Lady Anne's Lover

By Maggie Robinson

Lady Imaculata Anne Egremont has appeared in the scandalous pages of the London List often enough. The reading public is so bored with her nonsense, she couldn't make news now unless she took a vow of chastity. But behind her naughty hijinks is a terrible fear. It's time the List helped her. With a quick scan through its job postings and a few whacks at her ridiculous name, she's off to keep house for a bachelor veteran as plain Anne Mont.

Major Gareth Ripton-Jones is dangerously young and handsome on the face of it, but after losing his love and his arm in short order, he is also too deep in his cups to notice that his suspiciously young housekeeper is suspiciously terrible at keeping house. Until, that is, her sharp tongue and her burnt coffee penetrate even his misery--and the charm underneath surprises them both. Trust the worst cook in Wales to propose a most unexpected solution to his troubles. . .

Praise for Maggie Robinson's Novels

"Steam rises from the pages." --RT Book Reviews (4 stars) on Mistress by Marriage

"Deliciously wicked. . .hard to put down." --Romance Junkies (5 stars) on Mistress by Midnight

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kensington Books
• Release date: Jul 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9780758289148

Maggie Robinson

Maggie Robinson is a former teacher, library clerk, and mother of four who woke up in the middle of the night absolutely compelled to create the perfect man and use as many adjectives and adverbs as possible doing so. A transplanted New Yorker, she lives with her not-quite-perfect husband in Maine, where the cold winters are ideal for staying indoors and writing.

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C

HAPTER

1

Wales, December 26, 1820

Lady Imaculata Egremont had danced naked in a fountain. She’d eloped to France with a rackety gentleman she’d just as soon forget. She’d sold chestnuts on the street. There was no reason on earth why she could not pick up a dead mouse and dispose of it with her usual élan.

She fought back an unfortunate gag and told herself to stop breathing. To think of lilac bushes in her mother’s Dorset garden in the spring. Great purple masses of them, their heavy cones bursting into flower, gray-green leaves shivering in the warm breeze. She was not in Wales. It was not winter. She was not standing bent over a tiny desiccated body in a grim hallway that smelled like death.

And gin.

Somewhere her new employer must have spilled a vat of it and had probably joined the mouse. He certainly had not opened the door to her as she was injuring her hands, pounding on it for a full five minutes while standing on the misty doorstep. She’d finally taken the initiative—anyone would tell you Lady Imaculata was bold as brass—and pressed the latch herself, finding the door unlocked. If she were truly a housekeeper, she supposed she should have entered by way of the kitchen, but Lady Imaculata was an earl’s daughter, and some habits were hard to break.

The possibly dead Major Ripton-Jones had not sent any transportation to fetch her, either. She’d gotten off the mail coach in Hay on Wye foolishly hopeful, but in the end she’d arranged for a donkey cart herself to bump her along to Llanwyr, hoping her presence had not been noted by her father’s spies. She was still almost frozen from the long ride, and the temperature in Ripton Hall’s hall was not much warmer than outside. She was probably giving the dead mouse a run for its money with her own eau de bourrique.

Lilacs. Think of lilacs. Her favorite flower. Not donkeys or dead mice. It was abundantly clear why the old man had placed an advertisement for a housekeeper in The London List, and she hadn’t even gone ten paces down the dim and fragrant hallway. What would she find when she opened the closed doors? Alas, it was too late to run after the donkey cart.

She may have been raised a lady, but Lady Imaculata was now Mrs. Anne Mont. Anne was her humble middle name, much more suitable for a housekeeper. What her parents had been thinking at her christening was a mystery for the ages. Anyone who named a child Imaculata was asking for trouble. Much like those named Chastity or Christian or Prudence, the Imaculatas of the world were bound to disappoint, and she had been no exception—in fact she had taken a toe or two over the edge of propriety so often she was at a perpetual tilt.

As if a mere change of name would help her with the Herculean task at hand, she thought grimly. She’d need to reroute the Welsh equivalent of the Alpheus and Peneus rivers to wash away all this dirt and dust. She was very much afraid she’d gotten in over her head, and not for the first time.

