The Scandals Of An Innocent

the tray down on the nightstand and knelt to light the fire in the grate.

Alice watched, remembering the long, cold winter days when she had risen in the dark to start her household duties, breaking the ice on the water in the kitchen before she could heat it, aching as she carried her housemaid’s box from floor to floor, sweeping the grates, lighting the fires, running back and forth with endless tasks until she was numb with cold and exhaustion. She knew that her mother considered her hopelessly kind to the servants-to Marigold and to Della the underhousemaid and to Cook and to Jim the footman and Jed the coachman-but Alice knew she would never forget how harsh was a servant’s lot and she did all she could to soften it. They were warm and well fed, the best-paid servants in the Yorkshire Dales, granted days off from their work to visit their families, a doctor brought in for them if they were sick, their workload as light as Alice could make it.

“A lack of occupation is both a virtue and a necessity for a gentlewoman,” Mrs. Lister had told Alice importantly, when Alice had insisted on showing an interest in the work of the kitchen and the stillroom. “Our idleness is a reflection of our wealth now.” Alice, who hated to be idle, had not contradicted her mother but had then gone directly to the kitchens and helped Cook pickle some pears.

“I suppose that Mama will not stir from her room, as she knows it is snowing,” she said now, as Marigold stood up, dusting her hands, and the fire leaped into life.

Marigold smiled. “Mrs. Lister has already taken her morning tea, has read the leaves and is now settling down with Mrs. Porter’s novel The Hungarian Brothers. They are most dashing, so she tells me.”

Alice sighed, not over her mother’s choice of reading matter, but because she knew that all her plans for the day would now be canceled. Since becoming a lady of leisure, Mrs. Lister considered herself too delicate to go out in the cold winter air, a ridiculous affectation, Alice thought, for a woman who was as tough as Yorkshire grit. Still, she supposed that her mother had earned the right to be a little lazy if she chose. It was merely a shame that her own plans had to suffer as a result, for now she would not be able to go out to the shops or the spa and gain a little fresh air and company, since her chaperone was supposedly indisposed.

Looking at the swirling snowflakes that were sweeping past the window on a stiff breeze, she thought it unlikely that there would be much company in the village, anyway. Miles Vickery, for instance, would be unlikely to come over the hills from Drum in such inclement weather, especially as it was the second day of the sale of Drum Castle and its contents. She knew that Lowell was hoping to purchase some of the farm machinery and would no doubt take pleasure in the financial ruin of a man he so richly detested.

Alice put her teacup down slowly as she thought about Miles. By her calculations it was all of a minute since she had last thought about him. Their kiss was the last thing she had thought about before she had fallen asleep the previous night. He had stalked her dreams. She had woken that morning soft and warm and entangled in her blankets as though in a lover’s embrace, and Miles was the first thing she had thought about. She seemed utterly powerless to think of anything else.

After her agreement to their formal betrothal she had tried to be sensible and keep Miles at arm’s length. It had not been difficult. All she had had to do was remind herself of his ruthless coercion, and she had felt angry and used and belittled. But then she had accompanied Lizzie and her mother to Drum Castle for the sale. She had seen the full extent of Miles’s penury, she had witnessed the humiliation he was facing, she had met his younger brother and had seen Lady Vickery’s and Celia’s outward stoicism and glimpsed their inward despair. She had not expected to like Miles’s family, and it had somehow made things much harder for her that she did. Celia had told her about the loss of the Vickery estates and, when her mother’s back was turned, she had whispered how the late Bishop Vickery had been a terrible spendthrift who had burdened Miles with appalling debt. Alice had understood then why Miles had needed to marry an heiress and why he had pursued her with such single-minded intent. It did not excuse his blackmail of her. It could not, but she was beginning to understand Miles’s cold outward shell and the reason she felt this strange affinity with him. Like her, Miles had learned early on that life was not fair. She had worked for a living and had struggled and toiled simply to survive. Miles had been burdened with a responsibility that was not his own.

They were more alike than she had realized.

