Page 2 of A Wicked Business

Chapter 1

Dearest Belinda,

I am most deeply vexed by you, my friend. Now I understand why you were so interested in Mr Knight. Fool that I was, I suspected you had a tendre for him, or at least that you meant to pretend one to incense your father. Now I see it was more diabolical even than that. Have a care, Belle. Felix is a dear friend, and I will not see him sacrificed at your altar simply to best your father. I hope your intentions are honourable, if they are, however, you may count on my support, only let me in on the secret!

―Excerpt of a letter from The Most Hon’ble Catherine ‘Cat’ St Just, Lady Kilbane (daughter of The Most Hon’ble Lucian and Matilda Montagu, the Marquess and Marchioness of Montagu) to The Lady Belinda Madox-Brown.

4th July 1850, Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, London.

“Well then, you want the diamonds, do you? Or do you fancy the rubies for a change? It’s only for dinner with your pa and his cronies, not the Last Supper, you know.”

Belinda glanced up from the sparkling array of jewels laid out before her upon hearing the obvious impatience in her maid’s voice.

Doris rolled her eyes. “Don’t look at me all reproachful. I ain’t one of the soppy halfwits mooning over your blue eyes, and we both know you’re going to choose the diamonds when you’d rather have the pearls.”

“You never even mentioned the pearls,” Berlinda retorted, provoked despite knowing better, and a little annoyed that Doris knew her so very well, though they’d been together five years now.

“No need. They’re elegant and lovely and not in the least flashy. Stands to reason,” Doris replied with a shrug. “The earl will want the flashiest gewgaws in the box, though, so you’ll choose them.”

Belinda sighed. “You’re quite correct.”

“Always am,” Doris said.

“Not always,” Belinda countered, meeting Doris’ implacable gaze in the looking glass as the heavy necklace settled around her throat. She shivered as the cold jewels touched her skin, feeling as she always did like a pet dog being fitted with a pretty collar.

“Always,” Doris insisted, making an adjustment to Belinda’s hair.

Belinda regarded Doris with amusement. The woman was around thirty years of age with a stubborn square jaw, a mass of black wiry curls that spoke of her father’s Mediterranean heritage, beautiful pale gold skin, and a robust form built upon Amazonian proportions. She towered over Belinda by a good foot, was more rottweiler than maid, and though she had a fair hand for hair, she had few of the qualifications most young ladies would deem essential for the job. For one, she had an opinion about everything and never hesitated to share it—usually with language that would have sent many of Belinda’s ilk into a swoon. Also, her needlework was execrable, and she didn’t give a tinker’s cuss for fashion.

Doris had qualities that Belinda valued far higher than these trifling decencies, however. In the first place, she was loyal and discreet and would have cut out her tongue—or anyone else’s—before she heard a word against Belinda. In the second, she knew London like the back of her hand, including the kind of people Belinda would have no access to without her, and lastly, she had a right hook that would put most of the would-be pugilists of the ton to shame. For all these qualities Belinda loved and trusted her and so had come to appreciate the rudeness with which Doris treated her—after all, no one else would dare.

Through Doris, Belinda had been introduced to a world she had known nothing of, having grown up in a gilded cage with few glimpses afforded her of what lay beyond the bars. Doris had shown her the world she had grown up in, a world of dangers and privation that had shocked and frightened Belinda in equal measure and had given her the desire to do something useful with her life, rather than just looking pretty on some man’s arm and producing babies. Not that it had ever held much appeal.

Of course, her father had not the slightest inkling about any of this, or Doris would have been shown the door on the spot. Happily, whilst the earl was dreadfully overbearing, he never thought to challenge her choice of maid, and Doris was sensible enough to keep her mouth shut and make herself scarce if ever the earl was around.

It was a complete accident they had met at all, for Belinda had been interviewing maids on a day when Doris had turned up with a delivery from a local baker. Because of an oversight by the housekeeper, the baker’s bill had not been paid in several months, and Doris had been sent to collect. The housekeeper, a proud woman who could not bear to be wrong about anything, had denied the bill. Happily, the earl had been away from home and Belinda sent for to intervene.

Doris had been entertaining during the debacle, standing up to the housekeeper in her usual blunt manner. Mrs Pilkington had been incensed, but when she had been forced to admit she had overlooked the payment, she had unbent and deigned to be amused by the argument when Doris had been quick to agree had been a simple mistake to make. Belinda had always retained a soft spot for Mrs Pilkington despite her tyrannical ways and the two women understood each other, existing as they did in a man’s world. When Belinda had asked Doris to interview for the position of lady’s maid the housekeeper had protested vociferously but diplomatically held her tongue. After all, she knew who the mistress of the house was, and who it was sanctioned the extra spending on things Mrs Pilkington deemed necessary.

And so, Doris, entirely unqualified but in Belinda’s opinion, a diamond in the rough, had been employed.

“You think I’m mad, don’t you,” Belinda said, swivelling on the stool before the dressing table as Doris attached the heavy diamond bracelets—or were they manacles? —upon her wrists before reaching for the matching hair combs.

“Ain’t my business to go about thinking, my lady,” Doris said with a sniff. “Got no education. You’re the one with the brains and all that book learnin’. Much good it’s done you,” she added sourly.

“So, do you think I should find a man to marry, some chinless wonder with excellent bloodlines, and produce the requisite heir and a spare?” Belinda demanded.

“No, I reckon you ought to pack up those baubles, sell the lot and go to Paris and have some bleedin’ fun for a change,” Doris said impatiently. “What’s the use of looking like you do and having all that blunt when you don’t get to have no fun?”

“But that’s the point, Doris,” Belinda said, grinning. “Fun is exactly what I am after, and I intend to get it too, and if I do a little bit of good for womankind along the way, so much the better.”

Doris put her hands on her hips and regarded Belinda with a shake of her head. “You and me have very different notions of fun, my girl. Give me a bottle of something warming and a visit to a penny gaff to see the clowns and sing along with the bawdy songs… now, that’s a good night out.”

“I am a sad disappointment to you, I know,” Belinda said with a laugh, pushing to her feet and twirling before Doris. “Well, will I do, do you think?”

Doris snorted. “You look lovelier than bleedin’ Aphrodite or one of them goddesses your pa has so many paintings of, though why they’re always half dressed, I never understood, save for the fact the painters were all men. Now they were havin’ fun gawping at the models in the altogether, I reckon,” she said dryly.

“I don’t doubt you are correct,” Belinda replied, laughing as she gathered up her shawl and fan.