Page 81 of The Ladies Least Likely

CHAPTER TWELVE

B y the end of the week, Amaranthe had a far deeper understanding of how the grand lived than she’d ever thought to have. She had also, once or twice, spared a forgiving thought for Sybil, the Duchess of Hunsdon, for running away to France instead of staying to rule her tiny empire in Britain.

Hunsdon House was a headache in itself, but it was only one part of the ducal holdings.

There were estates in Hertfordshire and Kent, a small farm in the Scottish Lowlands, and a crumbling castle in Wales, as well as a manor in Ireland that was leased to tenants.

In addition to the land holdings, which were the steward’s domain, there were assorted financial investments and other interests which Grey had said were handled by the firm of Thorkelson, Thorkelson, and Son.

He’d had dealings with the Thorkelsons once or twice over the week, and unless she was imagining it, he always seemed to spend long periods staring at her after he returned from these ventures.

She hadn’t had an opportunity to ask him why.

Her days were taken up with hiring and training staff and answering a thousand questions that were brought to her as the de facto lady of the house.

She was fortunate there had only been a few bumps.

The girls from the Benevolence Hospital had turned out to be gems, ready to work and quick to learn, and many of them already had a good rapport.

Giggles, bright chatter, and snatches of song filled the house as they went about their tasks.

Grey’s efforts with the hiring agency had proved a complete disaster, and Amaranthe had stepped in to bail him out when one after another the most unfit applicants were sent to them.

Either the operator of the agency did not think the Duke of Hunsdon was a worthy enough client, or there was some malice afoot toward Grey.

The butler applicant had been an aged sot who attempted to pilfer a silver serving set when given a tour of the premises.

The housekeeper applicants had both looked down their nose at Amaranthe for being no higher than a rector’s daughter, and after the third applicant spoke sternly to Lady Camilla when she caught her in the library with the boys, Amaranthe had informed the agency that they might stop sending candidates for that position.

The row Mrs. Blackthorn had with the French cook had been heard to the rafters of the nursery at the top of the house, and Mrs. Blackthorn was the most forbearing of souls.

Amaranthe, descending to the kitchen to intervene, heard the Frenchman suggesting the color of Mrs. Blackthorn’s skin made it impossible that she could possess any real culinary knowledge beyond folk remedies and plain fare.

Amaranthe couldn’t eject him from the house fast enough.

She sent a few stern words to the agency operator informing them they no longer required the agency’s services and would not be recommending them to any of their acquaintances.

Which left them having to make do as they could.

Ralph stepped in as butler, with Davey training as footman, his pride straining the buttons on his liveried chest. Eyde was serving as housekeeper until someone could be found, but she also insisted on acting as Amaranthe’s personal maid, a confusion Amaranthe knew would never hold in a properly run household.

As for a cook, Mrs. Blackthorn went to market one day and came back with a friend, a formerly enslaved woman made free but also homeless by the death of the man who presumed to own her.

Amaranthe had never heard so much laughter drifting up from the kitchens and other offices below, and while at least once a day reports of some culinary disaster reached her ears, the food that reached the table was as fine as Amaranthe had ever tasted.

If only the new cook could learn a few French dishes, the young Duke of Hunsdon need have no fear of displeasing any who dined at his table.

Amaranthe finished her entries in the housekeeper’s ledger and gave the ink an extra moment to dry.

As she set the account book aside, her eyes drifted, as they did dozens of times a day, to the leather-bound volume on a delicate occasional table beside her.

Hunsdon House had provided her a study of sorts in the small parlor that had clearly been the duchess’s domain, as evidenced by the full-scale indulgence in chinoserie .

Red dragons crawled down the hand-painted wallpaper, a lacquered screen painted with Chinese landscapes decorated one corner, and everything from the carvings on the furniture to the ormulu clock showed motifs inspired by the Far East. The profusion put Amaranthe in mind of the illuminations in the most priceless medieval manuscripts, and she took a bit of comfort in it.

The problem was the time spent in the duchess’s study was time not spent in her own workroom.

Her client expected his manuscript soon, and she needed to hurry if she planned to complete her personal copy along with the refurbishing she’d been hired to do.

