Gina Lamm

by Geek Girls Don't Date Dukes

  “Avery?”

  He sighed.

  “It is not a tale for a lady’s ears, and it does not signify in any case.”

  “But…”

  He stopped her with a hand in the air. “It does not signify. But have a care, miss.” He turned to her. “Men are not always what they seem.”

  ***

  Leah swallowed hard, trying not to let her confusion show on her face. What could he mean by such a cryptic warning? Men are not always what they seem? Was Avery some kind of criminal or something? Had he been injured while doing something illegal?

  “Well,” she said, looking down at the basin of water to avoid the seriousness of his hazel gaze, “I’ll remember that.”

  With confusion stirring in her brain, she turned to leave the room.

  “Miss?”

  Her heart fluttered with something odd when she turned to look at his shirtless form again. Even his bruises and bandages couldn’t detract from the muscled beauty of his masculine form, but a half-naked Avery facing her was truly a sight to behold. His arms and chest were lined with muscle, nicely defined with a sprinkling of hair across his chest and thickening in a line down his belly, disappearing into his high-waisted breeches. But his eyes were as serious as the grave.

  “Think on what I’ve said.”

  Leah nodded, trying to swallow, but her throat had gone dry. “I will,” she rasped.

  The door clicked shut behind her. His words dogged her steps as she made her way from the attic down to the servants’ hall. What the hell did he mean? Was he trying to warn her away? But why? She didn’t even know him that well, and she certainly wasn’t here after him.

  Leah laughed to herself as she skipped the last step to hop on the landing. It made sense. Of course he’d been concerned about propriety. Leah shook her head with a smile and hustled for the servants’ hall. She didn’t regret helping him at all, but she was grateful for the reminder. This place and time was different than what she was used to, and any tiny misstep on her part could have grave consequences. She’d be more careful.

  “I trust,” Mrs. Harper said when Leah entered the room, “that this tardiness of yours is not a habit, Miss Ramsey. No matter your relation to Cook, I shall expect the courtesy of your prompt attendance at mealtimes and whenever your services are required.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Leah said, hanging her head in what she hoped was an accurate portrayal of a chastened, meek parlor maid. “Henrietta was kind enough to show me the conservatory, and I lost track of time. It won’t happen again, ma’am. Oh, and His Grace is dining at the club tonight, Cook.”

  After bobbing an apologetic curtsy, Leah slid into the chair beside Henrietta and smiled sweetly. The girl glared at her, obviously piqued that her scheme hadn’t made Leah completely miss the meal.

  Cook gave Leah a tight nod as she plopped a bowl of watery soup in front of her, along with a hunk of coarse brown bread. “There, lassie. You’ll be needin’ your strength now. You’ve much to learn and do tomorrow.”

  Leah murmured a polite agreement as she tore off a hunk of bread and chewed it slowly. Ugh. Dry and tough. Scanning the rest of the table’s occupants, she took note of how they ate their soup. Mrs. Harper took tiny sips, perching on the very edge of her chair with her spine straighter than a yardstick. Cook hunched over her bowl, her lips pursed as she poured in the broth. Various footmen and a hawk-nosed man that Leah presumed was the butler ate with typical male gusto, refined as it was by the niceties of aping gentility. Henrietta and the rest of the maids chatted between sips and giggled like the young girls many of them were.

  Satisfied that she wouldn’t stick out too much, Leah soaked bites of bread in her soup and ate the bland broth without complaining. This was way too important to screw up.

  Dinner was filling, if a little unsatisfying. Leah smiled at the maid who took her empty bowl. The thin girl didn’t smile back. Sliding her damp palms down her skirt, Leah watched as the rest of the staff separated into groups. Where would she fit in here? Best to hang back and see.

  The maids gathered in a corner around Henrietta, baskets of mending at their feet. They turned their backs to the room, eyeing Leah with mistrust from some and complete dislike from others. Leah sighed. It wasn’t going to be easy to become one of the girls, apparently.

