All I Want Is You (12 page)

Beatrice was still holding me by the waist and we stood looking at ourselves in the mirror, she reluctantly wearing the black of mourning, me in my maid’s outfit. ‘You feel used, sweetheart?’ she said to my reflection.

The words piled up inside me. At first I could hardly speak. Then… ‘I must get away,’ I whispered.

‘Sophie,’ she chided, ‘there’s no rush. You’re still so young. And you surely realise I’d be happy to keep you on – once Ash and I are married and I’m his duchess. We would live in London – you could be my maid still… what do you think of
that?
’

‘I’ve told you,’ I said stubbornly to her reflection. ‘I want to dance in a London theatre. You promised to help me.’

She nodded, impatient all of a sudden. ‘Oh, so you keep reminding me. But first things first.’ She pushed me towards the door. ‘Go back downstairs and find out what’s going on. Ask Mrs Burdett if she has any jobs for you.’ She gazed at herself again in the mirror, frowning over a stray strand of hair. ‘I’ll meet the Duke tonight at dinner, of course, but I need to know who else will be there, and what they’re all saying about him, and – oh, I need to know
everything
.’

She kissed me again, but this time I shrank from her touch.

I went downstairs to report to Mrs Burdett, who was very harassed. ‘Her Ladyship’s had enough of you, has she?’ she said tartly to me. ‘Or is it that she’s set you to spying again? Well then. The Duchess has invited some of the local gentry to dine here tonight and meet the
new Duke, though of course she’s extremely displeased at the lack of notice that His Grace has given her, and who can blame her? Now, Sophie, you can help the others prepare the dining room. Mr Peters will tell you exactly what needs doing.’

Several housemaids including Nell were already there, and the footmen would come later to set out the silverware. It was a rule that we were never supposed to work together, the men and the girls; they said it wouldn’t be seemly. Well, if only they’d known what Harriet and Betsey got up to with some of the grooms in the stables at night; though now the talk was all of the new Duke, of course. ‘To think,’ said Harriet, ‘that he hasn’t even got a valet! But he told Mr Peters how that chauffeur of his – he’s called James – will do everything that’s required. My, my, things are going to change round here.’

The room was still dark with funeral draperies, and there were no flowers except the gloomy white lilies with their sickly scent. But all the best linen and china had been brought out for the new Duke; candles burned in the great chandeliers overhead, and fires blazed at each end of the room. We maids had been ordered to sweep the carpets then dust the furniture, but within a few minutes we were distracted by the arrival of a couple of footmen, each carrying one of a pair of heavy silver-gilt candelabra for the sideboard. One footman was Robert; the other was Will. Will looked at me once then turned away; I saw Nell glancing at me and felt my usual sad guilt.

Robert was over-familiar with me once Mr Peters had gone. ‘How’s Lady Beatrice?’ he asked me, sidling
too close. ‘Is she all tarted up for His Grace yet? That paint on her face, that short hair; she’s quite the flapper, isn’t she?’

I tried to move away but he grabbed my wrist. ‘Good God. You’re wearing the stuff too, Sophie. I thought you looked different, your eyelashes are all dark – it suits you.’ He gave a low whistle. ‘You’re beginning to look really very pretty. And I do believe you’re filling out in all the right places…’

He was leering at my breasts beneath my apron and bodice and I tried to push him away. But suddenly Will was there between us.

‘If you speak to her like that again,’ Will said to Robert, ‘by God, I’ll thump you to kingdom come.’

Robert backed away, holding up his hands to fend Will off. ‘All right, all right, big boy, keep your temper. I’m not the Boche, you know. But Sophie here is looking ripe for it, you’ve got to admit—’

Will knocked Robert flying. ‘You bloody coward,’ he shouted. ‘You with your weak chest, dodging the fighting. I’ll give you a weak chest.’

Robert struggled to his feet and threw a punch at Will; crockery smashed and chairs fell over. Other footmen came running and – under Mr Peters’s furious orders – Will and Robert were dragged out. But it took three men to hold each of them, so wild were they. Shaking, I pressed myself back against the wall behind a big folding screen.

My fault. All my fault.
The other maids had all fled, and I was about to hurry out after them, but suddenly I heard more footsteps and the voice of Mr Peters, who
was coming back and bringing three housemaids with him. I retreated once more behind the screen, which was there to hide the serving hatch and its pulleys from the view of the diners.

