He pulled his prisoner by the stockinged ankle swiftly toward him, caught up a bunch of her petticoats and hauled her out from under the table and up over his shoulder in a smooth and easy operation. Shoeless and kicking, her stockinged feet and slim ankles on display to the world, he demanded she stop struggling, and to keep her legs from kicking and her silk petticoats from billowing out, he placed an arm under her bottom and held her to his shoulder. This also stopped her from slipping completely over his shoulder and onto her head.
There wasn’t much fight in his rat now because she was laughing and protesting at one and the same time. She beat at his back with her fists and told him, while upside down and voice muffled into his velvet frock coat, that he was a brute and a fiend and she wouldn’t give in, whatever tortures he inflicted. Rats stuck together! All this did was make him laugh harder and he so far forgot himself that he smacked his rat’s bottom in mock anger and said he would go on meting out due punishment until she gave up the whereabouts of her fellow rats.
“Salt, put me down!” Jane pleaded, though she was enjoying herself hugely. “My head is spinning and I feel faint!”
There was more squealing and laughter from the other side of the table when two heads appeared and they saw the Earl with his Countess up over his shoulder giving her a mock thrashing. They jumped up and ran round the table, ignoring their governess, their tutor and even their mother, who broke from the crowd of stunned onlookers to go after her children, demanding that they stop all this nonsense at once and act the well-bred gentleman and young lady they had been brought up to be. But Merry and Ron were too caught up in the moment and were intent on freeing their fellow rat from the Earl’s imprisonment. Sir Antony, too, who was now on his feet and recovered his dignity, brushed down his silk breeches and adjusted his lace cravat, then came across to join his niece and nephew, his sister ignored.
By the time they reached the Earl, Salt had slid Jane to her stockinged feet and let her go, once he was certain she had regained her balance. As for her dignity, seeing the mute faces of their audience, she wasn’t at all certain that would make a recover any time soon, and she turned away to pin up her mussed hair. Her fichu needed adjusting again, her petticoats were crumpled, she had no idea where her satin slippers were, and she couldn’t hold her head up because her face was flushed with embarrassment.
What Jane was doing under the table, Salt could hazard a guess looking at his mischievous niece and nephew. He knew the moment he had a good grip on her ankle and pulled her towards him out from under the table that it was his wife in his arms, but he was too caught up in the moment to give two testers who saw them.
“You didn’t catch us at all, Uncle Salt!” Merry announced proudly, coming to stand before the Earl and staring up into his flushed face. “Ron and I were too quick for you and Uncle Tony, weren’t we?”
Salt smiled down into her upturned smiling face and pinched her small pointed chin. “Much too quick, Merry.”
“And it was a good hiding place wasn’t it?” Ron asked anxiously, a look over his shoulder at his mother and the two servants bearing down on them. “You’d no idea we were there under your feet all the time, did you, Uncle Salt?”
“No idea at all. One of the best hiding places you’ve found, without doubt,” Salt assured him. “And you were so very quiet.” He glanced at Jane. “All three of you.”
“We were as quiet as rats!” Merry announced and looked about for approval at her cleverness.
“Aubrey and Magna Sinclair St. John!” Diana St. John announced, sweeping up to her children. “I am very disappointed in you both,” she said sullenly. “Where have your manners flown? Did I not tell you about Mamma’s sick headache? And here you are running about your uncle’s dining room like a couple of street urchins. You will go with Clary and Taylor to that room upstairs where you usually eat and you will conduct yourself in a manner befitting a Sinclair. That is all. No. I don’t want to hear your excuses. Go.”
“Yes, Mamma. Of course, Mamma,” both children mumbled in unison, a fearful glance up at their mother. But just as the tutor and governess stepped forward, Merry broke from her brother’s side and ran to the Earl and caught his hand and pointed at Jane.
“She said we could have dinner here with you.”
“Merry,” her brother whispered, “it’s not she, it’s Lady Salt.”
“But I want to call her Aunt Jane,” Merry counted. “She said I could!”
