by LK Rigel
Something was off. The kitchen maids were chopping and pounding like mad, their faces serious and fixed on the task at hand. It was so quiet he heard an ember pop in the open fire. Cook stomped over to the stove and stirred a pot, then stomped to the sideboard and sorted through her herbs and spices, apparently not finding what was wanted.
The woman could be as gentle as a kitten when things ran smoothly, but since yesterday all of Gohrum House had been knocked askew by the duke’s new houseguests. Matthew Peter felt sorry for Cook. The kitchen was getting the worst of it.
“Matthew Peter.” Cook pointed a long wooden spoon at his chest. “You’re just the man I want, with your long legs.”
“I just came downstairs to fetch the plate from the butler’s pantry,” he said in protest. But he laughed good-naturedly and set the tray down on the worktable. “Madam, what is your desire?”
“There’s a good lad.” Cook broke out in a broad smile, and her staff relaxed. “Bring down the egg basket for me. Lady Delia has a desire for a soufflé with her tea this afternoon, and I’ve used all my eggs for the breakfast she and the countess barely touched.”
Lady Delia was the daughter of Earl and Countess Devilliers. The family were currently the duke’s houseguests, and Lady Delia had proved demanding beyond all belief.
“I always wonder why the grand folk hate the Frenchies but love their food,” Matthew Peter said. He was taller than any of the footmen, but he still needed a stool to reach the wicker basket on the top shelf. As he stepped down, he almost trampled Miss Gray who’d just come into the kitchen.
“I beg your pardon.”
“Not at all,” she said, moving out of his range.
He felt his face go red, but it couldn’t be helped. The kitchen maids exchanged a look and grinned. Yes, let them laugh. Everyone knew his heart was lost to Miss Gray. Everyone, that is, but Miss Gray.
“Cook, I’m going out,” Miss Gray said. “Is there anything I can pick up for you?”
Wasn’t that just like her to offer to help on her free day? She was a wonderful person.
“You’ll save me from Lady Delia yet, Miss Gray,” Cook said. “Take the egg basket to Mrs. Jenson across the park. She borrowed two dozen last week. See if she’s in a position to return them. If not, I’m afraid you’ll have to buy some.”
Matthew Peter handed Miss Gray the basket, hoping for another smile, but she didn’t even look at him. “I’ll get some house money just in case,” she said to Cook. She left the kitchen for the work room she shared with the head housekeeper, the basket swinging lightly at her side.
It was tragic Miss Gray didn’t know he was alive. She was a hard worker and a good person, firm but fair and kind to the housemaids in her charge. She was clever, too, always using the oddest words. One day he’d be butler, and one day she’d be head housekeeper. Matthew Peter’s one dream was to make her see they were perfect for each other in every way.
Leopold Singer
On Jermyn Street, Leopold Singer stopped in front of a smart white townhouse trimmed with black iron railings to examine the contraption he’d bought from a street vendor over on Piccadilly. It would likely rain before he got to The Lost Bee, and he wanted to try the thing out.
The world these days was a fascinating place for a young man of mind and means, full of inventions, discoveries, news of geographical expeditions, the latest German music and English poetry. He was in England for the first time, the new century was mere months away, and he would be twenty-one in the spring.
Lost in the umbrella’s mystery, he didn’t see an oncoming coach pull to a stop on the narrow road; nor did the man who stepped out of the coach have a care for where he was going. The two men collided. The Englishman dropped a fine ash cane, and Leopold caught before it touched the ground.
The precious thing felt welcome in his hand, pleased to be there. He twirled the stick with unconscious delight and with a deft movement returned it to its owner who snatched it back protectively.
As if Phaeton in his mad streak across the heavens had stumbled upon Orpheus emerging from the underworld, the two men locked eyes. Leopold felt an instant, irrational dislike of the other man—and sensed the feeling was shared.
