Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

M uch to Adelaide's annoyance, the spectacle in the servants' hall prompted a cavalcade of teasing from her fellow workers, which lasted well into the following day. How many of them truly suspected her of an insalubrious connection with Lord Oakley, she dared not guess, but by the afternoon, her patience with winks, nudges, and ribald insinuations was completely spent. She pretended not to hear the two hall boys who called after her as she passed them that if she was looking for Lord Oakley, he was down on the terrace.

"All alone, too, when we saw him," one added with a snigger.

She gritted her teeth and kept walking. Alone on the terrace away from other innocent people trying to get on with their work was the very best place for the viscount, as far as she was concerned—long may he stay there! She wished he had never come to High Brook. Almost more vexing than tarnishing her good name, he was the reason none of her usual rooms—the tending of which she had down to a fine art—were any longer in her care. Instead, she had toiled all morning in Patty's, which were the state rooms and a fittingly royal pain to clean, and she was only now making her way up to begin work on Lucy's. Her back ached, her fingers were chafed, and if she never encountered another nobleman in her life, it would be too soon.

"Look out!"

"Jesus wept!" Adelaide dropped her basket upon rounding the corner onto the upper landing and colliding with someone coming in the opposite direction. Her hasty apology wilted into a thoroughly half-hearted one when she saw it was Lord Kemerton. She curtseyed and picked up her dropped things. When she stood up, it was to find him watching her, a quirk to his mouth that might have been contempt or ridicule. Or wind, probably, he's so puffed-up . She would not have hung about to allow it to grate on her nerves, only his broad frame took up rather a lot of the narrow corridor, and she could not politely get past.

"I cannot seem to avoid you," he said. "I assure you it is not by design. I understood the housemaids began working on this floor at an earlier hour."

"We usually do, but I was delayed this morning. Pardon me if I have inconvenienced your lordship."

He finally stepped out of her way, but she guessed by the way he watched her go past him that he had perceived her insincerity. What was it about this man that whet her tongue so? It would be just her luck if he reported her to Mrs Bunce. Then she would be in trouble for impudence as well as dawdling. "I would not be late if it were not for your friend."

"What was that?"

Adelaide went cold all over; she had not intended that he hear her muttered complaint. Without turning to look at him, she mumbled, "Nothing, my lord," and kept walking.

"No, you said something about my friend being to blame. I insist you tell me what you meant."

"I did not mean anything."

"Has Lord Oakley approached you again?"

Something in the earl's tone—anger? reproach?—made Adelaide stop walking and turn to face him. Bad enough all her own people thought her guilty of promiscuity; she had no desire to add this toffee-nose's censure to the pyre. "No, my lord."

He looked at her closely, and for long enough that she began to feel self-conscious. She could not recall that any man had ever regarded her so intently, and certainly not one so handsome. It irked her that it was suspicion and not admiration that spurred him to do so. She lifted her chin and deliberately did not blink as she held his gaze. Something else he could complain about to Mrs Bunce: her impertinence for not lowering her eyes in his presence.

"Be on your guard with Lord Oakley," he said abruptly. "His honour is usually impeccable, but he seems to have taken an unsavoury interest in you."

It was all Adelaide could do not to exclaim—unsavoury indeed!

"In fact, it would be for the best if you were to avoid him for the remainder of his stay," the earl continued. "His manners may give him the appearance of earnestness, but do not be fooled into believing that anything good could come of a dalliance."

She could hold her tongue no longer and cared not whether the earl was displeased. He had thought it politic to begin lecturing her; he could jolly well hear her reply!

"Pardon me, my lord, but I have no intention of embarking on a dalliance , as you call it. I may be a lowly housemaid, but I assure you I am not without principles."

He inclined his head. "I did not mean to imply otherwise, but principles are not always proof against false promises or foolish impulses—and both those things ruin innocent people."

"Do not make yourself uneasy. Your friend is safe from ruin on my account."

"I was not talking about him , I—" Lord Kemerton stopped speaking and sucked in a deep breath, his eyes wide as he stared at the letter opener Adelaide had withdrawn from her pocket.

