Page 4 of Scandal’s Daughter

She found Aunt Jane in the scullery, tutting sadly over the state of the linens, for it was wash day and the scullery was heaped with dripping fabrics in various states of the process. With a sinking heart Georgiana knew what was about to come her way was hours of sitting and helping her aunt mend and repair.

The scullery was thick with the heavy, damp fog of hot water and wet linen. Georgiana stepped across the duckboards by the sink to give the young housemaid a grimace of sympathy as the girl stirred the great copper. Water ran in thick rivulets down the clouded window behind the copper and Mary looked up at her, grinning and wiping the sweat from her face on her plump arm before poking another armful of linens into the bubbling water with the laundry stick.

“Oh, there you are, Georgiana,” Aunt Jane said with obvious relief. “Do tell me your uncle has no other errands for you today for I am at my wit’s end.”

“No, indeed, Aunt,” Georgiana replied, though her reply was so despondent that Aunt Jane couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Oh, come now, we’ll sit in the back parlour. The fire’s been lit, and I shall get a tray of tea brought while we make the best of this heap of tatters,” she replied, looking at the mountain of linen with just as much dismay as Georgiana had. “We can enjoy a comfortable prose and you can tell me all the gossip you’ve no doubt gleaned on your jaunt to the Farley’s this morning.”

Georgiana nodded and tried her best to look as though it didn’t sound like a terrible waste of an afternoon. “I’ll go and change and be with you in a trice, Aunt.”

An hour later, changed into a much worn and mended spotted dimity gown, Georgiana looked up from her mending as Mary came in bearing a tea tray.

“Just pop it on the table, Mary,” her aunt said, smiling at the girl. “We’ll serve ourselves.”

The maid did as she was bid but Georgiana exclaimed as the girl put the tray down.

“Why, Mary, look at your hands! They’re all red and chapped. Do go and get the pot of cream by my bed and put some on, you poor thing.”

Mary blushed and stammered about it being nothing at all, but Georgiana was adamant. “Nonsense, go and use it this instant or I shall go and fetch it for you.”

Bobbing a curtsy, Mary left the room with a devout promise to do just as she was bid.

Georgiana looked up to see Aunt Jane chuckling at her. “What?”

“Nothing, my dear. You have the kindest heart and it does you credit but ... well you are very determined in your advice on occasion, love.”

Snorting with amusement, Georgiana looked back down at her row of uneven stitches with a frown. “Bossy is the word you are searching for, Aunt,” she replied, wondering whether she should unpick the lot and start over.

“Oh, no, dear,” her aunt replied with a placid tone. “Just a little ...”

“Overbearing?” she added helpfully, at which her aunt laid down her needlework and glared at her niece.

“Do stop putting words in my mouth, dear. It’s just that a young lady ought not to be so ... well, sure of herself.”

“Oh, fiddle,” Georgiana replied, deciding against starting the work over again and picking up another sadly frayed piece of work. “I refuse to act like those empty-headed ninnyhammers who go around blushing and stammering like the feather brains they are. I do have a brain in my head and if I can see something needs doing, I don’t see why I oughtn’t say so.”

“Well, because gentlemen don’t like a girl to have opinions, that’s why. Particularly not strong ones!” her Aunt replied, sounding flustered now as she put her needlework to one side and turned her attention to the tea tray. “And you don’t want to get a reputation for being ... fast,” she mouthed, as though the word was too offensive to say out loud.

Georgiana yelped with laughter. “Fast?” she crowed, stabbing her thumb with the needle in the disarray caused by her amusement. “Ow! Oh dear, Aunt Jane, where pray do you think I could get a reputation for that ... around here?” She stuck her injured thumb in her mouth in an attempt to curb her laughter as her aunt was looking really rather cross.

Huffing, the older lady put a cup of tea in her hand and admonished her not to bleed on the linens. “And from what I hear you’d need not go far at all. Not safe for decent folk,” she muttered, with a sad shake of her head.

“Whatever do you mean?” Georgiana demanded and then remembered her Uncle’s warning. “Oh, do you mean up at the castle? Oh, Aunt! What have you heard?”

Her aunt sniffed and shook her head. “As if I would tell you!” she said in disgust, stirring sugar into her tea.

Georgiana pouted and her aunt set down her cup and saucer with a sniff. “Well ...” she said with reluctance. “They do say the Marquess of Beaumont is there.”

“No!” Georgiana exclaimed. “He’s shown his face again at last. I was beginning to think he didn’t have the pluck I believed he did.”

“Georgiana!” Her aunt said, clutching at her bosom and returning a pained expression. “I should never have let you start reading those dreadful scandal rags. May I remind you that his lady friend tried to drown herself.”

“Oh stuff,” she replied, quite disregarding her aunt’s cry of disquiet over her less than genteel observations. “By all accounts the woman had lived in Cambridge all her life so how she couldn’t know the Cam is barely deep enough to wet her feet is beyond me. The only thing likely to kill her was catching a chill from going home in wet skirts. Oh, and I think you’ll find a fellow’s mistress is called a Cytherean.”

“Oh, good God, Georgiana, you’ll be the death of me, I do swear!” cried her appalled aunt.

Chuckling mischievously, Georgiana returned to her botched mending attempt.