B006O3T9DG EBOK by Linda Berdoll Read Free Book Online

quite expeditiously that Mrs. Darcy had taken leave the evening before and not returned. Undoubtedly the Darcys had not tarried in town but rather had made haste for Derbyshire.
    As if a sign fell from above, she saw that her first obligation was to take care of that which was closest at hand. Nell was but a half-day’s walk. If luck favoured her, she could catch a ride there on the back of a waggon.
    She took just a minute to look in on baby Susanna. She was a sweet child—favoured her father no doubt. Being nursemaid to her had been a joy. Had it not been for a rancorous employer like Mrs. Kneebone, she might have been tempted to stay. Mouthing a silent goodbye to the child, she attempted a covert leave. Sheer accident also saw her meet Mrs. Kneebone on the staircase. Lydia’s bowels had been nagging her else she would never have arisen at such an early hour. (Given that the servicing of chamber pots was a good part of a maid’s duties, the intricacies of their employer’s innards were quite obvious.)
    “A-ha!” Lydia cried. “Where have you been?”
    Sally looked at her with the blankness singular to a servant hiding compleat contempt. Receiving only silence, Lydia snorted and announced that Sally’s absence that night would be deducted from her wages.
    “I get no wages, ma’am,” Sally dully reminded her.
    Sally had accepted the position for its propinquity to the Darcy family, certainly not for remuneration. Lydia was not only ill-tempered to those she saw as beneath her, she was notoriously tight-fisted. She lay out no more than room and board to a nursemaid. Major Kneebone objected to such parsimony. His protestations were ineffectual. Lydia scoffed at his presumed benevolence.
    “Throw them a few old dresses every year and they shall be quite happy to have them.”
    It was a sign of the shuddering economic times in London that a line formed to hire on for such meagre compensation.
    Sally was relieved to see that Lydia was more concerned that Sally was gone rather than wither she went. Sally was undecided whether to tell the part she played in saving Lydia from Major Wickham’s clutches. She decided to keep Mr. Darcy’s confidences. Lydia was indiscrete. Moreover, Lydia was not the sort who cared to be saddled with gratitude. Although Lydia had been troubled, Sally believed it was unlikely that the affair had altered her character appreciably—certainly not enough to include gratitude.
    As she had her employer’s attention, Sally gave her notice.
    “I’ll not be back,” she said, clomping down the stairs.
    Lydia was dumb-founded (an unusual state of affairs for her, for certain).
    “Well, why not?” Lydia finally asked.
    Leaving her gaping, Sally was off. She had to find her grandmother before the scythe of poverty saw her carted off to Potter’s Field.
 
    Chapter 10
    Old News
 
    Elizabeth Darcy had observed Miss Clisson on three separate occasions. Each of these encounters, while singular, were similarly disconcerting and Elizabeth had not yet taken a full and uncompromised measure of her countenance.
    It was the first year of their marriage and she and Darcy had walked arm in arm along Regent Street when they chanced upon Miss Clisson. Elizabeth had caught no more than a glimpse of her patrician profile; however it remained quite clear in her recollection. The subtleties of that small exchange held dual offices. Firstly, that her husband had once known the lady. (Somewhere within her heart she realised that acquaintance had been of an intimate nature.) The second was that in exposing the long-passed connection, her husband told her that the woman in question was no threat to her.
    As she stood for her seamstress, Elizabeth observed Cressida, Darcy’s aged wolfhound sneaking into the room. Generally the dog was consigned to the downstairs now that she was too arthritic to take the stairs. Cressida turned in several circles until she found just the position to lie down. Elizabeth looked upon