When Good Earls Go Bad Read online

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  An Excerpt from Put Up Your Duke

  About the Author

  By Megan Frampton

  An Excerpt from Various States of Undress: Georgia by Laura Simcox

  An Excerpt from Make It Last by Megan Erickson

  An Excerpt from Hero By Night by Sara Jane Stone

  An Excerpt from Mayhem by Jamie Shaw

  An Excerpt from Sinful Rewards 1 by Cynthia Sax

  An Excerpt from Forbidden by Charlotte Stein

  An Excerpt from Her Highland Fling by Jennifer McQuiston

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  A Belle’s Guide to Household Management

  When you are asked to dust the furniture, do not make the mistake of bringing dust in and placing it on the furniture; the order is, in fact, to un-dust the furniture. This will save you many hours of dust-locating, placing, and then un-dusting.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “While it’s not precisely true that nobody is here, because I am, in fact, here, the truth is that there is no one here who can accommodate the request.”

  The man standing in the main area of the Quality Employment Agency didn’t leave. She’d have to keep on, then.

  “If I weren’t here, then it would be even more in question, since you wouldn’t know the answer to the question one way or the other, would you? So I am here, but I am not the proper person for what you need.”

  The man fidgeted with the hat he held in his hand. But still did not take her hint. She would have to persevere.

  “I suggest you leave the information, and we will endeavor to fill the position when there is someone here who is not me.” Annabelle gave a short nod of her head as she finished speaking, knowing she had been absolutely clear in what she’d said. If repetitive. So it was a surprise that the man to whom she was speaking was staring back at her, his mouth slightly opened, his eyes blinking behind his owlish spectacles. His hat now held very tightly in his hand.

  Perhaps she should speak more slowly.

  “We do not have a housekeeper for hire,” she said, pausing between each word. “I am the owner, not one of the employees for hire.”

  Now the man’s mouth had closed, but it still seemed as though he did not understand.

  “I do not understand,” he said, confirming her very suspicion. “This is an employment agency, and I have an employer who wishes to find an employee. And if I do not find a suitable person within . . . ”—and at this he withdrew a pocket watch from his waistcoat and frowned at it, as though it was its fault it was already past tea time, and goodness, wasn’t she hungry and had Caroline left any milk in the jug? Because if not, well—“twenty-four hours, my employer, the Earl of Selkirk, will be most displeased, and we will ensure your agency will no longer receive our patronage.”

  That last part drew her attention away from the issue of the milk and whether or not there was any.

  “The Earl of . . .?” she said, feeling that flutter in her stomach that signaled there was nobility present or being mentioned—or she wished there were, at least. Rather like the milk, actually.

  “Selkirk,” the man replied in a firm tone. He had no comment on the milk. And why would he? He didn’t even know it was a possibility that they didn’t have any, and if she did have to serve him tea, what would she say? Besides which, she had no clue to the man’s name; he had just come in and been all brusque and demanded a housekeeper when there was none.

  “Selkirk,” Annabelle repeated, her mind rifling through all the nobles she’d ever heard mentioned.

  “A Scottish earl,” the man said.

  Annabelle beamed and clapped her hands. “Oh, Scottish! Small wonder I did not recognize the title, I’ve only ever been in London and once to the seaside when I was five years old, but I wouldn’t have known if that was Scotland, but I am fairly certain it was not because it would have been cold and it was quite warm in the water. Unless the weather was unseasonable, I can safely say I have never been to Scotland, nor do I know of any Scottish earls.”

  “Glad to have that settled,” the man said in the kind of strangled hush that most people seemed to speak after some time conversing with her. “The thing is, the purpose of my visit here is to hire a person to take care of the earl while he is in London on business.”

  Annabelle opened her mouth to speak, but he held his hand up, indicating she should wait.

  That, too, was something many people did to her. Was there a class that everyone took in How to Speak to Annabelle of which she was unaware? Because they were remarkably consistent in their discourse, and it couldn’t be coincidental.

  But he was still speaking, so she couldn’t think about the possibility of the class, and whether she herself would be allowed to enroll. And why they hadn’t asked her to lead the class.

  “And the earl was most specific, as he is about most things,” the man said, almost as though he were annoyed about that, “that there be someone at the house he’s rented to prepare it for his arrival. I do not have time to waste on this matter. Do you have a housekeeper who can take care of the earl for the time, perhaps as much as a month, that he is in residence in London?”

  He drew himself up to his full height and stared down at her, as though daring her to reply in a way he did not want.

  “To be clear,” he continued, as though he hadn’t been clear already. Only she still wasn’t quite certain, so perhaps he hadn’t. “To be clear, the earl is most insistent that he only have a housekeeper while he is in residence.” His expression revealed just what he thought of that edict. “So can you assist, or should I apply to another agency?”

  Annabelle liked to accommodate, and the earl was an earl, after all. Even if she could already tell he was odd, not only because he was Scottish but because he wasn’t demanding that every servant in London bow to his every whim.

