Not Quite Darcy by Terri Meeker Read Free Book Online Page A

hadn’t expected Bessie. Her manners, her modes of speech, the way she approached the world—it was absolutely alien to him. The encounter had been more than disquieting. It had rattled something loose at his very foundation.
    At four o’clock in the morning, still completely awake, he was pulled from his bed by the sounds of his mother’s coughing. It was just as well. He dressed quickly, not bothering with a shave, and slipped into her room.
    She lay curled on one side, pale even against the white sheets. Her fragile body shook with each cough, and William placed a reassuring hand on her back.
    â€œHere Mother, let’s sit you up.” He eased her into a sitting position, his hand pressing against the protruding bones of her spine. After tucking two pillows behind her back, he lowered her. He reached for the pitcher on her side table and poured her a glass of water, offering it to her wordlessly.
    She raised her hand and it trembled in the air, a leaf on a breeze.
    â€œThank you, dear.” Her voice was raspy. She took the glass with shaking fingers and took a tentative sip. After a few swallows, she tilted the glass back and handed it back to him.
    â€œI hope I didn’t wake you,” she said. Even at her worst, she hated to be a bother.
    â€œNot at all, Mother. Would you like to lie down again?”
    â€œI shan’t be going back to sleep now, I’m afraid.”
    Since it was still dark out, William reached up, his fingers fumbling against the wall for the silver match holder. He grasped a match and struck it, then lit the wall lamp. The warm glow of the flame did little to brighten his mother’s color. Though Beatrix Brown had been a great beauty in her day, consumption had gobbled up so much of her that she was only a shadow of her former self. Her once lustrous yellow hair was now white and brittle. The lean form of her youth was whittled down to skeletal. She shimmered with a fragility that was reserved for the terminally ill.
    William dropped his gaze to the floor. “Would you like some company?”
    â€œYes, dear. That would be lovely.” She coughed again. “And we’ve much to talk about. My new nurse arrives today, does she not?”
    â€œShe arrived yesterday, actually.” He rubbed a hand against his stubbled chin. “Miss Bessie Pepper.”
    â€œAnd were Bessie’s papers in order?”
    â€œHer references were quite in order, yes.” Though he had to admit it was Bessie herself who was most…unordered, to a disturbingly delightful degree. He’d never met anyone quite like Bessie. Indeed, he’d not considered the possibility of a person like Bessie even existing.
    He felt his mother’s gaze on him and suddenly, urgently, he wanted to fill the rapidly growing lapse in conversation. “Bessie seems quite intelligent, actually. She appears to be knowledgeable about books and has professed an interest in poetry.”
    â€œHow unusual in a maid, but I suppose they do things differently in the colonies.” Mother glanced at him and raised her eyebrows slightly. “She is an American, isn’t she?”
    â€œNot precisely, though her past twelve years of service were spent in California.”
    â€œOh? Well, I would presume that would be quite enough time to alter a person’s manners.”
    â€œI must ask,” William said as he settled into his usual chair at her bedside, “why it is that you were so keen on hiring an American? You don’t have any acquaintances in the colonies that I know of.”
    She gave him a wavering smile. “Nothing wrong with familiarizing oneself with a new nationality. After all, so many young American ladies are making their way to England now. I should think that having Bessie on our staff would help us to become acquainted with their ways.”
    His mother spoke of Americans as if they were a tribal people, best viewed from a distance and