by Alysha Ellis
“I’m sure my friend would prefer to have you commence duties tonight,” Lady Estelle replied. “If it would be convenient for you.”
Susan bit her lip. She wanted to please Estelle, but a difficulty arose. “I…I didn’t bring a lot of clothes with me. My wardrobe might not be quite suitable for the position.”
“Any shortcomings in your apparel will not concern your employer. You will be provided with whatever is needed.” Estelle served herself a hearty breakfast of kippers, toast and eggs before returning to the table. “I suggest you rest here for most of the day. Make sure you have plenty to eat. We don’t want you going to your new job looking wan. Later you can bathe, then my carriage will take you to Lord Winslade’s residence.”
Susan’s mouth opened on an astonished protest. She didn’t have the experience necessary to keep house for an aristocratic family. She had thought at best, Lady Milthorpe might have recommended her to a prosperous merchant’s family, or some well-to-do landed gentry such as her own family had been. The lord and his lady must be very good friends of Lady Milthorpe’s if they were prepared to take on a new servant, sight unseen, purely on her recommendation. She wondered if Lady Winslade realized twenty-four hours ago Estelle had not known of Susan’s existence.
A moment’s thought before she uttered her concerns convinced her to keep quiet. If Lady Milthorpe and the Winslade family were prepared to give her a chance, she would have to be stupid to raise objections.
She supposed she should write to Mama, but the thought of having to tell her Charles had fled, in debt and in disgrace, daunted her. She eased her conscience by telling herself a few days could hardly matter. Perhaps, if she were very lucky, Lord and Lady Winslade might be as generous as their friend Lady Milthorpe and advance her part of her wages. She could send almost all of what she earned home to Mama. Then the news about Charles wouldn’t matter so much.
By the time the coachman brought Estelle’s carriage to the door, Susan was ready to commence her new life. She suffered no delusions. The betrayal by the lawyer combined with Charles’ desertion meant she would be, from henceforth, obliged to earn her living by whatever means possible. Her time as the beloved daughter of affluent parents had ended.
When she’d first realized their money had been stolen with little chance of recovery, Susan had accepted her chances of marriage had shrunk to almost nothing. This final step would put her on the path to eternal spinsterhood.
She had to deal with the reality as best she might. The situation could be far worse. If this post proved satisfactory to both to her and her employers, she would achieve the stability she needed to support her family.
* * * *
When she stepped out of the carriage ten minutes later, she looked up to see a graceful, pale sandstone building in the new Palladian style. Grand columns and wide doorways testified to the wealth and modern tastes of the owners.
As a servant, even one fairly high in the rank order of the downstairs staff, she knew she had to enter from the side. The front door was no longer available to her.
She picked up her bag, squared her shoulders and walked in through the iron gate leading to the servants’ entrance.
She rang the bell attached by a chain to the outside door.
“Yes? What do you want?” The woman who opened the door looked friendly enough, but made no move to welcome her in.
“I’m the new housekeeper,” Susan said.
“Not in this household you’re not,” the woman replied, folding plump arms across her chest. “Mrs. Lloyd’s the housekeeper. She ain’t going nowhere.”
For a moment Susan feared she’d come to the wrong house. But the carriage had dropped her off right here. Since Lady Milthorpe was a friend of the family there could hardly be any mistake. Still, better to check. “This is Lord Winslade’s establishment?”
“Yes, but I told you. We don’t need no new housekeeper.”
“But, Lady Milthorpe said…”
Instantly the woman stepped back. “Lady Milthorpe sent you, did she? You’re one of them…” Her lip curled into a sneer. “Wait here. I’ll have one of His Lordship’s men fetch you in and show you where you should go.”
Before Susan could work out what she meant or ask her to explain, the woman slammed the door in her face. She waited in complete astonishment until she heard someone clear his throat behind her. “Ahem.”
