1. The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas

Author:Sherry Thomas [Thomas, Sherry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-11-19T22:00:00+00:00

It was a good thing she did not have to lead this army of servants directly, her only experience with staff being regularly pleading with Sally, the Cantwell cookmaid, to not abandon them, and taking on some of Sally’s chores—behind Mrs. Cantwell’s back, of course—to lighten the maid’s load, since they couldn’t afford to pay her more.

Here the much more detailed taxonomy of duties and positions gave rise to a pyramid of authorities. Situated at its very top, Louisa needed only to consult the housekeeper, Mrs. Pratt, the butler, Sturgess, and the chef, Monsieur Boulanger, all of whom seemed frightfully competent in their respective domains.

A tour of the domestic offices dazzled her; the belowstairs operation of a great country estate was a thing of military efficiency. The kitchen in itself was bigger than the house she had lived in with her mother and sisters. The laundry department consisted of a washhouse, a drying room, a mangling room, an ironing room, a folding room, and a laundry maids’ room arranged in a smart sequence so that dirty clothes went in at one end and clean clothes came out at the other. Louisa blushed, realizing that her love-soiled sheets were about to make quite a public trip through the facilities.

Mrs. Pratt, after briskly showing off her storeroom, china closet, and stillroom, took Louisa to see the rest of the great mansion. Louisa had been forewarned that Huntington was open to the public, but still it was rather startling to see tourists craning their necks round and round to take in all the architectural details and fine furnishings of the immaculately kept state apartments, whose ornately draped beds had once received crowned heads. The room she had spent the night in, however, was shielded from curious eyes, being situated in the private family wing.

The long gallery was empty of tourists when she came to it. As she viewed the portraits of her husband’s ancestors, she remembered what he’d said to her the evening before, that sometimes the master of Huntington did look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The thirteen Marquesses of Wrenworth who had preceded him—and a number of viscounts before the family was elevated to a marquessate—were indeed a plain bunch.

The way Mrs. Pratt explained it, though not in exactly so many words, was that the men of the line had more often than not been pragmatic in marriage, and preferred to choose wives with great fortunes over those with beautiful eyes.

“But you can see, my lady, that was not the case with his lordship’s father,” said Mrs. Pratt, stopping before the late marchioness’s portrait.

Louisa could see that indeed. Portraits, in her opinion, rarely did great beauties justice. Even so, one could see that her late mother-in-law must have been quite stunning. “My goodness. Did you ever see her in person, Mrs. Pratt?”

“No, ma’am. I came to Huntington in 1880 as an under-housekeeper, several years after her ladyship had passed away.”

Louisa was surprised—for some reason she thought Mrs. Pratt had spent most of her life in the family’s employ.

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