The Maid (Dirty Little Harlots #4)

The Maid

Before I came to work at Maidenhair Hall, I was a good girl.

My grandmother had been the housekeeper for the current Duke’s grandfather, and had retired proudly. She’d raised my mother, and after the fever took my father, helped raise me as well. I grew up in her cozy little cottage, learning my letters and how to keep my honor intact.

It’s a good thing I didn’t listen to her lessons.

When I came of age, my grandmother’s connections earned me an audience with the current housekeeper of Maidenhair Hall, Mrs. Marshton. She was impressed by my curtsey and the neatness of my apron—both important lessons from Gran—and hired me to be an upstairs maid when the Duke was away.

I had a good job with room for advancement, the hope of catching the eye of a handsome footman or the village curate, and—most importantly to my family—respect.

Like I said; I was a good girl.

But by the end of my first season at Maidenhair Hall, I began to become suspicious.

For one thing, although we called the housekeeper “Missus,” and she had three children ranging from a strapping lad of sixteen to an adorable gap-toothed six-year-old girl named Ellie, there were rumors that she’d never actually been married. Alarming rumors, to a good girl like me.

But I liked her; I thought she was fair and good and she had a jolly smile that made me feel comfortable. She took care of all of us as if we were her children—stern but loving—and it seemed to me that she was respected, even if she’d apparently done a few shockingly improper things in the past.

It was my first hint that not everything was as it seemed at Maidenhair Hall, and that perhaps my family’s insistence on propriety wasn’t all it was cut out to be.

My second clue was Matilda, my fellow upstairs maid.

She was a few years older than me, tall and skinny.

At least, normally she was tall and skinny; when I met her, she was quite advanced in her confinement, and still working, which surprised me.

I was used to conventional wisdom which said a woman nearing the time of birth should avoid strenuous activity like working for pay.

Of course, it could hardly be said that Matilda worked.

Indeed, she swanned about, holding her stomach, moaning about the pains and joys of pregnancy, drawing everyone’s attention to her…while occasionally lifting a dust rag half-heartedly.

I couldn’t understand why she was still employed at Maidenhair; she was doing a poor job of cleaning, and a superb job of making me resent her. But when I tentatively asked Mrs. Marshton, the older woman merely laughed and patted my arm.

“This is the way of the world, Betsy. At least I don’t have to worry about Matilda’s ambitions. My position is safe from her!”

I didn’t know what the housekeeper meant.

I do now.

Once, Mrs. Marshton had been in the same position as Matilda, and had parlayed that into power; a role as a respected housekeeper of a Duke’s country property!

The truth came to me in pieces, the way the sun rises; so gradually that you cannot say when the night ended, only that you can suddenly see clearly.

The first piece was the children themselves.

Mrs. Marshton’s youngest had eyes of a very particular blue—a deep, striking shade I’d not seen before.

Then one washing day, I was sent down to the village with linens and met the blacksmith’s “widowed” sister, who had a little boy of four clinging to her skirts.

He turned those same blue eyes up at me, and I nearly dropped my basket.

Curious, I thought, in my innocence. Perhaps they are cousins.

The second piece was the arithmetic. I had begun to count—quietly, in the way of good girls who are perhaps not quite so good at minding their own business—and the sums did not tally.

The gamekeeper’s daughter, who’d left service the year before I arrived, had a babe and no husband and, somehow, a snug cottage with glass windows. The dairymaid before her, the same.

And no one whispered about these women, that was the thing. In my village, a girl in that condition would be ruined. Cast out. At Maidenhair Hall, they were simply... comfortable—settled?

Almost prosperous, as if they’d come into an inheritance instead of a scandal.

It was Matilda who finally put the pieces together for me, right before the Yule, because I was too much of a ninny to do it myself.

We were polishing the long gallery—which is to say, I was polishing, and Matilda was reclining upon a settee that predated the Restoration, eating an apple she’d charmed off the cook.

I’d made some remark, gentle as I could, about how she might wish to save her wages, with the babe coming and no husband to provide.

She laughed so hard she choked on her apple.

“Wages?” she wheezed, when she’d recovered. “Oh, Betsy. Oh, you sweet little fool. Do you truly not know where you’ve come to work?”

