The Duke's Practical Bride (Waterloo Hearts #1)

Chapter 1

The butcher’s man placed both hands upon the kitchen table, as though the firmness of his position might improve the emptiness of his basket.

“No more until the old account is settled, Mrs. Ellison.”

Behind him, cabbage steam clouded the lower panes.

Two kitchen maids moved between the range and the long worktable, their skirts carrying coal dust from a passage that had not been properly swept because the boy who usually swept it was helping Joseph Hales finish a cabinet ordered by a surgeon in Russell Square.

A pan lid rattled. Rain worried the windows.

Somewhere above, water struck a bucket beneath the east roof with the patient regularity of a clerk entering debt.

Margaret looked into the basket.

It contained one bone, three bruised turnips, and the butcher’s conviction that he had been generous.

“The account is eleven days old,” she said.

“Twelve.”

“It was delivered after six in the evening.”

He considered this assault upon commercial truth. “Twelve by our book.”

“Eleven by the sun.”

“The sun does not keep my master’s ledger.”

“No. It would make fewer additions.”

The younger kitchen maid bent her head over the cabbages. Her shoulders trembled once.

The butcher’s man frowned, uncertain whether he had been mocked and suspicious that uncertainty itself cost money. “Mr. Barlow says there’ll be no more beef on credit. Not a joint, not a shin, not so much as another bone.”

Margaret lifted the bone between finger and thumb. It had been boiled before. Possibly twice.

“I am grateful he spared us this one.”

“He says you may send payment.”

“I had understood the custom.”

“Today.”

“I had also understood that part.”

The man glanced toward the range, where Sarah Pritchard was cutting yesterday’s bread into pieces for the breakfast broth.

Sarah was compact, silver-brown-haired, and entirely capable of making a creditor feel that he had wandered by mistake into a convalescent ward where his character would shortly be examined.

He shifted back toward Margaret.

“Mr. Barlow cannot feed twenty-six men for promises.”

“Neither can I.”

That, at least, gave him nothing to dispute.

Waterloo House was a private refuge for former soldiers who had survived the war more successfully than they had survived the peace.

It endured on subscriptions, resident labor, and a restricted property trust whose practical value that morning amounted to three days of coal, two overdue pledges, and a roof attempting to enter the second floor.

Margaret set the bone down.

“Tell Mr. Barlow he will have eight pounds on Saturday.”

The sum represented nearly all the unrestricted money expected from a subscriber in Bedford Square, provided the subscriber’s steward ceased pretending not to understand Margaret’s letters. It would not settle the account. It would persuade the butcher to remain offended rather than final.

“Eight pounds?”

“On Saturday.”

“The full account is—”

“Fourteen pounds, three shillings, and eightpence. I know. If Mr. Barlow requires all of it today, he will receive none of it today, because we do not possess fourteen pounds, three shillings, and eightpence. If he accepts eight on Saturday, I shall order six shins, two stones of scrag, and no joints until the balance is cleared.”

The butcher’s man blinked.

Margaret waited.

Men sometimes mistook silence for hesitation. It was useful to let them discover the difference at their own expense.

“At least ten,” he said.

“Eight.”

“Nine.”

“Eight, and I shall not inquire whether this bone has already flavored another household’s soup.”

Sarah’s knife struck the breadboard with one decisive chop.

The butcher’s man looked at the bone.

“Saturday, then.”

“Before noon.”

He collected the empty basket and departed through the service door, allowing a blade of cold rain to cut across the flagstones before the maid shoved it closed behind him.

Margaret drew the kitchen slate nearer.

“Strike beef from Thursday and Friday.”

The elder maid stared. “What are we to give them?”

“Cabbage, barley, onions, and the remainder of the salt pork.”

“The salt pork will not last through Friday.”

“It will when sliced by someone who does not believe generosity is measured by thickness.”

Sarah placed the knife flat upon the board. “Hales needs the pork at noon if he is to keep taking the physic without casting it back up.”

“Then Mr. Hales receives pork.”

“And Bevan cannot manage cabbage twice in one day.”

“Thomas receives broth and bread at supper. Add an egg if Mrs. Alderton sends the promised basket.”

“If,” Sarah repeated.

“Her hens may yet develop a sense of civic responsibility.”

Sarah’s mouth altered by half an inch. On another woman it might have been called a smile.

Margaret counted the remaining marks upon the slate.

Twenty-six residents. Four members of household staff besides herself and Sarah.