"If he attempts to impose any foolish impulses on me, I shall make sure he knows they are unwelcome."

She had done it to silence him, tired of hearing him speak of her inferiority and undesirous of listening any longer to how unworthy she was of a viscount's attentions. Yet, now that she was brandishing a blade at the Earl of Kemerton, and he was regarding her as though she were a mad woman, she rather regretted being so rash. While she racked her brains for a way to extract herself from the situation, Lord Kemerton did something as infuriating as it was unexpected—he laughed at her .

"Of course you have a knife. I know not why I am surprised."

Adelaide's cheeks erupted with heat, and tears of mortification stung her eyes. Had the earl raged, had he dragged her to Baroness Grisham, demanding her instant dismissal, had he even retaliated with force, he could not have injured her more. His amusement was salt in the wounds already inflicted by his censure of her character, and she wished she had the nerve to stick the wretched letter opener in him . Instead, she shoved it back in her pocket and ran away.

Adelaide retreated to the attic room she shared with Patty and directed her fury at her pillow until feathers burst from one seam. She was fuming with herself for almost succumbing to tears before, but being laughed at was among the things she most despised.

"Odious, hateful man!"

"Who?"

She sat back on her haunches and brushed her dishevelled hair from her face to see that Patty had entered the room. "How long have you been there?"

"I just came in. Is it Lord Oakley you are imagining pummelling, or some other unsuspecting idiot?"

"Him too, why not? They are all as bad as each other."

"True." Patty sat on her own bed and regarded Adelaide with sympathy. "This whole business will blow over soon, you'll see. Someone else will do something to make them talk, and this will all be forgot."

"But I have not done anything! You'd think, after all these years, I might have earned a bit of loyalty, but no! The slightest hint that I am secretly a raging harlot, and they are all calling me ‘Share-a-Sarah' behind my back. Danny, who gladly took my spare boots when his wore through. Mary, who I let sleep in my bed when she first came here, when she was still scared of her own shadow. Turns out not one of them is a true friend."

"They are your friends. They're only teasing. 'Tis you who has yourself in knots over it. You ought to cease being so precious."

"Precious?"

"Aye! For none of the rest of us would turn our noses up at the chance of a tumble with a handsome viscount. Now don't look at me like that. I'm not saying I have —only that I might if the offer was ever made. 'Tis not as though we've a barrel of other ways to make us-selves happy in this place."

"But have you no care for your reputation?"

"What does reputation matter when you scrub floors for a living?"

"Everything! For a start, it is one of the only things that is in our power to control. Would you throw yours away so easily?"

"Oh, get off your high horse, Sarah. I'm frightful fond of you, you know that, but you'll win no friends carrying on as though you think you're some great lady, with your big words and your talk of reputation—when really, you're no better than the rest of us."

"I do not act as though I am a great lady!"

Patty arched an eyebrow. "You did lie with him, then, did you? "

"Are those my only choices? To be above myself or be in the gutter?"

Then Patty laughed at her as well—only her laugh was not a quiet chuckle as Lord Kemerton's had been, but a cruel, unforgiving sound. "If having a bit of fun with someone between the sheets to put some cheer into an otherwise miserable existence means that one is in the gutter, then half the people in this house are there already, and you just proved that you think you're better than all of them."

"Not better than! More prudent maybe, but?—"

Patty only laughed harder, and Adelaide could not bear it any longer. She threw her pillow aside and strode out of the room, ignoring her friend's protestations that she had only been joking. She ran down three flights of stairs and left the house via the conservatory door to avoid being seen by anyone who might waylay her. She had a great desire to be alone and an even greater wish not to be summoned to some new and irksome task by Mrs Bunce, and the park seemed the likeliest place to afford her some solitude.

"Bugger!"

Her curse rang out across the terrace, startling Lord Oakley. She had not expected him to still be there, and if only she had not voiced her displeasure so loudly, she might have escaped his notice. As it was, her vulgar imprecation brought him whipping around to look at her and made him the third person in quick succession to laugh at her.

"I say, somebody is angry," he said with a chuckle .

Adelaide began to back away. "Forgive the intrusion, my lord."

"Wait! I was hoping I would see you again. Pray, do not go."

