Page 38 of The Redemption of the Shrew

“Yes?”

“Pray accept my apologies on my mistress’s behalf. She’s even-tempered most of the time, but when her feelings are hurt, she’s liable to lash out.”

“Ah,” he said.

“I don’t know if it was something you said, sir, but I can always tell when she’s sore to the heart, poor love.”

How could the damned woman’s feelings be hurt by the truth?

Unless what he had implied wasn’t the truth.

He made short work of dressing and found, upon returning to the kitchen, that the maid had not only brewed a pot of tea, but had fetched a decanter of brandy.

“Just what you need to warm your insides.” She dolloped some into his steaming cup.

He couldn’t bring himself to refuse. Besides, each encounter with Gloriana left him more baffled. Perhaps this was an opportunity to understand her—or more likely to find more reasons to avoid her. He took a chair and warmed his hands on the cup. “Does your mistress often get a fire going herself?”

“Often enough that she knows what she’s doing, sir.” Elspeth poured a cup of tea for herself and set the pot at the edge of the stove to keep warm. Then she sat across from him—as if she considered herself his equal! How astonishing, particularly in the household of Gloriana Warren.

“It’s an unusual accomplishment in a lady,” he said, once he had mastered his surprise.

“True, but she tries to be considerate of those who serve her.” She offered him a loaf of sugar and a pair of nippers, which he refused, and then nipped off a small lump for herself. “Sometimes she comes down in the night to make tea or hot milk. She refuses to wake anyone to help. She says we need our sleep, and right glad we are of that. You wouldn’t believe how many ladies expect service from before dawn until midnight, and sometimes in the wee hours as well. It’s right cruel, sir.”

He sighed internally at this second point in Gloriana’s favor. Elspeth seemed to expect a response, so he said, “My parents were just such people, which is one reason we became estranged when I was young.” He wasn’t about to explain the other reason—the one which had caused the permanent rupture of their relationship. “I left home at the age of sixteen and never returned.”

“Tsk,” she said. “All on your own, sir?”

“Not quite. I found work, and I had help from courageous friends, and then the revolution took hold. My parents had other matters to worry them after that.”

“Such as keeping their heads, sir?”

“Precisely.”

“Tsk,” she said again. “It’s barbaric, that’s what it is. Nor is it right that a young nobleman such as yourself was reduced to working for a living. Not that you aren’t able, sir, but you weren’t bred to it.”

“It was good for me.” Maybe Elspeth didn’t know about his career as a thief, for she nodded at this and serenely sipped her tea. Again, his suspicions poked up their heads like mushrooms, but he quelled them. He needed information more than he needed to protect himself. Far worse trouble hung over his head than what a night in Gloriana’s house might cause.

“It was not long after Lord Garrison’s scandal,” she said, as if he’d asked a question. “The present Lord Garrison, that is. And then came Miss Daisy’s scandal.” She shook her head at that. “But she’s Lady Kerr now and very happy with Sir Julian.”

“He’s an excellent fellow and one of my closest friends.”

She smiled. “Is that so, sir? I’m happy to hear it.”

This might be merely politeness, or it might conceal an ulterior motive. Sir Julian would consider him obliged to marry Gloriana if he compromised her. He shouldn’t linger here. He drank some tea, scalding the roof of his mouth.

Maybe he was being a coward right now, but that didn’t explain why Gloriana thought him one.

“With two recent scandals in the family, old Lady Garrison was beside herself with worry that Miss Glow wouldn’t marry well, or at all,” Elspeth said. “One day she caught her sharing a jest with a footman and flew into a rage. She dismissed the footman without pay for daring to smile at Miss Glow.”

This was the sort of senseless, cruel act of which he would have thought Gloriana capable. During the year after that incident in the summerhouse, she’d shown herself to be a copy of her mother and her equally haughty aunt.

“Poor Miss Glow was distraught. She begged and pleaded with Lady Garrison to keep the footman. It wasn’t his fault, she said. She’d been the one to jest. Lady Garrison wouldn’t budge. A footman who doesn’t know his place must be got rid of, and how did Miss Glow expect to marry well if she hobnobbed with servants? There was a rare to-do, and Miss Glow lost her temper, and Lady Garrison threatened to dismiss me if she didn’t shape up, and Miss Glow swore she would run away if I were let go.” Elspeth choked up a little on those words. “She’s a lovely, loyal lady, but I would never have permitted her to do so.”

“I don’t suppose she would have waited for your permission,” he said ruefully.

Elspeth smiled again. “No, sir, most likely not.” She had a friendly smile . . . But no, she showed no sign of wishing to beguile him. Come to think of it, he knew she had a sweetheart—a big fellow, solid and muscular by the look of him, probably one of Lord Garrison’s footmen. He’d taken an evening walk last summer at Garrison House and glimpsed them kissing under cover of darkness.

Damnation, he had become so wary of women that even a pleasant-faced lady’s maid had become a threat! More evidence of incipient cowardice—although, once again, nothing to do with Gloriana’s comment.