I stiffened. “I know perfectly well. This is the country seat of the Duke of—”

“This,” Matilda interrupted, patting her great round belly the way a merchant pats a strongbox, “is the best position in England for a girl like me. Thirty pounds a year, Betsy. Thirty pounds a year, for the rest of my days, and a cottage, and schooling for the child when he’s of age.

His Grace provides for every one of his babes and every one of their mothers. Handsomely. Forever.”

I stood there with my rag dripping wax onto the floorboards, my mouth hanging open in a manner Gran would have deplored.

Thirty pounds a year? A maid might earn ten, working dawn to dark, and be grateful. Thirty pounds was a gentleman farmer’s comfort. Thirty pounds was more money than anyone in my family had ever—

“You did this on purpose,” I whispered.

“On purpose!” Matilda cackled, tossing her apple core into the cold hearth.

“I campaigned for it, my girl, same as Mrs. Marshton did in her day, and half the pretty girls in the county besides. Why do you think there’s never an open position here for long?

Why do you think your gran had to call in favors just to get you an audience? ”

She heaved herself up off the settee and swayed past me, pausing to tap my chin closed with one finger. “The only mystery at Maidenhair Hall, little Betsy, is why His Grace is so very generous. And if you’re a good girl—” her smile turned positively wicked “—perhaps you’ll find out.”

I told myself I was scandalized.

I told myself that quite firmly, several times, that whole night through.

But…

Thirty pounds a year, for the rest of the mother’s life?

Good heavens.

Such a security would be…well worth dreaming of.

It seemed that the Duke of Maidenhair was something of an anomaly in that he actually cared for his by-blows, at least financially.

I was soon to discover it was not just financially.

As was tradition, the Duke and his family returned to his country seat for the summer, to escape the heat and stink of the big city.

This meant Maidenhair Hall was all in a tizzy, with the servants rushing about to prepare the grand estate for its master and mistress.

Even Matilda, who had given birth to a healthy baby girl three months prior, was put to work, although she did so with much grumbling.

On a sunny day in mid-June we all lined the walk to welcome Their Graces, and I got my first glimpse of the Duke.

He was a fit man of middle age, his dark hair graying at the temples, and silver peppering his short beard.

His eyes—that same remarkable shade of blue, almost purple—twinkled as he took a deep breath and looked around his estate with satisfaction.

He was tall, with broad shoulders, and perhaps it was the cut of his very fine suit, but I saw little softening around his middle.

For the first time, I thought I could truly understand why Matilda and the others might…might seek him out in their beds.

A warmth began to throb between my thighs, and I pressed them together and ducked my head so that no one might guess.

Still, I couldn’t help but peek as he accepted Mrs. Marshton’s welcome with no hint of impropriety, and then turned to present his family to the staff.

I knew that the Duchess—a plump, stately woman in her late thirties—was his second wife, and after seeing his brood, I thought perhaps the first duchess had died of exhaustion.

Twelve children tumbled out of the coaches, the oldest being a handsome young man who glanced about with all the confidence of a duke’s heir, and the youngest still bouncing at his mother’s breast. Well over half shared their father’s distinct eye color.

Good heavens.

It seemed that the Duke of Maidenhair believed in the biblical advice to be fruitful and multiply.

And not just within his own family.

Matilda was lined up with us, her cooing daughter wrapped tightly and held in such a way that the Duke couldn’t help but see her. In fact, I saw him hesitate as he paced down the row of servants, giving the wee girl a second, then a third glance, and his grin grew.

My fellow maid preened, and I remembered what she’d said about thirty pounds a year. It seemed that Matilda intended to retain her position at Maidenhair Hall, despite the unsuitability, in an effort to catch the Duke’s eye again.

Sixty pounds a year?

With the family in residence, life was more hectic than usual, but that was to be expected.

They’d brought their own servants from the city, but I was happy to defer to the Duchess’s ladies’ maids and the children’s nannies and governesses.

In fact, I did my best to be respectful and courteous to all, and soon gained a reputation of kindness and humility that made me well-liked.

Which is why, when the butler needed a piece of information from Mrs. Marshton, he flagged me down and asked me to fetch it. I bobbed a curtsey and chirped a, “At once, sir,” before I hurried belowstairs.