Даниэла Стил - Royal

The housekeeper had checked on Lucy several times throughout the day, and corrected her whenever she thought it necessary. She didn’t like the way Lucy fluffed up the cushions on the small drawing room couch, or the way she arranged the curtains after she opened them, and she reminded Lucy to wear a fresh uniform and apron every day, and if she got one dirty, she was to go to her room and change. Lucy was startled at the end of the day when she went outside for some air and bumped into one of the stable boys walking a horse back to the barn. He smiled as soon as he saw her.

“When did you arrive?” the stable boy asked, clearly admiring her. He was taller and broader than she was. He had piercing blue eyes, brown hair, a strong face, and a warm smile.

“About six hours ago,” she answered him, slightly out of breath. “I haven’t sat down all day since I arrived.”

“They’ll work you hard, but they’re fair employers,” he informed her. “She can be difficult, but he’s a great guy. He made a fortune and she spends it lavishly. He doesn’t seem to mind. He’s a generous man. He’s got a few dollies on the side, but you never see them unless she’s away with the children.”

“That must get interesting,” she said, enjoying the gossip with the stable boy. He was a nice-looking man with a warm, outgoing personality that made him even more attractive.

“I’m Jonathan Baker, by the way, and I’m going to run these stables one day. My boss is twenty years older than I am, and he’s going to retire before long. I want to be there to pick up the pieces.” She could easily believe he would. He seemed like an enterprising guy, and had a bold upbeat way about him, without being offensive. Just the way he looked at her and smiled made her like him. He looked to be a few years older than she was, he wasn’t handsome in a classic sense, but he had a kind face, and she liked his powerful broad shoulders. She introduced herself, since he had, and they went on chatting for a few minutes. It was easy to feel comfortable with him.

“Do you like horses, Lucy?” he asked her.

“Not really,” she said. She had wanted to learn to ride while she was at Ainsleigh in order to get closer to Henry, but he had never offered to teach her, and she felt foolish asking him. And then Charlotte had arrived, with her remarkable skill as a horsewoman, which had impressed him, and Lucy had retreated to the kitchen. “They look like big, dangerous beasts to me. I never learned to ride when I was younger. The cobbler’s daughter doesn’t get riding lessons.” She smiled at him.

“Neither does the blacksmith’s son usually. I fell in love with them as a boy. They’re not frightening once you get to know them, the good ones. I can teach you about them.”

“I doubt that I’ll have time for riding lessons. It looks pretty busy to me around here. And I have a daughter. I’ll need to spend my time off with her. She’s thirteen months old. I’ll be leaving her at Whistlers’ farm while I work.”

“War widow?” he asked her, “or do you have a husband tucked away somewhere?”

“He died right before she was born, three months after he joined the army.”

“There are too many stories like that one. I was in France myself on D-Day. They died like flies all around me, the poor devils. I got lucky, I guess. I just got back a month ago. I grew up here. My grandfather was a tenant farmer to the previous owner, and my father was the blacksmith. We’ve been here longer than the current owners. They bought the place seven years ago, right before the war. The previous ones went broke, after the last war. They hung on as long as they could, and finally sold. All three of their sons were killed in the Great War. I like working in the stables. I want to run them one day.” The horse he’d been leading started to get restless then, and they both had other things to do. “It’s been nice talking to you. I’ll keep a lookout for you. The stable hands don’t eat in the servants’ hall. We have our own kitchen here, and cook our own food.”

“See you again sometime.” She smiled at him again. He led the horse back to the barn, and she went to pick up Annie after work. She was crying and fussy when Lucy got there in her uniform, and she walked all the way back, holding her, thinking about what a good place this was going to be for Annie when she got a little older. The Markhams’ estate in Kent was a perfect place for a child and anyone who didn’t mind being in service, which didn’t bother Lucy. She had a roof over her head, plentiful meals three times a day. The Markhams treated their servants well, and everyone said that the wages were better than they had been before the war. There were forty or fifty employees in various positions around the estate, gardeners, chauffeurs, stable hands, as well as those who worked in the house. The newcomers had more staff than most of the original owners, except in the days before the Great War. It had changed everything on the big estates, as money began to run out and the order of things changed.

The new owners could afford to maintain the properties the way the old owners no longer could. It was new money, which the aristocrats looked down on. They had no titles unless they bought them, which some did. Some of the more desperate landowners sold their titles along with their estates, but the Markhams were commoners and didn’t mind it. They made up in wealth what they lacked in blood and ancestry. But Lucy knew she trumped them all. She had a royal princess as a daughter, and her grandparents were the King and Queen of England. It didn’t get better than that, even if no one knew it. Lucy did, which was all that mattered to her. It always thrilled her when she thought about it. It was so surreal, and an enormous secret. Her baby was a Royal Highness, and Lucy was going to give her the best life she could, worthy of any princess, to the best of her ability. Working for the Markhams was the first step. Maybe she’d rise to housekeeper one day, with a ring of keys on her belt like Mrs. Finch, who ran the Markhams’ home with an iron hand, but despite her odd, stiff ways and stern face, Lucy liked her. She was from the northern border of Yorkshire, and had the accent that had become familiar to Lucy while she stayed with the Hemmingses at Ainsleigh.

She settled into her job, determined to work hard, and had a letter from the housekeeper at Ainsleigh a few months later. She had let her know where she was, and told her she’d found a good job. The housekeeper from Ainsleigh reported that the estate had been sold to an American. The old servants had all been let go. The new owner was going to spend a year or two remodeling everything and modernizing the place, and would hire a new staff after they did, probably some of them American. They had bought the place for very little.

Her big news was that two palace secretaries and the queen’s equerry had come from London shortly after Lucy left. They had exhumed Charlotte’s casket and taken her remains back to London for a service there, and it turned out that Charlotte had been a royal princess. It had all been arranged very quietly, and the palace emissaries hadn’t said much about it. No one at Ainsleigh had suspected that Charlotte had apparently been a member of the royal family. It made what they thought was her illegitimate love child even more shocking. And out of respect for the Hemmingses, sympathy for Charlotte, and loyalty to Lucy, no one had breathed a word about Annie. The housekeeper wrote that they hadn’t asked about the baby, and she had the strong feeling they didn’t know about her, which was probably just as well. Henry and Charlotte were both dead. Annie was illegitimate and she was in good hands. The whole matter was better left buried and forgotten. There was no point maligning the dead and causing a scandal. She also mentioned that they had taken her big horse back to London with them.