The Earl's Wet Nurse

by Jacqueline DeGroot

  Some excitement was provided later that afternoon when Calista was bodily removed by two footmen from her upstairs duties when the earl’s valet discovered her asleep on the earl’s bed, her nose into his pillow, drool wetting his pristine satin sham and causing Jorge to gasp in shock at the disgrace. Catherine had watched from the doorway and snickered as Calista was carried none too gently down the long hallway toward the stairs.

  Earlier, Catherine had watched Calista as she had come into the sitting room on some innocuous errand. When she had thought Catherine wasn’t looking, Calista took a quick tot from the sherry that was usually set out for her. Many days ago, when Catherine was enduring bad cramps, the housekeeper had thought a little sherry might help. But Catherine hadn’t wanted to chance the effect on the baby so had left the small crystal tumbler untouched on her side table. Feeling perfectly fit, she had no use of it now, but the housekeeper still poured a dram every day and left it out for her. Catherine thought it evaporated during the day, apparently that was not so.

  Catherine hadn’t said anything, she’d just watched, looking through the crack by the hinge, out of sight on the other side of the sitting room door, as Calista imbibed. She’d even refilled the glass when Calista had left the room . . . and then left the bottle enticingly out in the open on the sofa table behind the settee.

  When she had finished bathing Jonathan in the nursery and discovered Calista out of her wits and bouncing off the doorframe on her way through to the earl’s rooms, she had calmly placed Jonathan in his bed and then led Calista into the earl’s bedchamber. Once there, she had tried to ease her onto the bed, but Calista’s eyes had rolled back and she dove, head first into the sumptuous pile of pillows.

  Catherine had giggled at the amusing sight of the formerly uptight and very proper upstairs maid so gracelessly displayed. With her twisted up pinafore and askew mobcap, her foot dangling over the side and missing its shoe, and her stocking torn at the knee, the picture she made was ludicrously funny. Her hiked up dress showed her chunky ankles to great disadvantage, but the most comical thing was the way her face had plowed into one of the earl’s pillows, buried deep enough to bring on the most horrendous snoring sounds. Catherine couldn’t help giggling as she left her there and made her way back to her rooms.

  She fed Jonathan his afternoon meal with her head tilted toward the droning sounds of Calista sleeping off the ill-gotten sherry. She said a quick prayer, and evilly wished that it would be the earl himself who caught her, not one of the other maids, who would surely wake her and hurry her out of the room. Calista was not a nice person, and she was tired of all the trouble she was causing.

  Twenty minutes later she got her wish when she heard the earl and his valet coming up the stairs and walking down the outer corridor. When she heard the roar she couldn’t help herself. She laughed. So much so that she had to turn and stuff her own head into one of the pillows in the corner of the settee.

  She heard the commotion as Calista was roused and sent groggily on her way, a footman on each side, her head flopping between them as they half carried, half dragged her down the hall toward the grand staircase.

  The whole household was present and staring, eyes agog as the prissy and haughty Calista was led through the foyer and into the housekeeper’s office.

  The earl stood, leaning in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest with a sideways grin spreading across his face.

  “I detect your hand in this,” he said, tilting his head for her answer.

  Tears were still streaming down her face and she was having trouble catching a full breath. “W-why w-whatever do you mean?” she managed to stammer. He came in, kicked the door closed with his boot and walked over to where she sat on the settee. He snatched her up, keeping her suspended, her feet dangling in air. His actions were harsh but his grin belied his motives.

  “I thought we were developing a tendre for each other. I can’t believe you would put another woman in my bed,” he murmured against her neck as he kissed his way to her ear. Dragging open-mouthed kisses over her smooth skin, she melted in his arms and sighed. Heat coursed through him.

  Holding her aloft, he nipped at the lobe and then sucked the sting away before licking into the whorl and saying “Naughty, naughty girl,” with warm, excited breaths as he let her down, her thighs caressing his as her feet slid to the floor, her skirt caught high between them.

  “She drank the whisky Mrs. Cockrell set out for me. Five times!”

