Duke Herheart Final (17 page)

But she did have her much desired smalls!

Kathryn waited until she regained her breath before pulling the cord for Ellie.

“Yes, miss?” the efficient maid said before Kathryn could expect her even though she was beginning to learn how this servant situation worked.

“I need you to sew something for me…” Her words trailed off and she imagined just then what Michael might think of her undergarments.

“These are panties,” she announced rather more stridently that she meant to.

Ellie stared wide-eyed at the small triangle of royal blue satin Kathryn was holding. Freshly washed in the basin and still barely damp, 98

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the panties had an almost human smell and Kathryn could tell Ellie had never seen anything like them. “Whatever are they for?” Her curiosity had won out over propriety and Ellie just had to know the answer.

“They’re drawers, women’s smalls.”

“They
are
small, miss.”

“Yes, I guess they are and tight too. They fit snug so all your private parts stay close, no looseness bagging between your legs and chapping.”

Ellie reached for the satin. “Miss, you want me to make more of these?”

“Yes, please. They are getting a bit ripe and I can’t go on without something.

“Ripe, miss?”

“Overly pungent…needing a good scalding clean.”

“Ah, yes, I shall see to that too. When do you need these smalls?

We’ll probably have to send for the satin.”

“I umm…borrowed a pair of the Captain’s and well, they’re good, but these are better.”

If she thought Ellie’s eyes had bugged out at the thought of making a pair of low-rise bikinis, it was the added comment that she had borrowed and was most likely right now wearing men’s drawers that had the usually unflappable Ellie stunned to silence.

“You can make yourself some too if you like. I think you could probably be very frugal with the fabric. I was thinking that they could tie on the sides if elastic was not available.”

Ellie had stowed the panties in her apron and was holding her lips very tightly shut listening to her mistress’s words and working her brain as fast as it would go. She liked this job and she really liked this lady, but she greatly feared bringing these things into the servant’s quarters. She could only imagine what they would think of her mistress. She would have to figure out how to work on them somewhere private.

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Chapter Eleven

After a fitful and all-too-brief rest to get her swirling wits back together, Kathryn pulled the bell once again. The interlude with the drawers had left her needy and although she had put on a brave face with Ellie, she was aroused to the point of pain. The pressure between her legs had mounted to a throbbing ache as she played over and over the erotic sensation of stripping him, of his face savoring her every touch, of his breath on her nape at the door. Shuddering again, she braced for Ellie’s return.

* * * *

“Miss, I have another dress. This one’s for dinner.” She held in front of her the most gorgeous gown Kathryn had ever seen. It was royal blue silk, maybe a shade darker, with a low, wide neckline that would show her shoulders, and tiny sleeves. The color looked exactly like something that Cassandra would wear with her striking Snow White coloring, but Kathryn looked pretty good in blue as well. Maybe she would be a little dazzling.

“Wow, it’s gorgeous. What did you have to do to make it fit me?”

“You’re a bit shorter than the Lady so I moved the seams in the bodice a bit lower.”

“So you mean I’ll be showing a bit more of my breasts?” Ellie had the sense to blush a little. “Has anyone ever told you that you are amazing?”

Ellie stopped, looked down at her hands, and then straightened to her full five feet. “No miss, no one’s ever said that to me.”

“Well, you are. This sewing and hair and all the things you can do with your hands. You are a very talented woman,” Kathryn declared.

“Thank you, miss.” Ellie returned to the buttons she was undoing down the back of Kathryn’s dress, her sweet face blushing thoroughly.

“Ellie, I want you to promise me something?”

“Yes, miss?”

“Promise me that after I leave and you return home, you will take up sewing or something like it and make a profitable life for yourself.”

Her mistress’s tone had become wistful and Ellie did not care for it at all. She’d been here less than a week, but this life, this mistress and this house were what Ellie wanted, not a “profitable life” in the village.