They were a fine study in light and dark. The Englishman’s neat strawberry-blond hair contrasted with the Leopold’s thick and loose brown curls. The fair man was taller, thin, and blue-eyed, with the grace of a gazelle, dressed in the tight-fitting costume of a fashionable gentleman. Leopold was dark-eyed and more muscular, with the sleek but thicker strength of a panther and careless ease in his clothing and manner.
“Welcome back to Asherinton, Sir Carey.” The butler stepped out from the townhouse. “I hope you left Baroness Branch in good health?”
“The baroness was in excellent health two days ago.” Sir Carey disappeared inside without offering, or waiting for, an apology.
Leopold tucked the umbrella under his arm. So that was Sir Carey Asher, one of his father’s partners in business. He continued on his walk. They would be introduced tomorrow night at the Duke of Gohrum’s supper.
He should cut short his stay in England. His education had become a too-long holiday from the real world, and in truth he spent little time at his studies. If he’d wanted to learn something, he should better have chosen the university at Edinburgh. Cambridge was more likely to turn him out in the image of that dandy with the walking stick than of David Hume or Adam Smith.
He attended lectures and argued Revolution with chaps in the coffeehouses, sided with Burke against the Jacobeans, and fancied himself a good candidate for The Lunar Society, if only he’d been born a generation earlier. But it was all less than necessary to his happiness.
Enough learning! He wanted to be doing.
He’d adapted to London circadian rhythms. He breakfasted well after noon and dined at an hour when decent Austrians were asleep in their beds. He was a tourist of both mean and splendid places.
The messy, alive jumble of London architecture and pickpockets and street vendors and theaters fed his imagination with far better stuff than professors’ lectures, and his father’s letter of introduction had made him welcome through Gohrum into good company in both town and country.
The weeks in August at Millam Hall were best forgotten, spent almost entirely in the avoidance of Lady Delia Devilliers. He’d only escaped after promising to attend Gohrum’s first London supper of the year, the one tomorrow night. It was only October, but the trickle had started, soon to become the river of society flowing back for another season of cards and cotillions, fortunes made and more fortunes undone, according to the stories he’d heard.
A few cool drops of light rain fell as he entered St. James Square. The duke’s residence was across the park, a stark patch in all the white marble and red brick of the neighborhood. Gohrum House was close enough to his own rooms that he could walk tomorrow, if the rain had gone. He opened the umbrella into the path of an oncoming young woman.
“Oh, mux!” What an odd curse. It betrayed a lack of deference to the superior being who had poked her in the eye.
He tossed aside the offending machine and grabbed her arm, but a stream of brown and white eggs rolled down the folds of her skirt, breaking on the grass in slow sequence, one upon another. “Pardon me, miss. I am an oaf.” Within one half hour, that confounded umbrella had involved him in two clumsy encounters.
“Aren’t you, now.”
Charming. But then, she’d surely have to replace the eggs, and with money she was not likely to have. He picked up the empty basket. “You must let me refill this. But first, I was just on my way for a spiced coffee. Will you share a pot with me, as some small amends?”
The gentle rumble of his voice worked its magic, and she looked at him more kindly. Her strange eyes were gray and bright like clouds in sunlight. He hoped she’d say yes.
“I assure you, ladies find The Lost Bee quite suitable.”
They hurried through the rain, only a Scotch mist, down
Charles Street, turned a few corners, and slipped into one of London’s innumerable coffeehouses. “They know me here,” Leopold said. “It’s where the coach from Gohrumshire stops.”
She suppressed a smile. She wasn’t pretty, and she wasn’t that much of a girl. She must be a few years older than he. But the dash in the rain had awakened his senses. He wished he could touch her hair.
“Mr. Leopold!” The middle-aged proprietress of The Lost Bee waddled toward them through the tables. “Give us those wet things, now that’s it.”
“Good day, Mrs. Jones.” She always clucked over him like his old nurse. At home it would be irritating, but in cold London he welcomed the solicitous attention.
“Isn’t this the charm of a sudden shower, to take shelter in a respectable establishment like my Bee?” She frowned at the girl’s thin shawl. “Caught by nature, as it were, and forced to spend half an hour in pleasant conversation till things let up.”
