Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

High Brook House, Southampton

August 1817

A delaide Booker had no idea from whence she hailed, but she liked to imagine she was not put on the earth to empty chamber pots. Especially not this one, with its contents swilling around like a small rodent drowning in a bowl of eggnog. It was not that the work troubled her—she had dealt with worse things than night soil in her time—only, with a name like hers, she fancied her natural parents must have imagined a more refined and sophisticated existence for her than a housemaid.

That was undoubtedly why her employers had insisted on changing it. No master or mistress of a stately home wished their servants to be more elegantly named than they. Thus, she was ‘Sarah' to everybody at High Brook. She did not dislike it, though her own name being the only thing she had been given by her mother and father that remained hers, she clung to it obstinately in her thoughts.

"If you've finished the mistress's room, the green needs doing. Lucy's had to go into Southampton. Her mother's taken ill," the housekeeper informed her when she entered the workroom. "And do not look at me like that. You'd want to be let off, too, if it were your mother who was unwell."

Regret instantly overtook Mrs Bunce's countenance. She was a hard taskmaster, but she was not unkind and would never deliberately draw attention to Adelaide's familial deficiencies. Nevertheless, three mothers dead was too considerable a misfortune to be perpetually evaded, and the subject was inevitably stumbled over every now and again.

Adelaide grinned. "I did not care at all that the last one took ill. I thought the hives were an improvement on her usual complexion."

The housekeeper gave a grateful nod. "Get off and see it done, then, there's a good lass."

Adelaide retrieved her basket of cleaning paraphernalia and climbed the stairs to the second floor. These rooms were seldom used, but the master and mistress were hosting a grand party to mark the end of the summer, and the house was teeming with lords and ladies. She could not recall who was staying in the green room, though it scarcely mattered, for none of the guests seemed to wake up in the same bed in which they went to sleep. Whoever it was ought presently to be at breakfast, in any case; a quick tidy and a flick of the sheets could easily be achieved before they returned .

She was surprised and not a little put out to discover, upon entering the room, that it was occupied by no fewer than five men, engaged in a somewhat heated exchange about a card game, from what she could discern. She hated to be observed in her work and attempted to back out quietly, but her basket knocked against the door, bringing all their eyes swinging in her direction.

She curtseyed. "I beg your pardon. I shall return later."

"There is no need. Pray, do not let us inhibit your work."

Thus, the room's occupier was revealed to be the Earl of Kemerton, who gestured for his friends to leave. Three of them did, continuing their debate as they went. One, Viscount Oakley, remained fixed to the spot, peering brazenly at Adelaide with a most peculiar turn to his countenance. She self-consciously wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, hoping she had not smeared dirt on her face without knowing it, but it did nothing to diminish his unnerving attention.

"You are not the usual maid," Lord Kemerton observed. "I trust there is nothing amiss."

Adelaide found herself momentarily lost for words. Whether because, up close, Lord Kemerton was even more striking in appearance than rumour and stolen glimpses had allowed him to be, or because Lord Oakley was continuing his ill-mannered staring, she could not tell.

"If one's mother being indisposed can be considered ‘amiss', then yes," she mumbled distractedly. The earl's obvious surprise recalled her to her senses, and she snapped her mouth closed, wondering whether he would have her dismissed for insolence. Her face warmed. "Forgive me."

He only smiled and enquired, "You do not agree that it can be?"

"Well, I…um…" His smile was vastly distracting. "I daresay the woman is perfectly capable of being ill on her own. I cannot comprehend in what way it will improve the situation to have her daughter sitting about watching her while she is at it."

His smile broadened. "You do not think the comfort of a loved one valuable in such circumstances?"

"I would not know, my lord."

His amusement evaporated, and for some reason the seriousness that replaced it made Adelaide feel horribly exposed. She looked away, only to discover the viscount regarding her still, his face screwed into a quizzical grimace. As she watched, he took a step towards her, his hand lifting from his side as though he meant to touch her face. She sucked in a breath and flinched out of his reach but in doing so banged her head painfully against the edge of the open door.

"Oakley, get a hold of yourself," Lord Kemerton said sternly.

"Yes, I…I do beg your pardon," Lord Oakley said, shaking his head as though to pull himself from a dream. "I did not mean to startle you, only…" He returned to gazing.

"We are in the way. Let us go," his friend said firmly.

