A Lady of Rooksgrave Manor - Kathryn Moon Page 0,1
you get hard?" I gasped out, turning and bending, my body throbbing at the memory of the gentle doctor's lopsided smile.
Chapter One
Dr. Underwood & Mr. Tanner
I'd always liked to watch Dr. Underwood. Nearly gotten myself into a fair bit of trouble for it over my two years of service with the Pickerings too. But there was something about the man. I felt a kind of kinship to him. I was not what I ought to have been—not quiet enough, not selfless enough, not appropriate. And though I couldn't say why, I thought the same might've been true of Dr. Underwood.
I leaned in the shadows of the service hall and watched him and the other fine gentlemen and ladies who came to the house to shop and gossip about the family's misfortune. He wandered the house, not looking for Mrs. Pickering, but I suspected to pick out which of the fixtures and goods he’d like to buy when it all went up for auction. I couldn’t get fired for impertinence when I was already being let go in just a few more days.
I should have known a position as nice as this one wouldn’t last, one where I had a room and good meals. A girl like me, who couldn’t keep her skirts on straight when there were handsome lads about and had already been released from one service job for her habits.
As it turned out, Mr. Pickering had his own weaknesses too, and the game of speculation had lost him his trade money. Now they were selling off the grand house and releasing their staff in the hopes of scrounging up what little was left. They’d given us all good references in exchange, but I’d yet to find any position. Certainly not one as nice.
Dr. Underwood paused in the entry hall, looking up at the grand staircase before turning in place and striding across the tiles to the hall where I was spying. I was expecting him to stop and examine one of the sideboards or a work of art, so I was still staring dumbly at him as he ducked into the staff hallway.
I curtseyed, a little too late and gracelessly, and he blushed, bobbing nervously in front of me.
“Are you lost, sir? There’s nothing much back here to see,” I said. “And less up for sale.”
His hands were twisting in front of him, a handkerchief winding around his finger and crumpling in his fist. His clothes were fine and beautifully tailored to his elegant frame, but he moved in them as though he were looking for an escape route.
“Ah, I was—Actually, I came to see you…but I-I haven’t learned your name, Miss…”
I stood up straight at that, even as he bobbed forward again, full lips pursing.
“Esther Reed, sir,” I said.
And then I held my breath and waited for him to speak. Would he offer me a position? Had the Pickerings recommended me? If they had, then they clearly hadn’t been paying attention to my habits. Dr. Underwood was just the type of handsome man I found myself in trouble with too often—although not usually with a gentleman as important as him.
When he took too long to speak, checking over his shoulders and around mine to see if anyone was listening, I spoke for him.
“Is it a position, sir? Are you in need of a housemaid?” I asked.
He coughed and smiled. “No I-I have one of those and she’s…not so charming, certainly. But perhaps a little less nosy too,” he said. It was my turn to blush, thinking of him catching me in the hall during his appointment with my lady all those months ago. “It’s, um…a delicate kind of…and if I might offend, please say so, but—”
I stepped closer, the heat burning on my cheeks mirroring the red on his that turned his freckles another shade darker.
“Are you in need of a mistress, sir?” I whispered.
I was not offended in the least by the suggestion, although I wasn’t sure I was nearly fine enough for that sort of thing. It might be below a young lady's station, but I wasn't really a lady. I didn't even have a proper talent like an actress or an opera singer, or the other kinds of women who men purchased nice things for—fancy houses and dresses and jewels, and all that sort of thing.
Dr. Underwood’s smile relaxed at my question, and he looked almost boyish, although I knew by the hint of gray at his temples he was older than I was.