Justine Elyot

by Secretsand Lords

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘He’s your father. And she’s your father’s wife.’

  Charles was silent for a moment, then he tapped Edie’s fingers.

  ‘Do I detect the heady scent of blackmail, Edie? Because I can assure you that you don’t want to get on the wrong side of me. You don’t want that at all.’

  ‘No. No, you’ve completely misunderstood me. I’d never blackmail anyone.’

  ‘Good.’

  He was so close to her. Their thighs touched, his in silky robes, hers in a coarse linen gown. He smelled off-puttingly masculine. His scent wound itself into her resolve, weakening it and strengthening it at the same time.

  She liked having her hand wrapped in his. She liked it so much she wasn’t sure she could stand his letting go of it. He was some kind of sorcerer, casting a malign spell on her … why hadn’t she known one could feel like this?

  His forehead brushed hers. If she wasn’t careful, she would let him kiss her before the time was right. She had already accepted, at the very depths of her, that the kiss was inevitable. But she could at least put it off until she had stated her case.

  Pull yourself together, Edie.

  ‘So you refuse to stop … consorting with your stepmother?’ she said sharply.

  He burst out laughing.

  ‘Consorting? What kind of housemaid are you? You’re the quaintest little thing. It’s rather appealing.’

  ‘Please. I’m quite serious.’

  ‘You are, aren’t you? I’m fascinated by you. Why is this of such concern to you? And why do you think you can come to my rooms and dictate whom I allow into my bed? I should smack your bottom and send you on your way.’

  Edie clenched her fists tight, including the one that lay in his hand.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand my reasons,’ she said. ‘But I see I can’t persuade you.’

  ‘Oh, you haven’t even tried,’ he said in a low voice, bringing his lips perilously close to hers. His breath smelled of mints and the traces of post-prandial brandy. ‘Go on. Persuade me.’

  She wanted to know what his stubbled cheek would feel like on hers, quite badly.

  Not yet.

  ‘I’ll make a bargain with you,’ she said, clinging on to the remnants of her self-control.

  ‘Oh, will you, by Jove?’ His voice was so wickedly low, right in her ear. ‘A deal with the devil? A Faustian pact? Out with it, then. Don’t ask me to kill any kings for you though, eh, Lady Macbeth.’

  ‘If you’ll leave Lady Deverell alone … I’ll … let you …’

  Dear God, do I mean this? Will I?

  ‘Let me…?’ His breath, hot, fanning her neck.

  ‘Kiss …’

  Too late. It was already happening. They were kissing, and she had received no undertaking from him that he would stay out of Lady Deverell’s bed.

  And now, kissing, a thing she had wondered about often in a vaguely anthropological kind of way. An act seemingly devoid of biological function. The other beasts did not kiss so why did humans? How could the meeting of mouths create a bond or inflame a desire? And what of the secretions inevitably exchanged in the course of such activity? Was it not rather unhealthy?

  No, no, it was not unhealthy, it was superlatively lovely. Heavens, how lovely. And the desire was kindled so quickly that one stood no chance of repelling it. Within seconds it had seized one, taken one’s body and laid it wide open to the ravages of passion.

  Edie had never expected the ravages of passion. She had thought they only existed in the questionable novels the maids enjoyed.

  Anyway, it wasn’t passion, exactly, was it? More a sort of revelry of the senses. Such revelry that her attempt to keep a grip on herself by means of mental commentary soon failed and she was defeated.

  His Lordship’s lips …

  They pressed her onwards, whisking her up inside until she quivered like a helpless creature caught in a net.

  When he broke off, she had to gasp for breath.

  ‘Have you ever been kissed before?’ he asked.

  She noticed that he held the back of her neck with one hand – how had it got there? Worse, her own hands were gripping the lapels of his robe as if to stop him getting away from her.

  ‘Of course,’ she lied.

  ‘I’d find it hard to believe you hadn’t. But you’re trembling so violently – as if you’ve been attacked. You’re afraid, aren’t you?’

