Page 23 of What's an Earl Gotta Do?
The rationale behind this discrepancy was that men were the breadwinners, and that women shouldn’t be working at all. Well, even if one were to accept that as true, where did that leave women who were on their own with children to support? Society’s prevailing sentiment was that charity should be limited to the “deserving” poor, and that to aid unwed mothers would only promote licentiousness. It galled Anne to have to turn away women trying to provide a better life for their children because they had once sold their body to put food on the table. She was hard pressed to understand why society deemed the counsel of Jesus to “judge not” unapplicable. But, as much as she hated it, to maintain her status as a respectable woman and attract donors to the Ladies’ Society, Anne was forced to only accept applications from the “deserving” poor.
The good news, if one could call it that, was that even with the prospect of opening a second lodging house, there were more than enough respectable widows and legitimately born orphans to exhaust her budget a thousand times over. It seemed clear to Anne that the problem was structural: when women were paid such miserably low wages, their families inevitably faced destitution. And however much society might squawk were she to suggest raising wages for all women, surely everyone could agree that the situation was unfair to respectable widows struggling to support their children, especially when so many of their husbands had lost their lives in service to king and country.
And so Anne had written a pamphlet proposing to raise wages for widows with children to support. It had seemed logical at the time, but it had proved to be an unmitigated disaster. She had been mocked by polite society and had quickly learned that men didn’t appreciate a woman making even the gentlest suggestion as to how they should run their businesses.
Although her pamphlet had been a failure, the lodging house run by the Ladies’ Society was an unqualified success. It was simple in principle: treat its residents with basic fairness. Charge them a reasonable rent instead of the exorbitant rates charged by the slum owners to the east. Have a communal kitchen so groceries could be bought in bulk. Provide schooling for the children for their own benefit, but also so their mothers didn’t have to dose their little ones with laudanum so they could get some work done, an all-too-common practice.
People often lavished praise upon Anne for her charity toward these “wretched creatures,” which made her feel uncomfortable. Most of what she was doing didn’t even qualify as charity, although she supposed the twice-a-week meat-and-potatoes program for the hungry and the Christmas initiative she’d started last year to give plum puddings to poor children might count as such. But her lodging house charged rent, the only thing that set her apart from other landlords was that her goal was to break even, not to make a fortune upon the backs of the poor. And in Anne’s experience, there was nothing wretched about her residents. They were hard-working women who weren’t looking for a handout; all Anne really did was remove a few of the obstacles that made their situation untenable.
Anne smiled at the shout of children playing in the streets below. It had taken a while to accustom herself to the noise and bustle of London, having grown up in the idyllic countryside of the Cotswolds. But over the past four years, London had become her home. It was here in London that she had found a sense of purpose, something more meaningful than the endless rounds of balls and parties. And London was where the Ladies’ Society could do more good than anywhere else.
That made London precisely where she belonged.
She returned to her stack of correspondence. Toward the bottom, she found two pieces of good news. One came in the form of a letter from Mr. Archibald Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy, whose family ran an iron manufactory. He was requesting a meeting. Anne had no idea what that was about, but the Nettlethorpe-Ogilvys were one of the richest families in Britain, so she penned a delighted response, hoping she might be about to gain a new patron.
Anne’s heartbeat kicked up a notch as she read the sender’s name on the final letter in her stack: Marquess Graverley. For the past few weeks, she had been searching for a new vice president for her board of directors. And although all of the board members of the Ladies’ Society up until this point had been, well, ladies, it had occurred to her that every eligible young miss in London would flock to her events if one particular man was guaranteed to be in attendance...
And so yesterday she had swallowed her qualms and braced for almost certain rejection, and sent a letter to Marcus Latimer, the current Marquess Graverley and future Duke of Trevissick, who was without question the most eligible bachelor in all of England, asking if he would consider serving as her vice president. Lord Graverley did not have a reputation for his charitable works; much to the contrary, he was known for being every inch the rakehell. Yet, much to Anne’s astonishment, in the past three months he had become a fierce advocate for her society.
As she popped open the wax seal, Anne reminded herself to keep her expectations in check. Lord Graverley would surely decline, just like the last three candidates she had asked. Except… he hadn’t declined. He wrote that he would be honored to serve on the board of such a worthy organization.
She read the marquess’s note a third time, still not quite able to believe it. In addition to being a rich future duke, Lord Graverley was almost absurdly handsome, with pale hair, ice-blue eyes, the sort of cheekbones that would make a sculptor weep, and an elegant fencer’s physique.
Had someone asked her yesterday, Anne might have named Lord Graverley as the most handsome man of her acquaintance. Today, however…
A tremor ran across her shoulder blades at the memory of how Michael had looked last night. Although most women would probably still prefer Lord Graverley’s refined features, Anne found Michael’s newfound combination of tall, dark, and hulking far more affecting.
She shook her head to clear it. Gracious, what was this? Handsome was nowhere near the top of the list of qualities she sought in a husband. What she needed was a good man, of excellent character, and of the rank and position her family expected her to marry. Someone who would treat her kindly, help her start a family, and support her rather than limit her in her work for the Ladies’ Society.
Michael has every one of those qualities, a little voice whispered in the back of her head. Why should you not have it all?
It was the voice of a young Michael that answered, as clear and sure as the day he’d uttered the words. Absolutely never… Not in a million years…
She sighed. It did her no good to dwell upon such things. She needed to find a man who might actually consider marrying her.
There was a knock at the door. Anne looked up to see Mrs. Godfrey, who lived on-site and oversaw the day-to-day operations of her lodging house, flanked by two boys and bearing a tea tray.
“Good afternoon, Lady Wynters,” Mrs. Godfrey said. “I have Nick and Johnny here, just as you requested.”
“Thank you,” Anne said as Mrs. Godfrey set down the tea tray, curtseyed, and took her leave. Anne smiled at the boys. “Please, have a seat.”
She poured for the three of them and gestured for the boys to help themselves to the plate of currant biscuits, which they did with obvious delight.
“How are you settling in?” Anne asked.
“I wuv id here,” Johnny said through a mouthful of biscuit. Nick elbowed him and he swallowed, then cleared his throat. “Beg pardon, m’lady. Mrs. Briggs said I wasn’t to do that no more. That I need to swallow first.”
Anne nodded, taking care to keep a straight face. “That’s quite all right. And how about you, Nick? How do you like your new home?”
Nick blinked incredulously. “Are you bamming me? We get meat every day, and two rolls at breakfast, and I mean with butter.” He shook his head. “I never heard the like.”
Anne’s smile was bittersweet. Nick’s enthusiasm for something as simple as a roll was charming, even if the reason for it was distressing. Master sweeps were notorious for underfeeding their climbing boys so they could fit themselves into the tiniest of flues. Nick and Johnny had been so filthy they’d had to wash them in a tub out in the courtyard, and Anne had been distressed to see arms as thin as matchsticks and chests that were practically concave emerge as they peeled off their squalid clothes.
She cleared her throat. “And how do you boys find Mrs. Briggs?”
“Mrs. Briggs is grand,” Nick said as he selected another biscuit.
“Hasn’t clouted us once,” Johnny added.
