Large veins stood out on Lord Moorland's beet-red forehead and a froth of spittle rimmed his mouth. "Miss Pennington!" he roared in a most unseemly display of ill temper. Society prided itself on its ability to adopt a negligent demeanor no matter the situation. An arched brow and a bored yawn elegantly executed behind a gloved hand were adequate responses for every occasion. Only gentry, such as herself, were allowed raised voices and flushed faces and they should show moderation. For her own part, Clementine Pennington was determined to refrain from such crass behavior no matter the circumstances.
She took a step backward fearing Lord Moreland on the verge of an apoplexy and, truthfully, could think of no one more deserving. Lady Agatha's butler, Malcolm, normally in full possession of a stone face stood with down-turned mouth. Gentry did not indulge in such emotional excess. It simply wasn't done. Particularly not when dealing with staff. If anyone were to dismiss Clementine it should be Malcolm. Not that the dear man ever would. Unfortunately, Lord Moorland was so anxious to have the deed done he'd barely waited for the last of his mother's mourners to leave the house before summoning her to the library.
"You poisoned her mind against me!" he ranted, waving his arms. "You fooled her, but not me! I knew you for what you were right from the start. A leech on the unsuspecting. A blight on society. You and your good-for-nothing-father with his hideous musicals!"
His vile insult to her father's memory brought Clementine's chin up and stiffened her spine. She'd have walked out then and there had she not vowed to refrain from deviating in the smallest way from propriety. By the stars, she would leave this house with her dignity intact.
"You needn't pull your high and mighty act on me, missy," Moorland continued, voice shaking with rage. "I'm on to you. You've spent your entire life sucking your bed and board from your betters. No more!"
He sounded as triumphant as if he had just solved some great social injustice instead of sealing the fate of one insignificant female. His voice rose higher still as falsehoods continued to pour from his mouth. She knew there was no point mentioning her letters of recommendation. They would not be forthcoming. She gave an inner sigh. Poor Lady Agatha. She'd known her son was thoroughly disagreeable, but she'd thought him at least honorable. He hadn't a shred of honor. After promising his mother on her deathbed that he would see Clementine suitably settled he was turning her out of the house on the heels of the dear lady's last mourner.
Clementine gazed around the room where she and Lady Agatha had spent many pleasant hours, and her eyes filled with tears. Moorland Hall was the only home she'd known since her twelfth birthday. Lady Agatha had been like a mother to her. And now it was all gone: Her father, Lady Agatha, and these familiar rooms.
"I want you out of this house by nightfall!" Moorland flung out his arm in a dramatic gesture that sent a valuable porcelain flying. The vase struck the newel post and shattered. "Your fault! All your fault!" Spit sprayed and she took a step back to escape it.
He'd not been a frequent visitor although it had not been for want of trying. Lady Agatha had turned avoiding him into a game she played with great enthusiasm. Her small conspiracies had provided the ailing woman with grand entertainment and she'd smothered delighted laughter behind thin fingers each time he stormed out of the house, thwarted in an attempt to inflict her with his company. Clementine had been her willing co-conspirator. It had seemed harmless at the time but, unfortunately, he'd viewed the pranks as a malicious effort on Clementine's part to steal his mother's affections. The sad truth was that his own thoroughly disagreeable nature had done that without any assistance from her.
"Out!" he now shouted with another wild gesture. Luckily this one missed all things of value.
Refusing him the satisfaction of seeing that his actions had distressed her in the slightest, Clementine swept from the room keeping her head high and her back straight. The hem of the black serge dress she wore, the same dress she'd worn to her father's funeral just a year earlier, swept the carpets of Moorland Hall with a graceful whisper as her quick steps carried her to the room she had called her own for almost fifteen years.
* * *
"Dear child, what will you do?" asked Mrs. Benton, the housekeeper, who'd come to help Clementine pack.
Clementine smiled at the sad-faced woman. "I have my fortune. I'll take a room at Mrs. Lidger's boarding house and stay there while I seek employment." She patted the housekeeper's shoulder. "Dear Bennie, do cheer up. You know I'm a strong, capable female. I'll be just fine."
Bennie shook her head in sad disagreement. "You know I was devoted to Lady Agatha. She was the finest of ladies, but she did you no kindness. She made you a lady when you weren't one." She clasped Clementine's hands inside her own work-worn ones and turned them palm up. "Soft as silk they are." She reached up with rough fingers and touched her hair. "Like spun gold it is. Eyes as blue as a summer sky. The face of an angel is what you've got. No, child, she did you no favor. She's left you betwixt and between. You're common born and quality reared." The housekeeper heaved a huge tear-filled sigh. "If only your papa was here to protect you."
