Page 8 of A Cinderella to Redeem the Earl
In the stables, he found Pip in his shirt sleeves, already at work. No point in hiring a stable master and grooms when the animals were only here a couple of days a week, so he and Pip took on those duties.
The same logic did not apply to his cook, of course. Her wages were a small price to pay for the punishment he planned to exact.
He glanced at the bay standing patiently under Pip’s ministrations. ‘Is Caesar all right?’
Pip straightened. ‘He seems fine. I was worried he had the colic last night, but everything is right this morning.’
‘Glad to hear it.’ Damian picked up a pitchfork and began mucking out the stall.
‘I met your cook,’ Pip said.
An odd sensation tightened his gut. Damian straightened his forkful of manure and regarded his friend. ‘Did you?’
‘On her way to see you.Une bellepetite fille, mon ami. Be careful she does not turn the tables on you.’
He grunted and heaved the load of stinking straw into the barrow. ‘Unlikely. She’s not my sort of female at all.’ He preferred the earthy experienced type who expected nothing but a generous gift at the end of an association.
Pip chuckled. ‘You are right, of course. She struck me as very prim and proper. Perhaps she is more my sort.’
Damian snorted. ‘Prim and proper would haveyourunning for the hills. Prim and proper is looking for marriage.’ He was banking on it. He leaned on his fork and glowered at his friend’s grinning face. ‘I meant what I said. Stay well away from her. This is mine to finish.’
Pip grimaced. ‘You don’t have to warn me off. I am not in the market for a wife, I assure you.’ Pip put away his brushes and tossed a blanket over Caesar. ‘You, however, are a different story. A nobleman needs an heir, does he not?’
Damian grabbed the barrow’s handles and lifted it. This conversation was pointless. ‘The title is nothing but a means to an end. And when that end is accomplished, I’ll have no use for it.’ He stomped out into the yard and tipped his load on the manure pile.
Behind him he heard Pip’s laughter.
Damn him.
He could laugh. But Damian had decided long ago he cared nothing about the title or the duty it entailed. He had set himself one purpose in life and that was to make those who had caused him and his family to suffer humiliation and degradation suffer it tenfold in return.
Nothing would ever get in the way of that, even if it took him the rest of his life.
He certainly didn’t want to marry. Women came with a whole set of expectations of their own. And if you failed to meet them, they did not take it well. His own mother had died of a broken heart, her sensibilities weakened and living in squalor too much to cope with after his father’s failures.
Their family had lost everything because Father had believed the smiles and promises of a couple of noblemen he admired and who hadn’t hesitated to use his admiration to their advantage.
Now the tables were turned. He, Damian, was the one thetonadmired and fawned over. And he would have no hesitation in turning the tables on them and their offspring when the time was right.
He gazed across the courtyard at the house he had lived in until he was ten. The last twenty years had not treated it kindly. The bailiffs had taken anything of value that was not nailed down, but since it was entailed, it could not be sold to clear their debts. His family had been forced to leave England or face debtors’ prison. Over the years several renters had come and gone and ultimately it had been abandoned to its fate. The cost to put it right would be enormous.
The estate belonging to the title he had recently inherited he would sell at the first opportunity, if anyone would buy it. He didn’t give a damn. He would have loved to have sold it all—this estate, this house—and be rid of the financial and emotional burden, but its entailment meant he had to make do.
Once his plan had borne fruit, it could fall down for all he cared. He and Pip had set their sights on a new life in the New World.
The staff who had arrived earlier in the afternoon was a strange lot indeed. Pamela had expected housemaids and footmen and, indeed, when they had arrived, they had apparently gone about those sorts of tasks in the upstairs rooms, but the chattering jolly bunch who had come down from their quarters for dinner were like no servants she had ever seen.
The men wore the powdered wigs of footmen to be sure, and a livery of sorts, but rather than being of all the same discreet colour designed to fade into the background, their coats were bright blues, reds and greens and embellished with quantities of gold braid.
The women wore evening gowns and elaborate coiffures and glittering jewellery at throat and wrist. Stones made of paste, no doubt, but they sparkled in the candlelight of the plain servants’ dining hall. And they all carried masks.
At the direction of the head footman, who had introduced himself as Albert, his underlings carried the tureens of stew from the kitchen to the table. She joined them, seating herself at one end of the table with Albert at the other.
The moment Albert finished saying grace everyone helped themselves to stew and fresh baked bread.
She turned to the young woman beside her, who was tucking in with apparent relish. ‘I expect you will be busy when the guests arrive?’ Dressed as she and the other women were, Pamela could not imagine their tasks were limited to bed making or fire lighting.
The girl eyed her up and down somewhat suspiciously, Pamela thought. ‘Ain’t that the truth?’ She broke apart a slice of bread and dipped it in the gravy. ‘Good grub for a change.’