She loved the other servants, the comfort of her quarters, having her 100

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sisters come and work with her, sending money home with them, and the extra fabric her mistress gave her. And she had made friends and dared she hoped, even a beau. Leaving here was the last thing she wanted. How to make her mistress understand? “Miss, you aren’t leaving are you?”

She hoped her tone did not belie her cold disappointment.

“Ellie, I don’t belong here. This isn’t my home. These people have been so kind to me, taken me in when I literally had nothing… but this is their life and not mine. I feel wrong imposing, more I feel like an imposter.”

Chest thrumming, Ellie forced herself not to pull the red-gold hair too tightly…her hands trembling, she had never contradicted gentry before, but this was going to be a first. She saw how the master appreciated the mistress; the look in his eyes was the same one that she saw when she looked into Thrasher’s. She also knew what Hallthorpe had told her. This would be hard and take all their efforts to convince her to stay. It was her duty here and now to try. “Miss, I don’t know exactly how to say this, but I think you belong here. You are kind to the staff, all of them love you, say they’ve never had a real mistress before, least not one who smiled and was happy. You like the gardens and riding horses and you look great in the dresses. Then there’s Lady Cassandra…” Her words trailed off and she willed the tears not to fall.

“Oh Ellie, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think how my leaving would affect you. Would you allow me to ask Michael if you can stay, maybe there are other needs you can serve? I can’t believe that they would let you go.”

Trying mightily to stifle the next sob, Ellie turned her back to Kathryn and wiped her face on her apron. “Miss, it’s not all just about me. You
belong
here, I am telling you.”

“Ellie, you know I am different right?”

“Yes,” she answered warily now the tone had become even more desperate.

“I told you I’m not from here, right.”

“Yes.”

“I am not English but more than that I…I…” She could not say
that
.

She just could not say when she was from. There had to be other words.

“I have a sister far away and she and I are all each other have. I just don’t know how to get back to her and I have to try. I’ll be leaving soon but I promise, I will ask Michael to keep you on. It might…work for you to stay and serve the woman he marries. I am sure he’ll have to find someone soon for this big old house.” Her half-laugh wouldn’t fool Ellie one bit.

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“Miss, I beg pardon, I really do but don’t you see?
You
are the one we want to be mistress here.
You
. You belong here. This is your place.

Your home.”

Kathryn sat silently facing Ellie, let her eyelids fall, then reached her arms for her maid. Ellie came forward and Kathryn stood to embrace her.

The hug was a relief for both of them for the pent up frustrations. Ellie let tears stream and Kathryn gave vent to days of frustration over her own helpless situation.

Kathryn did love it here. She loved Ellie and Hallthorpe and Cassandra, all in that platonic wonderful way you feel about friends. She was devastatingly attracted to Michael but he was far away on the social scale and arrogant and because she would never be a presentable public companion for him, she thought he treated her probably like he would a mistress. If she really knew how anyone treated a mistress. They were wonderfully comfortable in the privacy of his house or in his own meadow but in public, he would probably not even know her. She knew enough about how gentlemen treated their mistresses that the kindness could be very real and affectionate behind closed doors, even more so than with their wives in most cases, but it was a false security that only existed inside her home. There was no publicly acceptable acknowledgement of her presence forthcoming. The tenant visits had been the only indication he might not see her as a totally unworthy distraction …but that was the tenants. Who knew what Michael thought the tenants thought of him and whether he even cared.

Kathryn had never fooled herself into believing that Michael saw her as a wife candidate and she had had pleasure and companionship from her time with him. Recalling the visit of the neighbor lady yesterday that she had overheard from the stair landing, Kathryn replayed Michael’s assurances to the woman that his Aunt and Sister would work with her on the festival. His respectable family. Not her, not Kathryn. Even without this confirmation, she had no question about their relationship and she accepted it for what it was. Indeed, she knew who she was and no man had ever looked down on her. Kathryn and her mother and sister had long ago made their own way in the world and needing a man’s approval had never been part of her vocabulary.