  He looked over to where she pointed, at the table where the empty glass and the half empty sherry bottle stood.

  “You were drinking sherry?”

  “I was supposed to . . . for my cramping. Several days ago. But I am fine now. Completely back to normal really.”

  So she was recovered. Good. He looked to the table behind the settee. “I see you also gave her access to the bottle . . .”

  “She dug her own grave. She should never have told me that I wasn’t good enough for you.”

  “Well, for once she might have been right.”

  She pulled back, her eyebrows hiked high, and looked up into his face. “What?”

  “Clearly you aren’t good enough for me. You’re bad enough for me. I am coming to adore you because you’re such a naughty little thing. I do so want a bad girl for a change, a very, very bad girl. I’ve been good . . . had to be good for so many years. I want to be bad now. Wicked bad,” he breathed against her throat as his hand stole under her skirt, up her smooth, warm thigh.

  His long probing fingers searched and found her slick lips and the warm, welcoming entrance to her body. Two fingers thrust inside and they both groaned. “You are so wet, you must want to be bad as well.” With his thumb he circled her clit, and rubbed.

  She moaned. “God yes!”

  He carried her to the bed and lifted her skirts to her waist. “First, allow me to thank you properly for bringing the matter of a wayward and overly devoted housemaid to my attention.”

  “I fear I am an overly devoted nursemaid myself.”

  He looked down at her, focused on her darkening green eyes as his left brow arched. “So . . . I should not reward you then?”

  She sat up, dug her fingers into his hair and pulled him back to her. “Just you try to get out of here,” she breathed against his lips as she licked her bottom lip and grazed her teeth along the smooth inner ridge, teasing him with the sight. His eyes drowned in hers as passion ignited and his groin heated. His fingers found their way back to her damp curls. He needed to fuck her, with every single thing he could—his fingers, his tongue . . . his cock. He was determined to make her come. Each and every way he could think of, he’d make her come.

  He would make it so she would never want for another, for he wanted her to be his. Only his. The wicked woman of his dreams was finally here, in his arms, and she was driving him insane. His cock had never been this hard, this needy. But before he took his pleasure in her, she would know . . . by God, she would know . . . how he adored pleasuring a woman.

  The sound of his valet and housekeeper conversing loudly in the hallway as they made their way ever closer to the door he had stupidly left unlocked brought him up short. He groaned his displeasure and cursed. And wished for the life of a simple, unobtrusive farmer.

  In a panic, Catherine pushed at his shoulders. When he was off of her, she rushed to stand and straighten her shirts, then smoothed her hair and forced herself to think quickly.

  She dashed through the room to pick up Jonathan—the only reason they had for being together in the same room. Although there was none for them being alone in the same room with the door closed.

  Catherine knew that they could not be found in a compromising position. She would be forced to leave if they were. His mother would never stand for her son dallying with the likes of her.

  Jonathan did not like being disturbed in
such an abrupt manner and he let her know it. She was pacing and trying to soothe him on her shoulder when the housekeeper and the valet knocked and entered the suite arguing.

  There seemed to be some breech in protocol regarding Calista’s replacement, and neither appeared to be budging in their views and were now seeking the earl’s opinion.

  She could hear them being lambasted by a very cross earl, who, if things had gone better, would have had his way with her on his wife’s bed. And oh how desperately she had wanted to let him have his way with her, she thought as she discretely made her way out of the suite and down to the solar to see if she could quiet Jonathan among the lovely poinsettia blooms.

  Below Stairs

  “I kin hardly believe me ears. They sacked Miss High and Mighty, did they?” This was Big Tom, the doorman speaking.

  “Yes, this vera day,” Cora, Cook’s assistant said, then added, “sent ‘er packin,’ straightaway Mrs. Cockrell did.”

  “For wot reason?” Jeb, the pot scrubber said, trying to heft the heavy skillet he had just washed onto a hook in the wall. Big Tom reached over him, took it from his hands then easily settled it on the hook in the stonewall.

