requires.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Avery stood still as the duke yawned.
“You may take yourself off, Russell, and begin preparations for our journey. I’ll ring if I have need of you.”
The duke smiled at him, almost a gentle, fatherly expression, and waved in dismissal. Avery left the room with a mixture of relief and foreboding. The next tourney was set. He must fight once more.
The dressing room carpet was turned up at the corners, and Leah was nowhere to be seen. Filling his chest with air, he tipped his head back and stared at the beamed ceiling. He should not be disappointed at her absence. He should not think of her at all. But he was, and he did, and he could not resist searching the nearby corridor for her.
The doorknob squeaked softly as he twisted it.
“Miss Ramsey?” His whisper echoed down the long hall.
There was no answer.
With his rationality restored, Avery turned and marched down the main stairs toward the butler’s pantry. Mrs. Harper and Smythe must be informed of His Grace’s journey and of the dowager’s rout. The Duke of Granville’s ancient mother did not entertain often, but when she chose to do so, it was a highlight of the ton. Most people lived in fear of the dowager, and rightly so. But they also desperately sought her good opinion. If she was entertaining, there would be such a crush that the servants of two households would be a necessity, not a luxury.
The timing, however, was less than ideal. If Miss Ramsey were to commit an error in service at the dowager’s home, more than her own position would be at stake.
Avery’s blood chilled as he rounded the corridor and knocked on the door to the butler’s pantry. The dowager had been known to have unsatisfactory servants tossed into prison for the merest offense. There was not much time for Miss Ramsey to learn to serve properly.
“Enter,” Smythe called.
Avery made a vow as he entered the small room. He must do his best to prepare her for the morrow. Whether he thought her mad or merely a dreamer, she could not last in Newgate.
She’d not go on his watch.
The bucket of ashes was freaking heavy. Leah thunked it down on the top step, breathing heavily as she eyed the long back stairway to the servants’ hall downstairs.
The list of chores swirled in her head, weighing her down, and she gripped the banister to stop herself from tipping forward.
The last thing she needed was a tumble downstairs. How did anyone remember this ridiculous list of stuff to do? No wonder all these servants were so pissy. Their brains were overworked as well as their bodies.
Leaning sideways to ease the crick in her back, Leah let her eyes flutter closed. If only she’d had a couple of hours more sleep, then maybe she’d be sharp enough to handle the enormity of this job.
A heavy metallic clang ripped her eyes open, and she watched dumbfounded as the formerly full bucket bounced down the stairs, scattering ash and dust in all directions.
Whirling, she caught a glimpse of a too-large mobcap and dark skirts disappearing into a nearby bedroom.
With Henrietta’s name poised in an angry roar on her lips, Leah charged toward the door after her.
“Ramsey! Whatever have you done, you clumsy girl?” Mrs. Harper’s voice stopped Leah short. Wincing, she turned and rubbed suddenly sweaty palms down her skirt. The housekeeper glared up at her from the bottom of the stairs.
“Mrs. Harper, I’m so sorry about that. I’d set it down for a second, and someone ran by and tipped it over,” Leah explained lamely. “I didn’t—”
“Blaming your faults on others will not be tolerated in this household. Sweep up these stairs at once.” With a disdainful sniff, Mrs. Harper disappeared into the kitchens.
Longingly eyeing the door Henrietta had disappeared into, Leah trudged down the ashy stairs. Her morning had started out so promising, with that delicious ducal smile. How had it plummeted into drudgery so damn fast?
Watching her heroes in movies was proving to be much easier than trying to win one in real life.
Grabbing a broom from the kitchen cupboard, Leah returned and started sweeping up Henrietta’s mess. The repetitive motions gave her more than enough time to think about home.
Pawpaw had been so insistent that she find her guy and get married. What was his game? Rounding up a largish pile of ash, she bit her lip and recounted all the doctor visits he’d had in the past year. There weren’t many, certainly not enough to cause her to be concerned.
So why was he so adamant that she not be alone? What did he know that Leah didn’t?
With the ashes returned to the bucket, and Leah sweaty, tired, and confused, she dumped them into the bin and headed back upstairs to finish the duke’s dressing room. She’d have plenty of time to try to analyze Pawpaw when she got back. And if things kept going as well as they had been, she might just give up and dive through the mirror tomorrow. God, that made her sound like a damn weenie. She stiffened her spine. She’d never met a challenge she intended to back down from, and this wouldn’t be the one to take her down.
“Ramsey?”
Damn it, she was really getting fucking tired of that Q-tip’s haughty way of saying her name. Leah stopped on the third stair and turned. “Yes, Mrs. Harper?”
“The dowager duchess is hosting a rout tomorrow evening. You will help serve.” The old bat didn’t look happy about it, but she delivered the order with aplomb anyway.
Leah nodded politely. “Yes, ma’am.”
A thread of interest wound through Leah as she continued mounting the stairs. Serve at a real duchess’s party? See the glittering lords and ladies of the
When the realization slammed through her, she missed a step. Clutching at the banister to prevent a fall, she gasped.
The dowager. The duke’s mother. Holy crap, the woman must have danced with Methuselah. How was she still alive?
Leah righted herself and rounded the landing. Maybe she’d been wrong about the duke’s age. If his mother was alive, then he had to be fairly young, right? Maybe he had one of those aging diseases that made you look a lot older than you were.
She entered the dressing room and started sweeping. She had to be careful, but this could be a very good opportunity to impress the duke and learn more about him. This could work.
Maybe her fairy tale would have a happy ending after all.
Breakfast was a long and tiring three hours later.
Cook set a bowl in front of Leah without a word. Apparently breakfast was lukewarm oatmeal-like gruel. Leah poked at the gelatinous mass with her spoon. It jiggled alarmingly, reminding Leah of that old B horror movie about the blob.
“Oh boy,” she said beneath her breath. Clearly she hadn’t gotten enough sleep.
“Ramsey, is the food not to your liking?” The housekeeper’s brows had climbed to her hairline. The other