‘Sweep up all this mess,’ Mr Peters ordered the maids. He looked furious. ‘My God, someone’s going to pay for all this.’

He fussed over them until the place was tidy again, then he ordered the maids to leave and he left too. I gathered up my skirts ready to run, but with a sinking heart I realised he’d stopped just outside the door and was calling to another footman. ‘George! Is that you with the drinks? About time. Come in here, and be quick about it, will you?’

Mr Peters had a list. He liked his lists. He adjusted his spectacles and turned to George, a new young footman, who bore a large tray of crystal decanters. Mr Peters started to examine the silver name-tags that hung round the neck of each decanter.

‘Whisky. Gin. Sherry. Madeira. Hm, the Madeira’s getting a little low. Tonic, soda water, lemon-barley water… Put them down here.’ He pointed to the sideboard. His nose had turned up as he read out the last few labels.

George said chirpily, ‘Lemon-barley water? That for the ladies, is it, Mr Peters?’

‘No, no. It’s for Lord Ashley… I mean, for the new Duke.’ Mr Peters could not have poured more scorn into his voice.

‘His Grace doesn’t touch spirits, then, sir?’

‘He doesn’t drink
anything
alcoholic
,
spirits or wine,’
emphasised Mr Peters, inspecting his pocket watch. ‘That’s it for now, George. Be off with you.’

I prayed for Mr Peters to leave too, so I could at last escape. But he didn’t. He went and closed the door then came back towards the drinks again. My heart was hammering as though it might burst.

I’d never liked the butler, but I knew he and the Duchess were as thick as thieves, for she adored his sycophantic snobbery, and now I saw him inspect the decanters anew, then pull forward the one of lemon-barley for the new Duke who didn’t drink a drop of alcohol. I saw Mr Peters ease out a small silver flask from his pocket and unscrew the top. I saw him remove the crystal stopper from the lemon-barley decanter then slowly, carefully, pour in the clear fluid from his flask.

He replaced the stopper in the decanter, looked round again and hurried out.

What had he poured in?
Gin, I guessed. My first thought was that this was a trick being played on the new Duke. Surely, though, he would smell the spirit and be alerted straight away?

But what if – my mind was racing now – what if perhaps the Duchess was involved in this? Mr Peters was an ally of hers. What if maybe the Duchess were to say, in her icy-sweet tones, ‘Is that lemon-barley water for you, Lord Ashley? Do you know, I fancy a little of it myself – so refreshing – you don’t mind, do you?’ Then the old lady would sip at it, and splutter self-righteously, and cry, ‘Gin! Dear Heaven, this drink is full of gin!’

I could just picture Her Grace having hysterics at the dinner table while everyone, guests and servants alike,
all watched. She wouldn’t need to say much more. Everyone hated the new Duke already. To reveal him as a secret alcoholic would be a sweet victory for the Duchess. Petty and silly, but a triumph for her nonetheless. And why should I care? My one thought now was of self-preservation – to get out of that room before anyone else should enter.

But before I could move the door was opening again.

I heard a man’s husky, aristocratic drawl. ‘Thank you, Peters, but I don’t need you with me. I just want to look round the place again.’

Something about that voice made my heart hammer.

Mr Peters was hovering anxiously outside. ‘But my lord – I mean, Your Grace…’

A slight chill in the voice now. ‘I assure you that although it’s some years since I was last here, I can find my own way around. That will be all.’

I heard Mr Peters retreating, and the door closed. The man who’d just spoken was walking slowly further in, not noticing me because I was still protected by the screen. But I could see him now.

His hair was dark brown and his eyes were blue, so blue. And I, a foolish thirteen-year-old, had once raged at him:
Would you let this happen to your wife or your sister, sir? Would you?
I’d have known him anywhere.

Too late, I realised what I should have guessed long ago – that Mr Maldon, the man I’d written to, the man I’d dreamed of for years, was the new Duke of Belfield, and Beatrice’s Lord Ashley.

How did I feel? I felt as if the ground would never be secure beneath my feet again. I was still hidden; I could still have waited for him to go. I gazed at him, thinking,
Oh, God. Why did I not know? How could I not have guessed?

He was my Mr Maldon, I’d met him in Oxford on that dreadful day my mother died, and now, even in the sober attire of mourning, he set the room ablaze. Beatrice was after this man; half the women of London, Paris and New York were after this man, according to Lady Beatrice, according to the servants’ gossip. And no wonder.

