by Esther Hatch
Anthony dismissed his valet as soon as he finished inspecting his clothing. He strode to his writing desk and pulled out the scrap of paper he had found half hidden under a book on his desk.
I waited for you in your study, but it seems as though you have gone for the time being. I was hoping for an opportunity to speak with you. I will return to find you there tomorrow morning, for there is something that needs to be discussed. Please rest assured, I will behave.
There was no signature, but there was only one person who would have to promise to behave in his study. Patience. He traced the lines of her handwriting. It was exquisite. Not the scrawl he would have expected. But that was the problem with Patience. She was always unexpected and always surprising him. He had grown accustomed to it, and he wasn’t ready to let it stop. Today, however, he hoped to surprise her.
He pulled out his pocket watch. It was only nine. Patience was always busy with morning tasks until at least ten. How long had he known her schedule? He didn’t know any of the other maids’ schedules. He didn’t even know Mr. Gilbert’s schedule. He simply seemed to always be around. Regardless, Anthony had at least an hour until Patience would come to his study. He sat down at his writing desk and pulled out a fresh piece of paper. It was time to do one of his favorite things. It was time to formulate a plan.
***
This could be her last day here. Patience wished she could sweep that news away as easily as she swept the small pile of dust she had been gathering under the rug. Despite using this method for the past three weeks, there still wasn’t much of a pile there. She would eventually have to ask Mrs. Bates what to do with . . . actually, no, she wouldn’t. Sometime in the spring, when it was time to beat the rugs, would her piles still be visible, or would the dirt be spread about and stamped into the floors with no signs of her passing? She piled the dirt together, tighter and taller, before letting the rug drop to the floor. She wanted at least one thing to have changed since she had come to the house, even if it was just the evidence of her lackluster service.
In the end, she hadn’t even managed to stay for an entire month. Not only that, she hadn’t met the general, let alone worked under him. There was no possible way that what she had done would convince Nicholas that she was nothing like Mama. She didn’t know if that was even an insult anymore. Mama had made Papa very happy. He had needed someone like her. Mama hadn’t been able to handle his death properly, but who was Patience to judge her mother on how she reacted to the death of her spouse?
She didn’t care anymore what Nicholas thought of her. She had learned to be useful, just as he had told her. And he was right. It was fulfilling. She would miss being valuable. Who would help Mr. Woodsworth with his plans now? Who would take the children on walks and sweep the dust under the rugs? Who would be here to make certain Mr. Woodsworth smiled? Miss Morgan? Definitely not.
The evening before, she had hoped to speak with Mr. Woodsworth about leaving. She owed him at least some sort of explanation. She had no idea what explanation she would have given him. She was reluctant to tell him who she was. He would make her leave straight away and go home. She couldn’t return home without her brother. And especially not in these clothes. Her one dress hadn’t fit well when she’d arrived here, and it hung even worse now. The quality of the fabric was lacking, and everyday use was taking its toll.
No, she had to wait and trust that Lord Bryant would get word to Nicholas before he arrived home. It was kind of Lord Bryant.
But she also hated him for it.
Why couldn’t she have solved her own problems, at least this once?
She had come to this household to prove to herself and to Nicholas that she didn’t need anyone to plan her life for her. And in the end, she needed Lord Bryant’s help as well as her brother’s.
Patience took the broom back to the kitchen. Cook was there, already preparing the noon meal. She should say something to her—thank her for the times she had shown Patience things in the kitchen. But she didn’t. She quietly set the broom in the broom closet and washed her hands and face in the sink next to the stove. The water was cold. Warm water was one thing she could look forward to. Tomorrow she would most likely have a hot bath.
She ran her cap and apron to her room, straightened her dress as well as she could, and left.
It was time to say goodbye to Mr. Woodsworth, if he dared appear in his study this morning.
She knocked softly.
“Come in.” His answer was immediate.
She opened the door, and for the first time since joining this household as a maid, Mr. Woodsworth stood at her arrival.
Then he sat down. Then stood again. He finally gave up and strode over to where she stood. His face was strange. He pulled at his sleeves in the way he did when he was nervous or wanted to compose himself.
Oh heavens, Lord Bryant had told him. Her stomach felt tight. It was a wise choice to skip breakfast this morning. Her stomach couldn’t handle Mr. Woodsworth knowing she was the daughter of the Duke of Harrington. He would treat her differently. He already was.
“You don’t need to stand when I enter a room. I am just your servant.”
Mr. Woodsworth had reached her side. His strength and solidness calmed her breathing and slowed her heart rate a bit, as it always did. But not enough.
With his eyes still on her, he reached behind her and slowly closed the door. His arm brushed the top of her shoulder. He was so close and in a closed room. Was there a chance that he did not know? He smelled of ink and morning tea, and when he brought his hand back to his side, he didn’t step away from her.
He leaned in, and her heart didn’t steady. It went wild. “You have never been just my servant.”
She closed her eyes slowly. Lord Bryant had told him. She threw her hands over her face and ran over to the club chair where she had read the last time she had been here with him.