  “I ‘eard she was asleep on the earl’s bed!” exclaimed Lolly, one of the serving girls who had just come in from the garden with a handful of carrots and turnips in need of a good scrubbing.

  “Nah! That brittle twig?” Jeb grimaced, “Not ‘er?”

  “Yes, t’was her,” said Cora. “And you shouldna be so surprised. She’s been anglin’ to get in ‘is bed since the day she got here.”

  “Well, that tis true. She has at that,” agreed Cook.

  “So do tell,” said Jeb, “Was she no’ a good bed partner, is that wot happened?”

  “As I hear it, it weren’t his idea she be there. I don’t rightly know what happened, but his lordship and Jorge found her passed out and reekin’ of spirits in his bed. Mrs. Cockrell was outraged at her behavior, and Jorge . . . he was so off his chips about it you couldn’t even talk to him. He turned out all the bedding and the mattress hisself and then changed out every single pillow and sham. I saw him making for the laundry with a huge pile and he tol’ old Mrs. Jenkins not to spare the lye.”

  “So, they ere not ‘appy upstairs then?” whispered Lolly in fear.

  Cook rolled her eyes, “Happy enough now I suppose that Calista’s gone. Miss Catherine had no love for that she wolf. And despite Calista’s pandering around the earl tryin’ to get his ardor up, it seems he never paid her no mind.”

  “So who’s to be the new chambermaid for the family rooms upstairs then?” Big Tom asked.

  “That’s wot Mrs. Cockrell and Jorge are discussin’, mighty loudly I could add.” Cook said. “He wants ‘is nephew, James, to fill the position, and she wants to move her cousin, Agnes, up a piece.”

  “Who would want to be above stairs tippy toeing around that baby all day?” said Lolly in an exasperated huff, “Barmy I say. The new heir’s a caterwauler every minute that he’s not feedin’.”

  The door opened and Mrs. Cockrell stalked into the room and slammed her ever-present roster board onto the centuries-old scarred oak table. A puff of flour left over from the dough they’d been making burst high into the air.

  Everyone stopped talking and turned to face her as one. It was dead quiet for a brace of a few moments, then Cook leaned toward her, grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her gently, “Everythin’ alright Mrs. Cockrell?”

  As if holding in her fury all the way down from the upper floors had been more than she could endure, she took a deep breath and let the words explode out of her mouth, “No! Tis not all right! I don’t know what the earl was about, but I know I ‘ave never seen him so angry . . . he was on a rant, I’ll tell you that. By God, he actually pushed Jorge through the door when we found him in Miss Catherine’s sitting room, and he tol’ me to have a care not to send so many bloody people above stairs to disturb Catherine and the baby. Said the baby was fussy because we were yellin’ and woke him. He seemed mightily upset to see us there. He was pulling at his hair something fierce. And I tell you this, he cared not a whit who we hired to mind his chambers!”

  All five of the servants standing before her raised a knowing brow, got a gleam in their eye and smiled.

  Mrs. Cockrell saw the dawning look cross each one’s face, then raised her own brow as well. “Well, I’ll be a horned swallow. I did it didn’t I?”

  “Yup,” said Jeb. “Only I don’t think it was Aunt Tilda and his lordship on the fancy dancy table you mighta interrupted.”

  “Oh fag,” she said as she slumped down into the nearest chair.

  Everyone laughed and patted her on the shoulder as they made their way back to the hall to get back to their duties and to pass on the latest on dit.

  “Cora, I think you owe me two bob. And it’s not even St. Stephen’s Feast Day Market yet. The earl moves fast, he does.”

  Cora pulled up the chair beside her and slid onto it sideways. Mrs. Cockrell patted Cora’s hands as they rested on the scarred table. Cora nodded her head in agreement and sighed, “Aye. He and Catherine seem quite taken one with the other. I just didn’t think . . . he’s so very proper . . . such the gentleman.”

  “Yes, but he’s a man after all, and she is nigh onto beautiful,” the housekeeper said, remembering how she’d seen the earl look at Catherine that first night, when she’d been asleep with Jonathan tucked protectively into her body. She’s seen it then, the attraction he’d had for her.