  She bit her lip and thought about it for perhaps half a second, almost the same amount of time she spent on what she was going to say next in general. Her agency partner had been just as reckless a few months ago, and look where that had gotten her: a duke for a husband and a new child without the bother of childbirth.

  This would not net her a duke, obviously, since this was an earl, and she hoped that there were not any children going to be in residence, but still, besides all that, it was a remarkably similar situation.

  “I do not normally take on positions myself, you understand, but since the earl is in such desperate need, and there is no one here”—as I’ve mentioned several times, you’d think he could have realized that by now—“who can fill the situation, I will come along and take care of it. For a month, no longer.” That would bring her up to right around Valentine’s Day, and if she were busy, perhaps she wouldn’t remember she did not have a Valentine. “Is that suitable?”

  Now the man—she might have to ask his name soon, only then she might also have to offer him tea, since they had become known to one another, and she still hadn’t figured out the milk issue—had what she might call a smirk on his face, only she didn’t know him well enough to know if he was amused or he was perhaps hungry. In which case she’d have to offer him tea, damn the milk, and she really did not want to do that. Mostly because she now had to find out where the Scottish ear
l lived and get over there to discover what needed doing.

  It likely included buying milk.

  “You,” he said, and now she knew he wasn’t hungry, he was amused, because there was a strong hint of a laugh in his tone, only she didn’t see what there was that was so funny. “You would be perfect. Thank you.”

  It wasn’t very long after she’d closed the door behind Mr. Bell—she’d found out his name, as well as his employment at a London-based company that had a Scottish name, only she couldn’t remember what it was—and left a note for Caroline, the other owner of the agency, that she had gone to her lodgings and packed a bag with all the essentials she’d require for being away for a month: her gowns, the good one and the better one (she left the best at home since she didn’t think she’d need it and she was wearing the worst one), all of the installments of Mr. Dickens’s Pickwick Papers, and her feather duster, which hadn’t seen much use as its intended function, but it was colorful and might make her look more officially like a housekeeper.

  She couldn’t bring Cat, her cat (obviously!), since she didn’t think the earl would appreciate a feline being sprung at him, even if Cat was way too timid to spring at anyone, but likely the earl wouldn’t care about Cat’s lack of confidence; he would just be irked that she had brought an inhabitant to the house who was neither a housekeeper nor an earl.

  Imagine, after all, if he didn’t even want anything but a housekeeper, not even a cook or a scullery maid or anything. He definitely would not want a cat in the house, even if it was Cat. Just the housekeeper, and it sounded as though he didn’t even want that. Her, that is.

  Not that she was a housekeeper, but she would endeavor to keep that secret to herself. Although Mr. Bell likely suspected, given that she had basically told him that. But he didn’t seem to mind—or possibly he didn’t understand?—so hopefully the earl wouldn’t. Mind or understand, that is. And even if she wasn’t technically a housekeeper, she wouldn’t let the house go, so she wasn’t a housegiverawayer or anything, so if she could just ensure the house was kept, she felt certain, confident even, that he would never know.

  So Cat was currently ensconced with her landlady, who promised to feed Cat on a schedule (if “constant” was a schedule), and Annabelle was trudging up Grove End Road, her valise in hand and her annoyance at herself for being such an avid reader (the papers were heavy) in her head.

  Thankfully No. 65 arrived soon after No. 63, and she drew out the key Mr. Bell had given her and inserted it into the lock of the door.

  The door swung wide and emitted an ominous creaking noise that made Annabelle’s heart flutter against her ribs. And not in the pleasant I’ve just thought about nobility way. Because this nobility was Scottish, after all, and she had no idea what their type of nobility was like.

  She took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold.

  And stood in the small hallway, a torrent of dust billowing up from the floor as though she were some sort of Celtic warrior woman and the dust was her army.

  Although she would have to eradicate the dust, wouldn’t she, given that she was now a housekeeper and not a housegiverawayer. So did that make her a Celtic warrior traitor? Never mind. She’d solve all that later.

  The house was so still and the dust so present, it was clear no one had stood in this hallway for a long while. Mr. Bell had said the earl would arrive tomorrow and that he only required a few rooms for his visit, and thankfully it was early enough today—or earl-y, she snickered to herself—so she could attack her Dust Army and perhaps brave the kitchen to ensure there were no Mice Minions lurking in there to disturb her.

  She did miss Cat.

  The house wasn’t small, of course, it was a residence fit for an earl, but it wasn’t overly large either, so perhaps it wouldn’t be too difficult for even a nonhousekeeper to straighten up a few rooms.

  From the way it sounded, having even a housekeeper was a concession. Perhaps the earl didn’t eat. Or make any sort of mess. Or speak with people.

  Or maybe he liked doing all the cooking and cleaning himself, although that would make him remarkably different from any other members of the nobility she’d heard of. Mostly noblemen liked to talk to other noblemen and look at attractive women. She’d never heard anything about their liking to cook or clean.

