An Ideal Duchess (18 page)

             
“Alright, alright,” Doris rolled over, her red hair hanging in her face like a fiery sheet. “Can’t let you miss your precious duchess.”

             
“She isn’t my duchess,” She blushed furiously. “It’s only that we’ve been waiting for His Grace to marry for ever so long, ever since…”

             
Maggie’s face crumpled over the memory of her family’s sorrow when the other duke died in his mysterious accident. The Wilcoxes had a long tenancy under the shadow of the Dukes of Malvern; they liked to think they was up at Bledington with the Family, rejoicing at their triumphs, weeping with their mourning. Because of this, Maggie was more than eager when her mum finally allowed her to enter service at Bledington on her twelfth birthday, and she proudly took her place as the second sixth housemaid, ready to serve the Family and to make her own family proud.

             
“That’s enough of that, you silly old thing,” Doris rubbed Maggie’s head affectionately. “Hand me my things while I bathe.”

             
Maggie scampered over to the chest they all shared and dug into for Doris’s clothing. She bounced on her toes in impatience as Doris washed herself and then got into her uniform, pausing in front of the little hand-sized looking glass they’d managed to wheedle from Mademoiselle Moreau, the old duchess’s lady’s maid (and conceal from the housekeeper, Mrs. Finch), to tame her hair into a bun. Maggie tied her bonnet over her brown, stick-straight hair and waited for Doris to do the same before following her from their attic room.

             
The demarcation between the servants’ quarters and the rest of the house was stark in contrast, and Maggie always held her breath before crossing through the green baize door, wanting to take her first inhale of Bledington air every morning in the opulent, richly decorated living quarters of the Family. She looked over the minstrel’s gallery to the Great Hall, whose wainscoted walls were covered with large portraits, shields and other items telling of the brave and fearless history of the Townsend family, who earned their great title of duke during the Seven Years War. She started when Doris thrust her tools for cleaning the grates and setting the fires into her hands, and forced herself from her woolgathering to follow Doris’s determined march down the hall and towards the Family’s bedrooms.

             
To her surprise, instead of walking into the old duchess’s room and leaving Maggie to the bedroom opposite (inhabited by the odd Sir Cecil Townsend), Doris gestured for Maggie to enter.

             
“You’ve gotten the hang of it now, Mags,” Doris quietly turned the knob and pushed the door partially open. “Go on then.”

             
“I couldn’t, could I? The duchess?” She gazed at the sliver of the shadowed room visible through the door in trepidation.

             
“You could. Now you’d better get on in before Mademoiselle Moreau wakes. She won’t like you dawdling in the duchess’s room.”

             
Maggie grimaced at that thought and hurried into the bedroom, clutching her instruments of cleaning. The old duchess slept in a large, four-poster bed with its heavy, velvet curtains drawn tightly closed. She hurried past this, darting a nervous look at the ominous silence of the bed, and sank to her knees in front of the cold fireplace.

             
She reached into her metal housemaid’s box for the sheet of sacking and unfolded it in front of the grate, making sure it covered every part of the carpet in front of the fireplace. Next she drew on her pair of elbow-length canvas gloves, placed another, much larger apron over her uniform, and then picked up her blacklead and polishing brush and set to work cleaning the grate.

             
It was nasty work, cleaning a grate was, and before she had completed her task, she was covered in soot and blacklead, but she had to continue, sweeping up the ashes and cinders with brisk strokes of her double brush and dustpan before finally, finally laying the fire. Maggie replaced all of her tools into the housemaid’s box and sat back on her feet, taking a moment’s pleasure in her accomplishment. Her mum and dad would be proud. The fire was warm and inviting, the kindling happily crackling and popping, and Maggie could not resist holding her hands to its flames, sighing deeply with pleasure as it warmed her bones.

             
“Well, gel, I assumed that fire was laid for me,”

             
Maggie gasped with fright as she looked over her shoulder to see the old duchess sitting up in her bed, holding her curtains opened. She scrambled to her feet and bobbed a deep curtsey.

             
“My apologies, Your Grace!” She bobbed another curtsey, this time so deep, she nearly toppled over onto her nose.

             
“Up, up, child, I’m not the King.”

             
“Yes, Your Grace,” She shot up straight, shoulders back, eyes averted from the duchess’s face.

             
“You’re new to Bledington, I believe. What is your name?”

             
“Maggie—Margaret Wilcox, Your Grace. My mum calls me Maggie.”

             
“And your mother, I’m sure, will grant those of us at Bledington grace to call you Maggie as well.”

             
“Yes, Your Grace, she’d be ever so flattered, Your Grace.”

             
“Look at me when you’re speaking to me, Maggie. I’m not accustomed to servants staring off into the distance.”

             
“Yes, Your Grace. But my mum says I’m not to look at the Family. I’m to turn into a corner and allow you to pretend I’m not there if ever we meet.”

             
“Good gracious, child! Wherever did she obtain that notion?”

             
“It were—was—her aunt, Your Grace. My mum’s aunt was housemaid at Welbeck Abbey, and His Grace made all of his servants do just that.”

             
“Portland always was a mad old fool,”

             
Maggie’s eyes snapped to the old duchess at that in shock. In the brightening light of the sun, which lit the bedroom in shades of blues and pinks, she could see the old duchess clearly. Her dad had said the duchess had been beautiful enough to make him stop and stare when she was younger, and Maggie could still see bits of that beauty in the curve of the duchess’s high cheekbones, her noble brow, and the delicately molded mouth. The duchess also retained her crown and glory, failing to cover her silvery tresses in a sleeping cap, and allowing it to hang in two thick youthful braids down her back.