With determination, she set down her portmanteau and got to work. Anne Mont needed this job, at least until she turned twenty-one and became Imaculata Egremont again, to come into her funds. Two years was not so very long to endure isolation and filth, and anyway, she’d fix the filth or die trying. She closed her eyes, gingerly scooped the dead mouse up with her handkerchief, and tossed it out onto the frost-covered drive, the handkerchief right along with it. Let the poor mouse have its embroidered shroud. She couldn’t imagine ever blowing her nose delicately into it again, even if she knew how to do laundry. Mrs. Anne Mont didn’t have the first idea how to wash a handkerchief or anything else, but supposed that was one of the things a housekeeper would have to learn. The major was apt to have handkerchiefs and clothes now, wasn’t he?

Her benefactress Evangeline Ramsey had pressed upon her an ancient copy of The Compleat Housewife before she left London, and Anne had plenty of time to read it and become dismayed on her journey west. The title page alone had been daunting—Collection of several hundred of the most approved receipts, in cookery, pastry, confectionery, preserving, pickles, cakes, creams, jellies, made wines, cordials. And also bills of fare for every month of the year. To which is added, a collection of nearly two hundred family receipts of medicines; viz. drinks, syrups, salves, ointments, and many other things of sovereign and approved efficacy in most distempers, pains, aches, wounds, sores, etc. never before made publick in these parts; fit either for private families, or such publick-spirited gentlewomen as would be beneficent to their poor neighbours. The author Eliza Smith must have been wonderfully efficient, but then she’d never had to deal with Major Ripton-Jones’s house and his dead and living pests. The major’s house was a dismal wreck, and she would earn every bit of the pittance he’d promised to pay her.

Anne batted the worst of the spider webs away with her wet black bonnet, hoping none of the spiders decided to take up residency in her hat. Satisfied she could now walk the gauntlet of the hallway, she opened a shut door. It revealed a monstrously large, cold double drawing room, big enough to host a cotillion, badly furnished. Great swaths of cobwebs hung in every corner, Dust lay thick on every surface, windows were so smudged one could not see the frigid rain-washed fields beyond them. The fireplaces at either end were heaping-full of cold ashes. No one had sat on the mice-shredded satin sofas in a long while.

Next was the monstrously large, colder dining room, in worse repair—not a chair looked able to hold her weight, and she was quite a little thing. She could have written her name on the dust on the long dining table, if she could remember that she was Anne Mont now.

The door at the end of the hall was locked, but she swore she smelled peat burning beyond it. And gin. She took a long sniff, filling her nose with the distinct aroma of drink and unwashed man.

Definitely no lilacs.

Her elderly employer was behind it, most likely, and he was snoring. He must have doused the room in alcohol—she may as well have been outside a ginhouse. Anne damned her new friend Evangeline Ramsey and Evangeline’s newspaper, The London List, with an extremely naughty oath for sending her here to the back of beyond to cater to a drunken old man.

But, Anne reminded herself, Major Ripton-Jones was better than her father, and if he wasn’t, she would bean him on the head with a kettle if she could find one in the kitchen. If she could find the kitchen.

Everyone thought her papa was a saint. If they only knew what he had tried to do with his only child once the candles were blown out, they would soon change their mind.

Anne was still a virgin. Her father had attempted but not succeeded in getting very far. Nor had the rackety gentleman she’d run off to France with, although he’d tried to alter her not-quite-innocent state before they had gotten to an altar. She’d actually been relieved when the private detective her father had hired found them, even if she had punched poor Mr. Mulgrew in the nose.

She had faced her demons for the past four years, at first wondering what it was about her that brought the devil to her doorstep. Her father, she knew, blamed her for his unnatural lust and beat her for it. He had looked at her oddly after her mother died, when she was so lost in grief and had turned to him for comfort. But when he’d finally taken her in his arms, it was not as a father, but a man. Anne had been shocked and confused, then sick with fear. She supposed she could have countered him in any number of ways—leaping to her death from the roof, chewing up some foxglove, shooting herself—or better yet, him—with her pearl-handled pistol.

She had done none of those things. Instead, she had fought him off and made herself a byword of scandal from the moment of her debut, and she had the newspaper clippings to prove it. As a debutante she had been very naughty indeed. Lady Imaculata had sought low, even subterranean society in order to escape her father’s predatory attentions, thinking that he’d let her have her mother’s fortune and wash his hands of her if she misbehaved sufficiently. But no matter what foolish—and sometimes dangerous—thing she’d done, he had kept her a prisoner.

