Read Online All I Want Is You by Elizabeth Anthony - Free Book Online

shin.
    He cried out in rage. ‘By God,’ he growled. ‘By God, you bitch. You really
do
need a lesson, like the others say.’
    He grabbed me and hauled me against him while his mouth clung greedily to my lips, but I kneed him, I caught him where it really hurt, as I’d heard the other maids describing. Then I ran inside, shaking with helpless fury.
    Two nights later, Mrs Burdett called me in to her private sitting room. She needed, she said, to warn me that the other servants were complaining about me. Why, she wouldn’t say; but I guessed that on top of the whispers that I’d been cruel to Will, Eddie was spreading his lies. What grieved me above all was that Mrs Burdett, who had always been kind to me, had now turned against me.
    Mr Peters happened to be passing as I left the housekeeper’s room, and he eyed me askance through his metal-rimmed spectacles. ‘Sophie, there you are. Lady Beatrice has asked if you’ll take a tea-tray up to her private sitting room.’
    Why me? Why not Margaret?
My mind in a whirl, I took the tray up and went in;
oh my
, I remembered that room well, the settee where Margaret and I…
    Lady Beatrice told me to sit down on that very settee, while she strode around in her long blue evening gown, impatient and agitated. ‘I’m going to be staying for a while,’ she told me. ‘There’s a great deal going on here at the moment, Sophie, and I
need
to be here.’
    Though she was their son’s widow, she had never shown much sign of affection to the Duke and Duchess,so I wondered what had caused her change of heart, but of course it wasn’t my place to ask.
    ‘The thing is this,’ she went on. ‘I need a second maid while I’m here, in addition to Margaret, and I’d very much like a girl who’s utterly familiar with the household, yet on whom I can rely. I want you to work for me, Sophie, for the next few weeks at least. Would you be interested?’
    I think I probably stammered my reply, I was so overwhelmed. ‘I-I don’t know, my lady. I would have to ask Mrs Burdett—’
    ‘I’ll do that,’ she interrupted. ‘And I’ll make sure she agrees.’ She gazed at me thoughtfully from top to toe, then lit a cigarette; she smoked it using a long ivory holder. ‘Margaret will still be my chief maid, of course,’ she went on, ‘but I need someone who is good at sewing and at caring for different fabrics. You like clothes, don’t you, Sophie? You like
my
clothes?’
    I wondered if she had noticed me watching her and taking in everything she wore, every detail. All I could do was nod, but she smiled, looking as satisfied as one of the Duchess’s cats with a bowl of cream. ‘I thought you did,’ she said softly. ‘So you’ll agree to the job?’
    I felt both fear and excitement, mingled with relief that Margaret must have said nothing about the time I’d spent with her here, in Lady Beatrice’s rooms. ‘I would be honoured, my lady.’
    ‘Then start looking at my clothes, why don’t you?’ She glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece. ‘We have an hour before dinner. Pick your favourites. Try something on.’
    What?
‘I-I beg your pardon, my lady?’
    ‘Choose a gown. And try it on,’ she repeated impatiently.
    I still remember that gown I picked out from her wardrobe. She’d worn it to dinner the previous night – it was of pink crepe de Chine and she told me it was made by Jeanne Paquin, a famous Paris designer. It must have cost hundreds of pounds and I thought it was heavenly.
    She poured us both drinks from a silver tray; she must have had quite a lot already, but she appeared icy calm. She made me taste mine – it was gin and tonic, like the drink Margaret had given me, and as I felt the unaccustomed alcohol racing through my blood, I was suddenly enthralled by what was happening to me. By the possibilities that were opening out in front of me.
    I had to take my maid’s gown off while she watched, and I hesitated, looking down at my old chemise and