Wicked Godmother Read Online Free Page A

house was untenanted. Although only the scullery maid, she was treated with a certain amount of rough affection by the others. Dave, the pot boy, was a wizened little Cockney. He was only fourteen, but his early years as a chimney sweep’s apprentice had stunted his growth and aged his face.
    All hated Jonas Palmer, the Duke of Pelham’s agent, although they did not know that the young duke, who owned a larger town house in Grosvenor Square, was unaware of their existence. They had heard the duke had finished his studies at Oxford University and had gone to the Peninsula to fight Napolean’s troops.
    Despite the fact that all had ended happily for the previous tenants of the past two Seasons after their adventures, the house could not seem to lose its name for being unlucky, and during this age when gambling fever was at a height and superstition rampant, the future of its staff remained uncertain. The Duke of Pelham had hanged himself there, and that seemed enough to put a curse on the place, which all went to show the power of the class system. Servants committed suicide with amazing regularity, but their parting with the world did not put their masters’ town residence into bad odour. But a duke committing suicide, ah, well, that was an entirely different thing.
    The servants depended on a successful Season as much, if not more, than any matchmaking mama. Because of their abysmally low wages, they looked forward to the tips they would gain from the Season’s festivities.
    Rainbird rose to his feet. ‘We had best make sure this place is spotless before Palmer comes,’ he said. ‘It would serve you better, Joseph, if you put your back into your work instead of paddling out on the street.’
    ‘I didn’t even get as far as the street,’ whined Joseph, his basic Cockney vowels creeping back into his genteel accent like blobs of grease surfacing on a pot of soup. ‘I jest opened the bleeding door and got hit by a wave.’
    ‘Why did you not say so!’ exclaimed Mrs Middleton. ‘Dave, you get the floor rag and help Lizzie clean up the mess. Jenny and Alice, come with me. We had best light the fire in the front parlour.’ The two maids followed the housekeeper upstairs.
    It was a typical town house of the period, being tall and thin. On the ground floor there was a hall with a drawing room to one side, consisting of front and back parlours. On the first floor, there was the dining room, with a double bedroom at the back. On the second floor, there were two bedrooms, and then there were the attics at the top where the servants slept, with the exception of Lizzie and Dave. Lizzie bedded down in the scullery, and Dave slept under the kitchen table.
    There was a ghostly air about the rooms where all the furniture was shrouded in holland covers and all the clocks stood silent, as if time out of Season did not count, as if the hours waited only for the return of all the noise and glitter, gossip and broken hearts, that another fashionable London Season would bring.
    Jenny and Alice bundled the holland covers off the chairs in the front parlour. ‘At least we haven’t taken any stuffing out of these seats,’ said Jenny. The servants had, in the past, often augmented their meagre income by removing the stuffing from the beds and upholstery and selling it, so that you could always gauge the hardness of the times at Number 67 by the discomfort you had when either sitting or lying down. Last Season had been very profitable, and, for once, they had all passed a tolerable winter. But funds were beginning to run low.
    Joseph had become convinced last October that Prime ’Un would win at Newmarket races and had talked everyone but Rainbird and Mrs Middleton into letting him put most of their savings on the wonderful horse. But the horse had fallen on its nose halfway down the course, and so the furious butler and housekeeper had had to use up their savings on keeping the rest of the ashamed and destitute staff warm and