Two kitchen maids. One housemaid who spent more time moving buckets than dusting furniture.

A porter who had been promised wages on Monday and had not complained on Tuesday, which made the unpaid sum no less due.

She moved Thursday’s barley to Wednesday, Wednesday’s onions to both days, and assigned the last of the flour to dumplings rather than bread.

It was possible to make food stretch without making men feel punished by every spoonful.

It required attention, seasoning, and the refusal to call hunger economy.

Sarah read the slate over her shoulder.

“You have not put yourself down for dinner.”

“I shall dine.”

“On what?”

“Whatever remains.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is generally the definition of remains.”

Sarah picked up the knife. “You have said that three nights running.”

“And remained alive through all of them.”

“An achievement that will look poorly in the subscription report.”

Margaret took the slate beneath her arm. “Put me down for cabbage.”

“You dislike boiled cabbage.”

“Then I shall eat efficiently.”

She left before Sarah could assign tenderness to the matter and crossed into the store corridor, where the air changed from wet vegetables and hearth smoke to coal grit, damp plaster, and the faint sharpness of linseed oil from the workshop.

Waterloo House had been built for a family that believed corridors should impress visitors rather than serve the people carrying soup through them.

The store passage narrowed beneath an ornamental arch, widened uselessly around a niche containing no statue, and then turned twice before reaching the workshop stairs.

Along one wall stood shelves Margaret had ordered made from discarded packing cases.

They held lamp oil, soap, candles, barley sacks, rolled linen, jars of preserves, and six empty spaces where useful things ought to have been.

Joseph Hales stood beside the bottom shelf with a folded order sheet in one large hand. Sawdust clung to his shirtsleeve. His shoulders had been built for work before the Army discovered a use for them and remained so now that the Army had finished.

“You have the expression,” he said.

“What expression?”

“The one that means some tradesman has rediscovered principle.”

“The butcher has rediscovered cash.”

“A common complaint among butchers.”

“He will extend credit after Saturday if I pay eight pounds.”

“Do we have eight pounds?”

“We have the expectation of eight pounds.”

“Ah. The more nourishing currency.”

Margaret held out the slate. “I need one workshop payment released before Friday.”

Joseph studied the figures. He did not pretend the columns were beyond him. Pity had made enough people foolish in his presence; Margaret had no intention of joining them.

“The surgeon’s cabinet pays on delivery,” she said. “The six library chairs pay one week afterward. The writing desks pay half when the frames are approved. Which order may wait without costing us the customer?”

Joseph rubbed a thumb along the edge of the paper.

“The cabinet cannot. Langley has already promised it to a man who thinks having books makes him learned.”

“Books are cheaper than education.”

“Not the way he buys them.” Joseph tapped the second line. “The chairs may wait two days. The upholsterer has not sent the webbing, and his note says he will not until tomorrow.”

“Does he say why?”

“He says the rain delayed his cart.”

“His shop is in Long Acre.”

“Severe weather between there and Bloomsbury.”

“We must pray for the driver’s safe return from the expedition.”

Joseph’s mouth bent. “Put Thomas and Simmonds on the writing desks this afternoon. I can finish the cabinet carcass with Will.”

“You need Thomas for the measurements.”

“I need his figures. His lungs do not improve because he stands beside me while I cut wood.”

“That is for Thomas to decide.”

“It was Thomas who said so.”

Margaret looked toward the workshop door. The steady rasp of a plane came through it, followed by the sharper tap of a mallet and a man’s low curse when something failed to fit.

“Then the chairs wait.”

“They will grumble.”

“Chairs?”

“The customer.”

“Chairs grumble more honestly.”

Joseph folded the order sheet and handed it back. “What have you moved?”

“Beef.”

His gaze went to the slate.

“You have moved yourself.”

“Only as far as cabbage.”

“You cannot run a house on cabbage.”

“We have been running it on credit. Cabbage is an improvement.”

He did not smile this time.

Margaret disliked the look people gave her when they had noticed she was tired. It turned simple fatigue into a discussion, and discussions consumed time without producing coal.

She pushed the order sheet into the pocket of her gray wool gown. “The roof bucket in the second east room was half full before breakfast.”

“I will send Will up.”

“No. The slates are wet.”

“He can look from the loft.”

“He may look. He may not step onto the roof.”

Joseph’s brows rose. “I had not planned to hurl him through it.”

“Your plans improve when specified.”

“So do yours.”

“Mine are written down.”

“Your dinners are not.”

A bell rang from the front of the house.