It Started with a Scandal Read Online Free PDF Page B

return—”
    “If,” someone muttered.
    “I expect the scullery to be so clean, or on the way to being so clean, that we’ll all be happy to eat off the floor there. I’ll share my receipts for soap—”
    “ We use sand and the like to clean.” Dolly crossed her arms across her chest like bandoliers.
    Elise fixed her with a look so quelling that Dolly at last blinked.
    “So you do know how to clean.” Elise clasped her hands together in feigned delight.
    Dolly narrowed her eyes and tipped her head back, peering down at Elise, assessing her.
    “I’ll share my receipts for soap,” Elise repeated precisely, as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “We’ll be using soap from now, as we don’t have to fetch water from a well. But for now, sand will do to clean the kitchen and scullery if we haven’t enough soap. You all look the sort who take pride in a job well done, so I know I won’t have to ask you again.”
    This was patently a lie and quite the risk, but Kitty, for one, clearly fancied this version of herself—she stood a little taller, smiled a little, hiked her chin—and this was what Elise was counting on. All she needed was one malleable link in the chain in order to bend the rest into her idea of order. She knew this from experience with classrooms full of girls.
    “Aye, Mrs. Fountain,” Kitty said. Curtsying again, superfluously.
    “And while Dolly and Kitty are cleaning the scullery, I want the candles trimmed, replaced, and lit in the sconces of the main hallway. This place is as dark as a tomb, and whilst we needn’t be extravagant, it ought to be welcoming to visitors, not to mention all of us. This I leave to you, Mary. James, Ramsey, I’d like you to build fires in the main rooms and in my rooms, and if the hearths need cleaning, do it. There is no reason for any of us to remain in a cold, dark house. I shall review your performance upon my return. I know you won’t disappoint me.”
    Dolly Farmer slowly took her cheroot from her mouth and ground it slowly into a saucer of what looked like Sevres china. Elise imagined that Dolly was picturing Elise’s face.
    “Anything you say, madam,” she purred.
    “ I N THE FUTURE, I do not want to ring more than once, Mrs. Fountain,” Lord Lavay said by way of greeting. He hadn’t even turned to face her, so he must have heard her slippers on the hallway.
    And then he did turn.
    Slowly.
    She wondered if he did that for effect. Perhaps he understood that the common, mundane female of the serving class, such as herself, would need time to prepare herself for his impact, and it was an act of generosity.
    But learning to withstand his presence was going to take every bit of her hard-won fortitude. His impact went right to the base of her spine. The effect was something baser, an unnerving and unwelcome reminder that she was a woman, perhaps above all, and still young.
    The filtered sunlight coming through the window contrived to outline him in gilt and showed her fine lines raying from the corners of his eyes. He either squinted down the barrels of rifles or spyglasses or smiled on occasion, and she was counting on the former. He probably wasn’t quite forty years old, but he was older than thirty, she would wager on it.
    “Mrs. Fountain,” he said abruptly. “Did you not hear me? Were you perhaps dropped on your head as a child?”
    Ah. What a mercy he was so reprehensible.
    “My apologies, Lord Lavay,” she said calmly enough. “My hearing is perfect. I was making the acquaintance of the staff and giving them instructions, and I came as soon as I was able.”
    “They are a motley lot,” he said grimly. “Skulking about. Clearly incompetent. Sometimes the fires are lit in the morning, sometimes they are not. Sometimes I am brought coffee to drink, sometimes I am not. This room . . . the furniture wears a coat of dust, the hearth, it is dirty . . .” He gestured with a sort of exasperated ferocity that made him look particularly French.