Love by the Morning Star (21 page)

It was an old-fashioned word, but he was an old-fashioned man. And she was so fresh, so young—she looked no more than seventeen or eighteen, though he guessed she must be in her twenties, and her apparent youth was the result of special care. She'd probably been kept in style for several years, accustomed to luxury and ease, to champagne and nightclubs. Had her lover grown tired of her? No, no one could do that. It must be because she was Jewish. Lord Liripip was neither political nor philosophical, but he could not abide a country where a beautiful girl was discriminated against. Pretty young fillies must always be nurtured.

“I know exactly what kind of girl you are,” Liripip said with fervent approval. “And you don't belong in the kitchen. Just look at your poor hands!” He caught them in his own and felt vague priapic stirrings, but more than that, an avuncular desire to offer protection for its own sake. “How lovely they must have been when you were,
ahem
, practicing your former profession. They will be again, my dear—never fear.”

“Oh, I don't mind about my hands so much,” Hannah said lightly. “The work is hard, but after all, it does nothing to my mouth, and so long as I have my mouth I can make my living.”

At this, even the jaded old roué blushed along his sinewy turkey neck.

“Not that I have much of a chance to practice my trade,” Hannah went on. “No one seems to approve. I certainly can't do it in the kitchen, though I have seized a few opportunities in the garden.”

“Oh, the lucky fellow,” Liripip murmured under his breath.

“Pardon? Shall I entertain you someday?” she asked in all innocence, and had no idea why he gulped and sputtered.

“No, my dear, best not,” he finally managed to choke out. “My wife . . .”

“Say no more,” Hannah said, extricating herself and giving his liver-spotted hands a sympathetic pat. “I understand completely. Perhaps one day things will be otherwise, and then I shall be at your absolute disposal.”

When Liripip had regained a measure of his self-possession, he said, “You are a credit to your profession. If I were a younger man . . . but no, it would be folly. Stay here for a time, my dear, and you may find it lucrative after all. It is a shame I cannot take you into the household proper, but,
har
, wouldn't do, wouldn't do. Still, if you aren't in a position to settle yourself elsewhere, perhaps I can look out for,
hmm
, patrons. Introductions can be made . . . who knows what might follow.”

“Oh, sir!” she cried, and flung her arms around him so that his face settled pleasantly in her softness.

“Nonsense,” he said, his voice obscured. “I take an interest in you. Old habits, you see. Can't do much for you myself, not in this state, but you'd be surprised who might be interested in your talents. Why, at tonight's ball there will be several whose own equerries don't know the half of what they get up to. Are you,
haw
, versatile? Can you cater to unusual tastes?”

“My preference is for the standards, but I would gladly take on the strange or the avant-garde, though I might need a little guidance from whoever engages me. I am willing to do anything!”

“Capital, my gallant girl! What spirit! What spunk! England should be proud to have you! Just for that I will read you another chapter. This one is about my adventures with a lovely pair of Andalusian conjoined twins I met on my travels.”

It was a thrilling tale indeed, but even the bluest of language cannot stimulate a girl who has been up all night and put to work first thing in the morning. Hannah had perched once more on the chaise to listen, then slowly her head sank down—just for a minute, she swore with her last bit of consciousness. Then her breath settled into heavy regularity and she was thoroughly asleep.

Lord Liripip looked at the dark lashes resting on the high curve of her cheek, at the gently parted lips, and thought,
Oh, but for a few decades, what danger she would be in
. Now, though, he was content first to watch her sleep, and when that palled, to let her rhythmic breathing lull him as he began on a chapter about a pretty little equestrienne who wore a riding habit so tight, she had to be sewn into it.

When, several hours later, Brigand returned and discovered her, still snoozing as his master scribbled, both men pretended she did not exist. But he reported his discovery to Mrs. Wilcox, who charged upstairs, determined to fire Hannah on the spot. She liked the girl, but such things could not be tolerated at Starkers.

“Naughty girl!” she cried when she burst in and found Hannah curled in her cozy ball.

Lord Liripip looked blandly at the interloper as Hannah started awake. “No, alas, I could not convince her to be naughty, madam. But I am indeed a naughty old man, as well you know.”

