat in his gut like the remains of a bad joint of mutton. Anxious for something to do to dispel the nervous energy that built inside him like thunder in a summer cloud, he reached for the nearest stack of papers. They were notices from his tailor, letters from his haberdasher, invoices from his greengrocer, and he shuffled through them unseeing, waiting until he thought the appropriate time had passed to give Willie the chance to develop what at least might look like a bit of remorse.
When he glanced up, she hadn’t moved an inch and she didn’t look the least remorseful. Then again, if she had, something told him he would have been disappointed.
Nick let go a sharp breath. “You’re still here.”
Willie had the good sense not to say a thing.
Too agitated to keep still, he tossed the papers back down and rounded the desk to stand before her. “You are no green girl, Miss Culpepper, and I do not like to treat you like one, but as your employer, I do have a certain amount of responsibility toward you. I have to ask. Do you know who those people are? Do you know what they are?”
“What they are?” Willie was not a tall woman, and she had to raise her chin to look at Nick. “I know they are folk who were turned out of their lodgings today. They could not meet the rent, you see, and they were put out on the street, every one of them, along with all their worldly possessions, by a landlord who was asking more than he knew they could ever pay. I know there are some who are looked upon as thieves and trust me, m’lord, if they are allowed to stay and I am allowed to oversee their work, I will not tolerate thievery. I know there are some who are rough around the edges and I do not expect that they shall ever polish into diamonds, but—”
“But?”
“But they can at least try.”
“But surely, Miss Culpepper, a woman of your background would not—”
“Know people such as those?” It was Willie’s turn to break the tension between them. She turned and walked as far as the windows, then came back again, her head tipped in thought. “I met Madame three years ago,” she said. “It was raining. Quite vigorously. She stepped into the Church of Divine and Imperishable Justice to escape the deluge.”
“And?”
“And my father sent her away. Unceremoniously. Unemotionally. Unsympathetically. He said a church was no place for sinners such as Madame. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him treat someone in need so poorly. At the time, we were collecting clothing for our mission in India and I saw that Madame’s gown was worn. I followed her and apologized. I took her another gown.” She watched Somerton’s eyes as she relayed the information and seemingly satisfied by whatever she saw there, she went on. “We have been friends since and through her, I have met the others.”
“Then surely you know—”
“That Madame is an abbess and that Flossie, Bess, Marie, and Clover are Cyprians? Yes, I know that well enough but then, I daresay y
ou probably know that as well.” Her gaze still locked with his, Willie paused for no more than a heartbeat. It was time enough for Nick to know she had not missed the look of recognition that washed across his face when he saw Madame, nor had she failed to notice the eagerness his friends displayed when they realized that Flossie, Bess, Marie, and Clover—who had the reputation as four of the cleverest, most inventive and most eager-to-please demireps in London—had literally been dropped in their laps.
“From the conversation, I take it you and your friends are very well acquainted with Madame and her girls.”
It was true and it was not anything he needed to be embarrassed about. Which didn’t explain why Nick suddenly felt as if he were standing naked and exposed under the scrutiny of Willie’s straightforward gaze.
“And Marquand?” he asked, anxious to change the subject and annoyed at himself because of it. “Correct me if I am wrong, Miss Culpepper—and I have no doubt you will—but I remember the stories that went around town a year or so ago just as readily as anyone. My new cook, Simon Marquand, is a poisoner!”
“An alleged poisoner.” She clicked her tongue, apparently surprised that he did not know the difference.
“And even if it were true—and no one ever proved it was—he did not poison an employer, so you would have nothing to fear. If I remember correctly—and I am sure I do—it was a ghastly fellow named Cryle who allegedly died at Mr. Marquand’s hand, a man who was suspected of having lured Marquand’s daughter into a life of depravity.”
“And poisoning isn’t depraved?”
“That is not the point.”
“Then what is, Miss Culpepper? What is the point?”
“The point is that you need a staff. I cannot continue to be the only one working here, partly because it is unfair to me and mostly because it is unfair to you. You have a vast household and a vast household needs a good many people to keep it running smoothly. I do not need to remind you that respectable people have been put off by the thought of service here in Somerton House. Someday, I expect that will change. The story of the scandal that surrounds the both of us is sure to lose its luster as soon as the next bit of juicy tittle-tattle comes along. But until it does, someone needs to work here. With Mr. O’Reilly taking care of your personal needs and Mr. Finch handling the staff and Madame taking care of the household responsibilities, I will be free to get your books and your finances in order.” She glanced at the stack of tradesmen’s bills Nick had tossed onto the desk. “As you can see, there is some need for a tight hand and a closed purse.”