Wenna Read online

  Her insides tickled in reaction to his scrutiny. No young man before had shown such blatant interest, but no sensible maid would be foolish enough to be flattered by his attention. His sort would see a working-class woman as a mere diversion, a quick tumble to be forgotten in a second. “You said you wanted water.”

  “Indeed, I do need cooling off,” he said with a mischievous smile as he stepped aside.

  She slowly let out her breath and marched on, not about to let him see her confused reaction.

  He followed her into the kitchen, compounding her acute embarrassment. “This is Mr. Courtney,” she said to the cook, breaking the thick silence of the servants in the room. “He wants a cool drink of water.”

  “If it’s not too much trouble.” He smiled at Mrs. Green. “If it is, just direct me to the pump, for I’m sure I need to wet my head as well to completely cool down.”

  Mrs. Green finally closed her jaw. “Just out from the old country, are you, sir? Takes some time to get used to the heat.”

  He laughed. “I’m not a very new chum. I’ve been here two years now. You must take into account I’ve been playing a very strenuous game of cricket and make allowances for that.” He flashed a wide complicit smile at Wenna.

  She didn’t know if he was a natural-born flirt, or if he was looking for an easy conquest. However, he had charmed Mrs. Green and impressed the scullery maid, and his resemblance to Wenna’s father had almost torn her heart from her chest. If he meant to charm her, too, he would have quite a road to go, making a wasted trip, for he would not take a lady’s maid in marriage. Anything else she would not consider.

  She crossed her arms while she watched him gulp down a pint of water, wipe his sleeve across his mouth, and smile at a room full of new admirers. He nodded at her, then left through the back door.

  “You’re right. Miss Patricia will be lucky to get that one,” Mrs. Green said after the door had closed. “My, did you see those shoulders?” She glanced at Wenna.

  “He talked, Mrs. Green. I barely glanced at him.” Wenna realized she’d been holding her breath. Yes, she had seen those shoulders and she had seen those eyes. She could allow herself a moment of envy of Miss Patricia, whose papa could buy her almost any husband she wanted.

  Wenna squared her shoulders and took up her basin and wooden spoon. She couldn’t buy a husband, but she wouldn’t want one she could buy. She made cakes as well as she styled hair. Taking into account her spotless reputation, she would always have well-paid employment. She didn’t need a husband. She could support herself.

  * * * *

  Devon Courtney duly took his opportunity to bowl out all his friends, some of whom had lost their competitive edge. Devon hadn’t lost his yet, nor the interest of parents with daughters. He’d accepted Waldo Brook’s invitation to the country cricket match and the weekend stay, although aware that Waldo had an eye to marrying off his only child. The fortune that came with Patricia Brook would endear her to Devon’s father, but she was a vain nineteen-year-old who didn’t have a word to say that wasn’t about her.

  At this stage of his life, Devon wanted little more from a woman than an enthusiastic tumble. He should have politely fobbed off the invitation, but his friend Anthony Hawthorn had recently married and decided to entertain his new bride elsewhere, which left Devon’s accommodation open to change. Keen on the game of cricket and, unlike the others, happy to make up the numbers on either team, Devon therefore accepted the first invitation he received—that of Waldo Brook.

  He dropped his dinner suit onto a bed dressed like a maiden aunt’s long-collected trousseau and began removing his sweaty cricket shirt. The moment he’d seen the redheaded maid’s bright, unconfined hair, he’d wanted to snatch her up and race her back to town, assuming she’d be as bold as she looked. In bed she would be a treat—uncontrolled, laughing, biting, scratching, and giving him kiss for kiss. Thinking about her made him hard. He imagined her hair spread across his pillow, her eyes shining with love, and her mouth soft with wanting, his Jenny—no, not Jenny. “Wenna,” she had said.

  For a moment, he smiled regretfully. The maid was a guarded, graceful woman who no doubt had rebuffed hopeful advances many times. The juiciest fruit always seemed to be the most difficult to reach. Tomorrow he would be back in Adelaide and too busy to think about tupping anyone.