Her father had not been dead a year and thinking of him brought a sting of tears to Clementine's eyes. He'd been such a dear man, the best of fathers and the finest of musicians. They had been so happy here under Lady Agatha's generous patronage. The woman had wanted the whole world to hear his music and had treated Clementine like a daughter. But those days were over. Her dear papa and Lady Agatha were both dead and Clementine was left with a handful of broken promises and little blunt in spite of her claim to having a fortune. Her father had done his best and Lady Agatha had promised that she would find her a husband "when the time was right." But the right time had never come. She had been so disinclined to lose Clementine's companionship that she'd dithered and dallied and the years had slipped by unnoticed by both of them.
Clementine folded the last garment into her trunk, a sad smile on her lips. Marriage would have been an enjoyable experience. She was quite fond of children. She sighed knowing that even if she had received a proposal she'd not have been able to accept it. Lady Agatha and her father had required her full attention.
"The man's here for your trunk, Miss Clementine," Bennie's husband said from the doorway. George's plain face was as sorrowful as his wife's. At his words, Bennie flipped her apron up over her face and burst into tears.
"Now none of that." Clementine gave Bennie's plump shoulders a good hug. "If you don't leave off I'll be joining you, and what will Mrs. Lidger think of me if I arrive on her doorstep all tear-stained?"
"You'll come by now and then for tea, won't you?" Bennie sniffled. "You'll not be forgetting us?"
"Of course I won't forget you. How could I? You've been my family. Now, wish me luck. I'm off on a whole new adventure."
Clementine's cheery words elicited lusty sobs that followed her down the hall and to the foot of the stairs where Lord Moorland waited to see her out the door.
* * *
At the rooming house Mrs. Lidger led the way up the stairs, lumbering along on swollen slipper-clad feet. She flung the house rules over her shoulder between panting breaths. "Supper's at seven. Clean linens weekly. No gentlemen guests and no drunkenness."
"Yes, ma'am."
She cast open the door to a small room with a single window on the uppermost floor. "So, it's a position you're after is it?" She looked Clementine up one side and down the other. "Doing what?"
"Honest work."
The woman gave a disdainful snort.
When she left, Clementine walked to the window. It provided an unobstructed view of the roof next door beyond which lay a forest of soot-blackened chimneys bristling from soot-stained roofs. The house stood wall-to-wall with the houses on either side of it on a narrow close off a well-traveled street. She knew if she were to open the window the stench of overflowing gutters would envelope her. None of these old structures boasted such modern conveniences as indoor plumbing.
However, the room itself was neat and clean. A bed stood against one wall with a clothes press opposite. A washing stand with a bowl and pitcher on top housed a chamber pot beneath. She unpacked what little she would need day to day then spent an hour tidying her trunk. Lord Moorland had accosted George on his way out the door to paw through her trunk like a rooting pig. He'd claimed he needed to make sure she'd not buried the family flatware between her petticoats and drawers. Luckily, her so-called fortune was hidden under the trunk's false bottom, every pound honestly come by. The drayman waiting outside had witnessed the search and regarded her askance. He probably thought she'd been dismissed for thievery.
The evening meal consisted of poorly seasoned cabbage soup with a few shreds of ham floating in it and rib-sticking bread. The boarders acknowledged her presence with silence and one or two muffled greetings, far too intent on getting their share of soup and bread to be distracted by a new face. Clementine excused herself the moment she finished eating and returned to her room. When darkness fell she blew out her candle and slipped between the coarse sheets of the single bed. The spirits she'd refused to let flag plummeted, and she allowed herself the luxury of a good cry.
* * *
In the weeks that followed, Clementine came to a full understanding of what Bennie had meant. She'd thought her lack of letters would be the greatest impediment to employment, but they were not. It was her beauty and aura of refinement that most objected to. Even the lady at the placement agency held out little hope she'd find employment.
"You're far too attractive to be trusted at the post of governess, which by its very nature puts you in close contact with all family members," Miss Clawson said, mouth puckered primly. "No wife in her right mind would allow you near her husband."
Seeking lower posts proved as fruitless. Housekeepers and cooks in need of strong backs and tireless hands fell into fits of laughter as they viewed her delicate features and slender form.
The small purse Lady Agatha had given her, and the meager savings her father had left her--her fortune--dwindled at an alarming rate as she paid for her room and board and small necessities. Being a homeless, penniless waif on the streets of
Desperate, she answered a private advertisement in the paper placed by a Mr. Weymouth for a governess.
"I'd work a month for board and room and let you judge my suitability," she told the lady of the house.