She spun around to face a tall, powerfully built man in black livery who reached out to take her bag. “If you’ll come this way, please. My lord’s guests use a special entrance so the regular staff are not disturbed by his…um…engagements. Follow me please.”
“I’m not a guest,” she began, but the man had already walked away. She could do nothing but follow him.
He led her to a door in the back of the building. High walls and hedges screened the entrance. No one from the neighboring houses would be able to observe any comings or goings. Susan’s heart beat a rapid tattoo. She hadn’t expected this at all. A belated sense of self-preservation made her wonder whether she had been too quick to trust Lady Milthorpe.
She told herself not to be foolish. This was not some gothic melodrama. No mad monk was about to leap out from behind the bushes, no matter how dark and gloomy they seemed in the gathering dusk.
Still, she picked up her pace to move a little closer to the servant. In comparison to her imaginings, he seemed reassuringly normal.
He opened the door and led her into a hallway. Candles in abundance burned in their sconces. The servant didn’t stop but led her up a well-lit stairway then down a long corridor. He stopped before one of the many closed doors.
“You’re to go in there and wait,” he said, turning the handle, then gesturing her inside.
“How long before someone comes?” Susan asked, stepping across the threshold. “I need to find out what my duties are supposed to be. Perhaps I had better speak directly to Lady Winslade.”
“There is no Lady Winslade. The master isn’t married.”
“But…but…”
The man paid no attention to Susan’s spluttering.
“Wait here. Someone will be along to fit you up shortly. There’s a while yet before things get started.”
“What things? Wait for what?” Susan asked, but the man had already walked out. She turned to chase after him, but he closed the door before she’d taken the first step. The sound of the key grated in her ears. He’d locked her in! She was a prisoner.
To make certain, she rushed to the door and turned the handle. Nothing happened. She slapped her palm against the smooth wood and called out. “Let me out of here. Come back and open this door.” But though she pounded, kicked and yelled no one came. Eventually she gave up, turning back to survey the room.
She discovered a dressing room, equipped with a table and chair in front of a mirror, a washbasin on a stand, but no other furniture. The one small, barred window high in the wall let in a little light. A shudder of fear skittered across Susan’s skin. She didn’t know why she’d been imprisoned in this room, but she wasn’t naïve. She’d put herself into deep trouble.
Time passed agonizingly slowly with nothing to do but perch on the hard dressing stool and worry. When the door swung open, Susan braced herself to run, but the maid who entered had the key turned in the lock before Susan had taken the first step.
She carried a flame-red dress over one arm. A bag swung from the other.
“Let me out of here,” Susan demanded.
The maid’s forehead crinkled. “I can’t.”
“Please,” Susan begged. “There’s been some mistake. I’m supposed to be taking up a position of housekeeper, but now I’ve been imprisoned here. If you let me go, I’ll go straight back to Lady Milthorpe’s. I won’t tell anyone who helped me.”
The girl’s lips twisted in a cynical smile. “Ya think Lady Milthorpe’d help, do ya? All that would ’appen is you’d be sent back ’ere and I’d lose me place. This might not be the most decent ’ouse in Lu
nnon, but the gentlemen as comes ’ere don’t bother us serving girls. The pay’s good an’ the food’s plentiful. I’ll not be puttin’ that at risk.”
In spite of the girl’s East End accent, Susan understood her well enough. She would get no help here, nor from Estelle Milthorpe.
In mute resignation, she submitted to having her blonde hair dressed into a tumbled pile of curls and being buttoned into the gown. Her face flamed when she looked down and realized the bodice revealed too much of her breasts, still full even after weeks of privation had stripped away most of her plumpness. From this angle, she could see the circle of pink surrounding her nipples. She looked like a fallen woman. A shudder shook her. Even with her prim and proper upbringing, she had heard about the violation of young women who fell into the wrong hands. She’d never thought someone like Lady Milthorpe would be a procuress.
