A Scandalous Lady (13 page)

And that meant shaking herself loose of her Bethnal Green roots.

Ten years had past since she'd left the orphanage, but when she concentrated really hard, she could still hear Vivette, one of the older girls in the home, instructing her and the other children on proper speech, behavior, and manners in her lightly accented French until the headmistress found out and ordered her to stop. She'd been self-educated and soft-spoken, and like so many of the others, orphaned too old to adopt. Her grandest hope was to become a governess.

It had been her voice that captivated Faith more than anything, bringing her back to a time and place that was both soothing and painful. Still, Faith was grateful for the lessons and sought to emulate what she'd been taught, allowing herself to pretend that she was indeed a grand lady of the manor.

And every now and again, she'd swear the angel-lady above would smile upon her.

Then the day arrived when, in the midst of scribing her name on the window with her finger, she'd seen him.

Troyce de Meir, third Baron of Westborough, her master gaoler and prince of dreams, navigating the rocks on the cliff, making his way to the shore beneath. Giddy breathlessness overtook her. He was nimble on his feet, and a powerful form against the backdrop of blue sky and moss-blanketed crest. The wind whipped at his loose shirt and raked blustery fingers through his hair, much as she often longed to do herself.

Then just as quickly as he appeared, he vanished. What beckoned him down there? She wondered. She was tempted to follow him, just to learn where he disappeared to.

Just to be close to him.

Rattled by the dangerous turn of her thoughts, Faith fled the tower room and made her way through long stone hallways and back stairwells to the main floor. It was a goosey thought to want to be close to a man who'd hijacked her into thralldom.

But if she thought to escape him, she soon discovered there was no escape from the third Baron of Westborough.

She was down on her knees in the common room, scrubbing grime off the floor, muttering to herself . . . “a team of plow horses . . . grow crops . . .”

“Are you speaking to anyone in particular, Faith?”

She spun around and her heart dropped to her toes. He looked as if he'd just awakened. There was a sleepy cast to his eyes and a lazy saunter to his stride. “I said, this place is a pigsty, Baron. The dirt is thick as a village field.”

“I imagine so. It has not been lived in for many years.”

“Millie said as much. It will take weeks to make it livable.”

“Then it's a good thing you have an excess of weeks,” he quipped, and left the room with a jaunty grin that threw her heartbeat into a tizzy.

Once he was out of sight, Faith flattened herself against the wall, shut her eyes, and pressed her hand to the thudding beat beneath her breast. Crikey, what was the matter with her? Her skin burned, her nerves leaped. She felt as if she was coming down with a fever or something. Except, it only seemed to strike when the baron was about.

Disgusted with herself and determined to rid herself of the curious ailment, she pushed away from the wall and forced her feet to carry her to the kitchen. The thousand and one chores that had been heaped upon her would surely keep her too busy to dwell on him.

When she reached the kitchen, she found Millie standing at the table, breathless and holding her chest. Faith dropped her armful of buckets, dust rags, and tins of polish. “Millie? What's wrong?”

The old woman wilted against the table.

“Oh, Lord . . .” Faith hurried to her side and guided her into a chair. The smell of pigeon dumplings, browning bread in the huge oven, and cinnamon-flavored rice pudding boiling atop the stove reminded her that the midday meal would soon be served.

What on earth was the matter with Millie? Her glazed eyes and pale face told Faith that she was in pain. Faith didn't do well with pain. “For God's sake, where is Lucy?”

Millie gasped and gripped Faith's arm. “Gone . . . to the village.”

It figured. Like herself, Lucy had no secular role, but as Millie's granddaughter and because she had been with the family the longest, and worked as a housemaid since she was a young girl, she laid claim to the more desirable duties of serving meals and acting as Lady Brayton's maid.

As a lower servant, Faith had been assigned to scrubbing floors, emptying chamber pots, and washing dishes. Both were to share such tasks as candle-making, polishing silver, and hanging laundry. Faith quickly learned that Lucy felt herself above such tasks and therefore made herself scarce. It was not a pattern of behavior that garnered respect. Especially now.

“I'm going to get the baron.” He'd only just left. He couldn't have gotten far. . . .

The bony hand clutched her arm tighter. “No, please don't tell his lordship.”

“You need help, and he'll know what to do.”

“He'll boot me out on my arse without a pension, that's what he'll do.” She grabbed her chest again.

“I'll get Lady Brayton then.”

“No!”

“You're hurting, Millie. You need help.” Under any other circumstances, Faith wouldn't have dreamed of going to the duchess if her life depended on it. But it wasn't her life that concerned her at the moment. It was Millie's.