“Magna! Aubrey! How dare you carry on like rabble! Give your uncle the proper respect and do as you are bid and say good-night!” Diana St. John ordered and signaled again to the governess and the tutor to take her children in hand. “You know very well you don’t eat in the dining room when we have guests, and that’s the end of it!”
Obediently, Merry curtseyed and Ron bowed to the Earl, their gaze cast to the floorboards. But Merry did not let go of the Earl’s hand and was somewhat comforted by the fact that he did not let go of her hand either. It was then that Jane stepped forward and calmly addressed their mother.
“I told Merry and Ron they could eat their dinner here with us.” She looked at the Earl and then at Diana St. John’s marble countenance. “It’s just that it must be very lonely eating alone in the nursery. And cold, too, if I know anything of this house.”
“What could you possibly know about this house? You’ve only been in it five minutes!” Diana St. John whispered viciously in Jane’s face, self-control lost for the briefest of moments, then masked instantly by cool-indifference. She added haughtily, and loud enough for the assembled guests to hear, “I do not appreciate interference in my children’s welfare, my lady. I am their mother. I know what is best for them.”
Yet the brief loss of control, and the fact her children feared her, provided Jane with a glimpse behind the woman’s mask. It made her inwardly shudder. That if Diana St. John put her mind to it, she was capable of wielding more than a political dagger to get what she wanted. Jane decided it was time to be brave for the two little eager faces that looked at her expectantly.
“I’m so pleased you no longer have the headache that called out a physician in the middle of last night,” Jane said pleasantly, looking Diana St. John in the eye. “Then again, watching the tennis match could not have helped…?”
Lady St. John’s hazel eyes opened wide then narrowed to slits and her painted mouth twisted up in a smile. “You may think yourself very clever—”
“Let it be, Di,” Sir Antony hissed under his breath. “Don’t make a fool of yourself.”
Diana St. John smiled sweetly at her brother and tapped his sleeve with the sticks of her ivory fan. “Foolish boy! Trust you to trip over your flat feet for a pretty face.”
Salt smiled encouragingly at his godchildren, who were staring up at him in anxious expectation, then turned wearily to their mother. “Diana, take Tony’s advice. I see no harm in the children being present. And as Lady Salt has kindly given Ron and Merry permission to sit at the table with the adults, they may do so. But they must be on their best behavior,” he added, a mock frown down at the two now suddenly happy children, who nodded up at him enthusiastically, “and do as Lady Salt bids them, or they will find themselves consigned to the nursery.”
“I won’t allow it!” Diana St. John blurted out before she could stop herself. “Clary! Taylor! Take—”
“But as this is my house and my table,” Salt said very quietly, “it is not your place to say otherwise.”
“But they are my children,” Diana St. John stated, and in a show of defiance, pulled her son and daughter from their uncle’s side and gathered them to her petticoats. “I will do with them as I see fit.”
Salt inclined his head to her with excessive politeness but there was ice in his voice. “I suggest we not mince words, my dear. St. John left his children in my sole custody.”
Lady St. John blanched and instantly let go of Merry and Ron, who, after a small hesitation, ran to the Earl and hugged him. She was on the
verge of tears of rage as she watched her children go hand in hand with Salt to the foot of the table, but force of personality kept her temper in check. Before retreating to take her place at the table, just as the butler announced dinner was served, she said very quietly to Jane, “You are nothing but a hiccup in his life. Annoyingly present, but eventually hiccups disappear, by whatever means necessary, and then one can’t remember ever having had them.”
NINE
‘DON’T WORRY ABOUT DIANA” Sir Antony assured Jane over the pea soup. “Salt’s marriage has given her a severe shock, I won’t deny that. But she’ll adjust. She has to. She has no alternative.”
But Diana St. John believed she did have alternatives. As she sat through the long dinner seated just a few places away from the Earl at the head of the table, surrounded by the titled and politically powerful, she had the satisfaction of seeing the new Countess of Salt Hendon consigned to the furthest end of the table, where obedient wives sat and played hostess to the nobodies: the old, the young and the politically insignificant. Why her brother chose to play the chivalrous idiot by sitting himself on the Countess’s left amongst the worms, Diana knew not, but thought perhaps he hoped to gain the Earl’s favor by keeping the little wife company. But as Salt did not once look his wife’s way, and spent the evening talking politics with Diana and their mutual group of friends, she decided that her brother’s little ploy had gone awry.
