Chapter One #2
“It’s very tragic indeed.”
She gave him a look that had him wishing his hair was clean and his face shaved. “You’re very . . .”
Aubrey held his breath, waiting to hear what she would say.
“. . . young for a butler.”
He was young for a butler—by decades, in fact.
“While I was with the Smiths, their butler and under-butler succumbed to typhoid, and I was the head footman. The family promoted me to butler.” Where was this nonsense coming from?
He told himself to stop it, to tell her the truth, to end this ridiculous farce.
“I see. Would you like something to eat before you begin work?”
“Yes, please. I’d appreciate that after the long journey.” He left his bag in the room she’d assigned him and followed her down the backstairs, where his sisters’ children hid from their governesses.
They went down three flights to the kitchen and the servants’ dining room in the basement.
“This is the new cook, Mrs. Allston. Mrs. Allston, this is the new butler . . .” Maeve turned to him, her face flushing with a pleasing shade of pink. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
“It’s Jack. Jack Bancroft.” The name of the duke’s estate manager popped into Aubrey’s head.
“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Bancroft.” A stout, sturdy woman with ruddy cheeks and neat gray hair, Mrs. Allston stood watch over a pot of something that smelled delicious.
Aubrey’s stomach growled loudly.
Maeve laughed, and the delicate sound traveled through him the way a bolt of lightning might.
He wanted to hear that laugh again and again.
He wanted to hear it in his dreams and in his every waking hour.
As a man who’d relished his freedom and independence, the feelings she evoked in him were frightening and unprecedented, to say the least.
Aubrey glanced at her. “I beg your pardon. I’m apparently hungrier than I thought.” He’d taken the overnight steamship from New York and had been served an elaborate breakfast several hours before the boat docked at Newport’s Long Wharf.
Mrs. Allston ladled soup into two bowls and set them on the rough-hewn wooden table along with a basket of freshly baked bread. “There you are then.”
He waited for Maeve to be seated before he slid onto the bench across from her. The huge table would easily accommodate thirty people. When the house was fully staffed, there would easily be that many in service, if not more.
They ate the delicious split-pea soup and bread in silence, but he was aware of her every move, her every breath.
In all his thirty-two years, through hundreds of hours spent in London ballrooms and New York social clubs, in music halls, opera houses and at countless society dinners, picnics and house parties, he had never once responded to a woman the way he had to her.
His reaction to her defied explanation.
It defied belief.
It would infuriate his mother.
Aubrey smiled to himself, imagining her reaction to hearing that he’d finally found the woman he wanted, and she was the new Irish housekeeper at their Newport estate.
Once the epicenter of the cotton, rum and slave trades, Newport had become the place to see and be seen in the months of July and August when most of New York society relocated to their cottages by the coast. The social climbers came to make their annual impression on the hostesses that determined whether one was in or out—and if you were out, there was little chance of ever getting in.
His mother, the ultimate social climber, had made a blood sport out of climbing the rungs in Newport.
Imagining her reaction to learning he’d developed a sweet spot for the Irish housekeeper had Aubrey picturing her exploding into a rage the likes of which would be talked about for years to come.
He’d seen her rages before, most of them directed at others, including his siblings, but had never been the reason for one.
Compared to his far more rebellious siblings, Aubrey had been her good boy, her golden child as his siblings liked to say chidingly.
Perhaps it was time for him to take his turn in stirring her ire.
He had a feeling that Miss Maeve Brown, formerly of Ireland, would be worth the hell his mother would rain down upon him.
As he surreptitiously watched Maeve eat her soup, he noted the way her lips closed around the spoon and how her throat moved when she swallowed.
How was it possible that the pedestrian act of eating soup could be so impossibly erotic? A surge of heat to his groin had him holding back a groan.
“Are you quite all right, Mr. Bancroft?”
That voice. Dear God, the sound of her words was the sweetest music he’d ever heard.
He could listen to her speak all day without ever tiring of the sound.
It wouldn’t even matter so much what she said, as long as she never stopped talking to him.
Aubrey summoned his composure, which had deserted him the second he first laid eyes on the appealing curve of her neck.
He nodded in response to her question. “I’m quite well, thank you. ”
“And the soup is to your liking?”
“It’s delicious.”
“I agree. Mrs. Allston is a wonderful cook. We’re lucky to have her, especially in light of the reputation this house has with those in service.”
Aubrey wiped his mouth on the cloth napkin, made of much coarser cotton than the linen he was accustomed to upstairs. “So there’re exactly three of us then?”
“I’m afraid so, at least until the others turn up. If they turn up.”
“And the task before us is . . .”
“Monumental. Wait until you see the wreckage that is Mrs. Nelson’s room.” She shuddered. “It’s a travesty.”
“If we were to take it a room at a time, focusing on the public spaces and the bedrooms required by the Nelson family and their guests, we might be able to get it done in time.”
“We have two weeks until Mrs. Nelson, her daughters and grandchildren are due to arrive and three until the duke and duchess are expected.”
“I’ll see what I can do about getting some more help. Surely there have to be more people seeking positions for the summer.”
“I certainly hope so, because without more help, I can’t envision how we’ll ever be ready for the duke and duchess. I quite fear Mrs. Nelson’s infamous rages.”
“Don’t you worry about her. We’ll have everything in place for her and her guests.”
“Thank goodness you’re here.” She took a sip of the hot tea she had steeped for them both. “I have felt quite like I was climbing a mountain all by myself with no possible way to reach the summit in time.”
“We will get there together.” As he said the words, he considered the double meaning of the two of them reaching the summit together. A shiver rippled through him, making him shudder from the desire that gripped him. He thanked goodness for the table that hid his obvious reaction from her.
“Are you sure you’re well? You seem rather . . . flummoxed.”
That was a good word for how he’d felt since first laying eyes on her. Flummoxed indeed.
He was about to respond to her when another man came into the kitchen, looking as road weary and dusty as Aubrey imagined he did, too. This man was older, with silver strands mixed in to his dark hair, his face craggy with age and wisdom, his eyes red with fatigue but friendly.
“May I help you?” Maeve asked.
“I’m Joseph Plumber, the new butler. The agency indicated I should report today.”
Maeve’s shocked gaze shifted to Aubrey. “If Mr. Plumber is the new butler, then who, pray tell, are you?”