by Anne Stuart
She would celebrate that fact if she weren’t too exhausted to take advantage of it. Either Wilf or Mrs. Crozier was always awake, always watching her, so even if she’d been able to summon the energy it wouldn’t have done her any good.
She could hear voices in the basement kitchen, new voices that she didn’t recognize. Taking a deep breath, she rose and continued down the last section of the circular staircase to find the large room surprisingly full. Wilf was standing at attention, his uniform impeccable for a change. If that weren’t strange enough, Mrs. Crozier was wearing a fresh apron and her behavior was almost… obsequious. All due to the expensively costumed Dresden doll in the middle of the room. The glorious Miss Gwendolyn Haviland had condescended to the kitchens, bringing with her two very proper-looking female servants, already dressed for work in apron and cap and sleeves rolled up, and an officious-looking gentleman with fierce moustaches and the mien of a chef.
“What the…” she began, but the girl closest to the door, a plump young lady with bright red hair, hushed her.
“It doesn’t do to interrupt her ladyship when she’s on a rant,” the girl whispered, her voice almost soundless, and yet Maddy understood her completely. She nodded, hoping to blend into the woodwork, as Gwendolyn Haviland continued on.
“This house is disgraceful, of course,” she was saying, “but I intend to do something about that. Even though we haven’t set the date for our wedding there’s no reason why I can’t start preparing this wretched place for the short time I’ll have to live here.”
“You don’t intend to stay here for long, Miss Haviland?” Mrs. Crozier was positively cringing with servility, totally ignoring the insults being flung her way.
Gwendolyn tossed her pretty head with a light laugh. “Of course not. The captain is a very wealthy man, and I expect he’ll make a great deal more money as time goes on, and a house this small will hardly suit his consequence. In the meantime, I must make do, and I’ve planned a small dinner party for tonight to welcome him home from London. There will be six of us.” She made a little face that the captain probably found delightful, Maddy thought sourly, keeping behind her red-headed compatriot. Damn it all anyway! She hadn’t even had time to try his study, and he was already coming home. “Unfortunately he refuses to accept the fact that there must be an even number of females and males at a dinner party, and alas, I shall be the only female in attendance.”
“And don’t think she don’t like that,” her new friend whispered silently. “She don’t like competition, she don’t.” The girl’s frank green eyes swept over her. “Best keep out of her way or you’ll be out on the street in a trice.”
“There’ll be the captain and myself, of course,” Gwendolyn went on, oblivious, “and my father’s business partner, Matthew Fulton, and my dear new friend Mr. Brown, and of course the captain insists on Mr. Quarrells and his… his companion.” She made the word sound like something revolting. “Mr. Brown has recently been in an accident and he uses a cane, so we shall do our best to make him comfortable. The one good thing about such an unfashionably tiny house is that the dining room is on the first floor, and dear Mr. Brown won’t have as far to walk. I’ve brought my own chef, Monsieur Jacques, since, as even you must agree, Mrs. Crozier, your culinary skills leave something to be desired, as well as Polly and Nan, two of my maids, since yours has shown herself to be so clumsy and inadequate.” Her sharp blue eyes speared the room, narrowing in on Maddy. “You there, girl. Step forward.” Her tone was peremptory, and Maddy ground her teeth. She could do this. She had to do this—no one said it would be easy.
She moved forward at a carefully controlled shambling walk, her shoulders slightly hunched, and the others moved to make room for her.
“I’ve complained to the captain about her,” Mrs. Crozier was saying helpfully, “but since Mr. Fulton arranged things he said we’re to give her a full month.” She cast Maddy an ugly glance.
“I would have hoped she’d provide some assistance in your day-to-day duties,” Gwendolyn said, looking her up and down while Maddy determinedly kept her face lowered. The ugly cap neatly hid her hair, and if Gwendolyn Haviland followed the pattern of others she wouldn’t look more closely.
“She does work hard,” Mrs. Crozier said quickly, and Maddy suspected that she suddenly realized if she were gone there’d be no one to do Mrs. Crozier's dirty work. As far as she could tell the only work Mrs. Crozier did was her abysmal cooking, and when the captain was gone that deteriorated into almost nothing.