  ‘No.’ Again, it was a lie.

  ‘Don’t fib. What are you afraid of?’

  ‘All right. I haven’t ever kissed anyone before. You were right. And I’m only kissing you so that you’ll keep away from, from Lady Deverell.’

  His hand tightened, a little painfully, on the scruff of her neck.

  ‘Really?’ He had taken mortal offence. She should have phrased it differently. ‘You’re only thinking of our dear Ruby Redford? This is an ordeal for you, then?’

  ‘No, it’s not an ordeal. As it happens, it’s rather pleasant. But I don’t care for you, sir, nor do I have any feelings of love or anything of that kind. You’re attractive, I’ll allow, and that makes this easier, but I’m not offering you my heart. I don’t even like you.’

  Sir Charles stared, apparently dumbfounded for a change.

  Edie had a creeping sensation that she had said too much, been too blunt. She squirmed in his grasp, assessing escape opportunities.

  ‘Who the devil are you?’ he whispered. ‘Housemaids don’t go saying this kind of thing to their lordly protectors. Don’t you understand, this is an honour.’

  ‘Was it an honour for Susie Leonard, too?’

  ‘Jesus.’

  He let go of her and sat back as if struck.

  ‘I don’t know what your game is, Edie,’ he said slowly. ‘But I’ll find out.’

  ‘I’ve told you what it is. If you’ll leave Lady Deverell alone, I’m willing to grant you certain liberties.’

  ‘Don’t you … aren’t you … girls just don’t do this kind of thing.’

  ‘This girl does. This girl isn’t going to be made a fool of for love. My body is mine to use as I wish, and if it can save … some heartache for somebody … then why not?’

  ‘I never heard anything more preposterous in my life.’

  ‘You don’t accept my offer? Then I’ll go back to the dormitory.’

  She stood.

  ‘No, you bloody well won’t.’ He patted the seat beside him. ‘Sit back down now.’

  She wavered. She did not want to leave now with her objective unmet. But perhaps it would be best all round, after all, if they could agree to forget this encounter and continue as before. Something told her Charles would not accept this and she would be back in London before the week was out.

  She sat down.

  ‘Perhaps we should draw a line under this night,’ she suggested warily.

  ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t. Perhaps I can’t.’

  ‘Can’t you?’

  ‘You can’t leave a man with so many unanswered questions,’ he said. ‘It’s cruel. And besides … I want you.’

  Her throat tightened, a convulsion of fearful excitement overwhelming her senses.

  ‘You can’t have me unless you stop what you’re doing with her.’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You say you don’t want me, but when I kissed you …’

  He put out his hand and brushed his knuckles against her neck and up under her hair.

  ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t want it,’ he whispered.

  She couldn’t deny it, and neither could she prevent the way her heart hammered and her blood rushed.

  But she could save herself. She could at least do that.

  ‘You can’t have your cake and eat it too,’ she said, wrenching herself away from his touch and standing. ‘Leave Lady Deverell alone and I’m at your disposal. But until then, goodnight.’

  She whirled around and ran for the door, suspecting he would g
ive chase.

  She was right, but she made it to the corridor while his enraged cry of ‘Edie!’ still rang in the air. She didn’t dare look back but, by the time she had reached the servants’ back staircase, nobody was at her heels and she was able to lean back against the wall for a moment and let the giddy swaying of her head settle.

  What on earth had she just done? And what would happen now?

  He wouldn’t say anything, she decided. It wasn’t in his interests to have her sacked and besides, as a housemaid she should be beneath his notice.

  Slipping back into bed, she could not help but think of how differently things could have been. She could have been in Sir Charles’s bed, in his arms … what would that be like? When kisses went further … Oh, she could not think of it.

  She had offered a man her body.

  What was a body after all but flesh and blood and bone? It was nothing. To offer it to somebody was nothing. Wrongdoing came from the heart and the mind, the intention to do harm. To experience physical pleasure with another – this was surely not wrong, for who suffered from it?

