Page 3 of Would I Lie to the Duke
“Whilst?”Cynthia snorted. “Aye, now you’re talking like a toff, too. The Wiltshire’s gone from yourvoice.” Cynthia’s own words were spoken in the broad vowels of the West Country, the same accent Jess had heard and spoken most of her life.
“The more Wiltshire in my voice, the less I get paid.” Jess had listened closely to the way in which Lady Catherton and her friends conversed, and had spent many nights practicing talking to herself in the mirror, until only a hint of the West Country was left. “So... do you mind if I pack?”
“That’s our Jess,” her sister said with a fond smile. “Can’t do only one thing at a time.”
“There’s just so much to do.” After hugging her sister, Jess pulled her battered bag out from under her bed.
“Still reading the papers, too.” Cynthia held up one of the half-dozen newspapers that were spread across Jess’s bed. She peered at one sheet of newsprint. “Marking up theMoney Marketsection, just like always.”
“Lady Catherton gets them from London. No need to sneak them from the public house like I did back home.” This was one of the advantages to working for a wealthy peer—access to daily newspapers that contained not only the latest goings-on politically and socially, but, most significantly for Jess, financially.
At the end of her day with Lady Catherton, after her employer had gone to bed, Jess would pore over the papers and dream of other things for herself and her family—bigger things.
She shook her head. Now was about staying a step ahead, not brooding over fantasies of what might be.She opened the minuscule clothespress that held her equally minuscule collection of garments, and deposited a stack of clean shifts into her bag.
“Soon,” Cynthia said in wonderment, “you’ll be living in Paris, and Berlin. Rome, too?”
“Possibly. Her ladyship said she wants to keep her dance card free to go wherever she pleases, whenever she pleases.”
“Ah, the excitement of it! You don’t seem glad about it, like.”
Jess paused in her packing. “I’d be more pleased if I knew I was leaving the business in a better state. If only she’d given me more notice about this plan to live abroad.” She clicked her tongue. “I’d have gotten McGale & McGale back on its feet.”
“You, me, and Fred arealltrying to do that.” Cynthia’s reproof was gentle.
“But I’m the eldest,” Jess pointed out. “When Mother and Father passed, it fell tometo look after you and Fred.Me, to keep McGale & McGale going. And what a fine job I’ve done of it.” She threw up her hands.
“Firstly,” Cynthia said as she rose from the bed, “Fred and me weren’t in cradlehood when they died. It was but a year ago, and last I checked, we’d left our leading strings long behind us. So the burden’s all of ours. Secondly,” she continued, placing her hands on Jess’s shoulders, “you didn’t light that fire that turned a third of the farm to ash. None of us could have known of that disaster.”
Jess exhaled. Vivid memories of the blaze flashed, how she’d awakened with a sense of something profoundly wrong, and how out her bedroom window the flames had turned the night sky a sickly red. She’d sent Fred into the village to summon the fire engine, but by the time it had arrived, some of the farm’s buildings had completely burned. The heat from the flames seemed permanently part of her now, no matter how cold the day or room might be.
In the wake of the calamity, the three McGale siblings had been forced to seek outside work, with the hope that they’d earn enough to rebuild.
Jess’s employ as a lady’s companion had been the most profitable. Then Lady Catherton suddenly decided to live on the Continent for the foreseeable future—taking Jess away from the family’s efforts to make repairs. Jess could try to find another position, but the countess paid well, and it would be foolish to leave this one.
“We couldn’t know, but now we do,” Jess said darkly. “If we don’t fix the farm up and soon, we’ll lose everything. The business, the land—our home. And without the farm and the house, you, me, and Fred become rootless. We’ll drift apart like so many salsify seeds on the wind.”
“We won’t lose each other,” Cynthia said, though her words were tinged with uncertainty.
“Without the house, where would we go? Off in separate directions to earn our bread, never united beneath a single roof.” Jess rubbed her forehead. “Howcan I hie off to Paris when we’re in such desperate straits? The task ismine. And I’ll make everything right. I swear I will.”
McGale & McGale had been part of the lifeblood of their family for a generation, when Jess’s parents spent the months between growing seasons making and selling high-quality soap from their home. The soap itself used honey produced from the McGale beehives. For over two decades, the family enterprise had been limited by its size, selling in shops within a thirty-mile range.
“That bloody fire,” Jess muttered. “I’d been right in the middle of formulating how to expand, thinking perhaps we could even sell in London and Manchester if we could meet the demand.”
“Then the fire,” Cynthia said glumly.
“It leveled all my plans.” The family’s dream of supplying luxury soap to Britain’s hardest-working citizens was on the verge of collapse. “But we’re not giving up. It’s not over. I’ll fix everything.”
“How will you do that?” Cynthia asked. “Forgive me, Jess, but what we need is a miracle, and they’re in short supply.”
Jess took purposeful strides to the little cupboard that held her books and other essential items. She pulled out a stack of fragrant, paper-wrapped McGale & McGale Honey Soap, which she’d brought from home to use for her own toilette.
Holding up the soap bars, Jess declared, “Tomorrow, McGale & McGale conquers London. I’ll pound on every Bond Street shopkeeper’s door and introducethem to the wonders of our honey soap. I’ll require an up-front deposit so we can make enough repairs to meet the initial demand. Then orders will come pouring in and we’ll renovate the whole farm.”
She never permitted herself the luxury of uncertainty. Even when her parents had been alive, Jess had been the one they turned to if something needed to be done. She balanced the ledgers, she negotiated the prices of crops and raw materials for soap production. She did whatever was required, and she did it well.
“Oh, Jess.” Cynthia grasped her hands. “If anyone can make that happen, it’s you.”