A moment passed before she could find the strength to speak again, and when she did, her voice was thready and moist. “I'm begging you, Faith, say not a word. This will pass, it always does.”

“This has happened before?”

“A time or two. Neither Her Grace nor His Lordship can ever find out. I'll lose my position, and I'm too old to get hired on elsewhere.”

Since Millie couldn't be a day younger than seventy, Faith reluctantly had to agree. That she retained a position in Westborough spoke highly of its lord. “How long have you been with the baron?”

“Since he was a babe. Thirty years this past May.”

“That's a long time to be with someone. Surely he'd not send you away because you're feeling poorly.”

“Then you don't know him very well. He tossed Cook out on his ear just for serving spoilt turbot.”

Faith couldn't imagine the baron being so heartless. Not when he'd gone out of his way to make her as comfortable as possible under impossible circumstances. But how could she be so certain of the character of a man whom she'd known less than a week? Lord knew she was hardly a good judge of first impressions. She'd thought Jack Swift a savior. “Tell me what I can do then.”

Millie blinked as if surprised that anyone would offer, much less Faith.

“You're not strong enough to sit upright much less work, and I can't stand by and do nothing. Tell me what needs to be done.”

“The table must be set. The meal served. The wine poured.”

“I'll take care of it. Do you think you can make it up to your room by yourself?”

After a moment's hesitation, Millie nodded.

“Then go upstairs and rest.”

“If you're certain you . . .”

“I am. If anyone asks after you, I'll tell them you're counting linens or something.”

Finally, Millie shuffled up the back stairs.

Once Faith was assured that the housekeeper had made it to her room without incident, she looked about the kitchen. The pan on the stove boiled over, steam poured from beneath the lids of another. Loaves of bread sat whole on the table beneath towels, while others remained in the oven, and a stack of plates waited on the corner. Faith decided Millie must have been carrying them into the dining room when the attack occurred.

Pulling her sleeves up to her elbows, she headed for the stove, and after removing the pans and taking out the bread, she fetched the pile of plates. She hadn't a clue what she was to do, but crikey, how hard could it be to feed a pair of aristocrats?

Chapter 9

I
t was a complete catastrophe. The moment she stepped into the dining room and saw Lady Brayton and the baron waiting to be served, her fingers turned to butter and her legs to dough. She tripped over the edge of the carpet, and the plates slid off one another. Even Faith's juggling act could not stop them from crashing to the floor.

Her heart stopped and her mouth fell as she stared at the broken plates at her feet. Slowly, she dared to look up at the baron, who watched her with that secretive and unsettling twinkle, then at Lady Brayton, who wore her usual scowl.

“For heaven's sake, Faith, can you be any more clumsy?”

“I'm sorry, mu—Your Grace,” she said, blushing to the roots of her hairline. She dropped to a crouch and began picking up the pieces of stoneware.

“Where is Millie?” Lady Brayton demanded.

“She's occupied elsewhere.” Having gathered as many shards as she could reach without crawling under the table, she got to her feet. “Dinner will be served shortly.”

“In one piece I hope.”

Faith bobbed her head in what Troyce suspected was her version of a curtsy, then took the broken dishes away with her.

“This ought to be interesting,” the duchess muttered after she'd left the room.

Troyce glared at his sister. “Stop it, Devon.”

“Stop what?”

Being such a virago.

Faith's reappearance with a fresh set of dishes saved him from answering. She set the plates on the table, and he noticed that her hands trembled. He hated seeing her unsure of herself. It was obvious that she knew nothing of the role which he'd thrust upon her, and as such, it fell on him to guide her, “Perhaps you could serve the wine while we wait for our meal,” he gently suggested.

“Uh . . . of course.” She bent low and teased him with her faintly floral scent. “Where is it?” she whispered.

Troyce smiled and pointed to the cabinet three paces away. She lifted her brows, and he had to grin.
Yes, Faith, I'm perfectly capable of getting it myself, but that's what I've got you for.
She'd said herself that she knew nothing of being a servant; how was she to learn what was expected of her if he did her work for her?

She sighed and fetched the half-filled bottle of red wine from the sideboard. Then she set it on the table in front of him.

And there it sat.

Troyce looked at the bottle. Devon looked at the bottle. Then both looked at Faith.

“Surely you don't expect us to pour,” Devon cried.

Faith immediately whisked the bottle off the table. As she struggled with the cork, Troyce saw a disaster in the making and relieved her of the bottle. “I've got this. Why don't you see to dinner?”