"One moment, I was just?—"

Lord Kemerton shoved him, none too gently, in the direction of the open door. Once they were out of it, Adelaide heard him say in a harsh whisper, "I know precisely what you were just doing."

"Oh, you do, do you?"

"Yes, and it was beneath you. She is a maid, for God's sake. Pray, do not stoop to even contemplating it."

"You misunderstand."

"Explain it to me, then."

"Well…I cannot, precisely. But there is something about the girl that I?—"

"As I said, trifling with the maids is beneath you."

The rest was inaudible, for they had passed out of hearing. Adelaide exhaled heavily. She had heard that Lord Oakley and Lord Kemerton were among the more amiable of their set; evidently, they were no less conceited and ungracious than the rest. She pushed the door shut with her hip and set about her work.

The strange encounter set Adelaide's day off on entirely the wrong footing, and she remained in a funk until suppertime. A hearty meal raised her spirits—it always did—but she was thrown back into the doldrums when a note arrived from Lucy, informing them that she would not return that evening, consigning Adelaide to double the work again the next day.

She did not object to the extra effort—she and her fellow maids often took on each other's tasks when one needed time off. It was the reason for it she could not comprehend. She had not been lying when she told Lord Kemerton that watching somebody who was indisposed seemed a fruitless exercise. It had surprised him, and she supposed her opinion might be different had she ever been tended to by a loved one herself while she was sick. But she had not, and it had never prevented her from getting well again.

On reflection, it might be nice if somebody cared enough for her well-being that they would hold her hand and mop her brow when she felt ill—but she had long ago eschewed dreaming of such things, for it only ever ended in disappointment. She was a little cross with Lord Kemerton for making her think about it.

It was with some trepidation that she approached the upper landing in the morning, but none of the gentlemen she had encountered the previous day were there. Every chamber was blissfully unoccupied, and she was rather pleased with herself to finish all Lucy's rooms as well as her own before eleven o'clock. She gathered up her things and headed downstairs.

"I say, you there!"

Startled, she turned to see Viscount Oakley trotting down the stairs after her.

"Oh good, it is you. I thought it was." He came to a halt several steps above her. "I, um…that is, I…I wanted to ensure you were not still pained from that nasty blow to your head yesterday."

Adelaide frowned in confusion; the slight bump had hardly constituted a blow, but she supposed it spoke well of him that he should remember it and ask after her. She was accustomed to being mostly invisible to the lot of them. "I am not pained, my lord. Indeed, I had forgotten it entirely. But I thank you for your solicitude. "

He descended another step and said, in a thoughtful tone, "Solicitude is an awfully big word."

"My lord?"

"You have an uncommonly refined vocabulary for a housemaid."

Adelaide wondered how many housemaids he had conversed with before forming the opinion that none of them knew any words of more than three syllables. "I meant ‘thank you for your concern'."

"Yes, I know what solicitude means. I was only implying that…well, that is…have you always been in service?"

"Since I was twelve."

"And before that?"

"I was eleven."

"What? Oh!" He chuckled slightly. "No, I mean, where were you before that?"

"Have I displeased your lordship in some way?" she enquired, because she had absolutely no intention of answering his last question.

"No, not at all." He splayed both hands in the air between them as one did when attempting to calm a distressed animal—or prevent it from fleeing. His assurances were welcome but not enough to make Adelaide want to stay.

"Then might I be excused? I shall be scolded if I am too long away from my work."

"Pray, a moment more of your time!" he said pleadingly, almost urgently. "I shall not keep you long. Allow me to…I…" He gave a ragged sigh and ran a hand through his hair. "Might I ask your name? "

"Sarah," she answered warily.

"Sarah what? Forgive me, but I was after your surname."

Adelaide felt herself redden. That was not at all where she thought his questions had been tending. The possibility that he knew her father, that he was here on his behalf, made the viscount's enquiries ten times more ominous. With extreme reluctance, she admitted, "Booker."

Apparently, it was not the answer he wanted, but his evident disappointment made Adelaide faint with relief. With one hand on the rail to steady herself, she began backing away down the stairs. "If that is all?"

"No! No, it cannot be."

To Adelaide's dismay, Lord Oakley dashed down the stairs past her, stopping on the step below and blocking her path as she turned towards him.

"Look at my eyes."

She regarded him sceptically.

"I mean it—look at them. Do you see their colour? That they are almost violet?"

