One
Hold on for a few more weeks, Christine. Then you will reunite with your sister and be free from this!
Christine gave the coverlet a sharp snap. She stood back from her handiwork. Changing the bedding of Lady Gillray was a regular chore. She tucked a wayward strand of hair back under her headscarf. Not a common chore for the daughter of an earl not born to service. A chore forced upon her by the cruelty of a particular person who wielded power over Christine like a club.
“I am only biding my time. Once Selina’s child is born, I shall go to her. Until then, I make beds or whatever else Lady Gillray orders me to do. Please, Lord, let Selina’s burdens ease. Let the pregnancy become easier.”
Somehow, speaking it aloud helped her resolve. The fervent prayer she added was one she sent to the Almighty several times a day. To ease the difficulty that kept Christine from going to her sister there and then. Selina’s pregnancy was proceeding withmuch difficulty and discomfort. It had sent her to the country to rest, and Christine would not add to her considerable burdens.
Christine had once thought that the man who courted her, Lord Bingley, would perhaps provide her with a means of escape. Had hoped that marriage to the amiable Viscount would finally enable her to leave Gillray House.
How long has it been since I came here? I was fifteen and now I am twenty. Good Lord, five years.
But Lord Bingley had stopped calling for her. Stopped writing. Stopped courting. Christine shrugged, tugging at the bolster pillow.
He clearly decided that I was not the one for him. That is his great loss.
She bent to gather a pile of laundry from the chair, and her elbow struck the bureau next to it. Letters scattered across the floor, fluttering like startled chickens. Christine knelt, pulse quickening.
“If I leave them, she’ll claim it was carelessness. And the last punishment was enough,” Christine whispered to herself, heart pounding even though she knew Lady Gillray was outside on the lawn, not about to walk into her room. She shuddered at the memory of three days locked in the airless servant’s cupboard that was her own room. She gathered the envelopes, stacking them neatly.
She looked around the room, something she had learned through hard experience. If anything caught your attention, it was probably out of place. Nothing jumped out at her except…
Her eyes caught on an envelope on top of the pile she had stacked. An envelope addressed to Lady Christine Davidson. It was a luxurious, thick, creamy paper and a fine copperplate hand. Her heart gave a sharp kick. She tore it open.
Lord Bingley? Have you written at last? Are you riding to my rescue as we speak?
She laughed at herself, at her own childish hopes. The Viscount had the imagination of a clerk. He was not a knight or a hero. He did not inspire tumultuous passions. Merely a warm affection such as might come from a sweet cup of tea on a cold afternoon.
But she so wanted an escape from Gillray House.
The letter was not from him. It was an invitation. The Dowager Duchess of Greystone commanded her presence at the Duke Hunt. Two weeks old. The event tomorrow.
The Duke Hunt! Is it that time again so soon?
Her initial excitement dimmed next to the anger that flared in her. Christine’s cheeks flamed.
“She hid this from me. She had no right!” she said aloud.
Anger burned in her, hot and sharp. Lady Gillray was withholding her correspondence. She would not even do that to the servants of the house. But she tried to deny Christine even a brief reprieve from her role as a domestic slave. Clutching the invitation, she whirled and stopped dead at the sight of the man in the doorway.
“Ah, the young lady of the house,” drawled Lord Dreadford, his lips curving in a smile that never reached his eyes.
He had been leaning on the frame of the open door, but now stepped fully into the doorway, blocking her exit. He was tall and lean with a leering face and dark aspect. Lord Dreadford had been Lady Gillray’s guest for three days now, along with his wife. Did his wife know of her husband’s lecherous behavior? Christine wondered. She refused to step back further into the room, though she wanted to. Anything to be further away from his lip-licking smile and hooded eyes.
“What good fortune, to find you alone.”
Christine’s stomach turned, though her chin lifted.
“My lord. You mistake this room. The drawing room lies two floors down.”
“But I prefer this chamber,” he murmured, stepping closer. “It is quieter. More…intimate.” His gaze raked her plain wool dress, the kerchief over her hair. “How curious. A beauty like you in a servant’s garb. I confess, the disguise only heightens the intrigue.”
He actually licked his lips, as though seeing Christine as a choice cut of meat.
Christine’s eyes flashed. “And I confess, my lord, I have no taste for intrigue, least of all with a married man twice my age.”
He chuckled, unfazed. “Sharp tongue. I like that. You remind me of a wild filly. Needs breaking in.”