  The off-duty footmen laughed as they shuffled a deck of cards. Leah stood, uncertainty holding her back. She knew better than to ask them to deal her in. She probably wouldn’t know the game they were playing, and she didn’t want the maids to think she was making a bid for the only male attention to be had. That would make things even worse, she was fairly sure.

  So instead, she took a seat beside Cook and listened to the woman wax eloquent on the ways to prepare a leg of mutton. After an hour, she’d heard more than she ever wanted to know about sheep butchery. When the lady finally fell quiet, a smile pinned firmly to her lips at her own culinary genius, Leah saw her opening and jumped for it.

  “Cook, why didn’t Mr. Russell come to dinner this evening?” Whoa. Not what she’d intended to say at all, but her curiosity about the valet had momentarily preempted her mission to snare the duke.

  Cook’s smile slipped and she folded her hands primly in her lap. “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “Doesn’t he normally eat with the rest of the staff?”

  “Child, you’ll do well to keep clear of Mr. Russell.”

  Confusion and offended loyalty for her new friend bubbled in Leah’s chest. “But I thought you liked him. He seems really nice. What do you mean, I should avoid him?”

  Cook stood and grabbed Leah by the hand, dragging her into the darkened kitchen. Her voice was a sibilant hiss in the dim room. “Mind your tone with me, miss. I’ve put me own position on the line by begging for yours, so you’ll keep a rein on your tongue or you’ll be out on the street. Mr. Russell prefers to be alone, and that’s all there is to it. Do not speak with him; do not seek him out. I cannot be any plainer.”

  Leah’s brow furrowed and she bit her lip at the woman’s words, not liking a bit of it. There was a lot more going on in this house than it seemed. Avery was alone, but he seemed lonely too. Why wouldn’t anyone associate with him? Weren’t valets kind of high up in the ranks of domestic help?

  When Leah didn’t respond right away, Cook gave her arm a little shake. “Promise me, lass. I’ll not leave go until you do.”

  “Fine, I promise.” The words spilled out reluctantly and Leah pulled her arm free. The relief on the woman’s red face was plain.

  “Good. It is time to retire, so go up with the others. Not a word of this conversation to anyone.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Cook turned and left Leah in the empty kitchen. Leah crossed her arms and furrowed her brow. What conversation? As far as Leah could tell, Cook had talked and Leah had listened, even though she didn’t understand a word of it.

  Why would Cook be so adamant about Avery? It didn’t make any sense.

  “Ramsey, as penance for your tardiness this evening, you will finish the scrubbing up,” Mrs. Harper said when Leah entered. In the few minutes she’d been with Cook in the kitchen, most everyone seemed to have cleared out. “You will find the scullery off the main kitchen there. Straight to your bed when you’ve done, and you are expected here for your tasks by five. I shall not be so lenient with your punishment if you are tardy again. Tomorrow you will learn your regular duties. Granville House is one of the most respected homes in London, and you must work to maintain that status with the rest of us.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Leah said dutifully to the woman’s back as she exited the servants’ hall, leaving her completely alone. Man, they didn’t really go for friendly working relationships, did they? Or maybe it was just Leah. Maybe they could tell she was way more familiar with the intimate workings of The Legend of Zelda than with a broom. In any case, she thought as she wandered through the dim kitchen to the smallish room on the side, she would be pretty damn happy to see the end of h
er stint as maid, and she hadn’t even done any real work yet.

  Pushing open the door to the scullery, Leah ground to a horrified halt. “Oh, hell no.”

  It looked like an episode of Hoarders: Regency Edition. Sticky dishes were piled everywhere, layered with crusts and molding bits of food. Large pots were stacked to one side of a huge basin, which was filled with grayish water. Flies buzzed gleefully around the whole mucky scene.

  Leah slammed her eyes shut. “This has got to be a joke.” Even without the vision in front of her, the smell of old food was proof enough that reality had a really cruel sense of humor.

  What do you want, Leah? You want true love? You want to find a man that Pawpaw can feel good about you marrying? Then here. Prove it. Do the best damn job you can. It’s the only way you’ll get the chance to win the game.

