Summerset Abbey (5 page)

Rowena glanced at Prudence and then away. Prudence clenched her hands in her lap and tried to smile as a sense of foreboding shivered through her. “Out with it, Ro. You look as if you’ve swallowed a lemon.”

“I feel a bit as if I have.” Rowena bit her lip. “He didn’t want you to come, you see. I don’t know why.”

Prudence felt her smile slip from her face and her body tense. “Yes, you do,” she said quietly. “He feels you are far too familiar with the daughter of a governess who was a former parlor maid.”

“That’s nonsense,” Victoria burst out.

Prudence ignored her. “If he didn’t want me to come, why am I here?” she asked.

“Because I couldn’t bear to part with you. Not now. We need to all be together.” Rowena gave her a pleading look. “So I made a deal with him. I said you would be our lady’s maid, and of course, he couldn’t deny you then.”

The knots in her stomach tightened. “Well, that’s not so bad.” She tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a yelp. “I look after you both anyway.”

The fine line of Rowena’s jaw clenched. “I’m afraid he was very adamant about your being staff and not a guest. I’m not sure what he meant by that, but it sounded rather ominous.”

Prudence licked her lips with a tongue suddenly as dry as parchment. “Is there any reason why you are just now telling me this?”

Rowena looked at the floor. “I was afraid you might not want to come if you knew.”

Next to her, Victoria gripped her hand. “You would have come anyway, wouldn’t you have, Pru?”

She gave Victoria’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Of course I would have. It’ll be all right.”

“Of course it will. And it won’t be forever. I’ll think of something.”

Rowena tried to sound confident, but Prudence could detect the uncertainty in her voice. She turned to the window. Would she have come anyway? Probably. She’d always had one foot in each world. On one hand, she was Pru, racing through the house with her friends, studying at Sir Philip’s feet, traveling with the family to the seaside. On the other hand, she helped her mother keep the schoolroom clean, and occasionally helped with some of her other duties when it was needed. When Sir Philip was alive, the arrangement had worked and they were all happy. But now everything had changed and she didn’t know where she stood anymore.

The carriage turned a corner and Victoria called out excitedly, “There’s Summerset Abbey, Prudence, look!”

Prudence craned her neck and her heart sank. Slender Italianate spires seemed to reach for the sky, rising from an imposing structure so massive it took up more than a London city block. The grounds around it were so immaculate and severe that Prudence couldn’t imagine a leaf or stone daring to shift out of place. This was no comfortable home where little girls played hide-and-seek in cozy alcoves, or giggled while they devoured savory meat pies. Poets and artists wouldn’t dare argue over their ale while lounging in front of the fire in this household. At this castle, for
it was far more of a castle than a manor, everyone knew his place and stuck to it.

When they finally reached the front entrance, Lord Summerset leapt from his coach and came around to open their door. Prudence’s knees ached as she stepped down first. A tall, thin woman in a billowing, old-fashioned black wincey dress stood stiffly before her. Prudence gave her an uncertain smile. Surely this wasn’t Lady Summerset? She jumped when Lord Conrad took her by the arm.

“Prudence, this is Mrs. Harper, our housekeeper. Mrs. Harper, this is Prudence, my nieces’ lady’s maid. Please show her to the servants’ quarters and help her settle in. Her things will be brought up later.”

“Yes, sir.”

The woman took a firm grip of her elbow and led her around the corner of the building. Prudence glanced back in time to see Victoria and Rowena staring at her, their mouths open.

One of the footmen, waiting to help Rowena and Victoria down from their coach, also watched the scene unfold with his mouth agape. He almost started after Prudence but the footman next to him gave him an elbow and he fell back into his stance.

“Where is Mrs. Harper taking Prudence?” Victoria asked, a sense of urgency to her voice, just as Prudence was escorted down a steep set of stairs and through a small side door.

The servants’ entrance.

If she didn’t know where she’d stood before, she certainly did now.

L
ady Summerset Ambrosia Huxley Buxton watched the arrival of her new charges from the privacy of her boudoir. Her mullioned window overlooked the front courtyard, giving her the advantage of seeing all the comings and goings at Summerset. She watched as her husband dispatched that troublesome girl with due haste. As he should. It was his fault they were in this mess in the first place. She didn’t like assigning blame, but in this case it was all too clear.

She leaned closer to the window, but the fuzziness around the edges of her sight still wavered. One of the many treats of old age that no one warned her about. Of course, it wasn’t as though one could do anything about it. The alternative to old age was dying young, and while some may think it romantic to die with an unlined face, Lady Summerset had too much common sense to believe it to be true.

“Hortense! Bring my spectacles.” She extended her hand without lifting her gaze from the window. She knew that Hortense had been standing behind her with her eyeglasses the whole time. Of course, Hortense had too much tact to ask her mistress whether she needed them, one of the many reasons why Hortense was one of the most valuable lady’s maids in the British kingdom.

Lady Summerset put on her spectacles, then frowned. It looked as if Victoria was going to cause a commotion. The child had always been melodramatic, but she would let her husband deal with that. Served him right, actually.

Lady Summerset sat down in a side chair in front of the window, and held out her hand. “May I please get a cup of tea? Thank you, Hortense.” A self-satisfied smile crossed her otherwise elegant face. The smile came with the knowledge that the scene below her was one hundred percent not her fault. She had warned, pleaded, threatened, and cajoled all those years ago, but her wisdom and foresight had been discounted as if she were just some “silly” woman. Now here it was in their laps and the danger was too dire for her to even enjoy a moment of comeuppance. She had to find a way to fix it.

