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Hugh Cheston, the Earl of Hawkmore had been used to lower classes people acting subservient to him. It’d been happening since his cradle days. No surprise there. He never thought it pleasant, though. Fear being very different from respect and he definitely preferred the later. “Look at me when talking to me, girl.” He commanded.
Hesitantly, she lifted her gaze, shoulders hunched, hands clasping each other. Her fearful dark-brown eyes met his blacker than black ones. As their stares meshed, something churned inside him. A ripping wave that cut him from head to toe. He inhaled, inflating his chest, lifting his head in a regal posture, much like he’d been defied. He felt like she looked in his very depths.
“What’s your name, girl?” He asked covering up his impressions.
“Sarah, my lord, Sarah Barrow.” Sarah could not bear staring at him. And she could not bear tearing away either. A slow heat settled in the pit of her stomach and it spread fast. He looked as the most striking man she’d ever put her eyes on. Early thirties, possibly, looking from up his six feet three, jet black shiny hair and a face so fine it could not be real! And his eyes, oh, his eyes! So dark and piercing! They were pinning her to the spot.
“Oh, yes. I remember Lady Hawkmore mentioning you.” He said in his cut-glass accent.
Sarah had the dubious pleasure of meeting his wife. Adelaide
Cheston, she heard, a duke’s daughter. Sarah’s impression had been of an arrogant and frivolous woman. But she could not be sure, she’d just arrived from the countryside, where people used to be usually uncomplicated.
“Yes, my lord, I started yesterday.” His eyes still piercing her, making her feel uncomfortable.
“I see. You may leave now.” Either she left the room or Hugh would be eyeing her all day without knowing why.
“Yes, my lord.” Her eyes fell to the expensive carpet. She curtsied briefly and walked past him in haste.
As she passed him by, his body reacted. It felt like a sharpening of his senses, an alertness that had not been there before. He could smell her, a sweet scent unlike any soap. A strange wish to follow and smell more of it crossed his body.
The door closed hiding his exhaling act. He sat at his desk still staring at the door. Long minutes passed before he went back to his newspaper.
Sarah left the library lightheaded. Her body sensed his as she walked past him and it felt like an invisible force attracted her body to his. She reached the servants’ quarter and leaned against a wall in a corner to catch her breath. She entered the kitchen and Mrs Talcott came to her with a long list of chores that’d keep her busy all day long.
London buffeted as such a new and alien place to Sarah. She’d arrived a couple of weeks before, coming from Northampton area. She’d lived with her old aunt in a humble village until she decided she needed to make a living for herself. She’d been orphaned when her parents died both of tuberculosis a little before her sixteenth birthday, seven years ago. Her paternal aunt took her in. Sarah felt glad to help her sell the cakes she made around the neighbouring villages. The earnings weren’t enough for both and Sarah figured she’d have to go on her own. She left with a heavy heart, but her aunt assured her that she’d be fine and that Sarah would be welcome anytime.
Thus, she picked her few belongings and took the mail carriage to London with a simple recommendation letter from her village vicar. Her aunt’s neighbour had a daughter who worked in London, and could help Sarah. When Sarah met Mary at a tavern, Mary said she’d heard that the Hawkmore house looked for a maid. And there she stood, having just met her intriguing boss.
“Sarah!” Peter, the carriage driver shook her from her reveries.
Her eyes snapped to him and she smiled distractedly. “Oh, Peter, hello.” A medium-sized blond-haired young man, about her age, he appeared quick-witted and made her laugh at every turn.
“Come on! It’s luncheon for us, miserable souls!” He blinked jokingly at her.
Hugh needed an heir and a spare, as they used to say in the Ton, he thought while he walked his Victorian mansion corridors. He had been married for almost a year and it still had not happened. Visiting his wife’s chamber figures as a chore he had not been eager to perform. Theirs had been an arranged marriage. Both their families had agreed that it would be a good match. There being no reason to go against the match, his duty to continue his old lineage weighed on him.
He just came back from his club. He got in his chambers and stopped short in front of the connecting door. As all his peers, he sought pleasure outside home. He himself counted as someone very fond of outdoors sport, like riding or playing polo, fencing. He had had mistresses before he got married, but he had not taken any after that. He rasped her door. And he wondered…
The majority of his friends took mistresses, either married or not. They settled their women in their own houses. Prominent women, to be sure. Actresses, famous courtesans, opera singers, not to mention the forbidden affairs that married ladies from the Ton offered. But he, Hugh, had been so busy running his life that a mistress had not been an issue. And he had not been interested in any woman in special of lately.
The connecting door opened slowly. A view of the new maid’s face flashed in his mind for no apparent reason; a skip in his heart. And then, he glanced at cool sapphire eyes.
“Oh, Hugh. Good evening.” Adelaide had her wheat hair falling in a thick tress over her shoulder. The hauteur in her voice.
When she came out, she had been the belle of the ballrooms across the ton. A line of suitors crowded her dance card. Hugh had not been one of them. He did not feel guilty to admit that he regarded her with indifference. Certainly reciprocated. Of course she looked very beautiful at twenty, with her delicate face, her fashionable dresses and her expensive jewellery.
“Good evening, Adelaide.” He nodded his head politely. She wore a silk sky-blue negligee over her silk, equally blue nightgown. It became her lush body, which did not appeal to him.
“I gather you want to perform your marital duties tonight.” Expressionless eyes on him, she caressed her long wheat tress. He had been going about these…duties weekly, if she had not her cycle. This heir thing, she knew, and she did not expect any more than that. Wives existed to be respected. They did not exist to be lusted after, this served for whores and courtesans.
He faltered. Marital duties. Depleted. Cold. Meaningless. What happened to him? A woman had to be only a woman, same anatomy. The…mating stood as the usual thing, no change, no novelty. It would bring him some kind of release. The new maid’s face flashed in his mind again. He begun to be annoyed with this.
“I’m just checking if you’re alright, Adelaide.” Skipping his responsibility in the process. “I haven’t seen you all day.”
“Oh, I rode a carriage in the park with Lady Stratton in the morning, before we went shopping for ribbons and had luncheon at her town house.” She said matter-of-factly. “I had tea with the dowager duchess of Bedford in the afternoon. We had no appointment for this evening.” Her ramrod spine and uplifted chin told the tale of her blue-blooded family.
“That’s right. I visited the club.” His hands slid into his pockets.