  “That she is, inside as well. I quite like her,” Cora said, whispering conspiratorially in her ear.

  “We could do worse. He coulda fallen for Calista’s charming self,” Mrs. Cockrell said with a rakish smile.

  Cora let out a loud guffaw and dug in her pocket for her chain purse. “I think he did rather fine. I don’t mind the loss of a few bob to see ‘im happy again.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Christmas was fast approaching and the yuletide season was in evidence everywhere Catherine looked. The gardeners had gathered huge piles of greenery for the house, and the footmen had been busy stringing evergreen boughs together and looping them over doorways, across the mantelpieces, and around the bannisters. Sprigs of holly with bright red berries peaked out from behind picture frames, ringed candlesticks, and hung from doorknobs, and there were bowls of pinecones and rosemary branches tied with crimson ribbons gracing every table in every sitting room.

  On her forays down to the kitchen, Catherine, fascinated by all the preparations, and caught up in the spirit, often stopped to help. One morning she made orange pomanders pierced with cloves and decorated with little bits of colored yarn. Then came back that same afternoon to help make beeswax candles and long chains of curled and glued papers that Jeb called do-la-lies.

  This morning she lent a hand beribboning sprigs of holly, made mistletoe clusters, and chopped a mountain of dried fruit for the mini-cakes Cook was baking.

  “Whatever are all these cakes for?” she asked, as counters overflowed with row upon row of the little brown bundles. Still more were baking in the ovens, with even more in various stages of production on the worktables.

  “They’re for the gift baskets for the open house. Christmas is only two days away, and as is custom here at Sefton, the household hosts an open house for the entire village. It’s a grand celebration and everyone comes. There is singing and musicians play all day. In the afternoon mummers put on a pageant. A Yule log is lit, and there is food aplenty: minced pies, mulled cider, pheasant, pickled eggs, prawns, and fruit aspic. For the children there are cookies and toffee cakes and hard bits of ribbon candy and butter brickle. Everyone leaves with a gift basket to use for Boxing Day, as his lordship gives all his staff the day off and even closes the kitchen.”

  “So the cakes we’re making are for the baskets?”
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  “Yes. Every year the lord and lady of the house give baskets to all the tenant families, everyone in the village, and all the staff. Each basket has a ham, a fruitcake, a bottle of hard cider, two beeswax candles, butter scones, buckle berry jam, a crock of butter and a jar of honey. It’s a fun day. The best day of the year, I think. The house is filled with scents of the season and everyone joins in to sing The Holly and the Ivy and watch as the actors perform The Christmas Story.”

  “It sounds wonderful.”

  “Oh it is. And even though it’s more work for all of us, it’s grand to see all the children smiling and everyone is so happy to be invited to such a nice feast. The women love to stroll the rooms and oooh and aaah over all the lovely things. The men love that the tables set up outside have plenty of tapped barrels and that the honeyed mead and brandied eggnog flow freely until the sun goes down. Then the Yule log is lit and everyone leaves with lanterns to go home. It’s a sight to see, the long line of lanterns, swinging in the dark as everyone makes their way down the hill.”

  Catherine sighed. She had always loved Christmas as a child. But they had never celebrated it on such a grand scale. And while at her Aunt’s, it had been more about fasting than feasting as it was such a high religious holiday. It sounded like great fun and she could hardly wait for the festivities to begin.

  She wondered about the mistletoe and its significance here in the country. In the city, if a gentleman caught a lady under the mistletoe, she was required to bestow a kiss. She wondered whether the earl would attempt to maneuver her under it. She smiled and decided not to leave anything to chance and tucked a sprig in her pocket before heading back above stairs to check on Jonathan.

  The next day went by quickly as Catherine was preoccupied with a cranky, irritable baby who chose to mewl and thrash about when he wasn’t nursing. Almost every moment he was awake he seemed angry, and he wanted no one to hold him but her, so she had chosen to nap with him rather than pace the floor with him.