Elizabeth's Education (Forbidden Lust) by Maggie Carpenter Read Free Book Online Page B

everyone. She looked around, clearly puzzled. ‘Won’t Miss Elizabeth be joining you, sir?’ she asked.
    ‘No, cook,’ he said, shaking his head, and cook frowned and waited. ‘As a matter of fact, I have instructed Miss Elizabeth to dine with you today, in the kitchen,’ he explained. ‘She’s to eat whatever I cannot finish.’
    Cook raised her eyebrows in astonishment. ‘Oh, I don’t know if Miss Elizabeth will be pleased with that arrangement, sir,’ she opined. ‘Though I’m very happy to have her, it might—’
    He held up his hand with an amiable smile on his face, and she stopped speaking immediately. ‘It’s taken care of, cook. Simply set a place for her. I want you to address her as you would a common girl from the neighbourhood. I simply want to teach her a little humility, that’s all. Will you help?’
    Cook rocked back her happy round face, and laughed out loud. ‘Why sir, I’d be delighted,’ she boomed heartily. ‘A little humility is just what that little madam needs, if you don’t mind my saying so, sir. I’d be happy to do my bit, sir. Very happy indeed. When should I expect her little highness to dine with me?’
    She shook a little as she chuckled at her own slightly derisive quip, and Lord Michael smiled warmly. The woman was a gem.
    ‘I suspect in about forty-five minutes or so,’ he told her.
    ‘Very well, sir,’ she said, winking, ‘and I’ll be out with your pâté in a few ticks, sir.’
    ‘Thank you, cook,’ he replied. ‘Thank you very much indeed.’
    He settled down to the soup she’d served, and found the hot rich broth delicious and comforting. As he looked at the empty place across from him, he had to admit he missed having Elizabeth nearby. Damn, but she was a delightful temptress and no mistake.
    Meanwhile, at the backdoor Elizabeth had just finished cleaning his boots. There was dirt under her fingernails, but she was too generally bedraggled to care. She placed Smithy’s cleaning supplies neatly back in the box, exactly as she had found them, then returned it to the cupboard. It did not occur to her that she was being so diligent because it was the right thing to do, nor did she ponder the thought of further punishment if she left a mess. She was too tired to consider that she never put things away after her, that it had always been someone else’s job to run around in her wake.
    As she placed Lord Michael’s boots against the wall, beneath the hat rack, she actually smiled with pride. They positively shone with lustre, and she congratulated herself on a job very well done.
    She could now, finally, go up to her room and soak away her aches in a steaming hot tub.
    She trudged to the back stairs and went up them as fast as her weary bones would allow. The pain from the switch had eased, and as soon as she made her way into the bedroom she began peeling off her dishevelled and grubby clothes. By the time she was in her bathroom she was already undressed, and she turned on the taps full force. She lovingly eyed the hot, steaming water, willing it to fill the tub quickly. She threw in some scented oil, and before the bath was even half full she gingerly lowered herself in.
    The punished flesh of her bottom protested and she winced slightly, then sighed as she sunk down, and laying her head back, closed her eyes, listening to the comforting sound of the running water. Never before had a bath felt so good. Poor Smithy, she thought; she had gathered only one load of wood and cleaned only one pair of boots, whereas he spent all day every day doing that and more and a million and one other chores around the house and grounds. How on earth did he do it?
    With the tub full she leaned forward and turned off the taps. With the cake of soap she began scrubbing her hands and arms, and then scrubbed her nails. It was quite a job, but she managed to get them clean, then she craned back her neck until her head was submerged, and felt her knotty tresses loosen in the