"I must. I am needed."

"Please! I wish to apologise. And explain. My behaviour yesterday must have alarmed you, and I would not have you be afraid of me. Only—" He stopped and looked at the house, though the windows had all been made mirrors by the bright summer sun, and it was impossible to see what or who might be lurking behind them. He stepped towards her. "Might we go somewhere more private?"

Adelaide's heart began to hammer against her ribs, and she fumbled in her skirts for the opening to her pocket. For all that she resented Lord Kemerton's officious interference, she had not forgotten his warning. "Sir, you do not understand what trouble you make for me. I could lose my position."

Lord Oakley, preoccupied with his scrutiny of the house, did not appear to have heard and continued to advance. "I must speak with you, but I would rather not get into it here."

"Sir, I beg you to come no nearer to me!"

"I cannot be sure we would not be overheard, and I should prefer it if we could be discreet until— ow! Bloody hell, what did you do that for?"

He staggered away from her, clutching at his arm. The arm Adelaide had stabbed with the letter opener. She dropped it on the ground in horror and shook her head.

"I'm sorry! I-I did not mean to do that! I only wanted to warn you away. You frightened me with the things you were saying, but I-I never meant to hurt you."

"The things I was saying? What do you—oh, good God! Please tell me you did not think I was attempting to seduce you?" He made a noise of disgust that deeply affronted Adelaide. She had no great opinion of her own beauty, but her figure was lean and well-shaped, and she always kept her hair clean and brushed. Surely that was not so disgusting?

"If not that , then what was your intention in asking to speak to me privately?"

He did not answer and instead lifted his hand away from his arm to inspect the wound.

Adelaide let out a vast sigh of relief. "You are not cut!" Indeed, his coat was not even torn.

"No, but it still hurts like billy-oh! This is a fine beginning—I finally find my long-lost sister, and she tries to stab me!"

Adelaide stared at him, unsure that she had heard him correctly. "You found a long-lost sister?"

His countenance softened, and he let out a breath of his own, assuming a far gentler tone to continue. "That is why I should like to speak to you in private. My past is not something I am at liberty to discuss openly, but I have reason to believe it is inextricably linked with yours. Miss Booker—Sarah—I believe you and I may be brother and sister."

She laughed uncertainly and continued to stare, wondering whether she ought to attempt to retrieve the letter opener. Perhaps he was insane, his good humour merely a disguise for being soft in the head .

"You must think me out of my wits," he said, echoing her thoughts. "Indeed, there have been moments these past twenty-four hours when I have considered that I might be. Will you at least give me the chance to explain? Maybe even to help me determine whether I am right?" He crouched suddenly and picked up the letter opener, which he held out to her, handle first. "Bring this if it will make you feel safer."

Adelaide smiled at the gesture, though it was so unlike anything her actual brothers had ever done for her, it made him still less credible. Was this what Mrs Bunce had warned her he would do—try to invent a greater affinity before attempting a furtive tryst? She hoped not, for establishing familiarity was one thing; claiming to be family was quite another.

"Is this some sort of cruel joke?"

"No, I am quite serious. I would not have said anything otherwise. I am not in the habit of toying with the hopes and dreams of young ladies—though I grant you, I have not given you much reason to believe that."

"No, but as it happens, Lord Kemerton spoke in favour of your probity."

Lord Oakley looked momentarily surprised, then observably gratified. "Well then, might we go somewhere we can talk openly?"

She regarded him, still unable to discern any resemblance between his features and her own, and considered her choices. Patty had been right; opportunities for happiness did not often present themselves to people like her—and the sources of happiness that must be available to the sister of a viscount were beyond anything she had ever known or could imagine. Certainly, she would not be required to empty anybody's chamber pot ever again. Yet Adelaide had no fond memories of the relations she had left behind half a lifetime ago and a deep aversion to obtaining any more who might come to resent her in the same way again. She took the letter opener from Lord Oakley and returned it to her pocket.

"There are plenty of girls who, in my place, might pretend to see a likeness they could not, simply for the chance to escape this life. I will not do that. But I will answer your questions, for I know what it is like to wonder who you are."