“We have no choice,” Gwendolyn said. “Lift your head, girl, and look at me when I’m speaking to you.”
She hoped the flash of pure rage that went through her didn’t show on her limpid face when she lifted her head, but there was a swift, shocked intake of breath from Miss Haviland, and Maddy was afraid the woman had seen her fury.
But that wasn’t it. There was a long, charged silence. “Turn around, girl,” Miss Haviland said, her voice icy with dislike.
“My name is Mary, miss,” she said, knowing she’d kick Miss Haviland if she said girl on more time. “Mary Greaves.”
“I don’t care what your name is—you’ll be gone by the time I take over this household. Now turn around.” She made a little twirling gesture with one delicate, gloved hand, as if Maddy were too slow-witted to understand her orders.
It was tempting, so tempting to give Miss Gwendolyn Haviland what she expected, but Maddy resisted, turning slowly, ending up back in her original position despite the fact that she’d desperately wanted to end with her backside to the intrusive witch.
“This is outrageous,” Gwendolyn said under her breath. “How dare he?”
How dare he what, Maddy wondered. How dare he hire someone with a relatively pretty face? One could hardly advertise for household help with the caveat “only the disfigured may apply.”
“You,” Gwendolyn said, and Maddy held still while she pointed a long, thin finger at her. “You will stay in the kitchen. I don’t care if the dining room catches on fire, you are not to appear. Nor will you bring the captain any nighttime beverage he may require or his morning coffee, is that understood? You are to stay out of his way. Mr. Crozier is more than capable of taking care of the captain, and there’s far too much cleaning that needs to be done to keep you busy.”
“I’ll be needing some help,” Wilf said in a suddenly quavering voice, sounding twice his age. “It’s too much for one man…”
“Then I’ll leave one of my footmen here to help out, though the captain must be billed for his work.”
“Skinflint,” her red-haired friend whispered.
Miss Haviland was already sweeping out of the kitchen when she paused, looking back at Maddy. If she were superstitious she would think the delicate blond woman had no soul. She certainly looked as if she could happily drop Maddy in the harbor and watch her drown.
Ah, but I can swim, Maddy thought. And I don’t let pampered, self-important young women get away with treating me like dirt. She smiled back at Gwendolyn, raising her chin, and Gwendolyn’s eyes went dark with anger. She opened her sweet little mouth to say something, and then shut it again with such a decided gesture that Maddy almost thought she heard the snap of her jaw, like some errant crocodile.
And then she realized why Gwendolyn had stopped her attack. The captain had returned—his deep, slightly husky voice came from above in the butler’s pantry. At the sound Maddy felt a strange, tingling sort of relief, which was ridiculous. This was far from a good thing—he was the enemy returned to the fold, before she had a chance to even get inside his library or the locked room in the attics. She was much better off with him gone. And yet the sound of his deep voice sent delicious, troubling little shivers through her.
Before Gwendolyn could manage her sweeping exit, the door at the bottom of the stairs opened. Maddy’s nemesis walked in, and her stomach clenched. She tried to disappear behind the redhead so she could watch him covertly. He really was a beautiful man, with that u
nfashionably gilded skin, the black curls, the dark, implacable gaze.
“Dear Thomas,” Gwendolyn said immediately, going up to him and practically trying to physically bar him from entering the room, “don’t you know the master of the house never enters the kitchens? Only the mistress does. If you have a question for the servants you summon them.”
For a moment Maddy was so distracted by his smile that she missed the words that accompanied it. “Ah, but dear Gwendolyn,” he said in his husky drawl, “you aren’t the mistress of this house.”
For a moment Gwendolyn’s sweet exterior seemed to crack, but she quickly regained her composure with an airy laugh. “Not yet, my darling. Just you wait until I get my hands on this place.”
“I tremble in my boots,” he said lightly.
