O Night Divine A Holiday Collection of Spirited Christmas Tales - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,147

her spectacles and glared at the petite young woman.

“Yes, my lady. Mr. Bentley hired me with the new housekeeper just yesterday,” she answered tentatively.

“I hope you are better than the last one,” Agatha muttered, placing two cubes of sugar in her cup. Before pouring the hot water into her teacup, she felt the pot. “Nice and warm, just the way I like it.” Smiling, she lifted a rounded pewter cover. “Ah, Pretty, here is your milk, my little darling.”

“Meow,” the cat answered, standing and stretching before sauntering over to the bowl of milk.

She watched her cat lap the milk for a moment. “Well done, gel. You will do.” Agatha waved her hand, gesturing for her to leave.

As the servant left, Bentley stepped into the room. “My lady, Mr. Hanson is here to see you. He represents the Society Home for Orphans.”

“Probably here to beg. Send him away. We should not encourage his begging. Please inform the man we do not give to charities,” she said before sipping her tea.

“Yes, my lady.” He closed the parlor door behind him.

Agatha set her teacup down and stared at the closed door. Bentley never falters in his work. He has to be the best hire my husband ever made, she mused. And yet, something about him nags at me. It is as if I have met him before. But when?

Charles Bentley rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. He would never completely understand this woman. Worse, his own feelings toward her perplexed him. Approaching forty, she was an attractive woman. At least, he thought so. When she smiled—admittedly a rarity of late—he found himself transported to memories of that ball so long ago.

Lately, for reasons he failed to understand, she refused to update her wardrobe like the other women he saw in town, preferring to wear the dresses she had before the earl died, which had been over five years ago.

Mrs. Spencer, the village’s new modiste, had visited and invited her to see her newest fabrics and fashion plates, offering to bring all the dresses to the home for fittings.

Yet, she only allowed the seamstress to update her existing wardrobe and turned down all pleas to update her wardrobe without even a kind word.

Her niece’s marriage had set her temper on edge. Her ladyship would be this way until she worked it out of her system. He wished he could distract her, but there would be nothing for it. Her mood would run his course. He only hoped no one would leave because of it.

Charles constantly had to hire new people as Lady Agatha Wendt could not keep them, particularly women, in her employ. He had hired a housekeeper, a maid, and a lady’s maid just this week. Thank goodness the footmen seemed to stay, and he felt fortunate that she had agreed to promote one to under butler. It gave him the chance to take care of the extra duties she constantly required. This afternoon she had ordered all the silver be counted—as she had every Christmas season since the earl’s death, and she required that he do it alone. His best hope was that she did not lose more staff.

The estate was reputed to be quite rolled up; however, since she now controlled the purse-strings, she gave the impression of being quite purse-pinched. He shook his head in bafflement. More upsetting was the way she treated the female staff.

How was it he saw a different side of her? Most of the staff—old and new—feared and hated her.

Still, she could be generous when she wished. Her cat was a fine case in point, he thought to himself. The footman, Harris, had told him it had been laying on the side of the road, starving and badly injured when she demanded they stop the carriage. Her ladyship had stepped out of the conveyance and picked the half-frozen animal up herself. She had brought it back into the carriage and wrapped it in her fur and velvet pelisse, ignoring her own comfort. It was clear that she cared, he thought, smiling to himself. That had been a month ago, and the cat still clung to her like a shadow. Her ladyship treated Pretty like a child. Charles smiled to himself. He could think of dozens of examples like this over the years—things perhaps only he noticed.

Mr. Hanson had waited in the anteroom just off the front. Charles knew him by sight. The poor man appeared at their door collecting for the orphanage every year. Sometimes he