“And penniless orphans at that,” replied Mrs. Howard. As the head housekeeper, Mrs. Howard was put in charge of keeping Wentworth Hall running. A difficult task, by any measure, and Mrs. Howard often looked pinched about the face, as if constantly in pain. It was hardly a secret that the family’s ledgers were stretched to the limit. Not a day passed when Lord Darlington wasn’t chastising his wife over some little luxury she’d bought the girls or a new piece of furniture she’d purchased for the baby’s nursery. He’d always been an old cheapskate but these days more so than Nora could ever recall before.

Rose the cook looked up from pie dough she was patting into a dish. Something scrumptious she would serve the Darlingtons for lunch. “Oh, the Fitzhugh twins are far from penniless, I can assure you.”

Mrs. Howard took a seat at the large round table in the center of the room, pencil and pad in hand to begin creating a shopping list to stock the pantry in preparation for their guests. Nora stood beside her, sorting the clothes into piles on a chair.

“How do you know?” Mrs. Howard asked Rose. Nora was interested herself. It was rare for old Rose to have any gossip, confined to the kitchen as she was.

“The Fitzhughs have a summer estate in Kent and my sister’s best friend is head housekeeper there. The staff dreads the months of June through August when the family returns from Johannesburg. Those twins are holy terrors and spoiled brats, to hear tell of it,” Rose informed them. “Their summer estate can’t keep a staff in place. They end up leaving the service after one season! That’s why they aren’t coming with their own valet and maid.”

Helen, a young, plump housemaid with strawberry blond hair, emptied a bucket of gray water into the work sink. “I’m sure the poor things won’t be as terrible as all that,” she said as she wiped the bucket clean. “They are orphans now and have lost everything.”

“It’s true that they’ve lost their father and their mother before that, but they haven’t lost everything,” Rose insisted. “In fact they stand to gain a great deal very soon, so I can’t believe they will be with us for long.”

“Mark my words, Lord Darlington will let them stay for as many months or years as they like,” Mrs. Howard said. “As long as these two are heirs to a fortune, he’ll treat them like gold. If only they would contribute to the household budget while they are here. Stretching the expenses to feed two more mouths is going to take a miracle, at this rate.”

Nora handed the dresses over to Helen, with instructions from Lady Darlington to be more careful when ironing the lace this time. “Do you think they’ll expect me to attend to Jessica Fitzhugh?” Nora asked, tucking her hair back into her white bonnet. “I certainly hope not,” she added before anyone had a chance to answer. “My hands are completely full as it is, seeing to both Miss Maggie and Miss Lila. If this were a proper estate as it once was when my mother worked here, we would have twice the staff and be getting at least half again the twenty pounds a year we’re earning.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Mrs. Howard disagreed.

“I have it for a fact that at the Duke’s residence, Cotswall Manor, that’s the case,” Nora replied.

“Oh, Nora, you hear everything,” Helen said with amusement, shaking her head as she sorted through the dresses Nora had presented to her.

“I do,” Nora agreed. “It doesn’t hurt to be informed.” Nora made it a point to speak to others in service when she went into the town for the afternoon. And one of the great advantages of being a ladies maid was overhearing all sorts of information. Sometimes Lady Darlington acted as if Nora wasn’t even there when she was talking to the girls.

“Oh, it’s one thing to be informed, and another to be riling people up by spreading gossip,” Grace, one of the upstairs maids, chided sourly as she wrung out a rag in the sink.

Nora glared at Grace for the implication. Grace loved to act like a know-it-all, which was rich, given the fact that she really knew nothing!

A tall, broad-shouldered young man with wavy black hair walked in the side entrance from the stables. Clear green eyes were the most striking feature of his square-jawed face. “Yes, tell us, Nora. What’s the latest scandalous gossip?” He winked, a smile dancing on his lips.

Nora’s hands went to her hips and she scowled at the handsome nineteen-year-old groom. Like her, Michael’s father had worked at Wentworth Hall before him and he had grown up playing in the estate’s immaculate many-stalled stable. While Nora had been orphaned at a young age, Michael still had his father, who tended Wentworth Hall’s gardens. Knowing she was alone, Michael took special care of Nora. He was practically an older brother to her. Including the playful teasing.

“Oh, right, Michael, make fun now,” she came back at him, “but when you want to know what’s really going on around here, who do you go to? Me! That’s who.”

