“His Grace says that you are a lady,” Alice explained, going back to her bowl of batter. “Says that you are the eldest daughter of an earl. Yet you act as if you were a servant, and you insist on being called by your first name. I have never once met a lady in all my life who acted as you do.”
Beatrice thought on Alice’s remarks as she popped a forkful of scrambled eggs into her mouth and watched as Alice ladled large spoons of batter into pans.
“Have you met many ladies, Alice?” Beatrice asked curiously.
“Met? No,” Alice confessed. “But been around and served? Yes. I have been with His Grace’s family since he was a little boy still hoping to catch hold of his mother’s apron strings. Every one of those ladies demanded to be called by their proper title and not a single one deigned to do more than put their own napkin on their lap, let alone try to clean things as you do.”
Beatrice raised her brows in surprise. Alice looked older, yes, but Beatrice had not suspected she was much older than forty.
“How old is His Grace?” Beatrice asked then bit into the buttered toast.
“Two and thirty,” Alice replied, walking one pan after another toward the large stone oven.
Beatrice tried to picture what Algernon would have been like as a boy, and she pictured a brooding, sulky little one with a constant frown and his arms crossed over his chest. The image made her laugh aloud.
“What is so amusing?” Alice asked, walking the last of the pans to the oven.
“Oh, just picturing His Grace as a boy. I suspect he was quite a temperamental little thing,” Beatrice replied.
Alice stopped walking and turned to Beatrice with a straight face that made her stop laughing at once.
“Oh no, Lady Beatrice, His Grace was not like that at all. He was a kind, sweet boy, always trying to earn his parents’ warmth, you know. Always broke our hearts to see him treated so.”
Compassion and curiosity arose in Beatrice.
“Treated him how?” she asked.
Alice tsked her tongue then began walking again, taking her mixing bowl to the large wash basin.
“Oh, I suppose it was not so poorly,” Alice explained, “As the heir, the late Duke and Duchess believed that His Grace needed to be raised with a certain strictness and education. There were no cuddles or kind talk spared for him. That all went to his little brother, Henry. He was a good boy as well. I just never understood why His Grace couldn’t be given just a bit of kindness here and there. Though I suppose it was for the good of things when his father passed so suddenly. Goodness what a chaotic time that was.”
“Chaotic?” Beatrice echoed, taking another bite of her food without realizing it. “How so?”
Alice let out a weary sigh as she shook her head and gave Beatrice a pitying look.
“Don’t quite know for sure,” Alice confessed, “but there was a scandal, and word was there was a great loss of money. We did lose many of the servants at that time, I remember that. There was even talk that the family was going to lose this very house and all the others in their holdings because of some sort of debt the late Duke had accrued. The poor Duchess and those boys were the ones that bore the brunt of theton’sscorn. Rumors ran amok through all the houses of Mayfair and beyond; it was a true pity.
“The late Duke died suddenly. From stress, most likely, and it was less than a year later that the Duchess followed. His poor Grace was barely seventeen when it all happened; he was about to lose everything.”
Beatrice shuddered. She tried to imagine what such heartache and trauma would feel like, but she could not fathom such a thing.
“So, what happened?” Beatrice asked, on the edge of her seat.
“Lord only knows how he managed it, but His Grace saved the family legacy,” Alice went on. “It took a couple of years, but somehow, he was able to pay off the debts and keep the houses. Ever since then, His Grace has been a tad obsessed with control. He wants to know everything from the price of wages being paid to the price of a single egg purchased.”
“Sounds like him,” Beatrice scoffed. “So very demanding.”
“Demanding, yes,” Alice agreed, drying her hands, “but not unkind. I believe that is a very important distinction.”
Beatrice’s smirk faded as she took in the earnest look in Alice’s eyes.
“Yes,” she murmured, “I suppose that is true. Though sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference.”
“Maybe in the moment,” Alice replied, her lips twitching toward a smile as she walked over to Beatrice, “but let me ask you this. Would an unkind person make sure you were eating?”
Alice then grabbed Beatrice’s plate and held it up. Beatrice looked at it with surprise. It was empty. She had eateneverything without realizing it, and her stomach had not hurt once.
“No,” Beatrice murmured as Alice moved to wash her plate and utensils. “No, I suppose not.”