The only way to protect her virtue would be to escape. The only way to escape would be to run. She didn’t know where she’d run to, with no money and no friends, but no matter how risky taking to the streets would be, she preferred it to the certainty of rape.
Ignoring the small moan escaping Susan’s lips, the maid held out a pair of sandals, red to match the scandalous dress. Susan forced herself to calm down and think. If she were going to escape, she’d have to move quickly. The sandals were too flimsy. They’d fall apart at the first step.
“The shoes are too small,” Susan lied. “They hurt my feet.”
“Albert—’e’s the one who brought you in ’ere—’e don’t usually make mistakes. An expert at guessin’ ladies’ sizes, ’e is.” She bent over and pulled the skirt aside. “They look like they’re the right size to me. Close enough to make no difference for what you’ll be doin’ any road.” She stood and dusted her hands together. “Albert’ll be along in a minute to take you down.” She stopped to peer into Susan’s face. “You look pale. You ain’t sick, are ya?”
Without thinking Susan spoke a hasty denial. “No, I’m not sick I just…”
“Good, ’cos the master won’t want you if you’re diseased.”
She’d been given a way out! Instantly, Susan responded. “Not sick at the moment. But I do suffer from…” She stopped. The only diseases she knew were childhood diseases, scarlet fever and small pox. She clearly couldn’t claim to have any of those. There were of course a myriad of other illnesses, but no one she knew had ever had any of them. She had no idea what the symptoms were. She had once overheard Charles talking to a friend about a disease one caught from fallen women. She had no idea how that manifested itself either, but desperation made her willing to try anything. “I have a disease, er… My illness makes it, er…unsafe to touch me. In an, er…intimate way.”
The maid narrowed her eyes. “Oh yes, and what disease would that be?”
Susan stared at her open mouthed, unable to think of a reply.
“I dunno what’s going on and I don’t want to know, but you’ve no more got one of them diseases than I have. Look at yer skin. It’s perfect. Her ladyship knows better than to send the master someone from the stews or the streets for his parties.” The maid turned and walked out the door, locking it behind her.
When Albert appeared again, his face could have been carved from stone. “I’ve been told to fetch you.”
“Where are you taking me?” she asked. “What’s going to happen? Please, won’t you just take me to the door? Let me go?”
For all his response to her questions, he might as well have been a walking statue. He made not a sound in answer but the last question at least got a reaction. He grabbed her by the upper arm. His grip wasn’t painful but it was unyielding. She had little choice but to pace alongside him. She thought of struggling, but she was a little under five foot six. Even before the weeks of limited food, she had never been overly strong. He was over six feet tall, solidly built with the bent nose of a pugilist. If she tried to fight him, he could easily subdue her. If she refused to walk, he could pick her up and carry her. Better to save her energies for a time when she had a chance.
Chapter Three
Albert pushed open a door and ushered her into another room, quite different to the one she had just left. Instead of stark austerity, this room reeked of luxury and excess. The walls were lined with red damask fabric. Rich carpets picked up the same hues in complex, woven patterns. A long table dominated the center of the room, with places set for twenty or more.
At the far end of the room, five women stood, surrounded by a group of perhaps three times that number of men. The sound of their muffled laughter and chat carried to Susan even through the rush of blood pounding in her ears.
Like her, the women wore low-cut gowns in jewel bright colors. One woman wore a mask, but the others didn’t. All five of them allowed the men in the group to touch them in ways that shocked Susan to the depths of her soul. She’d realized her imprisonment threatened sexual defilement but until this moment, she’d had no idea what that actually meant. Such topics were never, ever discussed in front of young women of her class, even impoverished ones.
But now she could see men, dressed in elegant evening wear, sporting lace, fobs and quizzing glasses. They ran their hands over silk-clad buttocks, thrust their hands down the front of women’s dresses, pulled bodices aside to reveal breasts that they kissed. The women didn’t seem to mind at all. They threw their heads back, granting better access. They laughed. Some even pulled the men’s heads in closer.
