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I think he feels something for me.
“Yes well, the twins are returning with no notice at all, so I had to send the boys up to open Lady Ruby’s room. It’s filthy with dust, I think the maids have been dodging it since she left,” Mrs. Harris sighs like the avoidance was purposeful and intentional, meant to set a problem for her specifically. I say nothing, wisely skirting that argument.
“The… twins?” I ask, even though I know who she’s talking about. Mason and Benedict’s younger siblings. I know enough about them now, having come across their portraits, or heard small stories of them here and there. Snatches of information, really. Not enough to make up an image of who they might be or what they might be like to the staff or to Madeline.
But I stand straighter for hearing the news. Mrs. Harris is going to need all hands on if this list rue.
“It says more to your management of the maids,” Mrs. Waters mutters, and then shakes her head, looking down at the laptop. “They’ll land in Burbank at noon—”
“Noon!” Mrs. Harris exclaims. “We have no time at all then. Miss Bell, is it possible for you to arrange some outing for Lady Madeline to go on today that doesn’t require your attention? We’ll need you at the house.”
“The traffic from Burbank to here—” Mrs. Waters is talking to herself as Mrs. Elliot, the cook, brushes by with a clipboard inher hand, trailing her assistant Claire behind her.
“We need to change the menus for tonight. You know Lady Ruby doesn’t eat meat, and Lord Noah can’t get enough of it,” Mrs. Elliot says, sounding equally irritated and stressed, sparing a glance for me. “Lady Madeline’s breakfast will have to be simpler today.”
I’m still wondering why everyone is completely besides themselves right now, because it’s just the two younger King siblings returning, not a visit from some other great noble family head. At the same time I’m trying to think if there’s any sort of appropriate outing for Lady Madeline at all that would take up most of the day and not require me watching her. So I can be prepared too.
“Well, she is supposed to be getting ready for her next piano examination,” I say carefully, “I think if I called her piano master, he might be able to come and teach her for a few hours after breakfast, and then—”
“Send her to riding lessons after lunch,” Mrs. Harris says, looking at Mrs. Waters with a thoughtful frown. “Do you think a horse could be brought up from the lower farm? She’s a bit young to start, but it’ll occupy her at the very least, a new mount, a smaller one, instead of her pony?” They stare at each other, and I can practically see the wheels turning in their heads.
“Can I ask…” They look at me and I swallow down my doubt for speaking out. “Why is it so, um, frantic? The marquis and the duke are here every day and I don’t think I’ve ever seen either of you this…” Would it be appropriate to say crazed? I can’t pick a word that won’t insult the two of them.
“Her ladyship and his lordship have been a curse on this household since the day they were born,” Mrs. Harris says bluntly, in a way I never thought I’d hear her speak. Mrs. Waters nods in complete agreement. My throat goes tight.
“I, okay, that still doesn’t—”
“Giving birth to them killed her grace, not right away, not that night, but she wasted for six months before finally giving up and leaving us. Then, when they were older, they— they terrorized the staff, tormented their older siblings,” Mrs. Harris pauses, and I wonder if sheactuallythinks they’re cursed. “And now as young adults, they set the whole of the country on end wherever they show up anywhere.”
“Yes, a curse, the both of them,” Mrs. Waters says empathetically, and that’s a bit to chew on. They eye me up. “You’ll want to stay away from Lord Noah, for certain.” My eyebrows head skyward.
Oh. So he’s one of those. If they think that about him, what do they think of the marquis? Of the duke? Both those men have had their hands, and their lips on me, as much as I’ve tried to avoid it. The memory of them touching me makes me want to blush. I need to shake it off though. Distance between them and me, that’s what’s needed now. I can’t just let them have whatever they want.
Especially if two more members of the King clan are coming to Wester Hall. And one of them is handsy. More handsy than the older Kings, if these new rumors are to be believed.
I do not need any more trouble with a single King. Lady Madeline herself is enough work for anybody, and then on top of it…
My body starts to warm at the thought of the duke. His face appears in front of me, like a mirage, but so real. I go still, the beat of my pulse steady in my throat. His green eyes, so insistent and raw—
And then, as if by magic, the shape of his nose changes, his lips morph. Benedict. What would he think of the duke touching me?
I close my eyes. Part of me wonders if he would be jealous.
He would be. He would rip your clothing from you and do to you what his brother did, and more, just to prove that he was the better love.The words whisper into my ears like a fairy’s said them. Only fairies aren’t real, and my work is. I jerk my thoughts back to the present.
“If I’m squaring Lady Madeline away for the day,” I say, seeing my escape from this awkward conversation, “I need to make some calls. Excuse me.”
“Don’t go far,” Mrs. Harris calls after me as I leave the room to go to my small office. “I’ll need you back in thirty minutes!”
Piano master,sorted. Pony, sorted. I vetoed the horse idea, but Madeline is going out on a long trail ride and I’ve even gotten Mrs. Elliot to put together a picnic for her. I’m two for two when I go back to the servant’s dining room and find that the household manager is gone and only Mrs. Harris remains. She looks at me with relief and drags me off to go sort through piles of clothes in the storage room she calls ‘the vault’, a room set in a level below the laundry.
The stairs are narrow down here, and I follow behind Mrs. Harris. A large, metal door appears in front of us, without a handle on it.
“Um-“ I start but Mrs. Harris is pressing her palm against a scanning plate on the wall.
“There’s a small country’s fortune of treasures in here,” she says to me over her shoulder, as the door makes a hissing sound, and swings open. The door itself is thick, like a bank vault, and I already feel small and meek as I tag behind her. My eyes bug out as soon as we step inside of it.
With the high ceiling and lack of windows, this place is a paradise wonderland of fashion. The walls are lined with glass doors, each one looking into a long rack sunk ten feet deep. The end of each one is in shadows, because they’re all crammed with dresses and other garments.
