Page 28 of Better Off Wed

“Fair ’nough,” Dinah conceded. “But Mrs. Tenney seems to think Lord Sterling is all right, not like t’others. Said he were right polite to her this mornin’, thanked her for this here tray”—the dishes rattled as she hoisted it onto her hip—“an’ asked her to make sure his lady had everythin’ she needs.”

The other maid gave a low, knowing laugh. “The way she’s sleepin’, I’d say he took care o’ that last night.”

Dinah giggled and dropped her voice to a scandalized whisper. “I overheard Mrs. Tenney tell Cook that if she were married to a man who looked like that, she’d never get off her back again.”

At Dinah’s words, heat plumed in Laura’s belly, or perhaps a little lower, then spread into her chest, up her throat, until it reached her cheeks. When concocting her plan, she had failed to consider how it might feel to overhear the servants’ earthy speculations about her supposed marriage.

She turned her head into the pillow, seeking its coolness as a remedy for the unwelcome heat, and was met with the subtle, spicy scent of Jeremy’s shaving soap.

Evidently, he’d lingered by her side longer than she had imagined.

Despite her injury, she had managed to work her way across the bed over the course of the night. At the faint memory of seeking his warmth when the room had grown colder as the fire died, she stiffened a little and pushed herself more upright against the pillows.

The movement drove a grunt of pain from her lungs, and she bit the inside of her cheek. The discomfort was not as bad as yesterday, thank heaven, but bad enough to make her wish she had stayed still.

One of the maids gasped in surprise.

“Beggin’ your pardon, milady.” The first maid set down her bucket of ashes before curtsying.

Dinah’s eyes were downcast. “We weren’t to wake you.”

“No, no,” Laura insisted. “I’m usually an early riser. I can’t think what’s come over me.”

After taking in Laura’s pink cheeks, the other maid pursed her lips, as if fighting back a smirk. “Happen it’s that sore ankle, milady.”

“Where is my husband?” Laura made the question breathy, tentative, though of course she already knew the answer.

“Gone out shootin’ with Lord Thornton, milady.” The maids—sisters, she thought, now that she had a better look at them—exchanged a knowing glance. “Said he thought you might need your rest.”

“I’ll just take this tray down to the kitchen an’ be back in a wink to help you up, milady,” promised Dinah, and the pair of them left the room, hardly able to contain their giggles until they reached the corridor.

Once the door was closed behind them, Laura permitted herself a self-satisfied smile. Everything was coming together just as she had hoped. Jeremy was playing the part of the polite but distant husband. He’d also taken steps to befriend Lord Thornton. And the servants were too busy with gossip about the newlyweds to expend much energy wondering over the name Lady Sterling.

So why, as she swept her palm over the cool linens on the empty half of the bed, did she feel strangely dissatisfied?

Lady Sterling works alone, just as she had told Jeremy last night.

In a matter of moments, the maid returned bearing a breakfast tray and introduced herself with a curtsy. “Now, milady, I’ll help you up. Don’t you worry about leanin’ on me. I can take it.”

Laura accepted Dinah’s assistance to stand, and then tested her injury. She was still several days from walking without assistance, she feared, but at least the slightest brush of her toe against the carpet no longer sent pain shooting through her ankle.

“Don’ overdo, milady,” cautioned Dinah. “We’ll just make our way to the dressing room, nice and slow.”

Laura found no evidence that Jeremy had fashioned a makeshift bed in the adjoining room. Someone—one of the bevy of maids that had attended them last evening, she presumed—had hung the spare dress from her valise in the clothes press beside a pair of fresh men’s shirts. Her linen and Jeremy’s lay in companionable piles on a nearby shelf. The arrangement of their things felt surprisingly intimate, given the fact that the two of them had lain side by side in the same bed.

After Laura had performed her ablutions, Dinah helped her dress. While Laura brushed her hair, the maid bustled back into the room to straighten the bed, whistling softly all the while.

“That’s a pretty tune,” Laura complimented her.

“Thank you, ma’am. But Mrs. Tenney would scold me somethin’ fierce if she’d heard me.”

“Have you been here long?”

“Almost two years.”

Long enough, then, to have heard tales of, witnessed, perhaps even experienced Lord Thornton’s ill treatment. Then again, such men could be careful when they wished to be, and Dinah was young. Thornton might have some limits, and he surely would not want to drive away every female domestic in his employ.

“Thornton Hall seems a beautiful old place,” Laura observed a moment later, determined to keep her interrogation casual. “You must be happy here?”