So fiery, flame-haired Lady Imaculata Egremont was no more. In her place was frowsy brunette Anne Mont, reluctant and incompetent housekeeper. Anne had noted some of the brown color had rubbed off on her pillows as she’d spent the night in coaching houses. Whatever elixir Evangeline had used on her was fading fast. Unless she could find some Atkinson’s Vegetable Dye, she’d have to confess to the major that he’d hired a redheaded imposter. Maybe the old man was so blind he’d never notice. If he could bear to live in his current squalor, appearances could not possibly matter to him.

Anne gathered her courage and used her most confident voice. She was a good mimic, and it was necessary for the major to think he had hired a forthright woman rather than a foolish, inexperienced girl. She had played a part or two in her time. Surely she could convince an old sot that she was a housekeeper, even if she didn’t know how to remove mouse excrescence from a handkerchief.

Major Ripton-Jones! It is Mrs. Mont, your new housekeeper. Please open the door so we may become acquainted.

The string of muffled words coming from behind the door did not shock her, though as a child, her governess would have forbidden them. Anne had said them anyway for maximum shock value, as often as possible, and actually just a few minutes ago. Stepping back, she lifted her chin and awaited her employer’s displeasure at being torn from his inebriated slumber.

The door was wrenched open by a towering scarecrow of a man, bearded, shaggy-haired, disreputably dressed, indubitably drunk.

And one-armed. His dirty linen shirtsleeve hung empty, flapping a bit as he had listed toward the doorframe.

He wasn’t old. Not old at all. There was a little gray in his beard—though that could very well be dust—but he could not have been much above thirty years old.

Good afternoon, Anne had said briskly, masking her surprise and keeping her chin high. She was bound to get a crick in her neck if she had to address him for any length of time. "I believe Mi-uh, Mr. Ramsey from The London List sent word to you that I was coming."

He looked down at her, way down as he was so very tall, with bloodshot blue eyes. You can’t be the housekeeper.

He did not slur a word, although his breath nearly knocked her over. She would light no matches anywhere near him or he’d go up like a Guy Fawkes effigy.

I can indeed, sir. I have a reference from Lady Pennington. She pulled the forged letter from her reticule.

"How old are you, Mrs. Mont? Twelve? And where is Mr. Mont?"

Evangeline had wanted her to lie and say she lost her husband at Waterloo—which would have made Anne a fourteen-year-old bride—but the man in front of her had probably lost his arm to war so that did not seem at all sporting. Anne knew she looked young—she was young, her freckles forever marking her just a step from the schoolroom. She had decided to be reasonably honest. If Major Ripton-Jones dismissed her, she’d go back to Evangeline and try for something else. Tightrope walker, street walker, it really didn’t matter as long as she escaped her father’s predatory attentions and beatings.

Housekeepers are always addressed as ‘Mrs.,’ Major Ripton-Jones. Surely you know that. And I am old enough. I’ve been in service for—ages.

Ever since she had walked into his house, anyway.

The man snorted and caught himself on the wall before he fell on her. You’ll have your work cut out for you, as you can see. Your room is off the kitchen. You’d best get started. He then shut the door in her face.

Well. ’Twas more or less still the Christmas season and Anne felt she should be charitable. She would carry her own bag to the bedroom—there wasn’t much in it since her flight from London had been somewhat spontaneous. She’d gone to Evangeline Ramsey’s house anticipating a very different outcome from her current employment. Fortunately, she’d had her savings stitched into her fur muff, and the coins had come in handy on the journey west. Anne did not want to spend a penny of them going back east. She challenged herself to make it to the New Year. It was only a few days away.

If she didn’t kill the major first with her cooking or her pearl-handled pistol. She patted her reticule to assure herself it was still there. It wasn’t loaded, for with her luck she’d shoot herself in her well-rounded derriere. But the gun would be a deterrent should the man try any of her father’s tricks.

He was not at all who she’d expected. She’d seen the letter he’d sent to The London List requesting the services of a housekeeper. Both she and Evangeline had assumed from his spidery handwriting he was an older gentleman. White-haired. Wrinkled. Weak.

