The Countess Without Conviction by Katherine Grant

Author:Katherine Grant [Katherine Grant]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Katie Flanagan
Published: 2024-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

They hosted the rector and his family for supper that night, which meant as soon as Ellen and Max returned from taking supplies to the Buckles, she had to close herself up with Slater to change into appropriate evening attire. Slater insisted on fixing Ellen’s hair in a fancy concoction of braids and curls and a silver chain. “I won’t have Lady Odette saying you look like a governess,” she said when Ellen objected. “I aim to build a reputation for myself as a proper lady’s maid.”

“Why, so you can desert me?” When it had come time to leave Northfield Hall, Ellen’s maid Leyla had chosen to remain, so Ellen had hired Slater through an agency in London. At nineteen, Slater had only ever before been a chambermaid, but Ellen liked to give people a chance to prove themselves.

Especially young people like Slater, who had a vision for herself that included happiness and prosperity.

Still, Ellen wasn’t prepared to let Slater go any time soon. Sometimes, it felt like Slater was the only one in the whole household who didn’t want to see Ellen pack up her bags and return to Northfield Hall.

“Of course not. I only don’t want any of the whispers about you to be about me.” Slater said this guilelessly, her words formed around a grip of hairpins between her teeth.

It was not news to Ellen that people gossiped about her. The London papers loved to report on her family, which was one of the many reasons she hated going to town.

Even at Northfield Hall, everyone had seemed to know her news without her saying. Each one of her pregnancies had been common knowledge almost as soon as Ellen herself knew; with Robert, the whole of Northfield Hall had found out before Ellen even had a chance to write Max in London with the good tidings.

The whispers at Montchampion Manor, however, were not happy exclamations. They were, apparently, repetitions of Lady Odette’s latest setdown. Repetitions no doubt embellished with some nasty words.

When the former butler, Robson, had given notice in a furious tantrum, he had said, “I cannot work a single day more for the devil’s harpy.”

Ellen had held her head high and given the man his full year’s salary anyhow. She had not cried in front of him, nor even in front of Slater.

She knew Robson wasn’t the last to call her that, though. And each time she thought about it, her heart clenched and her stomach heaved and she wondered how on earth she could last another second in so terrible a house.

There was no wondering, however, only doing, and so once Slater finished her hair, Ellen went down to the correct sitting room and hosted a perfectly fine meal with Reverend Dean, his wife, and their three adult children. Lady Odette made only one underhanded comment when she asked Mrs. Dean, “Have you been to see poor Mrs. Buckle? Mrs. Smith tells me two of her children have caught a terrible fever. I would pay a call myself, of course, except I should hate to overstep.

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