AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Accounts, she thought and a fear as cold as ice rushed through her veins. She had nearly stumbled into a disaster. This man, for all his smiles, was not a friend. She could not trust him if he knew the accounting of the household. Surely, he was in league with the villains and simply set to catch her in trying to escape.
“Yes,” he continued. “Smyth granted me entrance an hour ago and I have yet to see another face since.”
“You haven’t been seen in an hour?” Marilee asked aghast. Such treatment of visitors in Gravesend Manor would have been appalling to the baron and his daughter, even if he was a tradesman rather than gentry. Such treatment smacked of rudeness, but more so of inefficiency. Marilee glanced around wondering if she ought to put him somewhere to wait, but had no idea where would be suitable, or if he would then be assumed to have left and ignored entirely. Best leave him be.
The man shook his head and chuckled as if he had become used to such discourtesy. Marilee felt a blush warm her face. The man was so impossibly handsome. She sucked in a breath and gained control of herself.
“I’m afraid that I won’t be of much help,” Marilee offered with a grimace. “I have yet to be introduced to the lady and cannot tell you if she has been delayed.” She hesitated. “I should go.”
“Perhaps if you cross paths with the butler you could remind him of my presence?” The man wondered, though his tone did not sound hopeful, as if based on his previous experience he suspected she would do no such thing. She could not tell him that doing so would be tantamount to admitting that she had been up here conversing with someone, anyone, when such deeds were punishable offenses according to her keepers. No, she could not tell Mr. Smyth that she had spoken to the guest.
“Good day,” was all she offering in reply before she too turned tail and raced from the room.
When she returned to her duties, she had a difficult time forgetting the unsettling encounter. She cursed herself for having abandoned Kitty’s supplies because when the items had been found abandoned the maid had been removed from the house without explanation. Kitty had not revealed Marilee’s involvement, nor it seemed had the gentleman, and so Marilee had somehow escaped a similar fate. When she told Peggy what had occurred, the laundress had merely shrugged.
“Such things are bound to happen in this house. After all, you did not leave the items behind. That was Kitty’s doing.”
“I know, but I feel responsible. After all, I knocked over the items. I should have helped her. I should have at least picked up the items. Then no one would have been the wiser.”
After a moment, she asked, “Do you know who that man is?” voicing the true question in her mind.
“I haven’t the faintest idea who he might be,” Peggy revealed. “Only that he must be very much disliked by the Blackwells to be treated so poorly. Still, I’d be careful. If he is going over the books, he cannot be in ignorance.”
”That’s what I thought,” Marilee agreed. “Perhaps he is a suitor?” Marilee wondered uncertainly. He was fine enough to look at to have captured any lady’s attention even without a title. Perhaps that was the reason why he was ill-received?
“Doubtful,” Peggy laughed. “Lady Lydia would not even pretend to entertain anyone she considered beneath her. No, he must have another reason to be here.”
Marilee considered the words, but could think of no reason one would continue to appear amidst a clear snub. The gentleman must be addled. Even the most determined of acquaintances must recognize the slight. She did her best not to think on it for it was none of her concern, nor would she ever see the man again. As far as she could tell, it was simply another backward way of Blackwell house.
CHAPTER4
Marilee was surprised when the bottom of the first pile came and she had hardly noticed. Busy from dawn until well after dusk meant that she had little time for plans of escape or ferreting out the inner workings of the household. Grueling labor kept her so bone weary and focused on the task at hand that she had little opportunity to think at all, save choosing whether to use lye or the dreaded ox-gal. Even when some of the more difficult batches had to soak, she had been hard pressed to find a spare moment for herself, and when she did, her mind seemed to take a break as well. She supposed the term mind-numbing was à propos.
The finer items of clothing had to be treated only in the areas that had been soiled; a spot of sauce here, a muddy hemline, or a fleck of ink or lamp oil that had splattered upon the fabric. Marilee found herself mending holes and patching tears for hours on end. Her fingers, raw and cracked from the potent lye, and aching from wringing clothes, now ached anew from holding needles and pulling thread in the tiniest of invisible stitches. Much of her time as a lady’s maid had been spent mending fine items such as these, and she wondered why the lady of the house, Lady Lydia the others called her, did not have her own maid do such tasks. Nothing in this house seemed to run the way that it should; however, so Marilee just ignored the strange workings and did the mending when Mrs. Cavendish demanded it be done. She had decided not to question. She felt like a leaf blown here and there by the wind as she worked tirelessly by day.
