Captain Durant's Countess(57)
She had done none of those things. Instead, she had fought him off and made herself a byword of scandal from the moment of her debut, and had the newspaper clippings to prove it. As a debutante she had been very naughty indeed. Lady Imaculata had sought low, even subterranean society in order to escape her father’s predatory attentions, thinking that he’d let her have her mother’s fortune and wash his hands of her if she misbehaved sufficiently. But no matter what foolish—and sometimes dangerous—thing she’d done, he had kept her a prisoner.
So fiery, flame-haired Lady Imaculata Egremont was no more. In her place was frowsy brunette Anne Mont, reluctant and incompetent housekeeper. Anne had noted some of the brown color had rubbed off on her pillows as she’d spent the night in coaching houses. Whatever elixir Evangeline had used on her was fading fast. Unless she could find some Atkinson’s Vegetable Dye, she’d have to confess to the major that he’d hired a red-headed imposter. Maybe the old man was so blind he’d never notice. If he could bear to live in his current squalor, appearances could not possibly matter to him.
Anne gathered her courage and used her most confident voice. She was a good mimic, and it was necessary for the major to think he had hired a forthright woman rather than a foolish, inexperienced girl. She had played a part or two in her time. Surely she could convince an old sot that she was a housekeeper, even if she didn’t know how to remove mouse excrescence from a handkerchief.
“Major Ripton-Jones! It is Mrs. Mont, your new housekeeper. Please open the door so we may become acquainted.”
The string of muffled words coming from behind the door that her governess would have forbidden did not shock her. Anne had said them anyway for maximum shock value, as often as possible, and actually just a few minutes ago. Stepping back, she lifted her chin and awaited her employer’s displeasure at being torn from his inebriated slumber.
The door was wrenched open by a towering scarecrow of a man, bearded, shaggy-haired, disreputably dressed, indubitably drunk.
And one-armed. His dirty linen shirtsleeve hung empty, flapping a bit as he had listed toward the doorframe.
He wasn’t old. Not old at all. There was a little gray in his beard—though that could very well be dust—but he could not have been much above thirty years old.
“Good afternoon,” Anne had said briskly, masking her surprise and keeping her chin high. She was bound to get a crick in her neck if she had to address him for any length of time. “I believe Mi-uh, Mr. Ramsey from The London List sent word to you that I was coming.”
He looked down at her, way down as he was so very tall, with blood-shot blue eyes. “You can’t be the housekeeper.”
He did not slur a word, although his breath nearly knocked her over. She would light no matches anywhere near him or he’d go up like a Guy Fawkes effigy.
“I can indeed, sir. I have a reference from Lady Pennington.” She pulled the forged letter from her reticule.
“How old are you, Mrs. Mont? Twelve? And where is Mr. Mont?”
Evangeline had wanted her to lie and say she lost her husband at Waterloo—which would have made Anne a fourteen-year-old bride—but the man in front of her had probably lost his arm to war so that did not seem at all sporting. Anne knew she looked young—she was young, her freckles forever marking her just a step from the schoolroom. She had decided to be reasonably honest. If Major Ripton-Jones dismissed her, she’d go back to Evangeline and try for something else. Tightrope walker, street walker, it really didn’t matter as long as she escaped her father’s predatory attentions and beatings.
“Housekeepers are always addressed as ‘Mrs.,’ Major Ripton-Jones. Surely you know that. And I am old enough. I’ve been in service for—ages.”
Ever since she walked into the house, anyway.
The man snorted and caught himself on the wall before he fell on her. “You’ll have your work cut out for you, as you can see. Your room is off the kitchen. You’d best get started.” He then shut the door in her face.
Well. T’was more or less still the Christmas season and Anne felt she should be charitable. She would carry her own bag to this bedroom—there wasn’t much in it since her flight from London had been somewhat spontaneous. She’d gone to Evangeline Ramsey’s house anticipating a very different outcome than her current employment. Fortunately, she’d had her savings stitched into her fur muff, and the coins had come in handy on the journey west. Anne did not want to spend a penny of them going back east. She challenged herself to make it to the New Year. It was only a few days away.
If she didn’t kill the major first with her cooking or her pearl-handled pistol. She patted her reticule to assure herself it was still there. It wasn’t loaded, for with her luck she’d shoot herself in her well-rounded derriere. But the gun would be a deterrent should the man try any of her father’s tricks.
He was not at all what she’d expected. She’d seen the letter he’d sent to The London List requesting the services of a housekeeper. Both she and Evangeline had assumed from his spidery handwriting he was an older gentleman. White-haired. Wrinkled.Weak.
Major Ripton-Jones did not seem weak at all, except when it came to his sobriety. Despite his missing arm, Anne would almost call him handsome beneath his grime if she let herself.
That would be inappropriate. He was her employer, at least for the moment. How long she could last here was anybody’s guess.