My memory hadn’t played me false. I’d never seen a man who looked to me as beautiful as he did – neither before nor since. As I watched him, as I absorbed his… how to describe it?… his
perfect
face, the face of my dreams, I felt desperate with disappointment – yes, and with rage – at the cruel trick that fate and Lady Beatrice had played on me.

Beatrice was going to offer me to this man. She’d told me that in the kind of world the aristocrats inhabited, it was considered amusing for a lady to provide her male lover with a small gift now and then: a virginal serving
maid, for example, for him to enjoy in the privacy of his bedchamber, maybe while she looked on.

I felt heat explode within me, spreading up to my face, burning at my lungs. I knew Beatrice would have hissed,
Stay out of sight, you stupid, stupid girl.
She wanted me to be a surprise for him. A novelty. But – he was my Mr Maldon.

I stepped forward from behind the screen. He looked astonished, because of course people of his class weren’t meant to be obliged to acknowledge the lower orders. We weren’t even supposed to exist. But his good manners prevailed. He nodded at the cloth I was still carrying. ‘Last-minute dusting?’ he said coolly.

My fingers were nerveless, the blood was pounding through my veins. But I said, as steadily as I could, ‘Forgive me, Your Grace. But they have put gin in the lemon-barley water that is set out there for you. I saw it.’

He frowned, his blue eyes suddenly dangerous. ‘Is this some kind of trick?’

‘Not on my part, I swear. Please believe me,’ I begged.

‘Who…’ he began, then stopped. ‘No. I won’t ask you who did it.’ He gazed at me, puzzled, then shook his head as if to rid himself of some half-remembered thought and turned to inspect the labels of the decanters. ‘This one?’ I nodded. He took out the stopper, then sniffed it. Put back the stopper and looked at me again.

He was wearing a black dinner suit. His hair was as thick and dark brown as I remembered, his mouth as finely shaped. He was older now, of course – faint lines crinkled at the corners of his eyes – but he was still the most heart-stoppingly handsome man I had ever seen.

And by presenting myself to him like this, I had ruined all Beatrice’s plans. I had most likely ruined all
my
plans. I kept my eyes lowered, of course, but he was still gazing at me.

‘Haven’t we met before?’ he asked.

This was it.

I braced myself. ‘Four years ago, Your Grace, my mother was taken ill in the street in Oxford. You took her to the hospital. I… I was not as grateful as I should have been.’

His eyes narrowed. Blue, intense as a cornflower, with black, black lashes… ‘My God,’ he breathed. ‘Sophie. It’s Sophie, isn’t it?’

I bowed my head in mute acknowledgement, aware of all my dreams crashing around my ears, for he knew me now not only as a grief-crazed girl in Oxford, but as an idiotic little serving maid who was in the habit of creeping around where she had no business to be and who had once ranted to him about the iniquities of the rich.

‘You wrote to me,’ he said, stepping closer.

I nodded blindly. Pain clawed my chest at the reality of what all this meant. I raised my eyes briefly to his and stammered, ‘I did write, Your Grace. But I never guessed that you would one day be a duke. I always thought of you as just… Mr Maldon.’

His gaze was grave and steady. ‘I
was
plain Mr Maldon then, until my father died. And you’re still working here, which I think is fortunate for me.’ He turned to look again at the decanter of lemon-barley water. ‘Did they really think I would drink this? Did they think I wouldn’t smell the gin in it the moment it was poured?’

I gazed up at him and I said, ‘I think perhaps the Duchess herself intended to ask for some of your drink, Your Grace. Maybe she planned to sip it and feign shock at the gin in it, to make it look as if
you
gave orders for it to be put in. I beg your pardon if I sound disrespectful, but I think the Duchess wants to make you look like a… a—’

He said quietly, ‘A secret drinker.’

‘I think so, Your Grace.’

His lip curled. ‘My God,’ he said softly. ‘Do they really hate me so much?’

My heart was still thumping so hard I couldn’t speak. All of a sudden his blue eyes burned me.

He said, ‘Sophie. You are answerable to them, not me. Why didn’t you just keep quiet behind your screen just now and wait till I’d gone?’

‘You helped me,’ I said. There was a huge lump in my throat. ‘You helped my mother. You paid for her funeral and her gravestone. You got me my job here, and I wrote to you, like you said—’