Major Ripton-Jones did not seem weak at all, except when it came to his sobriety. Despite his missing arm, Anne would almost call him handsome beneath his grime if she let herself.

That would be inappropriate. He was her employer, at least for the moment. How long she could last here was anybody’s guess.

C

HAPTER

2

The recalcitrant stove was stone-cold. Major Ripton-Jones would be unhappy, but then that was his usual state, if the three days she’d been here was any indication. A gloomier man Anne had never met, and his house was even gloomier despite her recent efforts. It was nearly as wet and cold indoors as out. She was wearing two dresses, two pairs of woolen stockings and a cloak, hovering over the arctic stove. Even covered in woolen gloves, Anne’s hands were numb. No wonder she could not light the damn fire.

She pushed an ugly brown braid back into her ugly housekeeper’s cap. Her hair was less brown every day. At least she didn’t have to worry about Major Ripton-Jones noticing. If he raised his eyes up long enough from his drink, he looked at her as if she were a boil on his arse. A fly in his ointment. A hair in his soup. But there would be no soup or anything else if she didn’t get the stove going. If she couldn’t, Anne didn’t think she’d have the courage to work in the large open fireplace—she’d heard of cooks going up in flames as they walked in to tend food. No, a free-standing cookstove was much better. Modern, although this one looked as if it had been created at the dawn of Adam and Eve.

She gave a long-suffering sigh. Why wasn’t there a kitchen maid or a pot boy on the premises to help her? Someone she could order about in the nicest way, of course. The rambling stone house was big enough for an army of servants, but Major Ripton-Jones lived entirely alone with the exception of Martin, a charm-challenged man in the stable block who minded the major’s pair of horses. He and the major were a match made in heaven—their grunts and grumbles made Anne feel most unwelcome in Wales.

Her resolution to stick it out had wavered during the last three days of drudgery, but she was stubborn, and still desperate. For the most part, her employer left her alone, locking himself in his study cum ginhouse, apparently drinking the day away. He didn’t seem to care what she put in front of him to eat, which was a lucky thing, because she could no more cook than fly. His larder was well stocked—in fact apart from her own meager quarters, it was the only room in the house that was in any sort of order. Anne had discovered after the long damp walk to the village yesterday—to buy some soap that would not remove the top layer of her skin—that his previous housekeeper had died in November. She had known the end was near and had put up shelves of preserves and ordered what nonperishable goods she could for her master’s future comfort. However, the woman hadn’t been up to cleaning for months—or possibly years—and the major had not seemed to mind, letting the poor old thing stay in her bed off the kitchen and die in it.

The very bed that Anne tried every night to sleep in now. Lord knows, she was exhausted from her travels and travails, yet sleep would not come easily. She was not afraid of the housekeeper’s ghost, and almost not afraid that her father would discover her whereabouts. She trusted Evangeline Ramsey to keep her secrets. Ripton Hall was situated remotely enough that one would have to look very far afield from London to find her. In her current disguise with her meek brown braids and baggy servant’s black dress, she did not resemble flashy and fun-loving Lady Imaculata Egremont in the slightest.

A feeble spark caught her wandering attention, and she poked the kindling viciously with a twig. At last! Anne nee Imaculata was almost gleeful at such humble success. She would not freeze to death, and she might brew some coffee to stay awake after another near-sleepless night. Parts of her body that she had never known existed ached with fierce aggression. Dragging furniture around and beating rugs was far more difficult than swilling champagne and dancing the night away.

The house was deathly still this morning, not a creak in the old floors or rattle of a door latch. Perhaps the major, like the pack of poisoned vermin she kept finding in the most inconvenient places, was actually dead in his bed. She had never seen anyone consume so much alcohol so steadily during the course of a day and wondered how he could put one foot in front of the other to get upstairs to his room each evening.

But perhaps he wasn’t upstairs after all. Perhaps his body lay on the floor of his messy study—a place he’d forbidden her to clean—and was even now putrefying. Anne had an unclear idea as to exactly what dead people did, but did not really want to find out today. She would not search in his study for trouble—usually trouble found her anyway.

Wrapping her cloak against the stiff wet wind, she stepped outside to pump water into a jug, filled the kettle, and set it on top of the stove. Anne sat down on the kitchen bench to wait, surveying her new considerably cleaner domain. This pretending to be a housekeeper, while physically challenging, was not really so very awful.

