A Duchess by Midnight (4 page)

“What a sweet
girl she is.” Pausing in the rather tedious task of hanging yet another sheet up to dry, Poppy watched with a warm smile on her face as Clara carried an overflowing watering can across the lawn to the gardener. The watering can was easily two sizes too big for such a small girl to carry, but with determination and sheer force of will she managed to half drag, half carry the cumbersome metal object over to where Mr. Plum was fussing over his collection of Windsor roses.

“Aye,” agreed Agnes as she picked up a sheet and gave it a brisk snap. “And the spitting image of her mother.” Of the two maids, Agnes had been employed at Windmere the longest. She had arrived shortly after Clara’s birth and had had the great privilege of knowing Lady Gwen before her untimely death.

When the baron’s first wife passed Agnes had taken it upon herself to look after little Clara as though the bright, blue-eyed, bubbly girl were one of her own. A hard woman who had lived a hard life, Agnes had already stood over the graves of two of her children and watched as her eldest departed for London with only ten shillings to his name.

She had never heard from him again.

Thus Clara held a very special place in her gruff, cantankerous heart. Which was why she was determined to remain at Windmere until the dear girl was grown and had a family of her own. It was a promise she’d made to Lady Gwen on her deathbed. A promise she was determined to keep… no matter how many obstacles the baron’s new wife threw down in her path.

The woman was a witch, there was no question about it. And Agnes would have happily told her to go to the devil where she belonged if not for Clara.

“Hang this to dry,” she instructed Poppy, handing her the sheet. “Make sure it is straight this time or it will wrinkle and we’ll have to do the entire lot over again.”

Poppy made a face. A pretty girl with red curls and a sunny disposition, she had arrived at the estate only three months ago when the old upstairs scullery maid abruptly found herself with child. Within two days of being hired she had set the kitchen on fire, stained one of the curtains with ink, and misplaced the baron’s favorite cravat. Any other master would have dismissed her on the spot and demanded reimbursement for the damages to boot, but the baron was renowned for his soft heart and thus instead of firing Poppy he’d asked Agnes to take her under wing.

‘Before she lays waste to the entire household,’
he’d said, his brown eyes crinkling with wry amusement.

Agnes, who had little patience for fools and empty-headed ninnies, had reluctantly agreed. To her great surprise she’d actually become a bit fond of Poppy. The girl was as absentminded as they came, but she had a sweet charm about her and she positively adored Clara who, she said, reminded her of her younger sister back home in Groffitshire.

“How many more do we have to do?” Poppy asked as she obediently took the sheet from Agnes and carefully hung it beside the others. They’d been standing out in the hot afternoon sun for nearly two hours and both women were beginning to wilt.

“At least a dozen,” Agnes said grimly.

“A
dozen
?” Poppy’s hazel eyes widened in despair. “But that will take all day!”

“It better not. After this we have silver to polish and chandeliers to dust.”

“Didn’t we do those yesterday?”

“Lady Irene wants them dusted every day.”

“Every
day
? But why?” Poppy exclaimed. “They haven’t any more dust on them than they did yesterday, which is to say none at all. A waste of time if you ask me.”

“Which is why no one asked you,” Agnes said even though she agreed with Poppy whole-heartedly. The number of tasks Lady Irene had given them to complete on a daily basis would have been daunting for a full-fledged staff of sixty. With only seven maids, two footmen, one butler, an old gardener, and a chef who did not speak a word of English, Agnes was at a loss as to how they would continue to meet Lady Irene’s outlandish demands.

“Oh no,” Poppy muttered under her breath as she peeked between two of the sheets.

“What is it?” Agnes demanded, jostling the younger woman aside so she could look as well. When she saw Lady Irene’s daughters marching across the lawn straight towards Clara her mouth thinned into a hard, flat line. “Why can’t those brats leave her alone? She has done nothing to them.”

“Want me to throw a sheet over the youngest one?” Poppy asked. “I could try to make it look like an accident. Or,” she continued, her eyes brightening, “I could let out one of the geese again. Remember how it chased her the last time? I’ve never heard such loud shrieking in my entire life. And the way she flapped her arms! It looked like
she
was a goose.”

While both ideas held great appeal, Agnes slowly shook her head. “No. We can keep an eye on Clara, but we can’t fight her battles for her.” Jaw clenching from the force it took not to run over and give Henrietta and Gabriella the talking-to they so richly deserved, she reached into the wicker basket and pulled out another sheet. “She will just have to learn how to stand up for herself. It is what her mother would have wanted.”

The past three
days had been nothing short of miserable for Clara. Forced to dress in the way Lady Irene saw fit, she’d been suffocating beneath layers of itchy crinoline and silk taffeta. If only she were a boy! It was terribly unfair that boys got to wear trousers and shirts and regular shoes while girls had to weigh themselves down with pantaloons and petticoats and walking slippers so thin that they might as well have been made of paper. Next week Clara had an appointment with the local dressmaker to be fitted for her very first corset.

She was already planning on being gravely ill.

And if dressing like a frilly doll wasn’t torture enough, she’d also been forced to endure all sorts of lessons! None of which she was very keen on learning.

Over the past three days she’d walked with a book on her head, spoken with a pencil wedged between her teeth, and sat on a chair while balancing a full cup of hot tea on the crook of her pinky finger. According to her stepmother these lessons would teach her how to become a proper lady, but in Clara’s opinion they were complete rubbish. What sort of lady would attend a ball with a book on her head and a pencil in her mouth?!

Not the sort Clara wanted to meet, that was for certain.

