Chapter 6
The hardest thing about Nancy’s particular circumstances was not the work. She loved the work. As a matter of fact, she far preferred keeping her hands busy all day and organizing things so that her mind did not run riot.
Her mind could not always be trusted. It liked to play tricks on her. She rather feared minds did that to many people. And if one was not constantly engaged or busy, the mind would be incredibly rude, insisting that the worst things were going to happen.
Like her mother’s death. Or a life on the streets without two pence to rub together.
And so she savored the fact that for the last several days, she had worked in the duke’s house, organizing room after room after room.
Now, she had not gone about it in a piecemeal fashion. The first thing that she had done was survey every single room and come to a sort of understanding of what the task was. Then she had hired three young ladies to assist her.
They were all remarkable individuals and were cataloging things to the best of their abilities. The three of them should have been teachers or certainly gone to university, but there was little opportunity for them to do such things and make a real wage.
And honestly, the life of a governess or a teacher was not that good in society. And so she was thrilled that she was able to help them secure work.
She was supervising the project and assisting in the day-to-day labor.
And as of this day, she had realized that the old duke’s interests were so varied that, frankly, a museum could be started from all the things he had collected.
It would have been to the benefit of all in society if, instead of holding things, the duke had quite literally put them all into one building and labeled them and allowed people to come look.
There was one room that was full of portraits and paintings that had clearly been bought in Italy and Spain. None of them were hung. It was almost a sin that such beautiful things had been put into a room, never to be seen again by anyone, waiting in shadow to one day be rediscovered.
Well, if she had anything to do with it, she was going to convince the current duke that those things needed to be seen.
But she digressed.
The hardest thing about her circumstances, her near poverty, was not being able to see her mother daily.
When she was little, her mother and she had been the best of friends.
Her mother had brushed her hair, done her curls, given her milk and biscuits, though there had been servants to do those tasks.
But through all of it, they had conversed.
They had wandered by streams together and her mother had told her the most remarkable of stories.
Her mother had been the brightest light in Nancy’s life.
And now her mother was dimming, and she couldn’t bear to keep her in a dank little room with rats in the halls and a ceiling that had spots from leaking.
Such a thing would only make her mother sicker.
The air was terrible in her room and on the street where she lived.
And so every penny she had not only went to pay the doctors but also to keep her mother in that small cottage by the sea.
She hoped the fresh air would make her well again.
She often wished she could have afforded good rooms in the west of London.
But only the wealthiest lived there. And the likelihood of her being one of the wealthiest again was deeply doubtful.
She and her mother exchanged letters daily.
It was the one thing she genuinely looked forward to, that made her heart sing, to know that her mother was well and alive and being cared for.
That she had at least enough good bread and butter to sustain her, and soup, and the ability to sit outside her little cottage, look at the sea, and will herself to get better.
And Nancy prayed and prayed every day that one day her mother would be well enough that they could be reunited again in good clean rooms with trees nearby.
Such a thing didn’t really seem possible, but she didn’t allow herself to think about impossible or possible things because, truthfully, her life was impossible.
Most young ladies would never have been able to do what she did.
Most young ladies would have had to find an awful older man to marry to sustain them, but she couldn’t have faced that.
So, as she wandered through the halls with her notebook in hand, making more notes on what needed to be done next, she was shocked when she heard a voice call from the wide stairs.
“Miss Stillbrooke, you are needed.”
That voice. Oh, that rich voice that seemed layered with spice and knowledge and sin.
She whipped around, looked up, and spotted the duke. The duke. My goodness! By sunlight, he was just as remarkable as by dim light. And she wasn’t about to pretend that she hadn’t thought about him almost every second since they’d met.
“Please come upstairs with me,” he said.
Upstairs? How a part of her wished they could indeed go upstairs. To his rooms. It was a shockingly scandalous thought! A thought that was against all her dignity. But dignity did not keep one warm on cold nights. Still, she could not allow herself to think on it too long, lest she grow infatuated.
She gave a quick nod of her head and picked up the hem of her skirt and did exactly as she was instructed. After all, this was all business between them.
She cleared her throat. “Indeed.”
She followed him into a small room that was filled with books stacked high.
They were all collections on the stars and the universe.
She noticed several of the same copies of someone’s notes on Galileo.
She had discovered long ago that this was a common symptom of someone who collected things, having the same copy, sometimes hundreds of them.
It didn’t matter that the person had one.
They needed to buy one every time they saw it.
She’d noted this before, but felt compelled to note it again.
The human mind was fascinating to her and what it caused people to do and what it prevented people from doing. Her own mind had often tried to make her very afraid when her father had died, and it had taken a great deal of work to keep her hopeful rather than despairing.
“Can I help you, Your Grace?” she asked, trying to be as serious as possible.
“I think it’s I who can help you,” he said, looking down into his fire, which remained unlit. Likely a very wise thing, given the amount of paper in the room.
She stilled. “Oh,” she queried, “in what way?”
He took up a document from the mantel and turned to her. “I’d like you to look this over and see if it meets your satisfaction.”
She tensed. And then she took the contract from him. She opened it up and began perusing it. The words burned into her brain and her heart began to slam against her ribs.
It couldn’t be real. If it was, her life was about to change for the better. Her mother’s too!
“The payment is too high,” she said immediately. “And you wish me to come live here?” she said.
“Yes, and the other young ladies will also be given rooms,” he said quickly, his eyes searching her face.
“So I don’t want you to think that you’re being particularly singled out, though you will have a room of your own, since you are their leader.
And the others will sleep in a dormitory-style situation.
This way you will all be able to dedicate your time to the house and you will not worry about paying for accommodation in a place that is likely not good for your health or your safety. ”
She gripped the contract, nearly giddy at the amount of money she would make and save by staying in the townhome. “And how do you know that I am paying for accommodation in a place that is likely not good for me?”
He snorted. “Because I know your wages, and I know the costs of rent in London.”
“You do?” she gasped.
“I do,” he replied.
“I didn’t know dukes bothered with knowing the prices of the rents in the city.”
“A good duke should know all such things,” he said. “Otherwise, what’s the point of a duke?”
She swallowed. “I never really thought about it like that before.”
“Most people don’t,” he said casually, leaning against the marble mantel carved with grapes and vines, which seemed to suit him, as if he and Bacchus were good friends.
He certainly looked like he knew pleasure well…
and how to give it. “So, given what I know, I’d wager that you’re staying somewhere that is barely respectable in a small room that is barely livable, and you are doing your very best to seem as if that is not true. Am I mistaken?”
She tensed. “No, though I don’t like to hear it so plainly.”
“You have had to live without necessities the ton takes for granted every moment of every day,” he said softly.
She bit her lower lip, hating having to admit that he was correct.
The truth of it was that he was correct. And one of the hardest things about poverty was the lack of water. She had to go and get her own or pay someone to get it from the pump that was down the street, then lug it back and up the many stairs.
Keeping clean was no easy thing. Washing her clothes was no easy thing.
She either had to do it in a small basin with the water that she carried up to her room, or she had to pay to have it done.
She had to pay to have her drinking water brought, or she had to go fetch it to take a bath, to wash her face, and to clean.
Food was no different. She did not have a kitchen, and her fireplace was pokey and small.
So, she had to pay for all her food to be made, or she had to go and eat in the local establishment and make certain she wasn’t bothered by young men, or old men, for that matter.
That was one reason she preferred bread and cheese.
It was extremely tempting what he was offering.
“So you wish to have me in your vicinity,” she said, “in a room of my own?”
He nodded. “Yes.”