She all but ran out of the dining hall. A few minutes later, she returned, hands hopping on a printed serving bowl. It fell to the table. Then she left again, and returned again, another hot plate in her hands and a basket of bread dangling from the crook of her arm.

She caught on this time, and after removing the plate's cover, plopped a mound of scorched rice pudding onto his plate. A serving of pigeon dumplings followed.

Troyce picked up his fork. “
Merci.
”

“What was that, West? Did I just hear you
thank
a
servant
?”

“In my house, common courtesies are practiced at all times, with all people.”

He thought he saw Faith's lips twitch as she filled the spoon and stretched her arm across the table to Devon's plate. And the sight so took him aback that for a moment, he forgot who and where he was. 'Twas like a glimpse of a sunbeam after months of cloudy skies, and his spirits suddenly lightened.

Catching her eye, he winked at her. She startled. The serving fell short of its mark and pigeon dumplings slid across the table and into Devon's lap.

Devon leaped to her feet and, arms akimbo, stared at the sliding red stain on her gray crepe skirt. “Oh, for God's sake!”

Troyce's brow lifted.

Faith's mouth went slack. “Your Grace!” She raced around the head chair to Devon's seat and reached for the dumpling in her lap.

Devon batted her hand away. “Don't touch me, you . . . you . . . just don't touch me.”

“I'm sorry. It was an accident.”

“Of course,” Devon countered shortly.

Faith bowed up and looked as if she was ready to hurl herself across the table and scratch his sister's eyes out. “Faith, don't concern yourself. It's about time she wore a bit of color to relieve that damnable mourning gray.”

His attempt at levity seemed to work, for her shoulders relaxed a bit. She even gave him a half grin that had him grinning in return.

“I've obviously misjudged your newest servant, brother dearest,” Devon retorted when Faith left a moment later. “She's not only reckless and impertinent, she's completely incompetent.”

Troyce sighed and snapped a week-old newspaper open. It would be a long, long summer if Devon kept up her complaints against Faith. She seemed to have a new one each day. “Don't be so harsh with her. She's trying, and her heart is in the right place.”
Her heart, and everything else
, he thought, remembering her body against his. Though weeks had passed since he'd felt her sinuous curves atop his frame he could recall the moment as if it had only been yesterday.

“For heaven's sake, this is the reason help is not hired without references.” She dabbed at a spot of sauce on her skirt. “If it were up to me, the chit would have been dismissed the day she darkened your doorstep.”

“It's not up to you, is it?”

“Do you not see it is only a form of manipulation?”

Rare anger kindled in his blood. He narrowed his eyes at her over the top of the London
Times.
“If you are so displeased with her, you could always go back to your husband.”

“And leave you alone with that London alley cat? I know her kind. She has designs on you, Troyce, and as long as she can gain your sympathy she'll think above herself.”

“Enough!” His hand slammed down on the table so hard that the goblet jumped and tilted. Bloodred fluid pooled on the hard wood surface and streamed toward the edge. “Faith is my concern, not yours, and I'll not have you casting aspersions on her every time she turns around.”

“Well.” She sniffed. “I should have known you would take up for her.” Carefully she folded her napkin and set it beside her untouched plate. “Very well. If you are so insistent on championing the chit, I cannot stop you. But you cannot be so blind not to see that she holds a
tendre
for you. Unless you intend on breaking the poor mouse's heart, I suggest you do something—and do it quickly—before she destroys the entire manor.”

A
tendre
?

How absurd. Though the idea that Faith might fancy him, even a bit, created a warmth around his heart, he knew she could hardly stand the sight of him. She only tolerated him because she had no choice.

Troyce sighed again. “What would you have me do, Devon? Take her back to London and dump her on the closest street corner where she'd no doubt be forced to steal—or worse—to survive?”

It was a frightening thing to see his sister's eyes light up. “Actually that's not a bad idea.”

“Judas Priest, Devon!”

“No! Not London—send her to Radcliff!”

Oh, hell. He'd known this moment would come, and now that it had, he squirmed like a ten-year-old caught peeking under the chamber maid's skirts. “I can't do that.”

“Of course you can! It would be the perfect solution. Westborough might actually be salvaged, and she would still be under your protection—or whatever it is you feel you owe her. I would even be willing to send one of the maids from Brayton Hall to train her.”

How charitable
, he thought dryly.

Still, the time had come; the confession could not be put off any longer. “I sold the town house.”

The hall fell so silent that he swore he could hear her heart stop.

“You what?”

“I sold the town house. To Miles Heath.”

She looked as if he'd just plunged a dagger into her heart. “How could you even consider selling our family's property to that reprobate?”

“Radcliff was expendable—Westborough is not.”