  She should not be feeling guilt or shame about this – she had sworn that she would not be held down by those old foes of her sex. But she couldn’t help it. It was so much easier to argue a position than to embody it. How could she have known that these interloping emotions would ruin the purity of her mission? Before she drifted into sleep her pillow was wet with tears.

  Chapter Four

  When she woke up, a sensuality lingered upon her, the remnants of her dreams, which were in turn the remnants of her unsatisfied desires.

  She bade her roommates good morning, but none of them replied. She was left to pin her own hair and tie her own apron, and was late for breakfast yet again.

  If they’re so sure I’m going to sleep with Sir Charles, then perhaps I should, she thought fiercely, splashing her face with cold water before running downstairs. At least then I wouldn’t be in Coventry for nothing.

  ‘Are you cleaning the morning room?’ she asked Jenny dully as they collected their dusters and mops from the cupboard.

  ‘That’s yours,’ said Jenny smartly. ‘I don’t expect I’ll be wanted in there.’

  ‘Look, there’s nothing going on …’

  But she couldn’t finish the sentence. There was something going on.

  ‘Hope not, for poor Ted’s sake,’ said Jenny, and she bustled off in the opposite direction to Edie.

  ‘If you’re on your own today,’ said Mrs Munn, emerging unexpectedly and making Edie jump, ‘I’ll be along at various times to keep my eye on you. You’re much slower than you should be and I’m concerned that the cleanliness of the house will suffer. Jenny says you tend to daydream. Check that, please.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Edie, only half-listening.

  ‘Still on for the pictures tomorrow?’ asked Ted, passing her on the way to the morning room.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ she said.

  She’d have said yes to anything. Only one thing occupied her mind – would Sir Charles be in the morning room again?

  He wasn’t, and she could hear the clatter of knives and forks on china from the breakfast room a little further along. Presumably he was in there. If she did this room very, very quickly …

  She tried her hardest to sweep the grate and clean the surrounds with all haste, but she got ashes on her face and black lead under her fingernails, while all the metal was smeared and needed an extra rub down.

  Muttering curses under her breath, she tried to improve her haphazard job, wondering if she could get away with just a lightning-quick brush of the feather duster across everything else.

  But it was too late.

  Sir Charles entered the room while she still kneeling on the hearth rug, clouds of soot around her.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said, and, to her horror, he came to stand directly behind her, looming over her. ‘You seem to be making things worse rather than better.’

  She sat back on her heels.

  ‘Perhaps you could do a better job,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps I could,’ he said.

  He crouched beside her and her heart seemed to stop beating.

  ‘Look at those hands,’ he said. ‘They weren’t made for this.’

  He reached to take one, but sharp footsteps from the next room sent him into retreat before he could do it.

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Mrs Munn. ‘Good Lord, Edie, what are you about?’

  Sir Charles hid behind his newspaper while the housekeeper endeavoured to put Edie back on the correct path to cleaning the fireplace.

  ‘I can’t do this for you every day,’ she tutted. ‘Really, were you this inept at your last place? I begin to wonder if they wrote that reference to get rid of you.’

  The harsh words brought tears to Edie’s eyes.

  ‘Steady on,’ said Charles.

  ‘Sir?’ Mrs Munn stood and turned to him while Edie did not dare look.

  ‘Bit uncalled for,’ he said. ‘It’s only a fireplace.’

  ‘I daresay it is,’ she said coldly. ‘But it’s my ultimate responsibility, so you’ll excuse me if I take it seriously.’

  ‘Of course,’ drawled Charles, lighting a cigarette. ‘Carry on.’

  Mrs Munn removed Edie from the scene for an extensive tutorial in grate-polishing. Edie supposed she ought to be thankful; Mrs Munn had repelled the danger from Sir Charles quite effectively for the time being.

  ‘You shouldn’t have been alone with him,’ she said in a low voice, applying polish to a rag which she passed to Edie.