By this time the gold leaf paint she’d mixed a week earlier would be nothing but a hard cake, and she still had red headings to ink in several places.

But every time she thought to sneak away from Hunsdon House to her own abode, some new problem cropped up that needed her attention.

In addition, Grey had come to expect that she would take dinner with him and the children.

He had extended the invitation to Joseph as well, with the result that the daughter and son of an obscure Cornish rector mingled freely at the table of a British duke.

Her father would have been tickled by the idea and would have behaved his same self whether in a tin miner’s cottage or a nobleman’s manor, but her sweet mother would have been overjoyed by the luxury.

Her fingers tingled at the prospect of a moment alone, and Amaranthe abandoned the urge to resist. She pulled the fat miscellany onto her desk and opened it to the silk ribbon used as a bookmark. What Ned had produced for her from the duke’s collection was no less than astonishing.

Decades, if not a century old, the manuscript was the repository of years of research that some unknown scholar had done on the most obscure and arcane reaches of medicine, alchemy, astrology, and herbal remedies.

Al-Razi’s Book of Secrets was quoted at length, as was the Secretum Secretorum with which she was already familiar.

But there was more buried in these depths, dug from traditions spanning the Arabic sages and classical antiquity to the most bizarre folk remedies from the fringes of Europe and the secret, arcane lore of Renaissance alchemists like Paracelsus.

She knew nothing of the note-taker save that he referred to himself as Theocratus. She’d asked Mr. Karim in passing what such a volume might be worth, and while such things were always dependent on the buyer, he’d thought such a find could fetch up to a thousand guineas.

A thousand guineas. Amaranthe sat back in her chair at the very thought of it.

With a thousand guineas she could set out her own sign and advertise as a copyist and a respectable maker and seller of antiquarian books.

She could turn her parlor into the bookshop she’d dreamed of when she leased the place.

She could be known as a reputable collector and scholar.

She could build a library to rival Sir Robert Cotton’s, to her everlasting fame.

She could stop duplicating ancient manuscripts. She would descend to no wrongdoing or legerdemain as Amaranthe Illingworth, Antiquarian. She would make copies purely for her own private enjoyment. She would be dedicated to the preservation of knowledge and ancient culture as a public good.

And she would pray her past dealings never came to light.

A swish of fabric made her look up, and Amaranthe was astonished to find she was not alone. On the Chinese ottoman near the fireplace—the study, in an unheard-of luxury, had its own fireplace—Camilla and Derwa sat side by side, completely absorbed in their books.

Camilla, sitting tailor-style with her knees folded, held a Greek-English dictionary while the Pythagoreans lay open on her lap.

Her eyes darted back and forth from book to book as she read.

Derwa, her wild hair stuffed under a cap, her legs swinging, paged through the copy of The Universal Penman that Amaranthe had borrowed from the ducal library, whispering the letters to herself.

Amaranthe let loose a gurgle of laughter. “How long have you two been here?”

“Oh, good, you’re done.” Camilla squirmed out of her seat and ran to Amaranthe’s side. “I don’t understand this word.” She pointed to the Greek letters. “ Mathēme .”

“It means learning or study, exactly what you are doing,” Amaranthe answered. “And what have you learned?”

Camilla shut her book with a delicate snap.

“The Pythagoreans believed that the soul was enclosed in the body of a living thing as punishment for doings in a former life, and only by purity and austerity in this life could the soul be freed to rejoin its essence,” she said.

“Which, and I’m not sure of the translation, is either the stars, or the gods. ”

“You’re making remarkable progress,” Amaranthe marveled, and the girl gave her a reproachful look.

“I wish you didn’t have to leave us, Miss Amaranthe. Who else in this house can translate ancient Greek?”

Amaranthe decided the best response to this remark was avoidance. “Derwa? What have you got there?”

Derwa thumped her book shut with a guilty look, and jumped when her mother stuck her head around the half-open door.

“ Areah! ” Eyde cried. “It’s here ee be! They’re never fussing you, miss?”

“They were as quiet as mice,” Amaranthe said. “Quieter, in fact.” She looked encouragingly at the youngest girl. “Derwa was just telling us what she is reading.”