Page 65 of Married to the Earl

“I told you,” Astrid said, “I don’t live with my father.”

“Have yougota father?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “But he’d never look for me here. He won’t be looking for me at all. And if he found me, he wouldn’t pick a fight. He’s not very…physical.”

“I see,” Horace murmured.

“Come on. Let me try to learn the ropes,” Astrid said. “Do you have another tray of drinks that needs to be delivered?”

Horace sighed. “Give me a moment, and I will. You stand there and look pretty until I have need of you.”

“All right,” Astrid said, trying her best to sound agreeable.

“Lucky thing for you that youarepretty,” Horace added. “There definitely wouldn’t be a job for you here if you weren’t.”

Astrid leaned against the bar, doing her best to look casually unrefined. It was an effort. She had been raised to stand up straight, to keep her hands clasped in front of her and her eyes down. But the girl who had marched into this bar and demanded a job wouldn’t have done any of that. Being brave enough to act in the moment was one thing, but overriding years of habit was something else altogether.

She wondered if anyone found her presence here strange. She wondered if any of the men had troubled to look up from their drinks and to notice the girl at the bar who didn’t belong in this place.

She wondered if, even now, they were sitting at their tables and whispering about her.

“Betsy.Betsy.”

Astrid remembered her alias just in time and spun around. Horace had prepared another tray of drinks. She nodded and reached out for it. “Where does this one go?” she asked.

He pointed. “That table over there.”

The table was a little further away than the first one had been, and the men were just as rowdy. If Astrid hadn’t known better, she would have thought Horace had deliberately set her a more difficult errand in order to test her.

That doesn’t make sense, though. He has no control over who needs drinks taken to them.

She picked up the tray and crossed the floor to the table where the men were waiting. Without a word, she circled them, placing a mug of ale in front of each man and replaced on her tray with an empty one. When she had completed her circuit, she returned to the bar.

Not a single man spoke to her this time.

“Well,” Horace said begrudgingly as she arrived back in front of him and set her tray down on the bar. “That was better. Perhaps you can learn to do this after all.”

Astrid nodded emphatically. “I can,” she said. “I’m a quick study.”

“All right,” he agreed. “Keep it up. We’ll discuss the possibilities open to you at the end of the evening.” He pointed to the end of the bar. “Go and join the other girls, and they can assign you to a few specific tables and give you instructions on what you need to do.”

Astrid thanked him and went down to the end of the bar. A cluster of young women, all of them around her own age, regarded her doubtfully as she approached.

“You’re new?” one of them asked.

Astrid nodded. “My name is Betsy.”

“I don’t know what Horace is thinking,” another one said. “She’s obviously too soft for a place like this. She should be serving some fine lady in a rich home, not working here.”

“Excuse me,” Astrid said, her voice harsh. It was one thing for Horace to tell her he didn’t think she could handle this work, but Astrid wasn’t about to put up with it from these girls. “If you tell me what I need to be doing, I think you’ll see that I can handle the work as well as anybody.”

The girl who’d doubted her raised her eyebrows. “We’ll see about that,” she said.

“Give her a break, Vivian,” said one of the others.

“Shut up, Charlotte, and go wipe down the table in the corner,” Vivian said. Then she turned to Astrid. “Have you worked in a pub before?”

“No,” Astrid admitted.

---