And he was wearing boots, not a proper suit and street shoes as a businessman or even a ship’s captain ought. He wore a loose-fitting, blue jacket and white shirt, and the lack of a cravat exposed too much of his throat and even his chest. Bronzed. Smooth. She had almost forgotten how… different he looked. An outsider, a stranger. She wouldn’t have thought a stuck-up priss like Gwendolyn would want to ally herself to someone so out of the ordinary, but then, no woman could deny that he was devastatingly handsome. Not even his in-house spy.
“You should,” Gwendolyn said archly, and Maddy wanted to smack her. “You need a cravat for dinner.” She turned, and her cold, china-blue eyes focused directly on Maddy. “Girl,” she said in her dismissive tone, “repair to the captain’s chambers and retrieve a number of cravats, and be quick about it.”
Maddy bristled, trying not to show it. What was the idiot woman up to? Apparently entering the captain’s rooms was acceptable if he wasn’t in them. She turned, only to be stopped by the captain’s lazy voice. “Her name’s Mary,” he said, “and she doesn’t need to go anywhere. I’m not wearing a cravat.”
Gwendolyn had frozen, and the look she cast Maddy was of such intense hatred that Maddy was shocked. Life would be wonderful indeed if only Gwendolyn Haviland were responsible for the evil that had befallen the House of Russell, and if Maddy could prove it, but alas, the woman had absolutely no reason and no opportunity. Life could be singularly unfair at times.
“Since when do you know the names of your servants?” Gwendolyn asked in a dangerously cool voice.
“I only have three—it’s not that great a task. I know the names of every man jack under my command at sea. It’s the least I could do on land.”
Gwendolyn’s frozen expression had vanished, and she batted at the captain’s arm in a playful gesture. “Then when we have a full complement of at least forty-five servants I’ll expect you to know all their names as well.”
“Why the hell should we have forty-five servants?” he demanded, looking slightly horrified.
“When we buy our house in the country, of course. You don’t want our children growing up in this filthy city, do you? And of course you would want me to have the proper setting. And trust me, forty-five is a conservative number for the size of house I want.”
There had been more than that at Somerset when the Russells had been in residence, including, of course, the stable hands and gardeners, laundry workers and dairymaids, gamekeepers and governesses. She couldn’t quite see the pirate captain in such an ornate setting, but she wasn’t about to underestimate the determined Miss Haviland.
Maddy had managed to slide behind her red-haired friend, trying to be less conspicuous, and she watched carefully as the captain slid his dark eyes over his fiancée, slowly, consideringly. And then, to her shock, his eyes turned her way before she could sensibly lower them, and she felt an unaccustomed heat flush her cheeks. Absurd, when the most determined flirts in London society couldn’t make her blush.
“We shall see,” said the captain, but he didn’t move his gaze from Maddy’s, and she was unable to look away. For a frozen moment it seemed as if they were alone in the kitchen, and everyone else had faded away.
And then he broke the spell, taking Miss Haviland’s arm and moving her toward the door. “Gwendolyn, your admirers have arrived, and while I can hold a decent conversation with Fulton I think Mr. Brown is far more interested in you.”
“Mr. Brown is absolutely charming,” Gwendolyn said as they moved away. “We were introduced at the Mortons’ ball, but of course the poor man cannot dance due to his unfortunate accident, and I…” Her voice faded away as the green baize door closed behind them.
It was as if everyone in the room had been frozen, holding their breaths. Suddenly they began to move, to speak, a hushed comment here, a nervous giggle there. The gentleman with the moustaches quickly clapped his hands, demanding attention. “You heard Mademoiselle ’aviland,” he said in a thick, almost impenetrable French accent. “She wants a meal magnifique, and it is our duty to provide it for her. Polly, clear away some of this clutter so I may have some workspace, and Nan, you will work with Madame Crozier to set a table worthy of my art.”
Mrs. Crozier drew herself up to her full, skinny height. “I believe this is my kitchen, Monsieur Jacques, and I am in charge of this household. I will be the one giving the orders.”