Doing her best to ignore the notoriously eccentric Liripip—as she'd often been instructed to do by his lady—she took Hannah by the ear. “Forgive me for allowing this to happen, sir. I promise you, she'll be out of the house within the hour.”

“Nonsense,” Liripip said. “Unhand her at once. The fault is all mine. I think many of the mechanisms of pleasure are mysteries to you, my good woman. Perhaps you do not know what intense stimulation I can find simply from watching a fetching young nubile such as this sleep.”

The housekeeper gasped.

“I am a dirty old man,” he admitted, “and she but a lowly servant with no choice but to obey my prurient commands. Do you think she
wanted
to fall asleep under my lascivious gaze? No, but I am the master, and when I gave her an order to sleep she had no choice. She trembled, she pleaded, to no avail. Forgive her, poor victim that she is.” He gave Hannah a broad wink. “Don't bother to forgive me, though. I'm quite beyond redemption.”

S
O BY THE TIME
H
ANNAH
was released from her duties to dress for the Servants' Ball, she was slightly more refreshed than she would otherwise have been.

“You poor, poor girl,” Mrs. Wilcox gushed as soon as she got Hannah safely out of the monster's clutches. “How frightened you must have been. Didn't anyone warn you never to allow yourself to be caught alone with him? Watching a girl sleep! How peculiar. Though I must say, you got off lucky. I have heard stories . . . oh, not for years and years now, not since that wild Curzon girl disappointed him. But before my time it was quite a common thing for pretty servants to be . . . Well, I won't shock you. I'm just glad he left something in you to be shocked, you poor, dear innocent.”

Word spread quickly below stairs, and by the time they ran off arm in arm to dress, Waltraud had heard. “What's the going rate for an hour of slumber? I've always had a suspicion that fetishes—the gentler kind, mind you—might be my future. There was a gentleman once who so admired my feet. Do you think Liripip would let me sleep for him?”

“It was nothing like that,” Hannah insisted. “He made that up to protect me.”

“I know, you ninny. Still, I bet I could come up with a few other things to entertain the old gentleman. But no, he will be your father-in-law soon enough, and it would embarrass you to have me sitting on his lap at your wedding. I will search for other prey. There will be some interesting prospects tonight, if only I can make it quite clear that I am not really a servant. People never make proper presents to servants, have you noticed? It is a very sad world. Come, let me fix your hair first.”

“I want to see my dress!” Hannah begged like a child pleading for sweets.

“No, not until it is too late. It is so daring that if you saw it now you would flee. I must slip it on you like a horse in harness, and once you're in your traces you'll trot along happily enough.”

“Oh, Traudl, I hope it's not too—”

“It is the most
too
you have ever seen. But also quite modest in its own saucy way. You will see. Here, let me have your head. Ah, such soft dark waves, like a buzzard's wing.”

“That's not very flattering,” Hannah said with a sigh. “Men don't like to stroke buzzards' wings.”

“Well then, a starling, or a dove, or a spaniel's ear. Let
him
murmur soft comparisons while he kisses you. I will worry myself with setting it stylishly. I have spray lacquer here, and a little diamond clip. Well, not a diamond, only a diamante, but your pearls are so very real that people will assume. Isn't it sweet? It will glitter in your night-sky hair like the morning star. Is that a better blandishment? I will corner your Teddy before the dance and teach him what to say. Here, sit still while I brush.”

“Shouldn't you be doing your own hair?”

“No, I have it in a mass of little braids so all I have to do is unbind it and I will look like one of Wagner's Rhinemaidens, only not so damp and troublesome.”

“We don't have much time,” Hannah said. “He promised me the first dance.”

“You can't have the very first dance,” Waltraud said. “Corcoran explained it all to me. There is a tradition for the first dance, and everyone would melt into a jelly of discomfiture if anyone dared break it. To open the ball, the lord dances with the housekeeper, the lady dances with the butler, the eldest daughter partners with the valet, and the eldest son squires the cook. It is all to appease the ancient gods of Britain, I think, a sort of sacrifice of dignity on behalf of the masters that makes the crops grow next year, if I remember my Fraser right. He must have meant the first dance after that, so you have plenty of time to make yourself perfect. He will drop to his knees at the first sight of you, as will every man in the room. The women will hate you, of course, but there is no alternative to that. Even I will hate you in this dress.”