Adelaide had no choice but to look, for he had shoved his face so close to hers that she could see little else past it. As outrageously vain as it was that he should demand she acknowledge it, it could not be denied that his eyes were unusual. She would not have described them as violet, but she conceded that they were an extraordinary shade of blue. And, if flattery was what his lordship desired before he would leave her alone, then she was not above stretching the truth.

"I do, my lord. "

"Right. But you see, I have never met anybody else with eyes this colour until now. Does it not strike you as a remarkable coincidence that yours are almost identical?"

"They are?"

"Do you not think so?" he asked, pushing his face closer still and opening his eyes comically wide in his eagerness for her to agree.

Adelaide drew back, not least to avoid the peril of an attempted kiss, but because no amount of staring into his eyes would alter the fact that she could not perceive any similarity.

"I have not spent as much of my life admiring my own reflection as some people appear to have done, my lord. If I am looking at a mirror, I am invariably polishing it."

"Then look at my eyes now, and the next time you see your reflection, pray pause to look at your own, and you will see what I mean."

"To what end?"

"Oakley!"

Adelaide let out a shriek at the booming voice. Lord Oakley almost fell down the stairs as he jumped to put some distance between them.

"Kem, what the devil? You scared me half to death!"

Lord Kemerton, his countenance like thunder, had appeared at the top of the stairs. He marched down to them, glowering at his friend until he reached the step above Adelaide, at which point he said to her, in a brusque tone, "Thank you, that will be all."

Adelaide was no fool; before either could say anything more, she dashed past Lord Oakley, down the remaining steps, and rounded the newel post to the servants' door beneath the stairs. She paused before closing it fully behind her to listen to what was being said in her absence.

"…do you imagine Lady Veronica would think?" Lord Kemerton was saying in a low voice. "You cannot expect that she will take your suit seriously if it gets out you have a fancy for one of the servants."

"I keep telling you, I was only curious," Lord Oakley replied.

"Curious? That is a new word for it," Lord Kemerton replied sardonically.

"Come, now. You must have noticed her eyes."

After a pause, and in a softer tone, the earl said, "Yes, I have. But you might have noticed that I did not accost her on the stairs and oblige her to let me stare into them."

They reached the bottom of the stairs, and Adelaide pulled the door closed to avoid detection. After a few seconds, a strong curiosity of her own bade her push it open again by the smallest margin to watch the two men walk across the vestibule. It seemed she had missed some salient part of their discussion, for they were angrier with each other than they had been moments before.

"Just stay away from the girl," Lord Kemerton said icily. "Stay away from all the servants. You demean yourself by chasing after them in this fashion."

The viscount opened his mouth to reply but his friend interrupted.

"I shall not deny that she is uncommonly pretty, beautiful even, but you are better than to behave like this. I have never seen you thus, and I hope I never shall again!" He stalked away, shaking his head.

Lord Oakley stared after him for a moment or two before making a noise of exasperation and marching off in the other direction.

Adelaide thought neither man had covered himself in glory and was glad they were both gone. Lord Oakley was a strange one, though perhaps not quite so wicked as his friend seemed to think. She had met that sort before—men who thought they were entitled to whatever or whomever they fancied and pursued it without a care for the consequences. She had known plenty of girls whose lives had been ruined that way and had fended off more attempts on her own person than she cared to count. Despite his peculiar overtures, which she could certainly have lived without, Lord Oakley did not fit the usual mould.

As for Lord Kemerton, his sort was an entirely different kettle of fish—men who thought so highly of themselves that to become embroiled with the working class was a debasement too repugnant to contemplate. She wondered what he would think if he knew she had chosen this life.

It was impossible to know what might have been if her birth mother and father had not died. She had wasted far too many hours wondering what course things would have taken had the woman who adopted her not perished. But they all had, and her third mother, the mistress of an estate with several servants in her employ, had made Adelaide's life so disagreeable that being a maid had become a more appealing prospect than having one. If Lord Kemerton thought less of her for where she had ended up, it was no concern of hers.

Nevertheless, now that the vestibule was empty, she could not resist sneaking out of the servants' passage to stand in front of the nearest wall sconce. Rising to her tiptoes, she was just tall enough to see her reflection in the mirrored wall plate behind the unlit candles. She turned her head this way and that, attempting to catch the light, but it was fruitless; the only purple she could see near her eyes was in the dark circles beneath them. Angry with herself for entertaining the viscount's nonsense, she pushed away from the wall and hastened back to the workroom.