A Rake by Any Other Name by Mia Marlowe Read Free Book Online

Hightower. Truly, sir. I was just going up to my room to fetch—”
    â€œNever mind that now. It’s time for supper. You don’t want to keep Mrs. Culpepper waiting.” The butler started down to the below stairs common room. “And don’t let me catch you loitering on the back staircase again.”
    â€œYes, sir. I mean no, sir. Thank you, sir.” She rabbited around him on the narrow steps, anxious to obey. Her mum had been delirious with joy when Eliza was first given a position at Somerfield Park. Mrs. Dovecote would be devastated if her daughter somehow lost it.
    Eliza skittered into the kitchen.
    â€œThere ye are, girl. Where’ve ye been? Oh, never mind. Once ye start on a story, it takes forever for ye to finish and won’t amount to spit in any case,” Mrs. Culpepper said as she filled a tureen with chicken stew that was mostly potatoes with a chicken tracked through it. “Here. Take this into the commons.”
    Eliza hefted the ornate tureen with a built-in platter beneath it. The piece was fine, with hand-painted curlicues and a bit of gilt here and there. It had been used upstairs, until a clumsy footman chipped one of the porcelain handles.
    The tureen was still in service. The footman was not. Mr. Hightower did not suffer mistakes that reflected badly upon the house.
    The rest of the Somerfield servants had already gathered around the long table in the common room. Mr. Hightower had taken his place at the head, with Mrs. Grahame, the housekeeper, at the foot. Between them, Mr. Cope, who was Lord Somerset’s valet, and Miss Minerva Gorny, lady’s maid to Lady Somerset, took their seats wherever they had a mind to.
    And why shouldn’t they? Eliza thought. They were second only to Mr. Hightower and Mrs. Grahame, respectively, in below stairs society.
    The senior housemaids, Sarah and Drucilla, filed in and collapsed into a couple of empty places along with the rest of the housekeeping staff. Sarah was young and lively, always ready with a smile and a kind word for Eliza, despite the fact that she was only a kitchen maid. Drucilla was a thin, pinched sort of woman with her hair scraped back into a bun so tight Eliza thought it must give her headaches. Her hair was dusted with enough gray to show her to be on the downhill slide of forty. Drucilla was too mindful of other people’s business to have any of her own.
    But Sarah and Drucilla worked well together. Not only did they help clean the great house to within an inch of its life every day, but between the two of them, they contrived to serve as lady’s maids for Lady Ella, Lady Petra, and Lady Ariel as well.
    â€œIt’s a mercy that Lady Ariel is still in the schoolroom,” Sarah often said. “Don’t know as we’d manage elsewise.”
    Lady Ariel’s age, about thirteen as nearly as Eliza could guess, meant that her governess, a dour-looking stick of a woman named Miss Constance Bowthorpe, was responsible for her appearance and deportment most of the time. As a governess, Miss Bowthorpe was neither fish nor fowl. She wasn’t invited to dine with the family unless the numbers of the party required another female. Yet she was technically above all the other help and not comfortable eating in the common room.
    Or especially welcome there, come to that.
    Eliza would take a tray to her room on the second floor after she served the rest of the staff. Miss Bowthorpe’s chamber was one level down from the rest of the servants, but not in the same wing as the family.
    Mr. Hightower led the gathering in a brief prayer of thanks, his sonorous voice ringing a benediction of blessed stillness. Eliza’s life was filled with constant trotting to fetch and carry, and run errands for others. It was restful to stop for even a few moments and let Mr. Hightower’s words roll over her.
    He should have been a preacher, a voice like that , Eliza thought as she began ladling out