  Before the water in his rose-painted bowl cooled, he washed and changed. An evening of dancing was planned by the Graces, an eminent colonial family, in their large country retreat a mile or two away. The Brooks planned to attend. Devon, who had met Hubert Grace at Cambridge a few years back, would go, too. He shrugged into his evening jacket, wondering why he wouldn’t want Patricia in his bed even for a large fortune, but he would take the redhead in a shot. He didn’t know the woman, who seemed wary, if not tense. In that way, she was nothing like the woman she resembled: laughing, joyous Jenny, the woman who had caused him to be banished here to the end of the earth.

  He wanted to live at the end of the earth for the rest of his days. He loved this land. He loved the opportunities. From the moment he’d stepped onto the sunlit sands of this vast colony, he’d been accepted on merit and now, so far away from home, he relished being his own man. He completed the bow of his tie, stepped out of his room and, “Oof!”

  A body smacked into his, and a soft fabric hid his view. He pushed the material aside and stared at Wenna, the delectable lady’s maid who had occupied his thoughts for the last few minutes. The redhead dropped her hold on the dark blue satin-and-lace gown she’d been carrying, leaving the fabric hanging from his shoulder and covering past his knees.

  He laughed. “It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t normally wear a gown in the evening.”

  She stared, her face tensing with embarrassment. “I was in a hurry to Mrs. Brook’s room, and I didn’t want the hem of her gown to trail on the floor.”

  “Of course not,” he said. He tried to sound sympathetic, but considering what he’d been thinking, he could only see providence in their collision. “Does the color suit me?”

  “It looks better on Mrs. Brook,” she said, her chin raised. “With respect.” Evading his gaze, she scooped one hand around the bodice of the gown at his chest height and the other under the fullness of the skirts. The top of the gown dropped onto her arm, but the bottom didn’t move. She tugged.

  He might have not have noticed the lace had caught beneath the placket of his fly buttons had she not given an almighty jerk, which almost pulled him forward. Strangely, his voice came out husky. “You’re gripping my fly. I don’t mind, of course, but if you leave your fingers there, I’m liable to think far too kindly of you.”

  She reared back, only to be stopped by the skirts again. “Can you—oh dear Lord—untangle the lace from yourself?”

  He glanced down, trying not to laugh again. “I’ll likely need to unbutton my trousers.”

  “Better you than me,” she said, staring at his fly with exasperation.

  “I don’t want to damage the gown. You’ll be quicker.”

  “Stand still.” She worked the fingers of one hand into the material, apparently trying to feel her way to the right button.

  “That’s good,” he said encouragingly. “A little lower.”

  She lifted her head. “I’m not doing this for your amusement.”

  “I’m not as amused as I was. Now I’m downright interested, which you will feel if you keep groping blindly in that area. You can either get down on your knees to see what you are doing, which will maintain my interest, or we can go into my bedroom, where I can fiddle around with my trousers without an audience.”

  “Well, there’s a choice,” she said, sounding frazzled.

  Her fingers moved faster, his cock twitched for attention, and suddenly the material came free.

  “Chenoweth!” He turned his head and saw Patricia standing at the end of the passage, her eyes narrowed and her mouth tight.

  From where
she stood, she would see him and Wenna standing close enough to kiss. If he turned, she would see his blatantly incriminating thoughts—so he stood, exactly where he was, his gaze on Wenna’s.

  “Serves you right,” she mumbled under her breath.

  “Your fault,” he muttered back. “Distract her.”

  “You distract her.”

  “Good evening, Patricia. I expect Wenna will be with you soon. I think she might be waiting for the proposal I may be forced to give now we’ve been caught in the act together.”

  Wenna’s green eyes iced with fury. She flapped the skirts of the gown like a flag of surrender. “Mrs. Brook’s gown. Mr. Courtney got caught in it. No harm done.”

  She moved out from behind him and walked on.

  He subsided, discreetly rearranged himself beneath his trousers, and turned.

  Hands on her hips, Patricia watched Wenna enter the first bedroom on the right, Mrs. Brook’s room. “I hope she wasn’t bothering you,” she said as she walked toward him.