Leopold asked for his companion’s name.
“Susan, sir. Susan Gray.”
“Ah, Susan, sir,” he teased. “Susan, sir, allow me to present Mrs. Jones, owner of this fine establishment. Mrs. Jones, I quite literally ran into Miss Gray and destroyed her groceries, so I’ve brought her to The Lost Bee for the best spiced coffee in London and to beg you to sell me a dozen of your fine eggs to replace those I broke.”
“Two dozen,” Miss Gray said.
Mrs. Jones took the shawl and umbrella and sighed as if his troubles were her own. She muttered, “Mr. Leopold being kind again, taking it into his mind to address some situation. The world’s full of sorry tales.”
The Lost Bee’s tables and even the floors were clean enough not to repel ladies of quality. There was a window table available, but Mrs. Jones led them to a quiet corner. The scent of Susan’s hair reminded Leopold of springtime at home. He felt a loss of self-control, at once alarming and delightful.
For so long that it seemed a natural fact of his life, he’d judged himself smarter, bolder, and more capable than most people he met. Susan was the last sort of person he should feel equal to—a foreigner, a servant, a woman. Yet he felt instantly at ease in her company as if there were no distinction between them of rank or sex. They’d exchanged but a few words, and he sensed that she knew him completely.
A serving girl brought hot bread and butter with the coffee. Susan’s plain features softened as she took in the scent of nutmeg, cinnamon, and cardamom. She wasn’t beautiful or even sweet like Marta Schonreden back home, but she fascinated him. Susan’s eyes were a preternatural light gray. An informed intellect shone through.
He wanted to make a ridiculous comment about windows to the soul.
He liked her self-confidence, her sensual enjoyment of the hot drink, her open demeanor—no sparkle, but intelligent spark. By the time the pot was empty, he had told her all about himself.
“Thank you, Mr. Singer. I am sure I will badger Cook to introduce spiced coffee to the manse.” She said manse with ironic humor. The more she spoke, the more she seemed too fine for a servant. He laid his hand on the table near hers, but she ignored it and stood. “I must get those eggs to Cook.”
He followed her to the street. She made a slight curtsy which he also suspected as being ironic. “Goodbye.”
“Wait!” He touched her elbow. “I must see you again. I can’t bear it if you walk away like this.”
“Like what?” she laughed.
“When do you have an evening free? Might we meet again, perhaps here at The Lost Bee?” He had no idea what to do with such a girl. If she were in society, they could arrange to be at the same party or to attend the same theatrical. He only knew he wanted to see her again.
“Tonight is my free night. I was fetching the eggs as a favor to the kitchen. I’ll have another in two weeks.”
“Tonight, then.”
She hesitated long enough to make him doubt success then said, “I will return here in one hour.”
What a marvelous world! That such a creature, unknown to him all this time, should live in London. He returned to the coffeehouse and placed himself where he could watch the door.
“You were too kind to that young woman, sir,” Mrs. Jones said.
“Not exactly. I destroyed her eggs.”
“All the same, most gentlemen don’t take notice of a servant’s troubles, even when those troubles is caused by themselves.”
“So you think she is a servant, then?”
“Her hands looked fine enough, and she speaks well. She’s no scullery maid, I’ll give you that. But if she weren’t a servant, what were she doing fetching eggs?”
At last, the bell on the door jingled and she was there, in a different dress, looking like an ordinary, respectable young lady of meager means. Though it was chilly the evening was clear, and she suggested they walk.
They passed by his rooms, and she wanted to see his edition of Reveries of the Solitary Walker. She followed him through the sitting room to his bedroom where the book lay open on a table. With real interest, she turned the pages. She actually began to read, her expression changing with Rousseau’s clever phrases.
“You astonish me,” he said.
“A servant should not read French?”
“Or a woman philosophy.”
“Hmph. I take it you have not read Wollstonecraft. Thank goodness I was stopped from learning German, or you should be overcome by wonder.”
