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Then, when the real Lady Quinseley had failed to give him heirs… No, not a failing. Astratagem. Any woman whose best currency was her beauty would be a fool to destroy her figure for some squalling, red-faced goblin. Not when there were sponges for prevention and teas to take care of any unwanted consequences. The earl need not know, and had never guessed. And now that he was dead, the one and only heir… was Lady Quinseley.
Or would be, soon enough. That meddlesome accident Bianca White was almost out of the countess’s life for good.
Lady Quinseley turned away from the window and positioned her arm so that Mirren was forced to gaze into his mistress’s face, rather than at the abomination below. The bird glanced over her shoulder at the bowl of apples. Good. They were back on track.
“Question?” squawked the parrot.
“Mirren, Mirren, on my hand,” Lady Quinseley said, her voice tight. “Who is the fairest in all the land?”
The parrot opened his beak. “Bianca!”
With a shout of rage, the countess grabbed the expensive bird, wrung his neck like a farmhouse chicken, and tossed the colorful corpse from the open window.
She did not flinch at the sound of his body thumping to the ground below.
The countess stalked over to the bell pull and tugged the golden rope hard enough to detach it from the wall.
Her lady’s maid answered the summons with shaking hands and a panicked expression. “I’m almost done ironing—”
“Who cares about that?” snapped the countess. “You’ve a new task now.”
The lady’s maid blanched, but curtseyed. “Anything you wish, madam.”
That was more like it.
“My gown can wait.” Lady Quinseley rubbed her pale hands together in anticipation. “Have a footman bring me the Huntsman. I’ve just found his next prey.”
CHAPTER2
Bianca White whistled under her breath as she swept the stray dirt from the stone walkway leading from the fashionable Mayfair street to the even more elegant town house behind her. It was a glorious spring day: bright, blue, sunny, crisp. The sort of day that made the world seem alive, and her soul restored along with it.
That she was wielding a broom rather than a coquettish painted fan was neither here nor there. Being a maid was new. Bianca’s lot had only tumbled to this a year ago, after her mother died. She’d lost possession of their rented apartment because they’d never truly owned it, or anything else. Bianca’s father, the earl, had paid for everything, since long before she was born. Food, shelter, clothing, education… She had never wanted for anything important.
When a dreadful carriage accident took the lives of the earl and his mistress, the newspapers filled with gossip… and Bianca’s stomach filled with dread. What would become of her now, with no family, no income, no savings, no future?
To her surprise and gratification, Lady Quinseley had swooped in to save her. After the funeral, Bianca had gone home with the countess, and since that day, had never left—save to sweep dirt and leaves from the walkway every morning and afternoon. Bianca didn’t mind. The mindless tasks gave her something to do, when she would rather have spent her year of mourning buried beneath the covers of her bed.
Today was her first day out of mourning. Her old day dress with its yellow skirt and blue bodice hung limply on her frame—she had lost much of her prior plumpness over the past year—but it felt good to be back in colors again. She felt as though she werewearingSpring, not just standing in it.
That her clothes were no longer fashionable did not signify. Maids were not meant to be fancy. And besides, Bianca had nowhere else to go.
She owed Lady Quinseley a great debt for offering her shelter out of kindness… or, at least, out of a sense of obligation to her late husband. It could not be easy to have the proof of one’s husband’s infidelity living under one’s roof, but Lady Quinseley had never said a cross word to her.
Then again, the countess never spoke to Bianca at all.
That was Bianca’s greatest source of unhappiness. As an orphan, the countess was the closest thing to family that Bianca had left. She dreamed of being seen, of being spoken to, of being included.
But as a maid, the opposite was true. She was invisible in every room of the house. Even when the countess threw one of her many dinner parties, the guests paid no more attention to the maids bustling in and out than they did to the carpet beneath their feet or the candlesticks holding the candles.
In moments like that, Bianca could not stifle a tiny little wish to be equal. To be valued as a person, and not a faceless automaton with a broom and a dust-rag.
She wasn’t equal, of course. Could never be such. Not only was Lady Quinseley a countess, Bianca was the wrong color and born on the wrong side of the blanket. The earl had done his best to raise her as though she were a highborn young lady, but even someone as powerful as he could not turn her into something she was not.
The door to the townhouse opened, revealing the butler.
His normally kind face was lined with concern. “Miss White, I fear… Lady Quinseley is requesting your presence.”
Bianca’s blues lifted. “Really?”