  “Not at all,” he said, though Wenna certainly did bother him. As a servant, she was untouchable, of course, and yet he wanted to do more than touch her. In his mind, he’d had her twice, but in the real world he would likely never have her.

  “Poor thing. I ought to feel sorry for her.” Patricia exaggerated a shudder. “Old and ugly, and with that frightful red hair. I suppose that’s why she’s so desperate for attention. I don’t know why Mama keeps her on, truly. She sets such a bad example to the younger maids.”

  He hid his surprise. Old and ugly? Wenna was slender, graceful, and unafraid, her most attractive trait after her glorious red hair. “I expect your mama keeps her on because she is highly efficient.”

  “She didn’t look particularly efficient while she was detaining you in the passage. She was wasting time.”

  He considered Patricia’s tight-lipped annoyance and decided he’d said enough. Any more, and Wenna might suffer from the humorless young lady’s tongue.

  Later that evening, he scrupulously performed his duty dance with Patricia Brook and spent the rest of his time in the Graces’ sprawling comfortable house with his cronies. Finding common ground with a rich, spoilt nineteen-year-old didn’t appeal to him as much as discussing the day’s cricket match, or the various political shenanigans. Before he left, he arranged to borrow a gig from James, Anthony Hawthorn’s younger brother, for an early departure in the morning.

  In the carriage on the way back to the Brooks’ country residence, he sighed with relief. He didn’t know why he had agreed to stay with the couple. He couldn’t possibly offer for Patricia Brook. No amount of money would make the daughter of a builder acceptable to his family.

  Chapter 2

  Wenna awoke early the next morning, having slept badly. She didn’t trust Miss Patricia to keep her mouth closed about Mr. Courtney’s appalling comment the night before. Clearly, the young lady hadn’t found time to complain about Wenna to Mrs. Brook before the family left for the evening’s entertainment. However, with the wariness of the once-bitten, Wenna arose earlier than usual.

  Too nervous to eat her own breakfast, she waited until Mr. Brook appeared for his in the dining room. With some trepidation, she scooted upstairs and knocked on Mrs. Brook’s door. Normally her mistress ate her morning bread and butter in bed.

  Asked to enter, she walked into a modest-sized bedroom, expensively wallpapered with pink blossoms on a white background. The aquamarine bedcover had been kicked to the foot of the bed, exposing the snowy white linen sheets and Mr. Brook’s crumpled nightshirt. Mrs. Brook, encased in a pink velvet robe, sat on the dressing stool, staring at her smooth face in the dressing table mirror. Most of the furniture in the room, shunted off from the city house when the newer furniture had arrived from England, was roughly carved out of the inferior local pine, or so Mrs. Brook said. Wenna loved the rich red sheen.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Brook.”

  Mrs. Brook heaved a sigh and frowned at Wenna. “I have a megrim. Don’t say a word. Just help me with my gown. The yellow cotton, I think.”

  Her breath heavy, Wenna took the bodice and the skirts from the chest. Usually, she had quite a conversation with Mrs. Brook in the morning, and if Miss Patricia had complained about her, she would like a chance to explain. Nevertheless, she did as told and dressed her mistress, who then sat in front of her mirror waiting for her long brown hair to be brushed. This gave Wenna an opportunity to meet Mrs. Brook’s gaze in the mirror, but Mrs. Brook avoided this by staring at her fingernails.

  “Permission to speak?”

  “When you’ve finished my hair.”

  Wenna scooped Mrs. Brook’s hair to the back of her head and tied a braid of cotton around the mass at the nape. Next, she clipped one long hair pad from ear to ear, making the base for the smooth roll she pinned at the nape of Mrs. Brook’s neck. When done, she said, “I had a small problem with your guest last night.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me last night?” Mrs. Brook massaged her forehead.

  “Because I thought Miss Patricia would.”

  “She didn’t. She told her father, who then told me.” Mrs. Brook’s gaze finally met Wenna’s in the mirror. “I’m sure you didn’t have your hand in his trousers, Chenoweth, because you are not a silly woman. You wouldn’t do that in the hallway. However, the description Patricia gave her father sounded as if you did.”