  With a dejected sigh, Leah rolled up her sleeves and grabbed an apron. If she was lucky, she’d get this done in two hours, which would mean a good six hours of sleep. She could operate on that. She hoped.

  Seven

  She wasn’t lucky. Not only was she not lucky, she was almost completely sure that Mrs. Knightsbridge had put some kind of curse on her before shoving her through that mirror.

  She didn’t shove you. You practically dived face-first into that bureau’s glass front. “Don’t worry, Pawpaw. I’ll go off and have an adventure and find a super-husband and everything will be perfect!” Typical Leah. Idiot.

  The dishwater splashed into Leah’s face as she slammed the plate down into it. A drop hit her tongue, and she nearly gagged. Wiping her face against her arm, she sighed and resumed scrubbing.

  It was after midnight according to the bonging she heard from somewhere in the house, and she still had three pots to scour. Her hands were pale and wrinkled like raisins. Her nails were jagged, her mobcap was slipping, and to make things worse, a large brown spider was working in a dusty corner directly in front of Leah. She had to stand as far away from the basin as possible to avoid any chance of contact. Arachnophobia wasn’t one of those things she could just suck it up and deal with.

  “I’ve got my eye on you, you eight-legged bastard,” Leah said aloud to the spider as she worked at a crusted-on bit of something. “If you move, you and I are going to have problems. I’m talking major issues. You should probably go ahead and pick out your casket, because—EEeeeeeeek!”

  The spider moved. The pot clattered to the floor, splattering dishwater all over Leah, the clean dishes, and the spider, who skittered down the wall toward the floor as fast as his many legs could carry him. Letting out another bloodcurdling shriek, Leah ran for the kitchen and collided with a solid, muscled, male body in the scullery doorway.

  “Help,” she gasped into Avery’s face, completely uncaring that her voice was thin and panicked. “There’s a huge spider, and it was too close to me, and it ran and I don’t know where it went.”

  He looked like she’d just grabbed an unexpected handful of Mr. Happy, but she couldn’t do anything about that. The irrational fear completely blocked logic from her mind as she climbed Avery’s body like a well-muscled ladder. Looking over her shoulder to make sure the spider hadn’t followed, she twined her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist and held on for dear life.

  ***

  He’d known the lass for less than a day, and she’d just wound herself around him like the crust on a meat pie. She wasn’t an overly fleshy girl, but she was surprisingly heavy when she clung to him like a petrified and hissing cat. Though his first instinct was to shove her away, breaking the unexpected and—if he was quite honest, painful—contact, he repressed it with difficulty. Spreading his feet apart to give him more balance, he carefully began to peel her from his body, making sure to move slowly and methodically, both to prevent distressing her further and causing his bruised body greater discomfort. Her panicked state would not facilitate his swift release.

  “Stoppit, Avery, please. Holy shit, it’s coming this way!”

  She clung to him tighter, burying her face in his neck. The measured pace of his removal gave him ample opportunity to feel the soft vise of her thighs around his hips, the press of her breasts against his chest. The scent of sweet perfume invaded his senses, and tendrils of yellow hair tickled his cheek. The heavy ache in his bones accompanied a deep tingling of desire at the base of his spine.

  “Miss Ramsey, release me.” His voice was firm if muffled by the mobcap she’d pressed against his cheek. For every finger he removed from its grip at the back of his neck, another grabbed hold. “Now.” He mustn’t be seen with her this way; it would ruin her. His unease was growing into a creature that resembled her panic at the sight of the spider. He had to break their contact quickly. He could not harm her reputation, not when she’d been so kind to him.

  “I can’t. Kill it, please.”

  His voice was angrier than he’d intended, but he could not temper his response. “How am I to kill anything with you clinging to me like a vulture on a rotted corpse?”

  “Ugh,” she said, loosening her hold enough to look him in the eyes. Her delicate nose wrinkled in disgust. “What a gross visual.”

  With barely disguised relief, he grabbed her around the waist and turned, pulling her free and setting her in a chair with a soft thump. His security was tempered with another, stranger sense of loss. How odd.