 

T
EDDY HAD NEVER BEHELD ANYTHING
more lovely than the woman he adored. She stood as tall as an Amazon in heels and high-piled golden curls, and her dress was made of some pale shimmering material like starlight. She paused at the head of the stairs, calculating her dramatic effect, until all eyes were on her. Everyone, from the Duke of Kent down to the giggling, slatternly laundry girls, stared at her glorious beauty in open, utter amazement. The swell of her bosom was like a ship's figurehead, breasting any wave. The curve of her hip made men who had been to India think of the temples they had seen, of those ecstatic dancing nymphs, so sacred and so profane. She held herself like a queen or madonna or imbecile, her face utterly placid and devoid of lines, blinking as though her eyelashes were almost too heavy to lift.

I would like to place her on a pedestal
, Teddy thought,
and run my hands along all of those lovely curves like a sculptor, creating her under my touch
.

This certainly was a pleasant idea, but it left him feeling a little hollow, superficial. He knew there were such magnificent depths to Anna. He had learned them in their night talks, those soaring discourses in German of profundity and wit and sheer silliness that had revealed to him a person of great intelligence, kindness, value. But looking at her—the outside of her, the skin of her—he had a flash of nightmarish fantasy that this might be all there was to her: a shell. It was absurd, of course. A person can be beautiful inside and out. Still, to look on all that external loveliness, it seemed there could be no room for anything else.

And then, he had noticed something a little disturbing about their very few, very brief daytime relations.

Anna was descending slowly now, pausing at each step with a little sway and bob that drew the eye to all the right places. She did not make a beeline to Teddy, but seemed to hover in an indefinite state, nodding here, smiling there, bestowing the glory of herself on all of the guests and servants before drifting in a direction that happened to bring her to Teddy's side. It was masterfully done. Even Lady Liripip, had she been scrutinizing her, wouldn't have said that she sought Teddy out. Still, there she was with her hand resting on his arm.

“Tell me who all of these thrilling people are,” she said. At night, in German, she would have said it in another tone, a little playful, as if the guests, however important they might be, were no more than a corollary to their perfect happiness together. By daylight, in English, Anna seemed genuinely impressed with the stellar cast of visitors. He saw little paroxysms of something like starstruck envy when he pointed out Their Highnesses.

“And who is that old cow in the mud-colored velvet?” she asked, making a mocking little frown behind the back of a dowdy woman with very kind, overly made-up eyes.

“She was my nurse when I was a boy,” he said, looking at Anna strangely.

“Oh, forgive me,” Anna said, and he did, instantly, because her bright blue eyes sparkled at him so guilelessly. “And that one,” she said, hurriedly turning to another older woman whose moth-eaten fox collar looked more like ferret or cat. “Was she your governess?”

“Ah, no, she's . . .” And here he named a name so renowned for wealth that even though she didn't have a title, one felt inclined to curtsy or perhaps grovel before so august a personage.

Immediately the disdainful curl of Anna's mouth unfurled like a burgeoning fern. “Will you introduce me?” she begged.

“Later, my sweet. Now it's time to open the ball.” He peeled her fingers from his arm and made a little bow.

“Where are you going?” Anna asked. “Surely the first dance is for me.”

“I know I promised it,” he said. (Had he? Anna tried to recall.) “But tonight we honor the servants. I always partner Cook for the first dance. Of course, it used to be Trapp, who moved like a furious marionette and smelled stale, but that isn't very charitable of me, is it? Excellent cook, but a truly horrid woman. It was only my father's digestion that kept her around so long. Now her gall has caught up with her and she has to live in the seaside sanatorium and boss nurses. The new one, Sally Mayweather, is quite a different story.” He smiled across the room at the merry little cook in her neat burgundy suit dress with a hothouse orchid pinned to the lapel.