As long as Major Ripton-Jones remained too drunk to interfere with her unconventional methods. He didn’t need to know she stuck the dirty dishes in a pan and set them out in the pouring rain, did he?

Anne’s stomach rumbled. She was perfectly capable of cutting thick slices from the loaf of bread she’d bought in the village yesterday. She supposed at some point she needed to open The Compleat Housewife so she could learn to make some of her own. Anne had placed the tattered volume Evangeline had given her on the Welsh dresser among chipped mud-brown Staffordshire.

Trust Major Ripton-Jones to fancy depressing dinnerware. Brown was so . . . brown.

Since he was not stirring, she ate her breakfast first and alone. Yesterday he’d come to the kitchen, tossed some money down on the warped pine table and told her to get whatever she deemed necessary for the running of the household. Anne did not expect he meant French-milled soap, but the little shop had two bars of that luxury item and Anne bought them both at hideous expense. They smelled of lilac, her very favorite flower, and she would need an occasional whiff from her wrist so she could keep shoveling dead rodents out the door without casting up her accounts. The major had poured himself a cup of bitter coffee—this morning’s was a little better, she thought—and slumped in a chair, eschewing her offer to fix him breakfast. He’d looked wretched and smelled worse. A bit of lilac soap for him would not go amiss.

Two years of this. By the terms of her mother’s will, Anne would receive her inheritance at the age of twenty-one. Then she could tell both the major and her father to go hang. Become the true Toast of the Continent, as she had once been styled by The London List. She could do this job. She had to.

But she wouldn’t do it alone. There must be someone from the village the major could afford to hire to help her. Keeping a house this size running all by herself would be difficult even if she knew what she was doing, and she most assuredly did not. Anne resolved to speak to the major first thing when he finally dragged himself out of his sour-smelling bed.

She did not have long to wait. Her heart kicked a little when she heard footfalls upstairs. Perhaps she should bring up hot water so he could wash off the stink of gin. Offer to shave him, although she was likely to cut his throat. It must be hard to button one’s trousers with one hand. Anne felt a blush rise that had nothing to do with the now-warm kitchen. She hung her suddenly heavy cloak on a hook and went back to her breakfast.

There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing upstairs. Parts of the house were very old, and each tread above resulted in a shower of dust from the ancient kitchen beams onto Anne’s bread. She snatched the last of it from her plate, swallowed quickly and rose when she heard him clatter down the back stairs.

Lowering her eyes—almost afraid of what she’d see—she bobbed like all the proper, obedient servants she’d grown up with. Good morning, sir.

Is it? You’ve seen the rain, aye?

His voice was low and steady. Anne looked up. He’d made some attempt to shave himself, and his left cheek was streaked with blood. His face was thin, his cheekbones sharp, his eyes the brightest blue. They were the exact color of a sapphire ring she was sorry she’d left behind in her jewel box. His over-long dark hair had been brushed back from his forehead, and a few strands of silver gleamed in the dull morning light.

It has rained each day since I arrived, Major, but every morning is a good morning. May I fix you breakfast?

He shook his head. Just coffee. He pulled back a chair and sat, his single elbow resting on the table. Today the sleeve of his shirt was pinned up. He had not bothered with a cravat or waistcoat or jacket. Anne thought a proper housekeeper would be shocked to see the column of throat beneath his unbuttoned collar, but she was not a proper housekeeper now, was she?

Do you take sugar and milk? He had not added anything yesterday and must still be regretting that.

Only if your brew is as bad as it was the last time. He did not smile, but there was a teasing light in his eyes.

Anne couldn’t take offense. She had tasted the vile coffee herself. I am happy to say I believe it’s much improved this morning. I’m still settling in, sir. Getting to know my way around your kitchen. Give me a few days and all will be ship-shape. Such optimism, but she was an optimistic young woman despite the odds. A nimble liar, too. She poured the coffee into a cup and set it, without a saucer, in front of him. One less thing to wash, and she didn’t think he’d mind.

He looked around the room slowly before testing her word. I see you’ve been busy.

Here was her chance—how simple he’d made it for her to ask for extra servants. I have, Major Ripton-Jones. I’m not afraid of hard work. But I’m just one woman and your house needs more. Work, that is. Not a woman. Women. No, that’s just what it does need, she babbled. This was not quite as easy as she thought. I don’t suppose you could hire a maid or two to help me?