“But why him? For God's sake, Troyce if you had to sell the house, I'm certain you could have found another buyer!”

“Not on such short notice.” Her silence was condemning, and his mild temperament snapped for the second time in just as many minutes. “Stop looking at me as if I've committed a mortal sin. I'll not let my people starve so you can feed this animosity you bear against Miles.”

The chair screeched against the stone floor as she shot to her feet. “You dare lay this at my door? What of you, Troyce? The solution has been within your reach all along, and yet you willingly choose to ignore it.” She shook her head at him and tears swam in her eyes. “I shall never forgive you for this.”

And she stalked out of the dining hall.

For a moment, Troyce thought about going after her, but decided against it. His anger with her was still too fresh, too raw. They would no doubt wind up quarreling again, and God's teeth, he didn't want that.

He set his glass upon the table and strode out of the dining hall, down the hallway, and out the back terrace. He started for the well-worn path leading to a monstrous shelter built in the cove where the galleon was housed, but stopped just shy of the chalky-limestone cliffs that dipped into the channel. Any other time, he would have gone directly into the boathouse without a second's hesitation and sweated out his mood with backbreaking labor. But the thought of facing his failure in mammoth proportions had his gut twisting into knots. Instead, he turned to the Channel and stared out to sea.

What was he to do with his sister? Aye, he knew of the rift between Devon and her husband, so he'd not objected when she asked to spend the summer at Westborough. To be truthful, he'd been feeling so guilty about not being there when she'd needed him most that he'd latched onto a chance to spend time with her.

But he'd not be able to endure months of her shrewish temperament. It reminded him too closely of his mother's nature all the way up to her death ten years earlier. If this was the manner in which she behaved toward her husband, it was no wonder Ross spent most of his time hunting.

He cursed himself for the uncharitable thought. In truth, though she was a termagant of the highest degree and at times frustrated him beyond measure, he'd learned over the last three months how to deal with her. He simply rode out the storm until it blew its course.

If only the rest of his problems were that easy to solve.

 

Faith watched him pace the cliff line, obviously troubled. His shoulders were slightly bowed, one hand rested on his hip, while the other rubbed at his chin. She could hardly help overhearing the argument between the baron and the duchess; the stone walls of the castle acted as a cave, echoing every sound.

She didn't want to be the cause of a rift between brother and sister, and yet, it warmed her heart to hear him defend her.

She went back to scraping the burned dumpling sauce off the stove.

“Well?”

Faith glanced up at Millie. “What are you doing up? You're supposed to be resting!”

“I've been resting so much my bones are melting into my mattress.” She lowered her ample figure onto the bench at the end of the table, and Faith brought her a glass of water. She still looked alarmingly pale.

“How did the meal go?” Millie asked.

Faith had never lied before in her life, and she knew if she tried now, Millie would detect it right off. But neither could she bring herself to admit what a disaster she'd made of a simple meal. “I learned much about stain removal,” she brightly invented.

Millie's eyes softened. “That bad, was it?”

To Faith's utter shame, the tears she'd locked deep inside sprang to her eyes. She ducked her head and nodded. “Worse.”

Millie chuckled. “If we are going to remain in this house together, there are a few things you need to know about working for nobility. They must always be served and serviced promptly. A well-trained staff makes the lord and lady of the house look in control of their holdings to others. 'Tis important should anyone get it in their minds to take what does not belong to them.”

Faith flushed, remembering how many times she'd taken what hadn't belonged to her, but Millie didn't seem to notice.

“After setting out the meal, you move discreetly to the corner of the room. Keep the glasses filled and the plates moving. Of course, our larder is not as well stocked as it should be, so we must make do with two courses, but that cannot be helped. Do not speak unless you are spoken to and always with the proper form of address.”

The instructions went on, and on, and on, until Faith thought her head might explode: Don't use the main staircase, always use the servants' steps. Keep your person and your surroundings neat and tidy at all times. Curtsy. Bow. Scrape. Kiss their bloody rings or hems or whatever else they want you to kiss. . . .

“What makes them so much better than us?” she finally asked.

“Not better, just different. 'Tis a great responsibility that weighs on the shoulders of the highborn. They work with the monarchy to set our laws and see to our country's safety. They also provide for and protect the tenants on their lands, using their considerable wealth and prestige. And 'tis a great amount of pride to the lower born to serve their master or mistress well.”

Pride? The way it sounded to Faith, it took a great amount of humility, and she wasn't sure she had enough of that to sustain her for the next year. “Aye, you've instructed me well, Millie, and I will try. I cannot promise more than that.”