It was instinct and an awareness of that affinity between them that had led her to offer Miles her sympathy and comfort, seeing in the grim and unhappy man before her someone so different from the urbane and confident Miles Vickery that she thought she knew. She had expected him to reject her. Cynical, sardonic Miles would have no time for her words of consolation, she was sure. And he had rejected her words and had sought comfort from her body instead.

A ripple of sensual awareness spread through Alice’s body at the thought of Miles’s kiss, turning her insides molten hot. Had Lizzie not interrupted them he would surely have seduced her on the desk and she would have been swept away by her desire for him, dead to any sense of propriety. This heated, feverish need that there was between them was dangerous because Miles was so experienced and she so ill-equipped to resist him. In truth she did not even want to resist the pleasure his touch gave her. Thinking of it now made the goose bumps rise along her skin and her whole body tremble.

I am no lady, Alice thought wryly, reflecting on the money and the time and the effort spent on expensive elocution tutors and etiquette lessons and dancing masters. It takes more than town bronze to make a lady. I suffer from what the Duchess of Cole would no doubt refer to as immodest impulses.

“Miss?” Marigold said, and Alice realized that the maid had asked her a question and it had gone straight over her head.

“I beg your pardon, Marigold,” she said.

“I wondered if you wished for the promenade dress to be laid out,” Marigold said. “Will you be going out with your handsome lord, miss?”

“No, I don’t think I shall,” Alice said, surprised by a catch of pain in her chest at the thought that Miles was only her handsome lord because of her fortune. “I doubt very much that Lord Vickery will be calling today,” she said. “I shall wear my old blue lavender and help Cook bottle some of the plums or make a cake.”

Sighing, she pulled the faded gown from the wardrobe and dressed slowly. She knew that Miles was an experienced rake and she would be the greatest fool in the world to imagine that there was anything more than lust and money between them. For a moment yesterday, at Drum Castle, she had thought there had been something more profound, something deep and sweet and emotional. She had hoped so, her foolish heart as susceptible as ever. Had there been any true emotion, then her feelings of wicked desire for Miles would have been no sin, no matter how unladylike they were. But without love and respect, they could count for nothing, and where there was blackmail and coercion there could be no love and respect…With another sigh Alice headed downstairs to the comfort of her cooking.

It was some two hours later that Alice emerged from the kitchens to answer the front doorbell. Jim the footman was fetching some hot water for Lydia, who had seemed more animated in the last week and was even talking of going for a walk by the river. Marigold was upstairs taking Mrs. Lister some hot buttered tea cakes, so there was no one else to do the servants’ work. Alice opened the door and Miles Vickery stepped over the threshold, shaking the snow from his hat. There were flakes of it dusting the broad shoulders of his caped driving coat, and his boots were soaked.

“Thank you,” he said. “It is an inclement day-” Then, as he recognized her, his tone changed. “Miss Lister! I did not expect-” He stopped. Alice knew exactly what he meant. She had heard it so many times before, most recently at one of the Fortune’s Folly assemblies when she had overheard Mrs. Minchin confiding in the Duchess of Cole, “And my dear Duchess, do you know, she actually opened the door of the house herself! So dreadfully inappropriate! But then, once a servant, always a servant, I say…”

“I am perfectly capable of opening the front door for visitors,” Alice said, feeling self-conscious. “It is simple- one turns the handle and pulls. Perhaps you could try it for yourself one day, my lord.”

She waited for Miles to make some stuffy remark about how that would not be suitable, but he just laughed. “Do you know-I might try that. If you promise to be my mentor, of course, Miss Lister.” His gaze swept over her appraisingly, from the hair escaping her hastily contrived chignon to the purple plum stains on her fingers. It felt like a physical touch. Alice started to feel very hot. “I called to ask if you would care to go driving on Fortune’s Row with me, Miss Lister,” Miles said, “but I see that you were not expecting visitors. Not that you do not look charming…”

“I did not expect to see you this morning,” Alice said, acutely aware that her ancient lavender gown and apron