A KIND MAID HELPED AN OLD WOMAN MOCKED IN A DRESS SALON — UNAWARE SHE WAS THE DUKE’S MOTHER

Chapter 6

The news traveled through Mayfair the way such news always does — quietly at first, then everywhere at once.

A girl at Stonehurst House. A nobody. Some said a maid, some said a beggar, some said worse. The Dowager Duchess had taken her up as a companion, and the Duke himself had defended her in his own hall. What could it mean but trouble?

Lady Saraphina Morant heard of it within a day. The day after that, she heard the rest: the old woman she had mocked in Madame Belmont’s salon had been no beggar at all, but the Dowager Duchess in disguise — and the maid she had called a creature was now living beneath the Duke’s roof.

She sat very still at her dressing table, her reflection staring back at her from the mirror — beautiful, perfect, and cold. The only sign of her fury was the way the silver brush trembled in her hand.

“She tested us.” Saraphina’s voice was barely a whisper. “The old woman tested us, and we none of us knew. She was there, in that filthy cloak, watching us, judging us. And I — I called her a beggar. I told her some stains never come out.” The brush came down on the table with a sharp crack. “And that wretched servant. That creature on her knees. She saw everything. She played the saint, and now she is living under his roof.”

Her brother Allaric lounged in the doorway. He was a tall, pale young man with restless eyes and a smile that never quite reached them. “A maid in Stonehurst House. As a companion, not a bride. A man does not marry his mother’s companion.”

“You are a fool if you believe that.” Saraphina rose and began to pace. “You do not know how a man’s heart can turn when a clever woman whispers in his ear from across the breakfast table every morning. She is there, Allaric. In his house. Eating at his table. Breathing his air. And she is young, and she is not ugly, and she has the backing of the Dowager Duchess. She must go. Before she becomes anything more than a curiosity.”

So Saraphina paid a call at Stonehurst House. She came under the excuse of consulting the Dowager Duchess about the seating for the winter ball. She was all sweetness, all warmth — kissing Isold’s cheek and exclaiming over the cold weather. When she was introduced to Lydia, she smiled her loveliest smile and said, “How charming! How very charming! That Her Grace should have found such a faithful little friend.”

It was only later, when they chanced to be alone in the long gallery, that the smile fell from her face like a dropped mask.

“I know what you are.” Saraphina’s voice was low and venomous. “A scrubbing girl who got lucky with an old woman’s whim. You may have charmed the dowager, but charm fades, and whims pass. When this one passes, you will be back in the gutter where you belong — only a little further down for having seen what you cannot have.”

She stepped closer. “Do not look at the Duke. Do not speak to the Duke. Do not so much as dream of him. He is mine. He has always been mine. And girls like you do not take what belongs to ladies like me.”

Lydia looked at her steadily. She had spent three years learning to keep her face still while cruelty was poured over her, and she did not flinch now. “I have not looked at the Duke, my lady. I have no thought of him at all. I am here to be company to his mother. When she has no further need of me, I will go. You need not fear me. There is nothing in me to fear.”

It was the truth. Or she believed it was. But Saraphina heard only insolence, and insolence from a maid was a wound she would not forget.

“We shall see,” she said, and recovered her smile just as the Dowager Duchess returned.

That evening, in the Morant townhouse, brother and sister spoke long into the night. “The Duke watches her. I saw it. When she crossed the room, he watched her the way he has never once watched me.”

Allaric’s eyes narrowed. He had a great many debts and a family name that grew thinner every year. His sister’s marriage to the Duke of Stonehurst was not a matter of the heart — it was survival. Stonehurst money would clear the Morant debts. Stonehurst influence would open doors that had begun quietly to close.

“Then a rumor or two,” he said slowly, “to remind the city what she is. That she was turned out for dishonesty. That she schemes after the Duke. Nothing crude — only enough that no respectable house receives her, and the shine wears off the novelty.” He smiled his cold smile. “And we shall need Madame Belmont. She has reason of her own to want the girl ruined.”