Elizabeth Beacon - Housemaid Heiress

‘Yes, Mrs Meldon. Thank you, ma’am.’

‘Thank me by doing your duty and learning our ways quickly.’

‘I always do my best, ma’am.’

The dignified woman just sniffed in the proscribed style, and Thea went out of the side door with a lighter heart. She managed to walk down the path that led to the village without dancing a jig, but it was a close-run thing. Maybe she would evade the Winfordes for the five more months she needed after all. Even if she had to live on very little a year after she came of age, at least it would be her choice.

‘I take it your mission was successful?’ a deep voice she wished she could forget asked as she rounded the corner that would take her into the Park.

‘Major, you startled me.’

‘Miss Smith, I could hardly bid you farewell in front of your future colleagues or the lady of the house, now could I?’

He was going, then? A traitorous voice within told her that would take the shine off her new life quicker than anything, but she silenced it and faced him with composure.

‘You should not be talking to me, sir. I could lose my place.’

‘Since I have no intention of doing you such a backhand turn, will you walk with me?’

‘Aye, sir,’ she could not resist saying, even knowing she was courting a danger that had nothing to do with her enemies for once.

It was two miles to the village and she was glad of company. She tried to believe any would have done and failed miserably. This morning he was fresh shaven and his dark mane subdued to strict military order, and he looked even more handsome than he had done dishevelled and weary that first night.

I spent the night with this man, she mused, a wry smile quirking her lips at the very thought. If the starchy housekeeper ever found out, Thea would be out the back door faster than Mrs Meldon could say ‘trollop.’

‘Do you think you will suit, Miss Smith?’

‘I’m sure of it, desperation is a fine teacher.’

‘Oblige me by not abusing Lydia’s trust. I didn’t finagle this place for you so you could run off with the family silver.’

‘I thought it was Lady Lydia’s idea to offer me a job?’

‘So did she. The only way to handle her ladyship is to let her have the ordering of everything. Ned always does, so long as it suits him. I learnt my strategy from a master, which is something else you would do well to remember. My cousin is very far from being the slow-top he often does his best to appear.’

‘Why should I take advantage of either?’ she protested hotly, stung by his assumption that she would abuse the trust of people who had taken in a stormy petrel.

‘Who knows, Miss Smith? I certainly do not. That is a conveniently common name, by the way.’

‘Only when it’s not yours, Major.’

‘You are either a steadfast liar or exactly what you seem, and at the moment I can’t quite make up my mind which.’

‘Then put me out of your mind. You did your duty and provided a sanctuary that lets me keep my honour. Any obligation is satisfied, and I do not intend to lose a place where I have no need to fight off my master.’

‘Ned hasn’t noted another female’s existence since he met Lydia.’

His voice was warm as he spoke of the lovely Lady Lydia and his guarded eyes softened. Thea wondered with a fierce pang of jealousy if he was in love with his cousin’s wife. Not that it mattered of course, he would never feel more than fleeting desire for humble Miss Smith, and heaven forbid that he should discover her real identity. Then she would see his clear grey eyes cloud with distaste and his firm mouth straighten in revulsion. She would rather face Lady Winforde than that particular scenario.

‘And I would be an idiot to endanger such a place for a life crime.’

‘Yet I can’t help but be struck by the fact that you speak very much better than your peers, and express yourself in surprisingly sophisticated language. Who are you really, Miss Smith?’

She was a fool, she silently decided, and tried hard to pretend he had not shaken her composure. She could not seem to draw back behind a mask of humble ignorance when she was with him, which meant she cared what he thought. Nonsense of course, they could not mean anything to one another.

‘I am nobody,’ she replied bleakly.

‘At some stage you must have been somebody, to acquire such a vocabulary.’

‘I might have thought I was, but I was mistaken,’ she admitted, suddenly tempted to pour out the whole unsavoury story after all. ‘My first mistress was a good woman, who wanted her servants to read and write, however humble their origins,’ she improvised hastily instead. ‘She taught me to read fluently when her eyesight began to fail.’

As lies went, it sounded convincing, she thought miserably, and tried to believe it under the acute scrutiny of Major Ashfield’s steady grey eyes.

‘And when she died you went back to domestic service?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why are your hands those of a lady who has recently suffered a reverse?’

He took those offending hands in his and she jumped as a lightning beat of responsive heat shot through her at his touch. Hoping he would take it for a flinch of revulsion, she stared numbly at her hands cupped in his.

‘I take care of myself,’ she offered hopefully.

‘Without noticeable success.’

‘In this case I seem to have done better.’

‘So you do, but I suspect you were a ladies’ maid in this former life, and this role will be a comedown,’ he finally concluded.

Thea had to bite back a sigh of relief. ‘I shall learn to bear it,’ she said truthfully. ‘Destitution is a fine teacher.’

His grip on her slender hands gentled, some of the feelings she longed to inspire in him lighting his gaze, or so it seemed. ‘I’m glad Lyddie saved you from starving or selling yourself even so.’

‘I would starve,’ she breathed.

‘You would be surprised what a person can be driven to, when there is no alternative,’ Marcus replied bitterly and dropped her hand to step away.

‘I probably wouldn’t, you know.’

‘But you aren’t driven by the need of others,’ he murmured, almost as if he was reminding himself of some significant factor she knew nothing of.

‘No, luckily I only have my own to consider.’

Unless she could describe herself as driven by the Winfordes’ greed, and she refused to do so.

‘And as you are no spoilt miss, accustomed only to eating sugarplums and reading gothic novels, I suppose you will do well enough here.’

‘I shall,’ she agreed serenely enough.

If she had been such an idle damsel, she never would be again. She didn’t regret her uselessness, but mourned her blackened reputation. If not for that, she would have faced her major as someone more equal. She might even have told him the truth, which would have been folly of the finest order.

‘Once I thought I could order the world at my own convenience,’ he continued absently, as if he was thinking out loud. ‘And rapidly discovered the error of my ways when I joined the army. Now my father and grandfather have made me a pawn in their game. God knows they have been playing it all my life, and I thought Grandfather would win. He delighted in conundrums and his treasure hunts were famous all over Gloucestershire at one time. Playing games where you do not know the rules can be the very devil, Miss Smith.’

‘Perhaps we are all pawns in a much larger one?’

‘Maybe, but now I must go and perform the new role set out for me. Just as tomorrow you take up yours.’

‘And you consider my lot the easier of the two?’

‘You are too perceptive by far, but I would rather say it is the simpler. I have seen too much of hardship lately to dismiss yours as easy, and I shall adapt. Here we are at the crossroads already. Even you can hardly come to any harm between here and Nurse Turner’s cottage, so we will say goodbye. Being seen walking with me would do your reputation no good.’