His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen #4)(80)
Jacaranda opened a parasol, a frilly, lacy business that had to have been a gift from her husband.
“I enjoyed the same aspect of being a housekeeper,” she said. “I was in command of a staff and of myself. I decided when to set the maids to beating the rugs, when to send them off to gossip and pick berries. I didn’t sit about embroidering for hours on end, waiting for some neighbor to call or one of my brothers to drag me along on his flirtations.”
Jacaranda had seven brothers. Lily could not fathom such a wealth of family, though by reputation, the Dorning brothers got up to a deal of flirtation, which would—
“You were a housekeeper?”
The prim, rather intimidating lady smiled and became a different person—mischievous, charming, even friendly.
“I was the housekeeper at Trysting for five years and made a proper job of it. I still regularly inspect the kitchen and larder. Worth doesn’t dare object.”
“But you’re the daughter of an earl. Why on earth would you go into service?”
Worth was now sharing a bench with a slender, blond young woman who’d been reading a book. She was smiling now, while Worth held the baby against his shoulder. Jacaranda looked amused rather than annoyed that her husband would be flirting in the park.
“I didn’t regard honorable work as anything to be ashamed of,” Jacaranda said. “My brothers were utterly out of control, and I was all but drudging for them. I told them if I had to work that hard, for so little appreciation, I’d at least have a half day off and a salary for my efforts. They thought I was bluffing.”
Farther down the path, Worth was holding his daughter above his head, making the infant laugh. The woman with the book was smiling, as everybody must when in the company of a happy baby.
“You think I should have remained at the coaching inn,” Lily said. “The work was honest, as you say. I earned a wage.” A pittance, plus any number of kicks, slaps, and scolds, with the occasional burn, pinch, or splinter for variety.
Jacaranda slowly twirled her parasol, which in the language of flirtation meant, Be careful—we are watched. She probably knew that, as did her husband.
“Scrubbing floors at a coaching inn is no place for a lady’s daughter,” Jacaranda said. “My papa was an earl. Can you imagine my daughter scrubbing floors at some coaching inn?”
The infant was once again propped against her father’s shoulder. She peered in Lily’s direction, a world of innocence in her gaze.
Lily’s chest ached when she beheld the baby slurping on a tiny fist. The little mite was utterly safe in her father’s arms. She’d never scrub a floor, carry a chamber pot, or go weeks without proper rest unless she jolly well pleased to.
“The men began to notice me,” Lily said. “I wasn’t safe at the inn, or I’d probably still be there.”
“While I went into service because the men who should have noticed me failed to. We do what we must, and yet, you’re once again in a situation where you’re not safe. Had you not spent those years at the inn, you’d probably have been married to your cousin long since.”
Worth rose, bowed to the lady, and tucked the baby against his shoulder. He went off on some circuit of the surrounds from which he’d doubtless be able to see Lily and Jacaranda at all times, while the young woman returned to her reading.
Jacaranda implied that years of incessant menial labor had imbued Lily with some measure of independence, of… consequence.
“I don’t dare cross my uncle,” Lily said. “I might lie awake, plotting foul crimes against him, but I attend the dinner parties and balls he chooses, I wear the fashions he approves of.”
“Minor concessions,” Jacaranda said, rising. “Letting him think he has the upper hand. When it comes to major decisions, your uncle has tread carefully. Witness, you are not yet married to Oscar, or to any other toady of your uncle’s choosing.”
Lily got to her feet as well, hoping Jacaranda was correct. “Grampion is not offering for me. He is being all that is kind, but matrimony is not under discussion between us.”
Hessian had been much more than kind, but he’d also made certain Lily did not regard him as a fiancé. Not at present.
“Well, that’s as it should be,” Jacaranda said, twining her arm through Lily’s. “You deserve some wooing, and Hessian needs to know his addresses are welcome.”
“Should he return from Scotland, I will offer him an emphatic welcome,” Lily said. “Why do you suppose that young woman has been in the park every time you and I have walked here over the past week?”
Jacaranda’s reply was forestalled by Avery and Daisy bounding up from the water’s edge some yards away.
“We’re out of corn,” Daisy bellowed. “The ducks ate it all up.”
“The ducks and the geese and the swans,” Avery added. “When can we feed them again?”
“We mustn’t feed them too much,” Lily said. “They’ll grow too stout to float.”
Avery began to chatter in French about learning to swim the previous summer at Trysting, and the water had been cold as ice and many, many, many feet deep, as deep as the ocean…
“That lady paid a call on the earl,” Daisy said, frowning in the direction of the dedicated reader. “She came with the other lady.”