“You must think me ridiculous. How long have you known? It must have been since Lord Bryant’s visit.”
She didn’t dare look at him, but a small sound like a laugh came from his side of the room. “Oddly enough, that is exactly when I knew. He told Stewart you died by snake bite, by the way.”
“What?” She looked up at him then. He was smiling. Sweet mercy, he was smiling at her. That tentative smile that changed all the lines in his face into works of art.
“He told Mr. Fairchild that you died. Well, to be more specific, that Mary Smith had died. So one problem has been taken care of, anyway.”
“You don’t need me to act as her anymore?”
“No, that would hardly suit my purposes any longer. We need a different plan.”
“A different plan to help you convince Miss Morgan’s parents? Surely you must see that I can no longer help you with that.”
“What?”
“It is why I came here this morning. I wanted to tell you, but it seems as though Lord Bryant has beat me to it.” Her hand started shaking, and her eye twitched. That wasn’t necessarily true.
“I don’t want you to help me with Miss Morgan any longer. I don’t want to marry Miss Morgan any longer. The very thought of it makes my blood run cold. She and I would not make a good pair.”
Sun broke through the window, and the room brightened. Specks of dust floated about Mr. Woodsworth’s face, making him appear like a dream. “You are no longer courting her?”
“No.”
Patience lifted her shoulders. Perhaps her time here had not been a complete waste. Mr. Woodsworth wouldn’t marry Miss Morgan. It was a relief. It was right, and she couldn’t help but feel like she was partially responsible. Her grin grew broader.
“I see that makes you happy.”
“Very.”
“I must admit I hoped it might.”
“Of course it makes me happy. That woman only wanted to use you. And she didn’t even commit to using you. She ju
st strung you along like Cook’s collection of potato skins. She keeps them, thinking someday she might use them, but in the end, they just get thrown out after going bad. There are other people that might like those. Molly would happily take them home to her family, but Cook just waits and waits until they are no longer good for anyone. Good for you, Mr. Woodsworth, for not waiting on a woman who has no real use for you when I am certain there is another out there who would be grateful to have you.”
Mr. Woodsworth walked over to her chair, reached for both of her hands, and pulled her up to stand next to him. The sunlight reflected in his pale-blue eyes, casting a gleam across them like none she had seen before.
“Patience.” The way he said her name sounded different. Reverent, even, but he shouldn’t be calling her that anymore. Not now that he knew who she truly was. His thumb traced each of her poor, cracked fingers. She should step away. Lady Patience should not be alone in a man’s study. Especially not in this man’s study. It was one thing to be impressionable and thoughtless when she was a maid, but now that he knew she was Lady Patience, she no longer had that luxury. She needed to find a place somewhere between Mama and Nicholas. Today seemed like a day to act like Nicholas. She wouldn’t be swayed by fancy. But Mr. Woodsworth continued, “Is there any chance that woman could be you?”
Every nerve in her fingers felt as if they were on fire. She pulled her hands away from him. Mr. Woodsworth had fended off all of her advances, and yet now that he knew of her position in life he was suddenly pursuing her? Had he only given up Miss Morgan for the chance to marry someone several ranks above her? “You must know how inappropriate that would be.”
She had done this to him. She had taken him in while a maid and confused him. “The difference in our stations is unsurmountable. You must see that. Not to mention, I have lived in your home, acted as your servant. Can you imagine the scandal?”
“I’ve thought of that. Would you hear me out? I have thought of all of it. It isn’t a perfect solution, and it will require some waiting on our parts. But I am willing to wait if you are. I don’t want to rush you. I’m not asking you to marry me. But I am asking you to consider allowing me to court you and allowing me to court you in perhaps an unconventional manner. At any time, you may tell me you don’t want me, and I will allow you to continue on the path we pave for you. You will have a much better chance of marrying someone of your choosing and living a full life if you agree to my plan. So I hope you will listen to it.”
Living a full life? Marrying the man of her choosing? “Have you talked to Nicholas about this?” There was no way he would approve. “Has he been here?”
The lines between his eyebrows reappeared, and his smile was gone. “Who is Nicholas?”
“I mean Harrington, Duke Harrington.” Nobody called him Nicholas anymore, not even their mother.
“What does the Duke of Harrington have to do with this?”
Patience leaned forward and clasped the elbow of Mr. Woodsworth’s jacket. “Lord Bryant didn’t say anything about him?”
“No, he declared you dead and then left. Why, what does he have to do with His Grace?”
“Nothing, practically nothing.” Was Mr. Woodsworth acting as if he didn’t know who she was, or did he truly not know? “They are friends, I suppose.” She followed the lines of his face, so bold that, at first, she had thought him too rough to be considered handsome. He looked different to her now. The too-smooth faces of the likes of Lord Bryant no longer appealed to her. Unpolished features could be endearing when worn by the right man. “Mr. Woodsworth, could you tell me again what you were talking about before? I believe I have missed something important.”
His face brightened, and he smiled so broadly she thought perhaps his ears lifted a little. Was that possible? He was suddenly like a young boy opening a present. “Come to my desk, and I will show you.”
