“It is not my place to say. But you are still a relatively young man with a long life ahead of you, God willing. You have property. Your health. You should not waste your days working your way down to the bottom of a gin bottle. I have seen the effects of gin in the city, sir. It is a wicked thing. Men and women—even children—lose their principles.”
“Principles.” He’d had them once, too, as well as a governess. But damn him if he was going to sit on the floor and be lectured by his housekeeper. She couldn’t even make a proper pot of coffee. How dare she tell him how to live his life?
This is what one got by advertising in a London newspaper for help. He should have gone to an employment agency on the other side of the border in Hereford. Found a nice old thing like Cecily who wouldn’t die and would leave him alone while he drowned his sorrows. Of course, they knew of him over in Hereford. Everyone within a hundred mile radius knew of Major Gareth Ripton-Jones. He was a bloody local hero.
And a murderer.
“Did your Lady Pennington allow you to talk to her like this?”
“Lady Pennington would not fall down the stairs drunk, Major.”
“I am not drunk, damn it!” He wasn’t. He rather wished he was.
“I’ll fix a cup of tea, then. I can boil water, and you can get out of your wet coat.”
He’d forgotten to hang it on the hook when he came in. Gareth realized he’d produced quite a puddle at the foot of the stairs. He was soaked through.
Perhaps he’d succumb to lung fever and die. That would solve all his problems.
“I don’t want tea.” But it would be hot, just the thing to defrost him and ease his aches. “Oh, very well. I won’t permit you to speak while you fix it, however. You’ve said more than enough. Is that why you needed new employment? Were you turned off for your insolence? You’re very cheeky for a housekeeper.” He grabbed the rope railing and hauled himself upright.
“I am sorry if I offended you, Major.” She didn’t sound one bit sorry though.
He allowed her to fly around the kitchen, lighting a lamp, stirring up the ashes of the stove, pumping water, throwing a small handful of tea leaves in his grandmother’s teapot. Her head was not covered with a nightcap, and her long brown braids whipped back and forth. If she knew he could see clear through her oversized night rail, she might not be well-pleased, but he wasn’t about to tell her so she could cosh him in the head. It was sore enough already.
There were lush curves under the cheap cotton, and she was awfully young to be a housekeeper for all her stodgy criticism. Gareth was beginning to realize it was nearly scandalous that someone like Anne Mont was living with someone like him. There would be talk in the village, but then there always was. He should get rid of her—would, once he figured out how. At the moment he was enjoying the view, her large breasts bouncing with every footstep, the nipples hardened in the chill of the room. She was not tall, but very nicely rounded everywhere. Mr. Mont, if he’d ever existed, had been a lucky man. He shifted in his seat, hoping she wouldn’t notice the effect she was having on him.
He’d been without a woman far too long if his freckled little housekeeper was so appealing.
And he should resent her. She didn’t speak to him as a deferential housekeeper should. From the first she’d been judgmental, offering her opinions uninvited. Her speech was out-of-the-ordinary as well. It slipped from near-Cockney to the mellowest vowels imaginable, as if she was training herself to ape her betters. Perhaps she saw herself as a Cinderella who could somehow rise above her station if she perfected her accent.
What would she look like in a ball gown? Something that would dip low to thrust her impressive breasts within sight. Touch. Gareth wondered if her chest was as freckled as her face. He knew some women resorted to all sorts of concoctions in a vain attempt to remove freckles, but he had always found them rather charming.
Mrs. Mont set a cup in front of him, as silently as he’d requested.
“Will you join me?” he asked.
Her eyes flashed. Sparked. They were the color of a shaded green glen, with a bit of gold fire to them. Lord, she was right—he was drunk if he thought her plain hazel eyes were doing such preposterous incendiary things. She shook her head, still mute.
“You may speak. Tell me my shortcomings. We haven’t had a proper conversation yet, have we?”
“I am a servant, Major Ripton-Jones. We don’t converse with our m-masters.”