  ‘I’ve heard about Susie Leonard, ma’am. It won’t happen to me.’

  ‘Really? Well, Susie was a silly girl but a very fine housemaid. Perhaps you are her polar opposite. A poor housemaid with a sensible head on her shoulders. We can’t have everything, can we?’

  She cracked a rare smile, which Edie could not help returning, feeling rather privileged to be on the receiving end of it.

  ‘I am trying my best,’ said Edie.

  ‘I daresay you are, and you can’t do more than that. But this is Deverell Hall, Edie, and we have standards that must be maintained.’

  ‘I’ll get better, I swear.’

  Mrs Munn nodded.

  ‘Now, I’m leaving this to you. I’ll come and see how you’ve managed it in twenty minutes’ time. I expect it to be gleaming fit to blind me by then, do you understand me?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ***

  Edie was almost done with the Blue Drawing Room when Lady Mary entered in her riding habit.

  ‘I say, it’s the new girl, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘I don’t usually chat with the maids but I hear you’re from London. Is that true?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Lady Mary threw herself into one of the chairs – one that did not seem designed for having bodies thrown into it.

  ‘Wish to God I was there,’ she muttered.

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t concern you. I’m desperate for a trip to town but pa’s being a crashing bore about it. He has the most abominably old-fashioned ideas about everything. I keep telling him these are the 1920s but I’m sure he mishears me and thinks I’ve said the 1820s.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am.’

  Lady Mary mimicked the bland phrase then kicked the leg of the chair.

  ‘Do you have a fellow?’ she asked.

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am?’

  ‘Oh, you know what I mean. A young man, a swain.’

  ‘No, no, I don’t.’

  ‘Then get one. And make it quick, before my brother makes love to you. He will, you know.’

  Edie twirled her feather duster round in her fingers, at a loss for words.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, ma’am,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, God, he already has.’ Mary let out a bark of laughter. ‘There’d better not be another little Deverell bastard on the way.
Pa’s spleen won’t stand it.’

  ‘You’ve no call to make assumptions about me,’ said Edie coldly.

  Mary drew herself up in her chair and stared.

  ‘Oh, don’t I, madam? Well, I stand corrected. But speak to me in that tone again and you needn’t expect lover boy Charlie to come to your rescue. Because he never does, you know. He doesn’t really care about anyone except himself.’

  Edie nodded, sick with nerves now.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she muttered for a third time.

  ‘Oh, go on, then. Thought you might be fun, but you’re a mouse like the rest of them. Scurry along.’

  Edie passed a wary, strung-up day listening for footsteps and peering around corners. When Sir Charles was seen getting into his motor, she was able to gain relief from her suspenseful state for an hour or two, but his return brought the butterflies back to her stomach.

  Twice she crossed the path of Lady Deverell, who had nothing to say to her, but watched her intently as she passed. Of Lord Deverell she saw almost nothing, and she dreaded that he might have gone away again, and Charles would pay his stepmother another visit that night.

  Enquiries in the servants’ kitchen confirmed that this was not the case, however – he had been out preparing for the following day’s shoot, that was all. To her even greater relief, Carrie had recovered from her illness and Edie was not called to serve the family at dinner that night.

  Instead she sat by the kitchen fire and tried to darn a stocking, though the skill was not one that came easily to her. One of the footmen played the fiddle, and folksy tunes drifted through the servants’ quarters while the scullery maids danced.

  Ted cut through the frolicking, taking one girl gallantly by the waist and swinging her around until she squealed, before dropping her and coming to sit opposite Edie.

  ‘Raw weather for summer, ain’t it?’ he said. ‘Autumn’s come early. This fire’s never usually lit at this time of year.’

  ‘At least it’s stopped raining,’ remarked Edie, biting off a length of thread.

  ‘How did you get on today? Any more disasters with the polish?’ Ted grinned and stretched his long legs out in front of him.

  ‘No, at least, I hope not. I had a run-in with Lady Mary, though.’

  He leaned forwards, his cheek muscles twitching.