The cup stopped inches from his lips. A maid? Or two? Are you quite mad, Mrs. Mont?

Anne swallowed. Not at all, sir. Although some people certainly thought so. She’d been quite flighty over the years, deliberately so.

He set the cup of coffee down without tasting it. "I haven’t the money, Mrs. Mont. I can barely afford to pay you."

Perhaps if you indulged less in spirits, you might find the wherewithal. She clapped a hand over her mouth and runaway tongue. Lord, she would find herself out in the driving rain in the middle of nowhere and it would be her own damn fault.

The major’s barking laugh was not a thing of beauty, but at least he wasn’t rising up to strike her. She’d seen her father punish his servants with impunity. When he was done, wiping an actual tear from one of his blue eyes, he leaned forward. I do apologize for your reception, Mrs. Mont. You must think me a drunkard, but I assure you, I am not. Not usually. He paused. "Nay, that’s wrong. It has been a bit of a habit lately, but not a lifelong one. I’ve had some trouble to deal with."

Whatever happened must have been spectacularly bad, Anne said. Drink had been useless to her to ward off the pain of her father’s attentions—in fact, she’d needed her wits about her to evade him, earning every resultant spanking.

Aye, it was that. But I’m better today, as you can see. He took a suspicious sip of the coffee, then drank the whole of it down in one gulp. His throat must be made of iron.

Anne was disappointed he was not more forthcoming. Any news that resulted in the three-day bender she’d witnessed must have been interestingly catastrophic, and from the state of his house, she was sure he’d devoted himself to drinking even before she arrived. But it was not her place to ask—she’d already overstepped her bounds. She was a housekeeper, no more, no less. The earl’s daughter was up to her eyelashes in drudgery, and apparently doomed to soldier on alone, one day, one room at a time.

Major Ripton-Jones stood, almost grazing his head on a blackened beam. I won’t keep you from your duties. I’m going into Hay today to meet someone who might be able to get me out of my current difficulties. Do you need anything? Or perhaps you’d like to put down your dust rag and join me?

Anne thought back several days to the huge sense of relief she’d felt as the mail coach crossed over the Welsh border and deposited her in the charming market town. Every mile from London had meant she was further away from her father’s reach. But she had spent too much time there securing the donkey cart to Llanwyr, and worried that somehow her journey would be traced to the major’s doorstep. She had vowed to never stray very far from Ripton Hall again. Strangers in the country always attracted attention, and she wanted none of that. Not anymore.

Anne gave him a wobbly smile. Besides someone to help me? No, I think not. Thank you for asking. Should you go out in all this rain?

"If I wait for the rain to stop, it will be May. At least it’s not snow. Yet, although these old bones say that’s not too far off. I am sorry we got off on the wrong foot. I’m sure you never had to deal with the likes of me at Lady Pennington’s."

So he remembered the name on her letter of reference. Evidently he was not the sort of drunk who was forgetful. Very different from her father, who would claim not to remember what he tried to do to her when he was in his cups. She shivered at the remembrance.

He noticed. Here, you’re cold. Let me feed the fire before I go.

That’s my job, sir. And anyway, I’m warm enough. I may even have to remove a dress.

Idiot. The man couldn’t know she was wearing two. He probably just thought she was fat and volunteering to show him every inch. I—I put on two dresses this morning, Major, and my cloak. I’m afraid I forgot to bank the fire last night and the kitchen was ch-chilly when I got up. Her face felt as hot as the stove.

His lips quirked, and the mischievous light was back in his eyes. Oh, dear. She really should not look at him at all. Anne became fascinated with the slate tiles at her feet as he headed toward the door.

Very well. I should be back before dark. Don’t bother with supper for me. I’ll get a meal on the way home.

Very good, sir. Better than good. She would be satisfied with a crust of bread slathered in plum jam, but he might not be.

She couldn’t resist raising her eyes. The major took an oilskin coat from a hook and clapped a battered hat on his head. What sort of business did he have if he didn’t even put on a jacket over his linen shirt? For warmth alone he should be as layered as she had been, but he disappeared into the rain-slicked dooryard and headed off to the stables. Well, his