She had trouble even spitting out the word. “You do if that’s what the master wishes. You are obligated to fulfill my every need.” He tried a teasing smile.
Out of practice judging from the look of horror on her face.
“I am not here to do all your bidding, sir!”
Well, this was interesting. Her fertile mind had leapt from discussion to debauchery.
“What sort of bidding do you suppose I have in mind, Mrs. Mont?” He took a sip of tea. It was too sweet, unlike the woman—nay, girl—in front of him.
“I’m sure I don’t know what goes on in a gentleman’s mind, Major. But I am a virtuous widow and will give no one cause to think otherwise.”
“I am not about to assault your virtue, Mrs. Mont. I’m much too tired.”
“Oh.”
Did she sound disappointed? Wishful thinking on his part. He was no prize. Not anymore. He didn’t even have a proper coat to go a-wooing in.
He was done with wooing anyway. And he didn’t have his mother’s jewels to sweeten any bargain now that Rob had apparently stolen and sold them, even if the man said he hadn’t. Gareth’s father had been a fool to give them to Bronwen, as if cold hard stones would change her mind and bind her to him.
And Bronwen? She’d been a bitch to take them and spurn Gareth anyway.
“Please. Sit.” If she kept standing before the glow of the stove grate he would not be able to guarantee her virtue very long. His throat dried despite the tea. Her body was illuminated beneath the thin fabric, plump thighs visible, a shadow of fox-colored thatch between them. He swore he could see the color of her nipples, pale like rose marble. Her dull brown hair seemed coppery in the firelight, loose wisps curling about her heart-shaped face.
“I am not thirsty, Major Ripton-Jones. And I’m ready for bed. There is much to be done tomorrow and my day will start early.”
“Take the day off.” He smiled a little more successfully as she gawked at him. “I know you’ve just arrived, and I’ve been remiss in telling you the conditions of your employment. Now seems as good a time as any.”
“All right.” She sat down at the opposite end of the old pine table, her small hands folded in expectation. There were fresh pink calluses on her white skin. Her last place of employment must have been a picnic compared to Ripton Hall.
“You’re to take one full day a week for yourself. I don’t care which one—that’s for you to decide. Just tell me. And if you find the need to change the day, let me know. I’ve gotten quite good at shifting for myself.”
Mrs. Mont said nothing to contradict him. Gareth was sure she thought his housekeeping methods were sadly substandard. It was a wonder how much she’d done since she arrived, not that he really cared if the house was clean. But when he tried to sell the property in the spring before the bank took it, it would help that the prospective buyers were not totally repulsed by dust and dead vermin. The rat poison had been extraordinarily successful. He wondered if he should not add some to his gin one day.
“You’ll have Sunday morning, of course. The closest place of worship around here is chapel, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t attend services of any kind.”
He raised an eyebrow and waited for an explanation, but none was forthcoming. Gareth was himself not a churchgoer. He believed in the power of something or he would not be sitting here nursing his tea, but was sure God could not be found in the four walls of the miserly cold building his parents had dragged him off to in his youth.
“Then we’re both non-Nonconformists,�
� he joked. “Commune with nature Sundays if it suits you.”
“If it stops raining,” Mrs. Mont said rather wistfully.
“It always rains in Wales. When it’s not snowing. Did you grow up in London, Mrs. Mont?”
She shook her head. A flush of color spread across her cheeks. Surely that question wasn’t too personal.
“We’re rather far away. Won’t you miss your family?”
The blush deepened. “No, I will not. I have no family.”
“Then we have that in common, too. I’m the last of the Riptons and almost the last of my branch of the Joneses. All my relatives are buried in the churchyard, but I don’t think I’ll be joining them.”
Her lips twitched. “Planning on eternal life, Major?”
