Page 2 of Disciplined by the Duke
He smirked. “Leaving so soon? You’re always welcome to join in my afternoon delight.”
Swallowing her gorge, she kept her gaze above Westmore’s neck. “I think not. I’d best prepare for my task.” The earl had yet to demand her participation in his lewd behavior as a condition for Amanda’s release. If he did she would agree. It would hollow her out inside, but she’d do anything for her sister.
“As you wish,” he said. Liz released a deep breath. The earl slid his eyes shut as rude slurping noises filled the air. The footman shifted behind Liz.
“Get out of here,” Westmore said, “and bring me my letter.”
“And then you will file the writ of error with your judge? Have Amanda released?”
He opened his eyes to narrow slits. They glittered maliciously. “The very next day.”
* * *
She bumped along in the back of a horse cart in Leicestershire. The earl’s “contact” was a silent, surly man dressed in coarse garb and smelling of horses. He’d snatched the earl’s missive in a mud-caked hand, and stuck it down the front of his wrinkled trousers.
Liz was impressed he had the literacy to read it.
One mystery was solved, however. Liz had wondered why, if the earl already had a man working for him inside the duke’s employ, he had need of her services. But there was no way a groom would have access to any of the ducal estate’s rooms. A chambermaid would stand a much better chance.
The cart threaded its way across rolling green hills dotted with oak trees and crossed by low stone fences. Over a far ridge, a tall figure rode an impressive black horse. Even from this distance, she could tell by the fine cut of the riding costume that he was a man of quality.
“Mr. Pike,” she said. His name was one of the few bits of information her driver had imparted to her while tossing her trunk into the back of the cart. “Is that the duke?” She pointed in the rider’s direction and saw the horse clear a high fence. The driver grunted and spat over the side of his bench seat. She took that as an affirmative.
The duke rode out of sight below the crest of a hill, and Liz sighed. She used to be a decent horsewoman. She would wear her jockey bonnet at a rakish angle, and lead the boys of the neighborhood around in a merry chase. She’d been out on her horse more than she’d been inside. Any excuse to be out of the house. And Amanda had suffered in her absence.
Liz turned resolutely forward. She was helping her sister now.
Over the next hill, a massive wall of juniper trees jutted from the earth. They stood at least thirty feet tall and were planted so thickly together as to fuse into one large barricade. Their lane widened into a driveway and disappeared around a curve through a gap in the middle of the wall of junipers.
They rattled around the bend, and Liz sucked in a quick breath, her stomach plummeting. Rising in front of her was the grandest building she’d ever seen, larger even than Westminster Hall. The creamy stone bricks of its construction, the unfailing symmetry, whispered of unparalleled elegance. The central structure stood four stories high. It was flanked by two wings that jutted back at right angles.
The driveway broke into two lanes, looping a circle around a large pond inhabited by swans and water lilies and a statue of a Greco-Roman female. Water poured from a stone bucket she held at her hip. At the far end of the circular drive, two staircases linked together in the shape of a horseshoe rose to wide front doors.
Mr. Pike turned the cart off the driveway, and circled around to a servants’ entrance in one of the wings. He dropped her small trunk on the dirt and knocked on the wooden door. It was opened by a plump middle-aged woman with flaming red hair starting to streak with silver. “Mr. Pike! How are you this day?”
He spat to the side and jerked his head at Liz. “This here is the new chambermaid.” Turning on his heel, he was back in the cart in no time, putting leather to the horse’s flank, driving away.
The woman sighed. “Well, come in, dearie. I’ll get one of the footmen to carry up your trunk. You must be tired and hungry after your journey.” She hustled Liz into a kitchen three times as large as the apartment she rented in London, warmed by three fires and five stoves. “Take a seat, and I’ll round up a bite for you.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Oh, no ‘ma’ams’ down here. I’m Mrs. Johnson, the head cook, but you can call me Peggy. I was only married to Mr. Johnson for six months before he came down with smallpox, and sometimes it feels like I was never married a’tall. Some of the other servants like to put on airs and insist that you call them by their family names. Think they’re something special because they work for a duke, they do. But down here in the kitchens we don’t put up with those sorts. We know every man likes a bit of jam on his toast, from the serving lads to the king. There’s no call to be snooty.”
While Peggy spoke, she laid out a selection of scones, the equalizing jam, a round cake dripping with icing, and a plate of sliced ham. Two cups of tea joined the buffet on the table and Peggy sat down, out of breath.
Liz waited to introduce herself, wary of interrupting the tumble of words, but the cook only smiled.
“And I’m Elizabeth. Miss Elizabeth Smith.” Living in reduced circumstances, she had grown used to the more immediate familiarity among the lower classes. It wasn’t something Liz approved of, but in this circumstance it would be easier to respond to someone calling her by her true Christian name, rather than her false surname.
Peggy stirred a heaping spoonful of sugar into her tea. “And you’re a cousin to our Mr. Pike, are you?”
“Second cousin,” she said quickly. “Twice removed.”
“I don’t quite know how that works, dearie.” Placing a slice of iced cake on the plate in front of her, Peggy dug in with gusto.
It was always a good recommendation when the cook enjoyed her own work, but Liz was too nervous to try anything. Besides, she wasn’t in London to bring Amanda any decent food to eat in Newgate. It didn’t feel right to eat richly while her sister was surviving on gruel.
Digging her nails into her palms, she willed away the tears.