He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. Once again, she was no longer certain who she was. Was she still a maid? A maid could hold her employer’s hand and speak with him in a closed-off study, couldn’t she?
Mostly likely not.
She didn’t care.
Mr. Woodsworth pulled out his chair and motioned for her to sit. It was sturdy and wooden with a worn-in leather seat. Solid and comfortable, just like its owner. She sat down, and he scooted it in so her legs were tucked neatly under the desk.
He stayed behind her chair but leaned forward to open a drawer. His closeness no longer calmed her. As his chest brushed her shoulder, her breathing caught. He didn’t move away from her. Instead he rummaged through the drawer, still touching her side. Did he even notice the contact that was causing her mind to cloud? Mr. Woodsworth pushed aside some broken and oddly shaped pieces of red sealing wax and grabbed a stack of six or seven pieces of paper.
Why did he still have that terribly ruined wax? He didn’t seem the type to keep something so broken and untidy. It was on top of the papers he was retrieving, as if he had recently used it or held it in his hands. She snuck a glance at his fingertips. Sure enough, there was a slight tinge of red.
“I have spent the last hour formulating a plan. I hope you like it.” His mouth was near her cheek. All she would have to do was turn to the side, and she could repeat her actions of the other day. She focused on the papers in front of her.
The first page had a property listed in Kent. It listed the size of the home and number of rooms as well as the acreage of the property. It wasn’t a large home, more like a country cottage.
“I’ve just purchased this property in Kent.”
“I see.” She didn’t. She really didn’t.
“I will hire servants from the area. No one there knows me or you.”
She nodded as if that made perfect sense.
He reached around her once again, grazing her shoulder, and slid that page to the side.
The next page was the beginning of a timeline divided by weeks. The first step on the list was for Mrs. Jorgensen to outfit Patience with new clothing from a dressmaker she had never heard of in the town of Watford, just outside of London.
“Why is Mrs. Jorgensen buying me clothes?”
“You and your family cannot show up in Kent without proper clothes. We will order them tomorrow, and you should have enough to make the journey in two weeks.” He pointed to the second line.
Remove Patience and her family to Kent and establish them there as a genteel family.
“See?”
Patience didn’t wait for him to turn over the next page. She turned it herself. There were pages and pages of timelines. After the second page, he moved from weeks to months, and on the fourth page, after what must have been over a year, there was a line that read, Woodsworth family comes to Kent for several weeks, and the two families meet.
On the left-hand side, he had written not only which week it was, but also how much time had passed, calculated all together. “One and a half years? You will wait to visit me for one and a half years?”
“I would have liked it to be sooner, but we have to look at this methodically.”
“Look at what, exactly, methodically?”
He leaned forward so his face was next to hers and skipped ahead to the last page. Under the line Two years, six months, and three weeks was a line that made the air in the room seem lighter, as if she couldn’t get enough of it.
Propose Marriage
Three more lines with instructions on banns and trousseau and then,
March 18th, 1847, The Wedding of Mr. Anthony Woodsworth and Miss Patience.
“You are asking me to marry you.”
He pulled her chair out from the desk and turned it to the side so he could kneel down in front of her. “Yes, I am.”
Her fingers ached to trace the smile that was on his lips. He was so earnest.
“You made me another list.”
“It is a
very long list, but if we follow every point, I believe we can make it work. I know our relative positions in society, not to mention the fact that you have met some of my friends, may seem like insurmountable obstacles, but I am willing to face them if it means in the end I can be with the one person who believes my smile makes me as beautiful as a duck.”
She closed her eyes and let the soft laugh bubble up from deep inside of her. “But two years and seven months! It is so long. Even if that plan of yours worked.”
“It will work.”
“I don’t know if I am that patient.”
“You are Patience.” He tugged on one of the curls at the nape of her neck. “And I think it is high time I learned of your surname. It was quite strange to write that plan not even knowing your surname.”
“Kendrick.” She waited for his reaction. Patience Kendrick. It wasn’t a common name.
He smiled. “Patience Kendrick. Miss Kendrick. That has a beautiful ring to it. I wish I could have been calling you that all the time we have known one another.”
“No one calls me Miss Kendrick.”
“No, but they will once you are established in Kent.” He took her hands in his, not understanding her meaning. “I know we technically don’t get engaged for another few years, but will you do it? Will you marry me, Miss Kendrick, and allow me to call you Patience, not because you are a maid but because I have the right as your betrothed?”
Mr. Woodsworth was once again on his knees proposing to her, and this time, it was no mistake. His fingertips slid from her hair to trace the bottom of her jaw. He leaned forward and placed his mouth near her ear. The stubble from his cheek grazed her own. How could something so rough feel so gentle? “I haven’t been able to sleep since picturing what my life could be like with you always in it. Please put me out of this misery and say yes.”
All she had to do was say yes. It was on the tip of her tongue. Her hands started to shake. Her eye twitched . . . She wanted to lie. She squeezed his hands more tightly in order to stop the shaking, but she couldn’t.
“Miss Kendrick, you are shaking.” He bowed low and kissed each of her hands.