“And what would I want to know about this place?” he asked, pouring himself a glass of water from the cook’s sink.

Nora tossed her head back and laughed. “Lots! You’re more interested in the comings and goings than any of us maids.”

“Hardly,” Michael replied.

Nora guffawed. How many times had she reported to him on the whereabouts of one Lady Margaret Darlington? In that, he was always keenly interested.

Michael gave Nora a pointed look, and his dark brows knit as his green eyes thundered a warning for her not to say any more.

Nora shrugged her shoulders. Never let it be said that she didn’t know the difference between sharing information and spreading rumors. There was plenty of scandal in Wentworth Hall that didn’t get remarked upon. She had no intention of embarrassing Michael in front of everyone, but she couldn’t resist the tease. “Well, I’m just saying is that each one of you has benefited one time or another from my information. So don’t be so high and mighty about it,” she scolded, wagging her finger at him.

Michael dropped comically to one knee in front of Nora and took her hand in a mock display of remorse. “I do humbly apologize, Nora.”

“Ahh, get away from me,” Nora rebuked him with a laugh. “You reek of horses. If I go upstairs smelling like that I’ll hear about it from her ladyship and the girls.”

“Maggie doesn’t mind the smell of horses,” Michael said, standing up.

“Has Lady Margaret been riding since she came home?” Mrs. Howard asked, emphasizing her proper title to make known her disapproval of the familiarity with which Michael and Nora often addressed Maggie and Lila.

“No… not yet, at any rate,” Michael said. He turned to refill his glass of water, and stood with his back to the room to look out the window.

“That’s strange, don’t you think, Michael?” Rose said as she laid apples and raisins into her pie. “Nearly a month since she returned and she hasn’t even gone out to the stables? That girl always adored riding.”

“Yes, she did,” Michael agreed, then cleared his throat. “People change, I suppose.”

Nora heard the sadness in his tone, and her heart went out to him. Michael had been living for the day when Maggie would return from her travels but since she’d come back, the girl hadn’t as much as said hello to him.

“Lady Margaret has changed since she went to Europe,” Mrs. Howard observed. “She’s just not the happy wild thing she used to be. Have you noticed it, Michael? How does she seem to you?”

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t set eyes on her,” Michael admitted.

Nora moved to stand by him and realized he was hiding so they wouldn’t see the red that had come to his cheeks at the mention of Maggie’s name.

Nora caught his hand and gave it a squeeze, casting a sympathetic glance his way.

“The trip abroad has matured Lady Margaret,” Grace ventured. “That’s what an excursion like that is intended to do. Of course no one expected them to be gone as long as they were. Once Lady Darlington realized she was with child, I suppose they had no choice but to stay until the baby was born and hale enough to travel home. Now that they are back, I hear Lord and Lady Darlington are anxious to get Lady Margaret settled down, raising children of her own. And the Duke of Cotswall has been by Wentworth Hall a few times.…”

Nora looked sharply at the dowdy woman. Of course that was information Nora had already overheard, but she had been hoping to reveal it to Michael privately. Nora knew he had never stopped loving her—even knowing he was just a groom to her, and not someone Maggie could ever return feelings for. With darting eyes, Nora took in Michael’s reaction. He had blanched white as one of the estate’s crisp, starched sheets. “How do you know that?” Nora challenged Helen with a bit more aggression than she had meant to. “I never heard anything like that.”

“I was mopping the hall the other day outside the library. The door was slightly open and I overheard the two of them talking,” Grace explained.

“That’s disgusting,” Helen stated firmly, her voice dripping with true revulsion.

“What? That I overheard them?” Grace questioned. “It wasn’t as though I was trying to—”

“No!” Helen interrupted. “The Duke of Cotswall marrying Lady Margaret—”

“I think he’s rather distinguished,” Mrs. Howard maintained. “For a man his age, I think—”

“That’s exactly the thing of it,” Helen insisted. “He’s a man his age.”

“What would you estimate him to be?” Rose asked Mrs. Howard. “Forty-five? Fifty?”

“It’s not so unheard of,” Mrs. Howard said. “A man of great wealth feels that the lavish life he can offer a young woman makes him an attractive candidate for marriage despite a gap in age, and many a young woman eagerly reciprocates his attentions.”