Pulling a few inches away from Ellie, she looked at the young woman’s now mottled face. “I am going to ask him and I am going to try to make it right. You belong here.” Ellie looked at the floor, wiped her face again on her apron and resumed the task of dressing Kathryn’s hair.

From deep in the house the dinner gong rang and Kathryn straightened to see Ellie’s handiwork. The person in the mirror was 102

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becoming more familiar but this incarnation was so much more fabulous than she had ever felt before. The blue dress was like the deep of the Gulf of Mexico miles from shore where the bottom fishing was the best.

Its lace hem floated and bounced teasing the floor like the ocean waves.

The scooped low neckline showed her tan lines at her breasts and was so low that her white flesh was on display. Ellie had woven green, blue and gold ribbons throughout Kathryn’s hair and even through the dangling strands so that instead of bouncing ringlets, she had slender braids down her neck.

Kathryn felt like a princess.

* * * *

Michael snapped to attention as the parlor door opened but the woman who entered knocked him back a step causing him to bump the low table nearby, and scratch the floor behind him. Reining in his swirling emotions, Michael strode to Kathryn’s side, placed her suddenly trembling hand on his sleeve and brought her with him deeper into the room toward the chaise nearest the fire. He seated her before he spoke but he could only manage a breathy whisper. “You, madam, are exquisite.”

She smiled at him beatifically and his heart stopped in his chest for one fraught moment. Michael was saved from embarrassing himself further by the arrival of Cassandra in company of her footman. “Oh, my, Kathryn, look at you. That dress has never looked better…certainly didn’t do me that kind of justice,” Cassandra declared as she swept in.

“Wow, between the two of you my head’s going to swell like a pumpkin. Thank you. I do feel rather splendid. Isn’t that a British expression?”

“Splendid, Michael, would you agree?” Cassandra dared him.

Michael turned his attention to his sister. “Yes, my darling I do believe Miss Ragland is splendid but I had actually said exquisite. But I would be remiss if I didn’t compliment you also on your radiance. What a treat to be in the company of such exquisite radiant splendor. I shall endeavor to be able to eat without spilling my food and stumbling over my conversation.”

“You are such a tease, brother. However did we get along all those years without your quick tongue?”

“In your case, you didn’t get along all that well.”

“Touche’.” Cassandra surprised herself at how well she took that little comment. She glanced at Jem whose eyes were wide as saucers. He had never heard Michael mention her illness in any but the most reverent ways. This must be good. She was glad to see Jem react. He sure did 103

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have the most lovely jaw line and she hesitated just a second more than she should have in regarding him.

Agatha came bustling in. “Oh dears, I am so sorry. My maid was feeling poorly and I tried to get my hair by myself but I finally had to call on Kathryn’s maid to help me.” Immediately Kathryn realized she had the perfect opening to ask Michael about Ellie.

“Lady Agatha, didn’t you think she was just the most wonderful help?”There were always people getting sick. She could be a fill in for either Cassandra’s or Agatha’s maids.

“Yes, she is a strong, capable girl. Got everything done in such a quick fashion. I can see why you like her.”

“Oh yes, she’s been a Godsend. You know that all these trappings are a little beyond me. She’s guided me through it.”

“So gel, how has your stay with us been so far?” Agatha turned her full attention on Kathryn.

“This has been such a wonderful adventure. I’ll never forget it,” she answered wistfully.

“Forget it?” Michael asked. She heard the suspicion in his tone. All the ladies turned toward him, for he had not spoken in several minutes.

“Yes, when…uhh…I am no longer here. When I am…home.”

This was not a conversation Michael was going to have in front of his sister and his aunt. He was tired of the repeated threats of departure.

She wasn’t leaving and she needed to get it through her head but this was not the time or the place. He could be a good host and change the subject. He would right now. “Cassandra, I noticed your easel had been brought out of the attics.”

“Oh yes, I dug out paints and brushes. Well, actually Jem dug them out and then we went through them all to see what worked. Most were dried and shriveled. I’ve made a list of what I would need to get started painting again. Will you place an order for me?”