  “Where is it? Did you kill it yet?” She peered around his hip as if looking for a brigand to come despoil her instead of a tiny spider.

  “Wait there a moment.”

  He turned away from her and straightened his clothing. Scanning the stone floor beneath his feet, he stepped slowly.

  “There it is! Oh my God, there it is by that bag.”

  Instead of examining the tiny spider that was making its way up the side of a sack of flour, Avery looked over his shoulder at Miss Ramsey. She’d clapped both hands over her eyes, drawing her feet up beneath her as if to keep them away from the slavering fangs of the bloodthirsty spider. It would have been humorous had her fear not been so real.

  Taking pity on her, he knocked the spider from the bag onto a small piece of kindling, intending to usher the blighter outside.

  “Don’t take it on a transatlantic cruise, just squish it, for chrissakes!” Her choked voice chastised him.

  Ignoring her, Avery walked slowly, turning the kindling to keep the spider from falling or jumping free. Shoving the kitchen door open with his knee, he bent down and deposited the spider in the bush beside the stoop.

  “There, lad. Mind you stay clear of the kitchen and Miss Ramsey. I’ll not be allowed to spare your life a second time.”

  He smiled as the small creature disappeared into the darkened foliage. The door’s hinges creaked as he pulled it shut.

  She sat in the same position, feet tucked beneath her and hands plastered over her eyes.

  “Is it safe?”

  “It is. He will trouble you no longer, miss.”

  Avery watched as the tension slowly ebbed from her fingertips, her hands, then her arms and shoulders. Her feet slid to the floor, and her whole body melted like warmed candle wax. The corner of her mouth turned down, her cheeks were pale, and her demeanor was that of one utterly defeated.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, looking down at the floor. “Snakes I can handle. Mice are fine. I know it’s stupid, I know, but those damn spiders scare the crap out of me.” She looked up at him, her blue eyes shiny with unshed tears. “I’m so sorry.”

  His arms ached but not from the beating he’d taken. He didn’t know why. Never before had he felt the urge to do something, to ease her discomfort, to shelter her by…holding her in his arms? No. The thought was insupportable. She had come here for the duke, and he could not stand in her way.

  Abruptly turning away, Avery cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back. “It is of no consequence.” Keeping his gaze trained on a stack of bowls, he fought to regain his composure. What had this woman done to him?

&nb
sp; “I hate to even ask you this.” Her voice was thin and small. “Would you mind checking the scullery? To see if it had any, er, friends in there.”

  Without comment, Avery turned and walked into the scullery.

  Pots and dishes were piled everywhere, mostly clean but for a pile of largish pots to one side of the washbasin. He stooped to pick up a half-scrubbed pot from the stones of the floor. This must have been the crash he’d heard when entering the kitchen. He set the pot upright by the basin and examined the corners of the room.

  “There is no sign of any eight-legged compatriots, madam. I should think you are safe.”

  “Are you sure?” Her pale face peered around the corner of the doorjamb.

  “Quite certain.”

  She entered the room slowly, eyes darting this way and that, as if she didn’t quite trust his report. He said not a word as she moved with arms crossed tightly over her middle to stand in the center of the room.

  “Thank you.” She didn’t look up at him as she spoke. “Again, I’m really sorry about that. I just can’t handle spiders. I’m not normally such a wimp, so please don’t think I can’t do this, okay?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She gestured to the mound of dishes. “I know you and Cook are risking a lot by getting me this job. I can handle it, I promise. I don’t want you to think because I wigged out over a huge, monstrously awful spider that I can’t hack this job.” She nodded and straightened her spine. “I’m kind of a bad ass, when I need to be.”

  He smothered the smile her odd words brought to his face. “I have no doubt that you are.” He turned to leave the room.

  “Hey, where are you going?”

  His feet stilled, and he looked back at her. She stood tall, but uncertainty still shadowed her eyes.

  “I missed the evening meal. I had intended to find food.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Okay.” She turned back to her washbasin, and he moved to leave the room but stopped when she spoke again. Her voice was soft, uncertain.