And while she was chatting and laughing and fluttering her fan very prettily, and holding court amongst the politically influential, she learnt an interesting piece of information from Lady Porter, whose favorite pastime was being up on all the gossip involving Westminster’s upper-servants. Diana had recently lost a very good upstairs maid by the name of Anne Springer to Jenny Dalrymple, and it just so happened that the elder sister of this Anne Springer was Lady Porter’s dresser. But it was Lady Porter’s adamant belief that Diana’s very good upstairs maid had not gone to Jenny Dalrymple at all but was here in this very house, newly employed as the Countess of Salt Hendon’s personal maid, to be closer to her betrothed, one Rufus Willis, under-butler to Lord Salt. Lady Porter was insistent. After all, her source, Anne Springer’s sister Janet, was impeccable.
Come time for the ladies to retire to the Long Gallery to sip tea, leaving the gentlemen to their port, Diana St. John disappeared for half an hour. She found her way through the public rooms to the labyrinth of dimly lit passageways that led to the very private rooms occupied by the Earl and Countess one floor above. Here, in the freshly painted and prettily furnished rooms that were the Countess of Salt Hendon’s apartments, she discovered her very good upstairs maid Anne.
The young woman was in amongst a plethora of exquisitely embroidered petticoats in a variety of rich fabrics and colors; a dozen pairs of shoes in matching fabrics were lined up along the polished wood floor and on the sofa were neatly stacked piles of stockings, and all manner of female fripperies. She was humming to herself and busily hanging, folding and putting away her ladyship’s extensive new wardrobe. With her were two dressmakers and a milliner. They sat huddled together with needle and thread, under the light of a branch of candles by the warmth of the fireplace, putting the finishing touches to a couple of bonnets and bodices.
Diana St. John screwed up her mouth at such overindulgent spending on a creature who in her eyes wasn’t worth her housekeeper’s cast-offs, and summarily dismissed the dressmakers and milliner to a back closet with threats of their bills remaining unpaid if ever they opened their mouths to her presence. When her very good upstairs maid Anne dropped into a respectful curtsey, she was delighted to see real fear in the woman’s eyes.
“I don’t have time to waste on why you told my housekeeper a falsehood about your present employment,” Diana St. John stated coldly, circling the woman with a menacing swish of her wide hooped petticoats. “Suffice that if you render me a small service I will forget that you are a liar, and thus I won’t need to inform the Earl, and you won’t be thrown out on the streets where deceitful servants belong.”
“My lady, I—”
“Did I ask you to speak? I don’t have time, idiot! Listen. You can form your letters? Good. You will make a note of the Countess’s every move. And I mean every move. I want to know everything there is to know about her, from her favorite color to her preferred breakfast beverage; what time of the day she rests, goes riding; who gets her custom; in particular who visits her and why; but most importantly, when and how often his lordship avails himself of his marital rights.”
Anne blinked and wondered if she had heard correctly. “My lady?”
“You will also keep a detailed record of when Lady Salt has her monthly courses—”
Anne shook her head vigorously, but kept her eyes lowered to the floorboards. “Oh, no, my lady, I couldn’t! I—”
“—and, most importantly, when she stops menstruating. I need to know the exact day of the month.”
“My lady! Oh please don’t make me! Please,” Anne protested, blushing to the roots of her brown hair. “I can’t tell you—I can’t report on them doing-doing that; on her ladyship’s courses. I can’t—”
Diana St. John grabbed the woman’s upper arm hard and stuck her face in hers. “Yes, you can and you will or I will inform the Earl that the Countess’s new personal maid lifts her skirts for the under-butler.”
Anne was horrified. She burst into tears. “Never! Never! Mr. Willis is an honorable man, my lady. We have never—Not before marriage. We are betrothed.”