Feeling as though she were being dragged closer and closer to the edge of a cliff, Clara had all but jumped for joy when she woke this morning to discover Lady Irene was going to spend the afternoon visiting a close friend in the nearby village of Waverly. The very second her stepmother’s carriage clattered down the drive she ran to her room, shed off every stitch of clothing except for a white muslin shift, and donned one of her favorite gardening frocks.

Covered in dirt and grass stains with a hem that was too short and sleeves that were too long, the dress was nothing short of an act of complete and utter defiance. But after spilling hot tea on herself more times than she cared to count Clara was feeling rather defiant. What was Lady Irene going to do if she caught her wearing an old dress? Force her to march about with
two
pencils in her mouth?

Let her try,
she thought with an uncharacteristic surge of spite as she watched Mr. Plum tend to his beloved Windsor roses.
Soon Papa will be home and when he learns of what Lady Irene has been making me do he will send her far, far away and I will never have to obey her ever again.

Never in all her young life had she looked forward to her father’s return with such anticipation. She missed him so much her stomach ached and she’d been finding it difficult to sleep. When the moon was high in the sky and the countryside echoed with the chirps of peepers and the haunting cries of the screech owl that lived in the barn she would still be wide awake, her eyes fixed to the ceiling as she counted down the days until her father came home and set everything right again.

When she heard the unmistakable swish of an approaching skirt Clara glanced up and could not quite manage to stop the grimace that pinched the corners of her mouth together. She had hoped that by spending the afternoon outside she would be able to avoid her stepsisters, but they must have grown bored of the game of whist they’d been playing in the parlor for here they were, robbing her of her privacy yet again.

“What are you wearing?” Nose in the air, Gabriella flounced over to where Clara was standing and stopped with her hands on her hips. Henrietta followed close behind. Both sisters were dressed matching white gowns trimmed in blue silk ribbon. Their dark curls had been artfully arranged beneath straw bonnets with oversized brims that shaded their faces from the sun but did little to disguise the smirking twist of their lips.

“We thought you were one of the maids,” Gabriella continued. “Doesn’t she look like a maid, Henrietta?”

“She does,” Henrietta agreed, her eyes glittering with poorly disguised animosity as her gaze swept Clara from top to bottom and bottom to top. “I thought Mother got rid of all your rags.”

“This is not a rag,” Clara said defensively. “It is a gardening frock.”

“Well it is ugly, whatever it is.” Far more bluntly spoken than her younger sister, Gabriella had never made any effort to hide her dislike of Clara. On the very first day they’d been introduced she had looked at her just as she was looking at her now, as though she were a bit of sludge to be scraped off the bottom of her boot. “And where is your hat? A proper young lady
never
steps outside without a hat.”

Clara’s hand crept to the nape of her neck where her unruly strawberry curls were falling out of their pins and her skin felt warm to the touch. It was true, she’d forgotten to put on a bonnet before coming out to the garden. As well as gloves and proper stockings. But what did it matter to Gabriella if she were properly attired or not? It was not
Gabriella’s
skin in danger of breaking out in freckles.

Leave me alone!
Clara yearned to shout.
I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

But as much as she wanted to shout the words out loud for everyone and their mother to hear, she kept them trapped deep inside of her chest where they formed a tight, hard knot that pressed painfully against her heart. Clara had never hated anyone before. She wasn’t even entirely sure she hated Gabriella, which was why she was hesitant to say something that, once spoken aloud, could not be taken back.

A few more weeks,
she reminded herself. She needed only to mind her tongue for a few more weeks and then her father would return and he would realize how awful his new wife and daughters were and he would send them away at once.

“Pink roses are so very
boring
,” Gabriella declared, her attention abruptly shifting from Clara to Mr. Plum once she realized her stepsister was not going to rise to the bait. “Haven’t you any white ones?”

“White roses?” For the first time Mr. Plum looked up from his pruning. Blinking at the sisters as though he were surprised to see them standing there, he retrieved a brown rag from the pocket of his trousers and dabbed at the sweat trickling down his wrinkled brow. As a young man Mr. Plum had stood tall and proud and had turned the head of many a young lady despite his modest upbringing. But time, as it did all things, had aged him and now his shoulders slumped and his hair was more white than brown and he didn’t hear as well as he used to. He was still a proud man, however. One only needed to look upon his face when he was tending his beloved gardens to see the pride beaming out of every weathered crevice. “Windsor roses don’t come in white.”

“Well then cut these down and plant some that do.”

“Cut – cut them down?” Mr. Plum sputtered. “
Cut them down
?”

“Yes,” Gabriella said smugly. “I want all of these hideous pink roses destroyed and white ones planted in their place.”

“You cannot ask him to do that.” Blotches of red stained Clara’s cheeks as she stepped between Mr. Plum and her stepsisters. It was one thing for them to torment her, but the old gardener had done nothing to them. He did not deserve their malice and neither did the roses. “These roses were a gift from my father to my mother! He had them planted here on their first wedding anniversary.” And had added a new rose bush every year since, even after Lady Gwen had been laid to rest on the hill overlooking her favorite meadow.

“All the more reason to be rid of them,” sneered Gabriella. “Don’t you agree, Henrietta?”

“I do,” said Henrietta.

Clara’s mouth dropped open. She’d known her stepsisters were mean and petty and shallow, but before this moment she’d never thought they were cruel. But this was a cruel thing they were asking. A heartless thing. A thing designed to hurt for the pure pleasure of hurting.

“You cannot cut them,” she said, lifting her chin. “I will not let you.”

Gabriella’s eyes narrowed. “
You
will not let
me
? We will see about that!” And before Clara could stop her she’d plucked up a pair of silver pruning shears and hacked off three branches from the nearest bush.