The Devious Duchess Read Online Free Page B

the bane of her existence that while she did all the many chores burdened on her by Mrs. Haskell and got no praise or thanks, Polly shirked any duty she could and got by as well. Better, for she had smiled and cajoled herself into favor with the late Lord Dudley.
    “Polly, you were in charge of cleaning up after dinner?” Deirdre asked, turning her cool gaze to the servant.
    “Well, miss, Anna serves dinner, and I clean up after, but Tuesday was my day off.”
    “You’re supposed to be back by eight!” Anna inserted.
    “My ma was sick,” Polly said, glaring at her co-worker.
    “You wasn’t at home, and don’t let on you was! You went to the barn dance at Ranting. I heard you laughing at the back door with Edgar Mools. Close to midnight it was, miss,” Anna announced, trying to disguise her glee as duty.
    “If you knew she hadn’t returned, Anna, you might have cleaned away the dishes and seen if Lord Dudley required anything before retiring,” Deirdre said.
    Life had taught Anna not to expect anything resembling justice from her betters. She stayed home and did her duties; Polly went flirting about the countryside, but in the end it was she who got the scold. “She only dared to stay away because she knew Mrs. Haskell was gone,” Anna said scornfully.
    “I did not know it! She didn’t get that letter till after I left. You only told me this morning,” Polly reminded her.
    “You could have heard it at the dance.”
    “I wasn’t at the dance. I was home with my ma.”
    “Since when is Edgar Mools your ma?”
    Deirdre saw that she was making a botch of her lecture and called them to order. “At what time this morning did you get around to going to clean away last night’s dinner, Polly?” she asked.
    “I got up at eight on the dot, miss.”
    “You’re supposed to be up at seven!” Anna interjected.
    “You weren’t up either, so never mind cutting up at me. We don’t have a clock, miss. Mrs. Haskell always wakes us, and she wasn’t here. There was no reason to be up so soon either, for Lord Dudley don’t take his pap till nine.”
    “I was up and had the fire lit at seven-thirty. I even het up the milk for her and made tea,” Anna said. Despite the woman’s virtue, Deirdre found she couldn’t warm up to Anna.
    “If you got up at eight, how does it come you still hadn’t notified us when I arrived here after nine o’clock?” Deirdre persisted.
    “I thought the old gentleman was sleeping, miss. The way he was hunched over the table, I thought he’d drunk hisself into a stupor, as he often does, and he don’t thank you for trying to rouse him up.”
    “So you left him, dead and unattended!” Deirdre scolded, but in her heart she felt nothing but pity.
    “How was I to know he was dead? Mrs. Haskell wasn’t here,” she added simply. It was clear that Mrs. Haskell ruled the place with an iron fist. Even a death couldn’t occur officially without her, and Deirdre regretted her absence.
    “Why did the housekeeper leave, Anna? Was it some trouble at home?” Deirdre asked.
    “I didn’t see her letter. She never tells me nothing. All I know is she got called away home. She spoke to his lordship, and she left. I think her sister was having a baby, maybe. She’s mentioned it a few times.”
    “She ain’t having the baby till April,” Polly announced.
    “Oh, I hope she comes back soon!” Deirdre said, weary with this pointless conversation. One other matter occurred to her, and she asked about it while she had them captive. “Why did Sir Nevil not stay to help out while Mrs. Haskell was called away?” she asked Polly.
    It was another inequity that Polly was the servant that the gentry, and even the other hired help, preferred to converse with. There was something in Anna’s self-righteous manner that alienated everyone she came in contact with.
    “He wasn’t here. He left early in the morning yesterday,” Polly answered.
    “Oh, then he didn’t know Mrs. Haskell had been