“Nay. I’ll die when my time comes, but not here. I suppose I should tell you the bad news. I’ve lured you up here on false pretenses.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“There are mortgages held against Ripton Hall. They come due soon, and I have no way of paying them. My father’s doing, not mine. For all his chapel attendance, he gambled and he lost with alarming frequency. My mother was not around to stop him—she died some years ago. My schemes to save the Hall came to naught when I lost my arm last year. So I’ll have to settle the debts somehow. Sell the place before the bank forecloses and still have some coin in my pocket, if I’m lucky.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “You lost your arm only last year?”
“Oh, you thought it was a consequence of war, didn’t you? And I did not correct you earlier. I’m sorry. Oddly enough, I escaped mostly unscathed after a fifteen-year career in the army.” He’d joined the Royal Welch Fusiliers as a lad of seventeen, full of anger and bravado. There had been plenty of opportunities to lose an arm and even his mind over the years—he had been in the thick of battles in Albuera, Badajoz, Salamanca, the Pyrenees, Nivelle, Toulouse, and Waterloo. His regiment had been the last to leave Spain, thorough to the end.
“How did it happen then?”
“I fell from a tenant’s roof last Christmas and broke my arm. Shattered it, really. It could not be set.” He shrugged. It had been agony; now it was over and simply inconvenient. For a one-armed man he managed. One only needed one hand to pick up a pint or stroke one’s cock.
His left leg had been broken, too, but that had healed cleanly, with nary a limp to show for the months he’d spent in bed. Some people would consider him to be a lucky man.
After the accident, Bronwen wouldn’t have him with his deformity. Just as well they had waited to marry after observing a decent period of mourning for her late husband. How wretched it would be to wake up to a wife’s disgust every single day as well as his own.
Bronwen had not loved him. That discovery was worse than losing his arm.
“How awful.” Mrs. Mont was pale now, each golden freckle visible.
“So now you know my secrets. What are yours?”
She stood up abruptly. “I have none, Major. None. Thank you for your honesty about the length of my employment. I’ll have to see about making other arrangements immediately.”
Gareth felt a flare of alarm. His tongue had been too loose. “You won’t leave me yet? The house needs to be presentable for a sale. And who knows—I might find an heiress to marry before the notes come due. Who would not want me, an impoverished cripple?”
It was his own fault he’d not been wed long ago, when his reputation was still burnished. But he’d wanted Bronwen. Unobtainable, married Bronwen. And now she was lost to him forever.
“I—I’ll have to think on it. Ev—Mr. Ramsey will know what to do.”
“Don’t write to The London List just yet. We have months to muddle through. Miracles happen.”
“Do they? I hadn’t noticed,” Mrs. Mont said softly. She crossed the kitchen and shut her door firmly behind her. Gareth heard the turn of the key in the lock. He wondered if she locked herself in every night or if it was because he still sat at the table. Did she fear ravishment?
Gareth wouldn’t touch her, no matter the temptation. He still had one hand—that was good enough to touch himself.
He had been too honest, always a flaw. She would leave, and he’d be forced to advertise anew. The local women wouldn’t work for him. Bronwen had seen to that in life, and even more so in death. She haunted him still.
He pushed himself back from the table, leaving his half-empty cup. There was the bottle in his room, and this time he wouldn’t trip down the stairs in haste to get to it.
CHAPTER 4
Damn and damn. Anne could not say she was happy here, but she was getting used to the place, and proud that her efforts had immediate results. Things were much less cobwebby. She’d beaten the dust out of the sofa so one could sit on it without sneezing one’s head off and moved the few pieces of ugly furniture in the parlor into a pleasing seating arrangement at one end of the cavernous room. The kitchen pots may not have gleamed, but the crusty burnt bits had been scraped off. The slate floors were swept if not scrubbed, the pictures straightened, the candle wax removed from where it had made little volcanic mountains. Her hands were blistered and her back ached, but she felt useful for the first time in her life.
Now she’d have to move to another household, a place where a sober employer might be more observant of her utter unsuitability to be a servant.