She shivered, and he realized her thin shawl was not equal to its task. He added coals to the grate and worked on getting some heat into the room. He liked making things comfortable for her while she read. He checked the kettle for water and put it on for tea.
“What prevented you, Susan?” He’d call her Miss Gray, but she’d probably think he was mocking her. “What stopped you learning German?”
“Say, Singer!” A boisterous rap on the door stopped her answer. “Are you in? Come, man! You are wanted at Lady D’s.” Leopold moved toward the door, but didn’t open it. “She’s asked for you especially!” The caller knocked again, half-heartedly. After another minute, he went away.
Susan set aside the Rousseau. She came to Leopold and touched his face and traced his cheek. She led him back to the bedroom and pressed her palm against his chest until he sat down on his bed.
His heart pounded. The lads at school often told stories, exaggerated or imagined, some perhaps true, of their first sex, how sometimes it happened with servants who thought it a lark to deflower the young master. He had urges like any man, but he had not yet indulged them with a woman. To bed any woman, his equal or no, would give her a claim on him he had no wish to allow, not yet. Not until he’d smelled Susan’s hair that afternoon in the rain.
She kissed him, not the clumsy kiss of a novice. Her lips pressed full on his with purpose and desire. She opened his mouth with her tongue, teasing him. He reached for her, and she ran her hands over his chest. He helped her to remove her dress and drew her close to him in her chemise. He caressed a precious breast. Such heaven, such heat, such sweet pressure. Loosening herself from his grip, she did seem to take her own pleasure. With the swirl of a finger, she motioned for him to undress.
Just as he got his trousers off, the kettle began to boil. He stumbled getting it off the hook. “Tea?”
“Darling Leopold.” She sat on the bed and opened her arms. No tea, then. She swallowed him up until he had no idea who he was. He wasn’t a person. He was an animal, her creature, sinking, down, in, through. He thought he heard her moan, but maybe that was his own voice. He shuddered and felt himself lose everything to her. In a bliss of spasms, he let go.
He fell into a delicious brief sleep. Through the night, they coupled and slept, coupled and slept. They awoke in the very early morning and loved each other again. If only the world could stand still. But the world spun on, and Susan left his bed.
“Some people must earn their bread, sir. I am one of those people.”
“Susan, sir, don’t be cruel.”
&nb
sp; “Tonight, you’ll be with fashionable ladies at the duke’s party. You’ll know then how you have degraded yourself with me.”
“Never say that, Susan. You are wonderful.”
“That may be true.” She wrapped her shawl around her shoulders. “If after tonight you still wish it, I’ll meet you again at The Lost Bee on my next free night.”
“But you said that wasn’t for two weeks!”
“You’ll have time to attend a few lectures.” She kissed his cheek and eluded his outstretched hand. “Good day, sir.” She curtsied. With another ironic grin, she was gone.
He lay in bed and contemplated the miracle that was Woman. He thought of Marta Schonreden. Of course, Marta was too modest and far too innocent to care for him in the way Susan had done.
Lovely Marta Schonreden, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, and so sweet. If God made Woman for Man, surely He had made Marta for Leopold. He would be twenty-one next spring, as good a time as any to marry. He was sure his father would approve the match. The whole village admired Marta Schonreden’s exceptional beauty. He imagined himself with her now.
In the meantime, “Susan, sir” would greatly brighten his stay in England.
The Wrong Lovers
Lady Delia chose Leopold Singer for her husband in the same way she chose all her accouterments. It had taken a long time to find her perfect object. She was twenty-five years old. Every year the competition was fiercer, her rivals younger, richer, nicer. This year more than ever, she needed a propitious match.
Bad luck at the gaming tables was a common disaster. No shame there, of course, but the debts coupled with her dwindling personal assets had affected her self-confidence. She would bring only beauty and connections to a marriage, and one of those was not secure.
In the last year, she’d watched her skin lose youth’s freshness. Her hair had dulled, and there seemed to be less of it. Whether her mouth smiled or frowned, her eyes always showed the same flat expression. Her appearance benefited greatly by the quality of her garments.