The small man marched up to Mrs. Crozier, his beady gaze focusing on her own slightly protuberant eyes. “And I believe you are wrong, madame. Any kitchen I enter is under my direction, including anything to do with the meal. You may either assist me as sous chef or you may retire to your rooms.”
Mrs. Crozier looked torn, and Maddy could read her conflicting emotions. On the one hand, she certainly didn’t want to surrender the playing field to this French upstart, but on the other, she had a tendency to avoid work like the plague, and Monsieur Jacques was likely to work her like a slavey. The housekeeper drew herself up.
“I have better things to do than be insulted in my own kitchen,” she said, but Monsieur Jacques had already dismissed her, turning to the imported maidservants.
“You heard me, girls.” He rolled the “r” extravagantly. “And the pretty one, Mary, is it? You are slow-witted, hein?”
“No, monsieur, I am not slow-witted at all,” she replied in French.
He beamed at her. “And a perfect accent. Not like the rest of these English canailles,” he replied in the same language. “Mademoiselle Haviland hates your liver, and I can see why. Next to you she looks like a pale stick.”
“Merci du compliment, monsieur.” She shouldn’t be so pleased, but she’d developed a real dislike for Miss Gwendolyn Haviland. “What would you like me to do?”
He switched to English. “Polly will show you. She is English and therefore will never be a cook, but she ’as some talent,” he said grudgingly, and the red-haired girl beamed at him. He looked back at Mrs. Crozier, who was glued to her spot, ready to explode with outrage. “You,” he said. “Get out.”
Oh, dear. Maddy hadn’t been able to resist showing off her almost perfect French with the chef, but she’d forgotten that the evil harpy was still in the room. A simple maid shouldn’t be able to speak French so well, though most likely Mrs. Crozier wouldn’t know the difference between a finishing school accent from Switzerland and a dockside whore’s.
The housekeeper stormed out of the room, and Maddy felt almost limp with relief, until she remembered the look in the captain’s eyes. The seemingly endless moment when she felt her heart catch in her throat as they looked at each other. It had felt as physical as a touch.
“That Mrs. Crozier’s a real corker, ain’t she?” Polly murmured. “Must be living hell to work for. Our housekeeper, Mrs. Simmons, is a treat, but we still have to put up with her highness out there.” She jerked her head in the direction of the front rooms, where Gwendolyn’s arch voice could be heard above the lower rumble of male tones.
Maddy pulled herself out of her abstraction. “Not much of a choice.”
“It’s not. But those of us in service don’t tend to have choices.”
Maddy thought about it. If she was ever in a position to have servants
again she would go out of her way to treat them fairly. Not that she hadn’t in the past, but she’d been brought up to think of servants as little more than furniture. “No, we don’t,” she agreed.
Polly snorted with laughter. “And you’ve been in service such a long time, then?”
Maddy wracked her brain, trying to remember her lies. “Most of my life,” she said. “From thirteen a least.”
“I believe you. Thousands wouldn’t,” she said flatly, and Maddy blinked at the sarcastic comment.
“I beg your pardon?”
“That’s all right, Mary, is it? You keep on with whatever you’re doing and I’ll cover for you. I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I don’t care one way or t’other about the captain, though he’s handsome enough to make me bones melt if you like that mysterious, foreign look.”
“Do you?” Maddy asked, deciding to ignore her cryptic statements.
“Oh, I’ve got a young man, I do, been calling on me for three years now. He’s trying to earn enough money so we can both leave service and have our own little farm, but it’s mortal hard to save money. But if I didn’t have my Dickie I might find the captain tempting. If it weren’t for his eyes.”
“His eyes?” Maddy echoed, remembering his intense black gaze with a feeling of warmth stealing beneath her skin.
“They scare me. Just a bit. He’s got gypsy blood in him, or I miss my guess. Though the Rom don’t usually like the water, and the captain can’t keep away from it. Anyway, he’s not for the likes of us girls in service. He leaves the maids strictly alone. He’ll most likely have his own piece of fluff on the side, set up all nice and cozy in a place of her own. And won’t her highness have a fit when she hears about it!”