Mrs. Weymouth stepped protectively toward her husband. Clementine eyed the florid-faced, middle aged Mr. Weymouth with his mouth full of rotten teeth and barely managed not to burst out laughing.
One telling look from Mrs. Weymouth had him hustling Clementine out the door. Not the proper thing at all. She arrived on the pavement so rapidly that her skirts flapped around her ankles.
The advertisements in the newspaper were soon exhausted and she found herself reduced to relying on the servant's gossip chain. Someone's cook's niece's employer had heard from someone else's lady's maid that a midtown solicitor was interviewing applicants for the position of housekeeper in a gentleman's country home. Applying for the position was presumptions of her for she had no real experience in household management. She'd been Lady Agatha's hostess and personal helper. Bennie had managed the household with utmost efficiency. Clementine had observed, but certainly hadn't participated. But with winter at hand and her funds running low, Clementine decided she would dissemble if need be to secure a post and then pray earnestly for success. She loathed dishonesty, but consoled herself with self-assurances that her desperate situation justified desperate action. Surely, once through the door her own good sense and willingness to work would stand her in good stead. After all, how complex could a home in the country be?
* * *
The solicitor's office was too far from the rooming house for walking, forcing her to invest some of her dwindling funds in a hired hack.
"Watch your step," the carriage driver cautioned as he gave her a hand down when they reached their destination.
She looked up at the front of the fashionably located offices of Mr. Alexander Silverton, Solicitor, and her insides gave a nervous tremble. She tucked a stray curl back under the brim of her modest bonnet and she smoothed her skirt with shaking hands.
Watching her, the driver smiled. "You look fine, miss."
"I do hope so." She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and mounted the steps, wishing her modest bonnet with its narrow brim was more fashionably high in the crown. Her stomach was in knots and her hands cold and clammy. If she failed here she was finished. A small bell tinkled as she pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Tapestry wallpaper provided a tasteful background for a row of Chippendale chairs. A thin young man who seemed in eminent danger of being buried alive in a mountain of papers, inkpots, and quills sat at a desk tucked into an alcove by a bay window. He peered at her over the top of wire-framed spectacles.
"I do hope you have an appointment," he said, ink-stained hand poised in mid flight to a sheet of foolscap.
"I'm afraid I don't."
He gave a gale-force sigh.
"I've come about the position of housekeeper." Her voice quavered slightly and she cleared her throat to steady her composure.
"Your letters, please." He held out an imperious hand.
"I fear I have none."
Dismissal leaped into his eyes.
"I was companion to the late Lady Agatha Moorland," Clementine hastened to explain. "Her son, in a fit of pique, withheld my letters of recommendation even though he promised his mother on her deathbed that he would issue them. I served Lady Agatha with loyal efficiency and she had not a word of criticism to level against me. Why I..."
"You state your case most eloquently."
This interruption, stated in a resonant male voice came from behind her. She spun around to find a distinguished looking gentleman elegantly clad in a suit of dove gray, studying her with eyes of the clearest slate blue she'd ever seen. Her heart gave a startled leap.
He bowed with courtly grace. "Alexander Silverton at your service."
The clerk cleared his throat. "Lord Chatham," he announced as if to further impress on Clementine how inappropriate her presence was.
This man was not just a solicitor, but a peer of the realm. Not only that, but he was one of those mavericks of Society who openly engaged in trade. Of course, being a solicitor was not quite the same as being a haberdasher, but Society clucked their tongues nonetheless over these impetuous young men turning their backs on endless days of self indulgence and idle nothingness.
Never had a man's name better suited his appearance. Though he looked little older than she, his hair was pure silver and cut short in the latest fashion. He was clean shaved, neither beard nor moustache detracting from his extraordinary good looks.
"Miss Clementine Pennington," she somehow managed. "I've come about the position of housekeeper, your lordship"
"Please. Mr. Silverton. My father is his lordship and I pray will continue to be. I find my title more a hindrance than a help in my work," he added, casting a censoring glance at his clerk.
Undaunted, his clerk squared his shoulders and announced. "She has no appointment and no letters of recommendation." His tone of voice indicated that she should now slink out of the office without saying another word.
"Oh, please," Clementine said, determined not to be so easily dispatched. She held her hand out in supplication. "I did explain that deficiency."
"Pennington did you say?"
"Yes," she replied..
He stepped away from the doorway and waved her into his office. "I have a few minutes to spare."
The clerk cleared his throat. "Sir, you have an appointment at nine."
"Keep him occupied for a bit." He motioned Clementine to a chair and closed the door behind them.
