A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)(99)

Having bid her brother good-bye, Bel returned to the breakfast room and invited the ladies to join her in the parlor for their demonstration.

“Now,” said Lady Violet, settling into the wingbacked chair nearest the hearth, “where is this strapping chimney sweep with his marvelously efficient equipment?”

Laughter rippled through the assembled ladies.

“The equipment is here,” Bel said, waving her hand toward a slender, jointed rod topped with an arrangement of stiff wire brushes. “But there is no chimney sweep. No man, at any rate. I will be the one to demonstrate the machinery.”

The ladies all stared at her in shock, but Bel ignored them as she threaded her wrists through the armholes of an apron. After the scene at Aunt Camille’s card party the other day, she was not about to bring a man into this assembly to be the target of carnal jibes, or worse—the supposed object of Bel’s lust. Besides, how better to demonstrate the brushes’ efficiency than to show that even a lady could use them?

Her apron donned, Bel lifted the brushes for the ladies’ inspection. “You see, the wires are arranged like a parasol. They remain collapsed as the machine is inserted into the flue.” She flipped the brushes over. “As they are withdrawn, the bristles expand to scrub the walls clean. Unlike a climbing boy, who has but two arms and one small brush, this machine reaches every corner of the flue at once.”

Bel knelt at the hearth to insert the brushes through the fireplace. Unfolding the jointed rod and locking the sections into place, she advanced the contraption higher and higher. It wasn’t quite as easy as she’d imagined it would be. The flue was clogged with a winter’s worth of soot, and it took a great deal of effort to push the brushes through the narrow passageway. Small trickles of ash filtered down periodically, dusting her hair and clothes.

As she worked, she sensed the ladies in the room growing restless. She surreptitiously wiped her brow on her sleeve.

“Is your husband not at home, Lady Aldridge?” Of course, it was Lady Violet’s smug voice.

“No,” Bel clipped, forcing the brushes upward with a vicious shove. “He is away.”

“Pity,” Lady Violet said. “He is so amusing with the ladies. One can always count on Sir Toby to enliven a dreary party.”

“I beg your pardon,” Bel said, her movements growing more agitated. “This isn’t a party. If it’s amusement you seek, you may wish to go elsewhere.”

A hush cloaked the room. The scrapings of brush against flue were the only sounds.

“As for my husband,” Bel continued, “he is not amusing any ladies this morning. He is in Surrey.”

“Oh, but surely there are ladies in Surrey,” the matron said significantly. “Ladies eager to be amused, no less. But from what I read in The Prattler, Sir Toby’s corner of Surrey has a most interesting geography. I understand it quite closely resembles an establishment known as the Hidden Pearl.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m sure you don’t, dear girl.” Lady Violet gave her a cruel smile. “That’s probably why he’s there.”

Bel’s every muscle tensed. Anger heated her blood, but she could not let it boil over. She’d worked so long and so hard to make this demonstration a success, and the lives of children could very well hang in the balance. Even though she was annoyed with Lady Violet for making such crude insinuations, and even more irritated with Toby for the caricatures that spawned them … she would not be a slave to unpredictable passions.

Patience, she admonished herself. Goodness. Charity. Miserable waifs.

“The brushes are fully inserted now.” She addressed the room calmly, rising to her feet and clapping the dust from her hands. “And now, I give a small twist on the handle to expand the bristles, and as I retract the device, the soot will be removed.” She gave Lady Violet an innocent smile. “You may wish to retreat now, my lady. To the back of the room, perhaps. Or further. This may get dirty.”

“Oh, I think I shall remain. I’m enjoying my front-row view immensely. What an enlightening morning this is proving to be.”

“Very well.” Bel knelt again and began retracting the brush with rough yanks, twisting and turning the rod as she did. With each motion, a shower of soot rained down the chimney, settling around her skirts.

“Now, typically this method is not so untidy,” Bel explained as she worked. “Sweeps who use this machinery also have a set of curtains that they arrange before the hearth, so as not to—”

She stopped short as her brush caught on an obstacle. “So as not to soil the—” A rougher tug gained her nothing. She braced one boot on the grate and pulled hard with both hands. No progress.

“I believe it’s stuck, dear,” Lady Violet said helpfully.

“Yes, it’s stuck,” Bel snapped, releasing the rod and scrambling to her feet. Her breathing was quick and shallow. “Just as these young children get stuck in flues with alarming frequency. Imagine, Lady Violet, that you’re the one wedged into that flue two bricks wide. Imagine that you’re the one stuck, unable to move, suffocating in a cloud of soot, frightened beyond belief. Imagine that your cruel master below is jabbing pins into your flesh to convince you to move—

or, if that fails to work, lighting straws on fire and using them to toast the soles of your feet. Imagine, Lady Violet, that you are a miserable, impoverished, friendless child about to die. To be sacrificed on the altar of English tradition simply because a lady of the ton could not be bothered to instruct her housekeeper to embrace modern improvements.” Bel sniffed and pushed a stray wisp of hair from her eyes. “Are you enjoying that image, Lady Violet?”