Regency Rumors (The Sinclair Society Series, #1)

by Swafford, Bethany

  Regency Rumors

  The Sinclair Society Series, Volume 1

  Bethany Swafford

  Published by Bethany Swafford, 2019.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  REGENCY RUMORS

  First edition. June 17, 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 Bethany Swafford.

  Written by Bethany Swafford.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also Available By Bethany Swafford

  Coming Soon

  About the Author

  For my parents and sister

  Chapter One

  The grim-faced butler who opened the door gave me a stern look and declared, “Applicants for the position ought to go around to the servants’ entrance.”

  Startled, I blinked as I struggled to comprehend what he had just said to me. Position? Servant’s entrance?

  “I beg your pardon?” I managed to ask as I held out my card. I had written Faircroft’s address on the back. “I believe there has been some kind of—”

  He interrupted me with a huff, snatching the card from my hand. “Always the same,” he muttered, just loud enough for me to hear. He stepped back. “Well, come in already, Miss Nelson. I shall have Mrs. Burnham informed of your arrival.”

  Maybe it was because I didn’t have an escort when I knocked on the door, or perhaps because my appearance wasn’t quite up to the standards of current fashion. The walking dress I had selected for the visit was several years old, but I hadn’t thought it terribly out of style. I could have made the argument it showed the kind of taste that was respected by the ton.

  The timing of my visit could not have been at fault. I had arranged to arrive at the beginning of the visiting hours, but in no way could I have thought it too early.

  In any event, whatever was the reason for the series of misunderstandings that followed, my confusion was considerable. A cold wind encouraged me to enter without arguing. Surely I would be able to clear up the misunderstanding better once I was inside rather than on the doorstep. I had barely squeezed through the doorway when the butler closed the door, missing my shoulder by less than an inch. I flinched away on reflex, and so lost my chance to say anything for he walked away, leaving me standing in the hall.

  I breathed out, pulling at the gloves on my hands. This was not how I had expected my visit to go. The worst scenario I had imagined was I would be thrown from the house, and only after I had a chance to explain the reason behind my visit. Being mistaken for a servant? That certainly had not come into my head at any point and put quite a damper on my enthusiasm.

  Never before had I been left alone in such a manner, and I found it to be an uncomfortable experience. Was such a situation typical for a person seeking a position? I pondered on that as I turned to take in what I could see of the house.

  At the very least, I would have a fascinating tale to relate to Aunt Beth when I returned.

  I couldn’t be sure how long I was left standing there when I was startled by someone speaking. “This way, Miss,” a sulky-faced young woman called out from the staircase. “I’m to take you up to Mrs. Burnham.”

  Taking a deep breath, I walked over to join her. To my surprise, she sniffed derisively and turned her back on me, her nose in the air. As she climbed the stairs ahead of me, I had serious doubts as to the sanity of the servants in the Burnham household. Such behavior would have resulted in dismissal in any other house, so why was it allowed here?

  Holding my tongue on the matter, though, I trailed along behind the rude maid until she reached a closed door on the second level of the house. She flung it open and loudly announced, “Miss Nelson, Mrs. Burnham.”

  I opened my mouth to correct her on my name, but she just continued on her way down the hallway. Left standing at the open door, I glanced from her retreating back to the room before me. “Well, come in,” a woman called. “You’re late enough as it is. I don’t have all day to spend on this.”

  It was at this point I felt sorry for any poor woman in search of a position in the house. I stepped into the room, determined to set the matter straight. The mistress of the house sat at the desk in the middle of the library. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Burnham,” I said, curtsying.

  “Come here, girl,” she said, lifting her gaze. “I have calls I intend on making this afternoon. I don’t have time for any further dilly-dallying.”

  “Mrs. Burnham, there has been some mistake,” I said, hurrying forward. Though she had met me when I was a young girl, it was clear she didn’t recognize me. “You see, I’m—”

  “Miss Nelson, I requested you be here an hour ago,” Mrs. Burnham interrupted, her stare accusatory. “This delay would naturally be an intolerable strike against you, but as I’ve had few responses to my advertisement I am willing to be lenient. It is imperative I find a competent lady’s maid.”

  I barely kept my jaw from dropping. She truly believed I was applying to be a lady’s maid? “M-Mrs. Burnham, there has been a mistake.” This was getting out of hand. “I am Miss—”

  “Turn around and let me see your hair,” she ordered, cutting me off before I could tell her my name. Would I never get to finish an entire sentence? I didn’t move, feeling overwhelmed, and she leaned forward. “You have skill with hairdressing. Excellent. I will admit Eugenia’s hair is...difficult, but you should have no problem.”

  I tried to say something, to object to the whole proceeding, but my voice failed me. “Please pull the cord.” She turned her gaze back to the paper in front of her and made a notation with her pen. “Now, Nelson.”