  Wenna swallowed, utterly aghast. “My hand in his—trousers? What sort of mind would invent such a wicked thing to say?”

  “I hope you’re not criticizing my daughter,” Mrs. Brook said in a severe tone. “Of course she didn’t use those words. That was Mr. Brook’s interpretation.”

  Wenna had to force herself to breathe. “I was walking with your blue lace gown, ma’am, the one you wore last night, holding it above my head so the skirts wouldn’t drag. Mr. Courtney came out of his room, and I walked into him. The lace got caught on his buttons.”

  “Buttons?”

  “Trouser buttons, ma’am. He wanted me to work the fabric off. He thought it was amusing. If Miss Patricia heard him laughing, that was why. I don’t know why he said what he said, but I’m sure he thought that was amusing, too.”

  Mrs. Brook heaved a sigh. “The thing is that he hasn’t made a proposal to Patricia, which doesn’t suit her father, who also wants to see you in the drawing room at ten. It’s just past ten now.”

  Wenna wasn’t a silly woman. She knew she would be dismissed as well as she knew Mrs. Brook had made sure she had her hair done before Wenna went into the sulks. Pressing her lips together, Wenna turned and marched down the hallway to the drawing room at the front of the house.

  She rapped smartly on the door.

  “Come in,” Mr. Brook called. He sat on the piano stool, idly toying with the keys. The room was only slightly larger than the other rooms in the house—six all told, with a hall running down the middle, the kitchen and bathroom on the back. Mr. Brook had plans for a larger extension in a bid to keep up with his neighbors, and had begun with a long room where the servants slept. Since the family had only brought Wenna, Mrs. Green, and two maids, they weren’t too cramped.

  “You wanted to see me, sir?” She stood just inside the door, her hands clasped together in front of her, trying to ease her shoulders. The room smelled of stale cigar smoke.

  “We can’t have the maids servicing the guests,” Mr. Brook said in a righteous voice. “Especially when they haven’t serviced the master.” His mouth turned down. But for the amount of food he ate and the port he drank, he could have been a good-looking man, but his belly strained at his waistcoat buttons and his eyes had a puffy rim.

  She drew a breath deep enough to expand her chest. “Bearing in the mind the second, you must believe that the first isn’t true,” she said, clasping her icy cold hands.

  “Do you say it isn’t true?”

  “I do. I’m sure Mr. Courtney would say the same.”

  �
��I’m sure he would, too.” One half of a cynical smile appeared. He sighed. “However, last night he told my daughter he’d been caught in the act with you.”

  “He was joking. Ask him.”

  “I would hardly order a guest into my drawing room to interview him about his dealings with my wife’s maid.”

  “I’ll happily fetch him.”

  “That would give you a chance to get him to confirm your story. And no.” He held up one beefy palm. “I won’t either fetch him or confront him. Patricia said he kissed her and gave her the idea that he was interested in her. He is leaving this morning. She expected him to stay an extra day and says he won’t because you embarrassed him. She wants me to dismiss you. I would be happy to send you off now, but my wife suggests I allow you to remain until we arrive back in town.”

  “That’s very kind of you both,” she said, her mouth stretched into a straight line and her face hot with anger. “But I didn’t ask to leave your service. You have dismissed me, for no other reason than your daughter wants me gone. I’ll leave right now, sir, after you pay me my wages.”

  He crossed his arms over his belly. “You will leave when I say you will leave.”

  “I will leave with the money I have earned.” Her chin firmed.

  “If you walk out now, nothing.”

  “I don’t work for noth...” She stopped speaking when she heard footsteps.

  Mr. Courtney ranged beside her. He wore a light suit and tan gloves, and he held a wide brimmed felt hat and a leather valise. “Good morning, Wenna. Do you mind if I have a word with Mr. Brook?”

  “Not at all. I was about to go.”

  “You will not leave, Chenoweth, until I say so,” Mr. Brook said tightly. “I’ll be but a moment, Courtney.”

  Mr. Courtney’s gaze left Wenna and flitted over to Mr. Brook. “No need to hurry your conversation along for me. I simply wanted to thank you for your generous hospitality. No doubt I’ll see you and your family in town.”