  But all this pondering about who the earl might be or what he wanted, was not going to get done what she wanted, which was removing the Dust Army so there was just warrior Annabelle.

  Leaving the valise in the hall, she went through each of the rooms on the ground floor—sitting room, dining room, pantry, and a music room. Downstairs was the kitchen, which you could get to only by descending a small narrow staircase. The kitchen itself was dusty, but did not appear to have mice, and was relatively tidy if not precisely clean.

  So, she would do the main hallway, the kitchen, and her own bedroom. She’d save the earl’s bedroom for the morning; there would be plenty of time to take care of it, then.

  She returned to the ground floor, then hoisted her valise up and walked up the staircase to the first floor. As expected, the hallway opened onto a variety of bedrooms, with the largest one at the back of the house where it was presumably the most quiet. Again, while the rooms were neat, there was a massive amount of dust, and Annabelle had to take her kerchief from her gown and tie it over her nose and mouth so as not to breathe in too much of the dust. She put her valise into the smallest bedroom, then headed back downstairs to find cleaning implements and hopefully not very many mice.

  Hours later, Annabelle was exhausted, but the hallway and the kitchen had been vanquished, at least, as had her worst gown, which would need its own cleaning to regain its title of worst; right now it was definitely the Most Worst, and that was putting it kindly. The kitchen had taken the longest, and she really did hope he didn’t want to eat much, because if she never set foot in that kitchen again she would be a happy woman.

  Not that she wasn’t happy now, of course. Or rather, not that she wasn’t fine. That’s what she said whenever anyone asked how she was—“fine.” Fine with being a fallen woman who was trying to get up, fine with working at the agency with her best friends, fine with having no one to lavish love on besides Cat, fine with ruining her worst dress if it meant snagging an earl for a client. Fine with all of that, and fine with being so bone tired she was almost glad there was no food, because now she could just take herself off to bed without worrying about eating. There would be time to eat tomorrow, before the earl arrived at midday. As well as clean his bedroom. She’d shut the doors to all the bedrooms on the first floor but the small one she’d claimed for her own; there was no bedroom off the kitchen, which was the normal place for a housekeeper to sleep, she knew, but she was secretly relieved because of the potential for mouseness with no Cat.

  Meanwhile, her bed was calling. Well, no, actually it wasn’t, because wouldn’t that be an odd thing, if an inanimate object called out to her? And if that happened, what else would speak? Probably her shoes would chime in and complain about how much time she spent wearing them. And it was impossible to even imagine the endless complaints the teakettle would have: I’m hot, I’m cold, I’m empty, I’m full, make your mind up already. It was better, then, that nothing called out to her.

  Except the bed, which she was absolutely fine with answering.

  Annabelle walked wearily upstairs, holding the railing as though it were propping her up. The room she’d chosen as her own was . . . fine, the walls papered with blue wallpaper that had birds and flowers on it. It was pretty, and for a moment, Annabelle wished she could just fly into the wallpaper and take up residence there. It would be so much easier than all of this work.

  But there’d be no Caroline or Lily, who was now the duchess, or the agency—or even Cat. Or if there were Cat, Cat would make it his mission to eat her if she were a bird in wallpaper. So being a bird in wallpaper was not that good an idea after all.

  She drew off her absolute worst possible gown and drop
ped it on the floor—the floor was likely cleaner than the gown—and then removed her corset and dropped that on top of the gown, leaving her in her shift.

  She was too tired to unearth her nightgown, so she just opened the covers and crawled in, feeling herself fall asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  A Belle’s Guide to Household Management

  A housekeeper is similar to a man (even though she is always a woman!): She needs to know everything about a particular subject without ever having to do it herself.

  CHAPTER TWO

  If there was one thing that Matthew, Earl of Selkirk, despised more than being late, it was being early.

  “We’re here, my lord,” the cabbie said, his accent dropping half of the consonants as though they were not fit to be mentioned.

  Being early meant there was wasted time. Matthew hated to waste time. If he’d been late, chances were that some required work had delayed him; being early just meant he had not planned properly.

  In this particular case, he had not planned properly so much as to make him early by half a day. He could have spent that time doing more research into his uncle’s bank or reviewing his own accounts or translating more of the works he’d found in the attic into current language or any number of interesting things.

  He would not be entering a rented house in London at eight o’clock in the evening.

  He stepped out of the carriage onto the street, the streetlights making it nearly as bright as daytime. A waste of money, surely, and if there was one thing Matthew hated as much as being late or being early, it was wasting money. Were London’s inhabitants so delicate they couldn’t find their way in the dark?

  Not to mention, likely any English earl wouldn’t worry about being late or early; whenever he arrived would be the proper time. But Matthew wasn’t English, he was Scottish, and despite what the earls in England might do, Matthew worked. And didn’t have much respect for anyone who didn’t work, not if they could do some good and keep themselves busy. Even though that also meant he didn’t always have respect for his fellow Scottish lords.