  “Mrs. Burnham, I need to speak to you about the Sinclair family.” Perhaps if she heard my family name, she would recognize me! “You see—”

  She barely glanced up. “You worked for the Sinclairs?” she asked, her tone thoughtful though she had interrupted me yet again. She waved her right hand before I could correct her on another misapprehension. “It’s hardly ideal, I concur, but I won’t say anything if you will not. Please pull the cord.”

  Yes, I should have tried harder to explain then, but I was reeling from being so off balance. I stepped to the wall and pulled obediently on the cord. “Mrs. Burnham, if I might be able to explain—”

  She raised her hand, and I stopped speaking, the manners that had been drilled into me as a child reasserting themselves. The door opened, and the sullen maid reappeared. “Please show Miss Nelson out,” Mrs. Burnham requested, keeping her eyes on her papers. She rose to her feet. “I will notify you if you have the position and I will detail the specifics then. Thank you, Miss Nelson. Good day.”

  My mouth opened to try one last time to explain, but she walked out of the room. I had been dismissed and, apparently, forgotten in an instant. The maid cleared her throat impatiently, her rudeness not extending as far as outright telling me I needed to leave. Feeling numb, I turned and walked out.

 
; I followed the maid back down the steps. At the same time, the butler was escorting a young man up.

  When we reached the same step, my eyes met his gaze, and for a brief moment, I felt a vague sense of recognition. But right at that moment, I couldn’t say why. There was no indication in his face that he recognized me in return. He gave a respectful nod of acknowledgment, and then we were past each other.

  Curiously, I glanced over my shoulder when I reached the bottom of the staircase, but he was already out of sight. Puzzled, I opened my mouth to ask the maid if she knew who he was, but given her attitude, I didn’t believe she would give me a response. I pressed my lips closed and hoped I’d be able to solve this puzzle on my own.

  In any event, a moment later, I was at the front door. The next thing I knew, I was on the doorstep. The door closed firmly behind me, and I flinched at the force she must have used as the wood made a hard thud at my back. It seemed a fitting conclusion to what had been quite the oddest hour I had ever passed.

  “Miss Sinclair?” the elderly driver who worked for Aunt Beth called out to me from where he was waiting by the old-fashioned coach. “Is everything well?”

  Glancing over my shoulder at the door behind me, I breathed out. What had just happened? I shook my head and started towards the coach. “Thank you for your concern, Simmons, but all is well,” I said as the old man held his hand out to assist me. “You may take me home now.”

  Another scheme to get to the truth was in order, and I needed time to think what it could be.

  “JULIET, WHERE HAVE you been? I have been at my wit’s end this past hour! Carter said the coach was gone as well. Please tell me you did not just go call on someone alone.”

  Aunt Beth’s voice was horrified while she declared all of this the moment I stepped into the drawing room. “Very well, I will not tell you any such thing,” I said lightly. “There. Has that set you at ease, Aunt?”

  She was my mother’s aunt, really, my great-aunt. Though her once brown hair was silvery gray, no one at first glance would have ever known she was well into her seventies. Though she acted frail when she wanted to be difficult, I had no doubt she had more energy than most people gave her credit for.

  “Indeed, it does not! You’ve been acting quite strangely these past few days, Juliet.” My great-aunt jabbed her needle into her fancy needlework she was doing. She had always been clever with a needle and kept it up even at her age. It was a pastime I had no wish to perform more than was necessary given how often I would prick my finger while sewing. “I wish you would tell me what’s wrong. I cannot help if you do not.”

  “You know why I am upset.”

  She looked up, a frown on her face. “It is nothing more than a silly rumor,” she said, her dark eyes sympathetic. “It will pass. In time. As all such things do.”

  “Silly rumors do not repeatedly appear in the newspaper.” There was more anger in my voice than I intended. I curled my fingers into a fist and took a deep breath. “Everyone must be aware of it. They will talk about it, and it will never die.”

  A sympathetic expression on her face, Aunt Beth caught my wrist in her hand. “Such anger is not becoming in a young lady like yourself. I know this rumor has unsettled you, but you must try not to think of it. There is nothing you can do to stop it at this point.”

  Heaving a sigh, I forced my hands to relax. “I don’t believe that, my dear aunt. In fact, that is precisely the reason I was not able to keep you company this afternoon. I believe I may have thought of a way to fight back.”

  “Sit down and tell me what you have been doing.” Her expression was both concerned and intrigued. “I asked Carter to find you, but she said you had left in the coach. You know it is frowned upon for a young lady to do such a thing alone.”

  “Well, I couldn’t take Carter, could I?” I sat beside her on the chaise. “She had errands you asked her to do. It was easier to go on my own. I went to see Mrs. Burnham. Her husband was one of papa’s business associates.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. “I suppose as long as she says nothing of your impetuous impropriety, no bad will come of it.”

  I couldn’t help the laugh that came to my lips. “Oh, I’m certain she will say nothing of me to any of her visitors. It was the most disconcerting and highly entertaining thing that has ever occurred to me. She mistook me for an applicant seeking the position of lady’s maid.”