Lady Summerset craned her neck to see whether Rowena had exited the carriage yet, for Rowena truly interested her. Every summer, she would await the child’s arrival with bated breath to see whether her earlier promise of true beauty had been ruined by a bad complexion, an unseemly growth spurt, or the plumpness that had plagued Elaine’s childhood. But no, Rowena had grown lovelier with every passing year. Lady Summerset knew that beauty was one of the few powers afforded to women in their world, and she dearly wanted to teach Rowena how to use it. She had begged her poor misled brother-in-law to allow her to turn Rowena out, but the man had balked and had taken the girls abroad when Rowena should have been reigning over her first season. Odious man. Then he had done the same with Victoria, though the younger child, being pale and delicate and prone to outlandish and inappropriate remarks, was not nearly as presentable as her graceful sibling.

But to see such promise wasted was just too frustrating. The
situation wasn’t completely unsalvageable, though at twenty-two, Rowena’s freshness was a bit worn, but as she hadn’t been a fixture at all the collective events that made up London’s society, she would still be somewhat of a novelty. And since her Elaine hadn’t been offered for yet, the girls could attend balls together.

Rowena was bending over Victoria with the nebulizer. The little chit had gotten herself into such a state over the maid, she had given herself a breathing attack. Lady Summerset shrugged. She had little patience for Victoria’s histrionics.

She turned from the window, irritation rippling across her shoulders. How like Philip to leave her with a mess such as this. What was she to do with two spoiled young women who were raised among aesthetes, bohemians, Marxists, and God knew who else? It would be a task to marry them both off well, even for someone of her caliber and connections. Of course, after spending all that money on her own daughter’s Swiss finishing school, she had fully expected Elaine to be married in her first year out—but not only had she finished her season without an engagement ring, she professed to having a marked disdain for the institution. A philosophy that seemed to be shared by many of her contemporaries’ children today. She and her friends spoke of it often when they got together—their children’s disinclination for matrimony. Well, never mind that. They thought they were so clever, but soon the young swains would be looking at their partners in practical jokes with new eyes, and the Buxton girls—Elaine’s playful good looks and breeding, Rowena’s ravishing beauty and modern sensitivities, and even Victoria’s delicate countenance and razor-sharp mind—would garner much attention from the opposite sex. Perhaps Catherine Kittredge’s impossibly spoiled boy would be taken by Victoria. Thank God
Colin was such a well-liked young man—the fellows were always happy to spend time at Summerset.

The girls had so little awareness of how important a good marriage was. Along with beauty, it was one of the few avenues to power a woman had. Let these suffragettes scream and fight for the vote, Lady Summerset knew that beauty and a good marriage—preferably to a man with means—were the only ways a woman truly could be safe from the horrors the world had to offer less fortunate women.

But the most important matter was to get rid of the maid as quickly as possible. The girl herself obviously didn’t know what kind of scandal she could cause; otherwise she wouldn’t have come here under any circumstances. Her eyes narrowed. Unless she did know and thought she might profit from it? Lady Summerset shook her head. The Buxtons would not stand for being blackmailed no matter what kind of scandal it would cause.

But how could she get rid of the girl without raising the curiosity of her nieces, not to mention her own children? If she took an interest in a mere maid, she would be arousing suspicion. Damned men; they got into these muddles but rarely knew how to get out of them.

“Hortense, I think the blue silk with the cream ruching will do for dinner tonight,” she told her maid.

By not wearing mourning clothes, Lady Summerset was making a very pointed statement to her husband. She would wear black the day of the service, of course, but not a moment before. In all her years of marriage, she’d discovered that matrimony was not so much a partnership as it was a campaign. There were moments of complicity when she and her husband wanted the same thing, but they were rare. She took a deep
breath. At least they were of like mind on getting rid of this troublesome young woman.

She held her arms up as Hortense settled her chemise down over her. “The girls have brought their own lady’s maid with them, so you should have no extra duties. Of course, a new servant in the home always disrupts things just a bit.”

Hortense gently turned her mistress toward the mirror to put the corset on. Lady Summerset had a theory that if she
watched
how much difficulty Hortense had in lacing it up, then Lady Summerset wouldn’t be tempted by the raspberry ice or éclairs.

Now Lady Summerset could see her maid’s face. It was oftentimes difficult to tell whether her words made any impression on Hortense at all—it seemed as if nothing she said could change or alter Hortense’s thin, impervious features. Truth be told, Lady Summerset was just a touch intimidated by her impossibly correct, screamingly chic French maid. But she comforted herself with the fact that no other maid had been as pursued as Hortense, and her loyalty was unquestioned. Once, while Lady Summerset was playing bridge with poor Bertie and desperately trying to lose to his highness without detection, Countess Featherington was busy in the upper hall, trying to steal Hortense out from under her nose with a salary so generous that it made even Lady Summerset blink. Hortense had declined the offer and after Lady Featherington had told her of her maid’s loyalty (right in front of Hortense, no less!), Lady Summerset had no choice except to give her a raise.

She watched Hortense carefully. “Of course, you will tell me how the new maid is settling in and if she is carrying out her duties adequately.”

Hortense pulled lightly on the laces and her black eyes flicked up and met Lady Summerset’s in the mirror. “Of course, my lady.”

“Just keep an eye on her. We don’t want her to get the idea that just because she’s new to Summerset the expectations surrounding her work and behavior are any different than they are for any other lady’s maid here at the abbey.”

Hortense smiled automatically, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes and Lady Summerset’s shoulders twitched with displeasure. Really, Hortense ought to be more
grateful
.

“I will make sure your nieces’ maid has the right qualifications, do not worry,” Hortense put in quickly as if sensing her lady’s displeasure.

Lady Summerset’s good humor was restored. “What a dear you are. Thank you, Hortense. I wouldn’t want the poor girl to think she wasn’t welcome here, but a new addition to staff always stirs up such trouble and she is rather unique.”