She needed to be hidden away for two years. She couldn’t get her money until she was twenty-one or married, and the chances of her marrying anyone now after all she’d done were nil. Even the most desperately debauched rakehell would not want her after the scandals she’d caused. She was a rakeshame, although her antics had really been more silly than sinful. But she had tiptoed to the precipice, walking out of Garrard’s “forgetting” she was wearing that diamond necklace, kissing Miss Rosa Parmenter on the lips in her father’s theatre box before the lights dimmed, tattooing a daisy on her left ankle and raising her skirts often so that anyone could see it.
Anne knew now that she’d been mistaken in her method of rebellion. Her father was never going to let her go. But she could not bear his increasingly frequent attempts to touch her. She was fleet of foot and sharp of tongue and had so far restricted his damage to her person. A few unwelcome kisses and cuddles were not going to kill her, though they had made her feel filthy. She wondered if she could ever bear any man’s touch.
A tear slipped down her cheek. Blast! Tears would not help. She’d cried an ocean of them at first after her mother died, prayed on her knees, made bargains with God. Nothing had changed. There was something wrong with her.
She crawled under the moth-eaten blankets and shut her eyes. She could hear the major moving around the kitchen, jiggling the tricky damper on the old stove, trudging slowly up the back stairs to his bedroom above. When he had fallen earlier, she had been as wide awake as she was now, shivering beneath the thin covers. She expected to find him dead from the thunderous fall, although his wild laughter soon disabused her of that notion.
Anne supposed he had reason enough to drink—the loss of his arm as well as the pending loss of his home was a dreadful thing. She had no home herself now, no friends, no family. Just rooms full of lonely dirty work and dismal wages. One day off a week. Sunday mornings to repent and regret her follies.
And by spring she’d be turned out, hopefully with a real reference this time.
By spring she’d probably welcome leaving Ripton Hall and its unlucky owner.
Anne punched up her pillow and snuggled deeper into the mattress, but her mind turned in a curious direction. The man should advertise for a rich wife in The London List just as he’d advertised for a housekeeper! There were plenty of matrimonial ads. She’d read them herself when she dreamed of being some desperate man’s bride.
She sat up and fumbled with a candle and the tinderbox. Evangeline had helped her pack for the trip to Wales, had even given her one of her very own nightgowns which had dwarfed Anne before she’d hemmed it in crooked stitche
s since the newspaper editor was so much taller. There had not been much time to prepare for the journey, and she’d borrowed clothes from Evangeline’s strange little maid and the trunk to put them in. But buried beneath the newly-acquired dull brown and black clothes, the dress she had worn to Evangeline’s and her sable muff were a few old editions of the newspaper.
Anne had been featured prominently on the front pages the past two years –once she’d filled an entire scrapbook with the articles Evangeline had written about her. But that scrapbook, like her sapphire ring, was in her bedroom at Egremont House. Evangeline had not understood why Anne would want to be reminded of her past transgressions, but had given her some back copies of the paper anyhow.
She got up and dug through the trunk. The yellowing newssheets were months old, but by following their example, one could get a sense of what one might write to attract someone suitable in words paid by the inch. One could not simply say:
Help me. I need a rich wife or else I’ll be turned out of my house on my arse. And I’ve only one arm, but my eyes are bright blue and my face is too thin but rather handsome—
And I’m a drunkard, Anne reminded herself.
She tucked her feet under her and began to read. Some ads were ridiculously flowery and undoubtedly false.
With a view to matrimony—a gentleman of great respectability recommends himself and fortune to any good or ugly looking lady of good breeding, fit to become a mother and keep up the name of an ancient honorable family. Ladies of a certain age need not apply, as heirship is the object. Pangs of pleasure await your step. Reply: Lord X, Box 47
Any lady, good-looking or ugly? Anne thought that was entirely too wide a net. Lord X was in want of a broodmare—surely he was interested in what the eventual brood might look like.
And the pangs of pleasure bit—no, no. A gentleman didn’t brag about his prowess. In her experience, men were so often mistaken in their evaluation of their abilities.
Lady Anne's Lover (The London List) Page 3