When Marilee lay in her bed at night, a sense of hopelessness availed her. The forced house arrest was starting to take its toll on her sensibilities. She felt rather unwell, like a flower deprived of the very necessities of life: water and soil and sunshine. A melancholia settled in on her, and Marilee began to think that she would never be able to escape the life laid out for her by these villains. She went from looking for escape at every corner to making excuses as to why there was no escape. She saw nothing but the room where she worked and the dormitory where she slept. It was as if her world had shrunk to these four walls and her very existence was dictated by the lady of the house, a person she had never met, Lady Lydia.
The rest of the staff whispered her name as if she was a goddess who might smite them if her eye was drawn to them, but Marilee did not see her so. Marilee imagined Lady Lydia as a withered crone of a woman who had no love in her life. Certainly, no one who had once known love could do such things to others. No. Marilee was certain that Lady Lydia was a sad old prune who was unable to see joy in her own life which was why she was robbing others of theirs.
One break in the monotony was that Lord Blackwell’s attire required little attention because he neither left the house nor entertained visitors if he could manage to avoid the interactions. Apparently, Lady Lydia shouldered most of the burden of their social engagements.
Marilee was several weeks into her captivity when she finally met Lady Lydia. Marilee was shocked to discover that Lady Lydia was Lord Blackwell’s daughter and not his wife, although she should have guessed by the appellation of Lady Lydia rather than Lady Blackwell. Still, the way that the other servants spoke about her and her tempers, Marilee had envisioned a crass elderly woman with a pompous air and stern gaze. Surprise filled Marilee as she finally met the lady. She was somewhere in her late-twenties if Marilee’s guess was anywhere near accurate. She was not an ugly crone, but quite beautiful by outward standards. Still, Marilee knew that her heart was as ugly as sin. Marilee tried to hurry past as she was delivering towering stacks of folded bed linens to the housemaids on the fourth level.
Marilee had dipped a quick curtsy without spilling any of her load, and it was that simple act which had drawn the lady’s attention.
“Stop,” she demanded, and Marilee paused.
“Ah, for once someone who knows what they are doing,” the lady drawled as if she had a habit of being perpetually annoyed with the servants.
Marilee had not responded, had not known how to respond to such a strange interaction, but she did pause. She kept her head bowed and waited for Lady Lydia to move on, but the female just stood in the hallway looking down her nose at Marilee’s petite form nearly covered by the heap of laundry in her grasp.
Lady Lydia was towering in height, taller even than most men, Marilee thought. She was thin, but not frail, and her willowy frame was both graceful and intimidating. She had beautiful ebony locks that had been piled on top of her head and tied with a vibrant blue ribbon that matched her unsettling eyes. Marilee had never seen eyes so blue against such pale skin and dark tresses. She looked like a vengeful water goddess. The way in which she angled her chin and pulled her shoulders back so as to elongate her neck revealed she knew just the sort of power her features held. She was well-versed in how to use them to intimidate.
“Silent too,” the lady laughed at last. “My goodness, where did they get you? I say send back and get ten more of the like.”
Marilee felt her heart begin to race. Surely, Lady Lydia was not aware of the dubious methods in which her butler and head housekeeper filled the slots in employment. This lovely young lady could not possibly know and be approving of such behavior, could she? Perhaps it had only been a poor turn of phrase. Perhaps the lady had merely meant that she wished for more servants with experience and wished that her people would choose staff of that sort. Marilee wondered if the Lord and Lady of the house had budgeted for a proper staff, but the housekeeper and butler were simply pocketing the payments for themselves. That was the most obvious reasoning.
Marilee wondered what Lady Lydia would do if she found out what was going on beneath her father’s own roof. Would she fire all the villains? If Mrs. Cavendish were relieved of her duties would everyone trapped within be free to go? Could it be that simple?
