CHAPTER ONE
“Beatrice, I will not ask twice!” Elspeth Cooper, Countess of Farhampton’s shrill voice echoed through the great marble hall.
Twenty-four-year-old Beatrice Cooper winced at the sharpness in her stepmother’s tone.
“I will attend, my lady!” Beatrice called back, her heart pounding with anxiety.
As she rose from scrubbing the floors, Beatrice wiped the back of her hand across her thin, chocolate brown brows and hairline, collecting droplets of sweat. Knowing it would not do to go before the lady of the house as a sweaty mess, she drew her black kerchief from her black long sleeve and quickly cleaned her face as she scurried from the foyer to the sitting parlor.
“Apologies, my lady, I did not mean to make you wait,” Beatrice apologized as she bowed before Elspeth and her daughter Verity, slightly out of breath. “How may I serve you?”
Beatrice lifted her cobalt blue eyes just in time to see Verity wrinkle her nose in disgust. She then flicked open her ornate Chinese fan with a sharpsnap!and covered her mouth as her brown eyes continued to stare at Beatrice judgmentally.
As usual when looked at such a way, Beatrice cowered in herself, wrapping her arms around her thin waist and drawing her eyes to the floor. She was not good enough. They had all made that very clear.
“You left smudges on my silver brush and hand mirror again this morning,” Elspeth said, her tone accusatory as she studied her cuticles, “They now need to be polished all over again.”
“Mine as well. You leave your greasy prints on everything!” Verity complained.
Beatrice felt her narrow cheeks fuse with heat and shame.
“My deepest apologies, Lady Farhampton, Miss Verity,” Beatrice offered, “I shall be much more careful from now on whilst handling your things.”
“You certainly will,” Lady Farhampton said with a bitter laugh. “You will be required to wear gloves at all times now. We cannothave you smudging everything. It is your duty to clean, not make more messes!”
Again, Beatrice felt her cheeks flush a deep red.
“Of course, I shall wear them when I clean your rooms if you wish—” she began.
Lady Farhampton cut her off, snapping her thin fingers and jutting her narrow chin toward Beatrice as her brown eyes glittered with rage.
“Did I say you were to wear them only when you cleaned our rooms?” Lady Farhampton asked with an icy tone.
Beatrice felt her legs begin to quiver as her stepmother and stepsister glared at her. She hated this. Hated everything her life had become since her poor mother had passed.
“My lady, I cannot wear gloves all of the time,” Beatrice said, trying to keep her tone calm and polite. “I not only take care of tidying your rooms, but I scrub the floors, tend to the laundry, assist the cook in washing the pans and dishes. My hands?—”
“Your hands are none of their concern,” Simeon Cooper, the Earl of Farhampton and Beatrice’s father snapped, walking into the parlor.
Lady Farhampton and Verity smiled smugly as he walked over to them, and Beatrice felt her heart wrench as he took the timeto lean down and kiss them both on the foreheads. A kindness he had not once ever shown her, not even when her mother was alive.
“If they request that you be gloved from now on, that is how you should be no matter the circumstances,” Simeon added, turning a disappointing eye toward Beatrice.
“Father, please—” Beatrice began to say.
She gasped, realizing the mistake she had just made, and cupped a hand over her mouth as she kneeled and bowed her head.
“Please forgive me!” she pleaded. “I did not mean to—Oh!”
“What did I tell you about calling me that?” Simeon gritted out as Beatrice felt his meaty hand wrap around the back of her neck and yank her to her feet.
Tears pricked Beatrice’s eyes as she twisted in Simeon’s grip, so she could look at him. It had been a mistake, letting the moniker slip out, but now, as she stood so close to the man that was supposed to protect her and love her, Beatrice felt something foreign rise up through her usual fear—strength.
“Iamyour daughter,” Beatrice’s voice quivered. “I was your daughter long before you married Elspeth. Long before Verity became your stepdaughter.”
Simeon’s brown eyes narrowed as his lips pulled back into a sneer, but to Beatrice’s relief, he simply shoved her away and walked over to Elspeth. Beatrice looked at her father with disgust as he let the woman drape herself over his broad shoulders and coddle him as if he were no more than a babe.
“You wretched thing,” Elspeth hissed at her, and Beatrice, in another rare show of defiance, rolled her eyes.