  “She didn’t!”

  “She did,” I said, emphatically nodding my head. “Every time I tried to explain, I was interrupted. It was one of the most ridiculous situations I had ever been in, Aunt Beth. She dismissed me in a matter of minutes, without listening to a word I tried to say to her, and then sent me away with a promise that she would contact me if I was deemed worthy of the position.”

  Aunt Beth shook her head. “Only you could get yourself into such a mess,” she said, a note of amusement showing in spite of her disapproval. “Though I must question the woman’s sensibilities. How could she believe a Sinclair would be reduced to such circumstances as to require the necessity of taking a position as a lady’s maid? It’s ridiculous.”

  “She thought my last name was Nelson. She had no idea I was a Sinclair.” I frowned as I leaned back. “She knows about the rumor though. I did manage to mention the name of Sinclair when I was attempting to set the matter straight, and she assumed I had worked as a maid for my parents. She assured me she wouldn’t hold it against me if I took care not to say a word of it to anyone.”

  “Horrid woman!”

  Laughing, I shook my head. “I wouldn’t call her that, Aunt. Perhaps confused, or misled, but not horrid.”

  “Well, I think she is a tottering giglet!”

  Even after five years, I hadn’t adjusted to Aunt Beth’s habit of resorting to Shakespearean insults at the most random of times. Most of the time, I had no notion what she meant when she did so. ‘Tottering’, on this occasion, I did know, and it was a bit tame in comparison to some words she’d used in the past.

  “Mrs. Burnham is hardly feeble, I assure you.” ‘Giglet’ was beyond my comprehension but I had no doubt it was not a flattering term.

  With a huff, Aunt Beth raised her needlework again. “Well, at least you will have no more to do with her. What was it you hoped to accomplish by speaking to this woman?”

  “Well, I had hoped she would be sympathetic to my plight. She was acquainted with my mother, you know, and the Burnham family visited on many occasions. I thought if I talked to her about the rumor, perhaps she would be willing to tell others it was simply not true. Once one person speaks up, others would be sure to do the same.”

  My dear great aunt just shook her head at my answer. “Sometimes I am amazed at how you can still think the best of people after everything that has happened in your life. You cannot know how the family has changed these past five years.”

  “I believe I am the one who has changed. I am not the happy, naive young lady I once was.”

  Aunt Beth’s head came up. “You cannot mean that, Juliet. You are still quite young.”

  I breathed a sigh. “Young in age, but not in experience.” Her life had been so different from mine I doubt she would truly understand. “Don’t mind me, Auntie. It’s been a strange day.”

  For a moment, there was no sound but the crackle of the fire. “I received another letter from your uncle.” At the change of subject, I barely held back a groan. “His expedition is going well, and he writes about the artifacts that have been found.”

  Huffing, I resigned myself to hear more of an archaeological expedition I cared nothing for. “Did he? How fascinating.”

  THAT COULD HAVE BEEN the end of it. In fact, I expected I would hear nothing more of the matter and had already begun a new strategy to combat the idiotic rumors. But much to my surprise, when the next morning dawned, I discovered I was completely mistaken.

  “Good morning, Miss Juliet,” Carter said, opening the curtains over the windows. For once, I was awake when my aunt
’s longtime maid arrived, though I hadn’t yet forced myself out of my warm bed. “I have a letter addressed to a Miss Nelson. Miss Beth said it is intended for you.”

  There was no mistaking the curiosity in her voice. Puzzled and intrigued by the unexpected correspondence, I sat up, and she placed my breakfast tray on my lap. Turning, Carter bustled around the room, as though to show she wasn’t at all interested in the letter that sat on the side of the tray.

  Opting to ignore my chocolate for the moment, I picked it up and broke the seal. Unfolding the paper, I read the unfamiliar handwriting, my astonishment growing with each word. A startled laugh escaped me, and I shook my head. “My goodness.”

  “Is there something amusing in your letter, Miss Juliet?” Carter asked, finally giving in to her curiosity.

  “I find it very amusing,” I admitted, looking up. I held the letter in one hand. “I have had my services as a lady’s maid engaged for the sum of twenty-five pounds a year and I am expected to perform the basic duties of a maid. The lady writes as though I would not dream of refusing the position.”

  “How ridiculous,” Carter said with a scoff. She shook her head, somehow missing the humor I saw in the news. “Imagine a young lady such as yourself in service. Juliet Nelson, indeed!”

  Having learned what the letter contained, she left satisfied. “Yes. Just imagine it,” I said softly, setting the message aside. I poured myself a cup of chocolate and sipped it. My eyes kept straying to the sheet of paper. The details it conveyed spoke volumes about the household.

  A true lady’s maid would not have made quite so many blunders as I had. Despite being late, acting above my station by going to the front door, and leaving no references―and who knew how many other offenses I was not aware of―I had been offered the position at a very high wage. Either there had been no other responses to Mrs. Burnham’s advertisements, or the other applicants had all been genuinely appalling.