             
“That’s better my gel, we don’t hold with such nonsense at Bledington.” The old duchess sat back on her pillows, and waved a hand in dismissal. “Carry on with your duties.”

             
“Yes, Your Grace.” Maggie bobbed another deep curtsey and then bent to retrieve her housemaid’s box before fleeing the bedroom.

             
She spied Doris down the hall, just coming out of one of the bedrooms.

             
“What took you so long?” Doris hissed. “It’s nearly six o’clock and we haven’t even laid the fires downstairs.”

             
“Sorry Doris. The old duchess, she woke when I was laying her fire.”

             
“More likely she caught you woolgathering!” Doris’s hand shot out before Maggie could react.

             
She rubbed her ears where Doris boxed them, her eyes watering from the pain.

             
“I swear, Maggie, you carry on with your head in the clouds, and you’ll trip and land flat on your nose. Now come along before the rest of the household wakes and we miss our breakfast.”

*          *          *

              As the last of the upstairs household staff, Maggie was placed in the second row, forced to stand on her toes to peer between the shoulders of the second housemaids Rose and Ginny. She wore her best black afternoon gown and crisp white apron as she waited for the arrival of the duke and his new wife. Bledington Park was in the heart of the Cotswold, nestled in a valley of rolling green and a medieval deer park and the estate spread for acres and acres, encompassing the farms of freeholds and tenants, and the village of Bledington, which lay at the base of the western portion of the land. Mr. Fowler had made certain the entire household staff stood in two neat rows flanking the front door of the Eastern Façade, and the Family stood silently opposite in their own neat formation, their eyes turned just as intently towards the long stretch of gravel connecting Bledington to the village, and beyond that, the railway depot built especially for guests.

             
There was a low rumble down that road and Maggie bounced on her toes to see a bunch of shapes, which, as they drew nearer, separated into a large group of men pulling an open carriage. The rumble grew louder and Maggie identified the sound of loud, hoarse, joyful singing, but her attention snapped instantly to the occupants of the carriage, a man in greatcoat and low hat and a woman swaddled in furs and the most enviable hat ever. She felt Doris’s elbow nudging her side, but ignored it, not wanting to miss her first glimpse of the new duchess. When Doris nudged her again, she caught sight of her dad helping pull the carriage, and he caught her eye and winked, grinning broadly as he and his mates from the village sang “Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor” at the top of their lungs.

             
The villagers and farmers brought the carriage to a halt at the base of the terrace, but to her dismay, as she strained to the very tips of her toes, she could only glimpse the duke between Rose and Ginny’s shoulders as the men assisted His Grace from the carriage. He appeared stern and impassive for someone so young, his strong, tanned face a near double of the dowager duchess’s underneath the brim of his black Homburg. Mr. Fowler stepped forward and bowed, and the duke disappeared between the housemaid’s shoulders, reappearing in her line of vision with his hand on someone’s arm.

             
The new duchess!

             
Maggie wished she could switch places with Doris, who at sixteen was much taller, and was placed behind shorter maids. All she could see was a slender arm clad in cherry colored wool and the jaunty plume on her hat. Then bodies obstructing her vision sank from her sight, allowing Maggie a full glance at the new duchess. She gasped in delight, drinking in every part of her new mistress, from the curling blonde hair tucked beneath her black dotted veil, to the spiky silver and black fur around her throat, the form-fitting cherry colored coat, to the pointed toes of her black boots, which peeped from beneath the hem of her dark traveling skirt.

             
When the duchess stared directly into her eyes, she felt as though she might faint.

             
Then she felt like fainting for another reason when Mr. Fowler glared balefully at her. She had been given a full view of the new duchess because all of the servants had sunk into curtseys and bows. Maggie crimsoned in humiliation and hastily sank into a curtsey, wishing she could die. She snuck a glance up when someone laughed, not a laugh of mockery, but in kind amusement, and saw the new duchess clap her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide with mortification as everyone turned to stare at her. When she caught Maggie peeping at her, she smiled, shrugging a little in shared feeling. Maggie smiled back, a feeling of warmth and pleasure, like the fire in the old duchess’s room, coursing over her, and she worshipped her new mistress immediately.

             
The family and friends who traipsed through Bledington Park to inspect her—for that is what those endless rounds of teas and visits were—as well as the servants, remained a dizzying kaleidoscope of names and faces. Amanda’s neck and face ached from all the nodding and smiling she retreated behind as her new relatives discussed people she did not know, places she had not visited, and events she had never heard of in her life.

             
When she did venture to speak, she was frequently met with winces (her allegedly abominable American accent) or blank stares, and so conceded temporary defeat by returning to her mechanical nods and smiles. She felt rather like a marionette or dancing monkey after a week of this, and looked forward to the culmination of her first official days as Duchess of Malvern: a dinner party.

             
She shivered in her combinations as she waited for Mademoiselle Moreau, the Dowager Duchess’s lady’s maid, to finish dressing her mother-in-law, and moved to stand beside the fireplace. The heat emanating from behind the fire screen was sufficient only when she placed her chilled body parts directly in front of the screen, and she spent the next twenty minutes rotating in front of the fire, aggravated by the notion that she would never warm up in this chilly bedroom. The door connecting her bedroom with Bron’s bedroom was tightly shut, and only the knowledge that his valet was dressing him stayed her desire to enter his room and warm up in his toasty bedroom. She supposed the Dowager Duchess preferred sleeping in temperatures below human capacity, and reminded herself to speak with Bron about redecorating and fitting the Duchess’s bedroom to her liking.