Heat flushed Susan’s cheeks. The smell of wax candles, perfume and snuff combined with some other essence she’d never smelled before made her chest feel hollow and fluttery.
Susan didn’t hear any announcement, didn’t see a door open or close, but a sudden hush fell. The men stood upright, returning their hands to their sides. Out of the shimmering crowd at the back of the room emerged a commanding figure, taller by far than the tall servant who still clasped her arm. Clad all in black, he strode out of the seething mass as if he were some Olympian god come to inspect his subjects.
His hair, black like his garments, curled untied and unpowdered around his shoulders. He swept the room with a glance from narrowed eyes, then clapped his hands once. In silence, people took their seats. Albert led Susan to the top of the table. With a sense of inevitability, she saw the black clad man take his place at the head. Where else would a man who exuded so much power sit?
As soon as all were seated, a phalanx of servants filed in, bearing platter after platter laden with food.
Before the first servant approached too near, Susan turned to the man beside her, who could be no one else but Lord Winslade. “There’s been some mistake, sir. I shouldn’t be here.”
He looked at her, his gaze going from the top of her head down to her chest, pausing for a moment to examine the tops of her breasts. She squirmed uncomfortably, then he raised his eyes back to meet hers. “Am I to assume you do not eat?”
Forgetting her fear in her surprise, she said, “Of course I eat.”
“Then do so.” He picked up a slice of succulent roast beef on his fork and placed it on her plate.
“But you don’t seem to understand,” she said, tension making her voice rise sharply. “You employed me to organize dinner parties…”
“This is a dinner party. You are here as my employee. I fail to see your problem.”
“But I wasn’t employed to do this.”
“To do what? To eat? I would be a strange master if I failed to allow my staff to eat.”
“Yes, but…” She gestured with her hand. “All this? The men. The women.”
“I give you credit for your astonishing skills in observation,” he said, his tone dry. “These are indeed men and women. Have you anything further to add or may I partake of my meal?”
Doubt and confusion raced through her mind. The guests sat at the table, eating and drinking. The buzz of chatter rose and fell. Could she have made a mistake? No one intended her harm? But in that case, “Why am I here?” she asked. “What do you
want of me?”
“At the moment I want you to eat. If you find the process too difficult, then I suggest you sit there while I eat.”
For all her previous fear, a little spurt of temper flared. “What are your plans for me? Why have I been made to wear this very immodest dress? Why did you have me locked up?”
Winslade raised his eyebrows. Another shiver scurried across the surface of Susan’s skin, the sensation strangely pleasurable, like being stroked by warm silk. “So many questions. Let us deal with the simplest first. You were not locked up.”
Indignation gave her courage to argue. “I most certainly was. I heard the key turn. I tried the door.”
“You may have been locked in for your own protection. Whilst I enjoy entertaining my friends, some of them cannot be trusted not to attempt to sample new treats before I am prepared to share.”
“That can’t be the only reason,” she argued. “Why did your man Albert frog-march me here.”
His lips quirked into a quick smile. “I’m afraid I cannot see the resemblance between your delectable form and a frog, but if you say it was so, I must, of course, take your word. Albert is harmless, but he tends to take things extremely literally. I told him to bring you to me. He wouldn’t allow anything to interfere with the performance of his duty.”
“But I was a prisoner,” Susan argued. “I begged the maid to let me go, but she said if she did, Lady Milthorpe would just make me return.”
The amusement left Winslade’s face. He suddenly looked very dangerous. “Here we come to a genuine problem. Estelle Milthorpe has expensive habits. She supplements her income by making expedient arrangements between men such as myself who wish to explore less respectable pleasures and women who are happy to profit from such exploration. But Estelle’s greed has overcome her intelligence this time. She has made a mistake, one she will soon come to regret. As for my plans for you, at the moment they extend no further than feeding you and perhaps requiring you to satisfy my curiosity about how you came to be in the hands of Lady Milthorpe.”