“Stop blubbering, girl! You won’t be betrothed for much longer if you’re both dismissed from service.”
“Oh, please, my lady, no. Mr. Willis has worked so hard to get to where he is as under-butler. One day he hopes to—”
“Stop whining!” Diana St. John demanded and let her go with a shove. “If you want this Willis to rise to the dizzying heights of butler you had best do as I say, or both of you will be out on the street without a reference and nowhere to go. No one will employ either of you, not if I have any say in the matter. The only vocation open to you both will be as whore and pimp.” She rested her chin on the closed sticks of her ivory fan and pondered a moment before glancing slyly at the quivering maid. “He availed himself of her last night, didn’t he? Do you know how many times he mounted—”
“No! No! Of course not, my lady!” Anne interrupted, shaking hands to her tear-stained face. “I do not listen at doors!”
“You will, if you want to keep your position,” Diana St. John stated unsympathetically. “Willis can then continue to dream of becoming a butler in some third-rate household, and both of you will be fed and warm the rest of the winter.”
Tears were streaming down Anne’s face and she sniffed loudly. She knew she had to submit to Lady St. John’s outrageous demands. She had worked long enough in the St. John household to know her ladyship meant what she threatened.
An uncompromising mistress who expected her servants to obey her without question, the St. John children fared no better than the servants; the little boy most of all. Most shocking was the fact her ladyship fed her son a strengthening medicinal that more often than not necessitated a visit from the physician to cure the boy of an ill he suffered needlessly at the hands of his overprotective parent.
As for Lady St. John’s temper tantrums, few of her servants had actually witnessed one at first hand, but those that had never forgot. Most sought other employment immediately. Anne had witnessed one such fit of temper and had pleaded with her father to find her another position. She could not stay in a house where the mistress tore up the bedclothes and pillows, scattering feather down everywhere, and slapped her personal maid’s face, all because she could not go to sleep without a sapphire and diamond locket that she kept under her pillow at night.
Three upstairs maids and Lady St. John’s personal maid, with a red welt across her cheek, had been ordered to tear up the bedchamber until they found the precious piece of jewelry. Anne had been lucky enough to fi
nd the locket. It had slipped down the back of the carved headboard, and was lodged between the mattress and the carved backing board. It was an intricate piece of jewelry, beautifully wrought and with a large gleaming sapphire set into a gold back and surrounded by diamonds. Anne had it snatched out of her hand without so much as a thank you. Her maids were then dismissed with the screaming threat that if ever the locket went missing again from under her pillow, Lady St. John would dismiss her entire household staff.
Anne had been miserable in that house and when her father found her the position of lady’s maid to the Earl’s new wife, who turned out to be a softly-spoken young woman with a sweet nature, Anne considered herself the luckiest girl alive. But there was no escaping the ruthless Lady St. John. Nor did she feel she could approach the Countess, who was young and inexperienced and unlikely to believe a new servant over the Earl’s particular cousin. And she certainly didn’t want trouble for her betrothed, Rufus Willis.
Yet, the thought of watching the Countess’s every move, of recording her intimate relations with the Earl, turned her stomach and made her say bravely,
“Please, my lady, don’t make me do this… Lady Salt has been so good and kind to me.”
Diana St. John swept to the door. “So good and kind in fact that she’ll never suspect her maid.” With a flick of her wrist she opened out her ivory fan. “Did you know these are the worst January frosts on record? People are literally freezing in the streets…”
~ ~ ~
SALT HAD THROWN on a red silk banyan and sat at his dressing table filing his manicured nails, glad the day was over. He had enjoyed the tennis immensely, particularly winning against that prosy dandy Pascoe Church. But the dinner was tedious and the talk of the political maneuverings of Rockingham and Newcastle, and speculation over whether the King’s favorite, Lord Bute, would or would not resign held no particular interest for him that night; this, despite Diana’s attempts to keep him in the political argument. He was too distracted to be bothered offering more than the barest of comments; distracted with wanting to know what was going on at the far end of the long table where his wife held court with Ron and Merry, Sir Antony, his secretary and Tom Allenby.
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