The Notorious Bridegroom. Kit Donner
next morning when Patience arrived in the kitchen, she saw no signs of Mrs. Knockersmith, only Mr. Gibbs, the butler, whom she had met at the Mop Fair. He held his hand in a bucket on the table, swearing under his breath.
“You, girl. The earl needs his tea, and I’ve just burned my hand. Go deliver it,” he ordered, indicating the tray on the nearby table. “When you are finished, return to the kitchen.”
Patience widened her eyes, then frowned. This could be her chance, but she hadn’t been hired to serve. Would she make a muck of it? Steady, girl. “Of course, Mr. Gibbs. Ah, one moment. Where is the earl’s study?” She offered a game smile.
Irritatedly he directed her toward the back of the house, and she headed to the lion’s den, the china cups and saucers chinking in her wake. As she approached the closed doors, she winked three times for luck, straightened her shoulders, and knocked loudly.
Outside the door, she could hear the murmur of voices, which halted at her knock. Her heart beat a little faster as she balanced the tray and waited.
At the word “Enter,” Patience took a deep breath and wet her dry lips before opening the door. She had to blink several times to adjust to the dimly lit room and to locate the occupants. Silence reigned briefly when she entered the room, but the men soon took up where they had left off. Lord Londringham reclined in his chair behind his massive desk and gestured to a table in front of his companion, who sat comfortably in a wing chair nearby.
She set the tray on the table and began to pour the tea, her spectacles and mobcap firmly in place.
The earl’s friend told him, “I would like to accompany you to Carstairs’s estate tomorrow morning. There must be some piece of evidence we might uncover which will lead us to his murderer.”
Murderer? Patience could barely breathe. The cup in her hand shook. Was her cousin, dead? The man’s next words confirmed her fears.
“With any luck. You know, I believe his murder was not totally unexpected. What do you think of this young Mandeley having murdered him?”
Her eyes widened in alarm, her breath held in desperate suspense. They suspected Rupert of Lord Carstairs’s murder? In infinite horror, she gulped and dropped the china sugar pot onto the table with a crash. The noise immediately awakened her stupor.
Startled, both men looked her way, then resumed talking. Patience quickly cleaned up the mess, reminding herself that she must go on, no matter the worry that threatened to paralyze her thoughts.
A few harried minutes later, Lord Londringham told her, “No sugar or milk for me.”
Cup and saucer in hand, she warily approached his desk and placed his tea in front of him, half-expecting him to jump from his chair when he recognized her as the woman from the fair. But although she stared as long as she dared at his granite-carved face, he merely glanced impersonally at her before returning his attention to the papers before him.
His friend continued, “Damn difficult to know. It certainly does not do the chap well that he fled with the skirts of dawn. But what possible motive could his cousin have? I checked with a solicitor in the village who states that a distant relative of Carstairs on his mother’s side will inherit.” He leaned back in his chair after instructing Patience that he required sugar.
Londringham sipped his tea before replying, “Indeed. What motive? It is a piece of unfortunate business, especially when I nearly had Carstairs in my sights.” He looked over at Patience, who stood near the tea table, and dismissed her.
A brief curtsy and she reluctantly left the room, disappointed she would not hear more. She had to learn what he knew. Perhaps the earl, himself, had killed Carstairs and tried to misdirect his friend to her brother. On an impulse, she cracked the door, hoping to hear a gem of information. Surely, here in the shadows, no one could find her.
The earl’s friend began, “Yes, Carstairs was…”
Just then she heard steps and a woman’s voice above her on the staircase. She rushed across the hall into what she hoped was an empty parlor. Heart pounding, she swiped her sweaty palms on her apron, her hands clasped the cool doorknob.
Inside the quiet parlor, she listened at the door and heard more voices and footsteps. Precious minutes ticked by until suddenly everything resumed its normal tomblike silence.
Cautiously, she peeled open the door and peeked up and down the hall. No one. She scurried back across the hall to the study door, still slightly ajar. Leaning her ear close to the opening, Patience heard the earl’s voice.
“Meet me in my rooms tonight. I should be back after eleven.”
She did not hear the reply because the young footboy, Lem, beckoned her from the vestibule. “Miss,” he called insistently.
Patience hurried down the hall to meet the little boy. “What is it?” she asked him.
He pointed toward the kitchen. “It’s Mr. Gibbs. ’e’s been looking for you. ’e ’as more work for you.”
The minute he relayed his message, the lad shot out of the house like a cannon, probably in an effort to avoid work or the butler. She glanced once more at the study doors, sighed, and headed toward the kitchen. Already she was busy planning how to be in the earl’s bedchamber when he met with his friend tonight.
Chapter 3
The sun’s dying scarlet rays washed across the sky after Patience’s second day as Paddock Green’s newest still-room maid. She stretched her weary arms above her head, stiff from polishing the last looking glass with wine spirits, then added whiting for a final shine.
Finished earlier than expected, Patience had helped rub and sift sugar for cake, although the cook complained that Patience’s cake dough could be used as cannon fodder to shoot at the unsuspecting French enemy. Perhaps next time she could remember to add the yeast, the cook hinted scornfully.
But Patience’s mind was not on baking a better cake. Like Pandora with the key to her box, she wanted to unearth the earl’s secrets in his locked study; it had been secured, no doubt, to keep out prying still-room maids.
After she helped Lem cut the cotton tops off the candles and change the lamp oil, Mrs. Knockersmith sent her to bed with a warning to be up earlier than the sun. Patience wearily climbed the stairs, scratching her head through her large mobcap.
Lord Londringham, a subject never very far from her mind. What kind of a man was he? He was certainly guilty of espionage, but murder? She shivered as if ghostly hands had reached out to her from the grave. Biting her lip, she realized resignedly that she would have to get much closer to the earl if she wanted to discover the answers she sought.
Although the hour grew late, Patience decided to take a quick nap before attempting her first foray into spying. She had thought about it all afternoon and planned to eavesdrop on the earl and the captain when they met tonight in the earl’s rooms. With any luck, she could secure evidence to be used against the earl.
Once safely inside her maid’s room in the attic, Patience threw off her mobcap and spectacles, and in relief, unbuttoned the maid’s uniform before pulling on her thin blue lawn nightdress. She unpinned her hair, then combed the thick strands through her fingers, as she massaged away the slight pain from the cap and pins. She promptly curled into a ball and closed her eyes. Just for a few minutes, she promised herself.
An hour later Patience awakened, slowly, then jolted into a sitting position. It all came winging back to her on a cry.
Tonight. The earl’s room.
A glance at the clock showed almost half-past eleven. She grabbed a pale blue wrap and slipped quietly out the door, not giving herself pause for failure, and winked three times for luck before hastening toward the stairs.
Patience thought her frantic breathing would awaken the dead. Lips dry and hands trembling, her bare feet whispered across the moonbeam-lit wooden floor as she ran down the hallway. She prayed the shadows would hide her as she hugged