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Frowning, Seth buttoned up the striped monstrosity.
He wasn’t aware there were any.
* * *
“In my most troubled moments,”confided Matilda, looking left then right, “I called my cousin…Arsewood and not Astwood. Only to myself, you understand.”
“Lawks, I like that!” Betty chortled and patted her on the hand as they sat together upon a tasteful indigo-blue chaise. “I didn’t think fine ladies knew such words.”
“I’m quite well read, Betty, and Chaucer mentions that particular vernacular most prominently in his Tales.”
“I don’t really do books,” the housekeeper admitted, puckering her forehead, “but if experience of life were pages, I’ve read a thousand.”
How eloquent and honest Betty was.
No over-elaborate wordage, just plain talk and shrewd eyes.
Never had Matilda been allowed to befriend the servants before – even instructed to keep her loyal maid at a ladylike distance as her parents had foretold of calamity, plagues and apocalyptic disaster should the various English classes fraternise.
Yet no disaster befell her talking to Betty – it was…joyful.
“Experience of life is what I wish to gain, Betty. When I reach my birthday.”
“Well, ’tis a good thing yer told me yer problems as I’ll keep a squinter out for any lurking viscounts, don’t yer worry.” Another pat and she rose with a hand to the small of her back. “Now, yer look all done in, so finish yer supper in peace and I’ll be seein’ yer in the morning. It’s kippers for breakfast.” And off she ambled, softly closing the door behind her.
Matilda reached for another one-inch slab of cheese from the selection Betty had brought up and sighed in pleasure.
Maybe employment at a boxing academy wouldn’t be so awful after all.
She solely had to avoid the boxing, the academy members, the muscles – although those were under review – and any odd conversations concerning whiffles and muffles.
Even this bedchamber appeared spacious for a governess, with a sumptuous four-poster, mahogany dresser and dainty looking-glass. A sitting room was attached with this elegant chaise, a rosewood writing desk and her very own key for the door, which she could lock if she so wished.
Of late, life with Astwood had become oppressive, forever watched over, bedchamber keys held by the butler.
Yet matters had taken a turn for the worse in the past few days – the servants admitting her repellent betrothed to the drawing room without announcement.
The door pulled shut.
His pouched eyes had greedily devoured her tight jonquil-yellow dress and only her pretence of a putrid cough had kept that fetid tongue at a distance of six feet and not inserted within her mouth. Surely a deed that no woman should ever have to endure.
Matilda shuddered, and with plate in hand, rose to amble for the writing desk by the window with its filled ink well and fresh quill nestling upon a brass stand. A short missive must be sent to her confidante, Evelyn, to halt further communication till August, lest any messenger be followed.
Gazing out the window, the foggy night of Green Park reflected back with her own pale features overlaid upon it, shadowed and tired and…anxious.
For the consequences of her dawn flit.
The servants would no doubt have discovered her absence by now and be sending a dispatch to Astwood – would he snort and debauch some more? Or ride back to London at first light?
What if he located her before August? And dragged her home? After all, as her guardian and owner, he had the right of it.
She was naught but a piece of furniture, inherited with the house, that could be sold for fifty guineas and a new coat.
Narrowing her eyes at the misted dark, Matilda sought her courage and nibbled Betty’s wodge of sharp cheese – better the life of a governess with its half-day off per week than the wife of a dissolute mutton monger with no freedom at all.
She would be diligent in her work, study all tomes available and research every nuance of governess-ship, and one day she would be the finest educator of young ladies that had ever existed.
