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  Bother, he was right again. Rebecca would never allow Patience to dirty her hands. Her dress was stained now, but that was only thanks to Patience enjoying herself. If she were to, say, beat a rug or carry dirty buckets of water? No, she would never get the chance.

  She would need to go somewhere where no one knew who she was. A trusted family that would be certain to not abuse servants but would expect her to get all of her work done each day. A family Nicholas would respect, so she could prove to him her capabilities.

  “I’ll serve under General Woodsworth, just as you did.”

  Nicholas’s hand went to his forehead. “You are a woman. No unattached woman of any repute would be allowed near his armies. What you are speaking of is impossible, and it just goes to show how naive you are if you think that is even an option.”

  “Not in the army, Nicholas. I will serve in his household.”

  He took a deep breath and then slowly released it. “As what? What position would he offer you in his household? You make no sense.”

  “I’ll be a maid.”

  He laughed, a sound Patience hadn’t heard for months, if not years. She remembered liking it better before. This laugh was not about mirth; it was pure derision.

  “You don’t think I can do it?”

  Nicholas stepped away from the counter and strode to her side. He towered over her in a way he must have learned in the army. “I know you can’t. And not just because you lack every imaginable skill to be a maid.”

  “How else would I gain those skills if I don’t become a maid?”

  “You aren’t a maid.” Nicholas leaned over her. “You are the daughter of the Duke of Harrington.”

  Patience leaned forward into him, poking his chest with her finger. “If you want to be precise, I am the sister of the Duke of Harrington.”

  “Either way, it is impossible, and you wouldn’t last a day as a maid.”

  “I would. I could last a whole two years like you did in the army.” Patience’s fingernails bit into her palms. She was done being underestimated by Nicholas. “And then I would come back as stuffy and hard-hearted as you did.”

  “Why are we even discussing this? It is ridiculous and has no bearing. Why must we always get off on these fanciful ideas? All I want is for you to learn to respect the work that others have to do because of your thoughtlessness.”

  “Well, that I could learn in a month. I wouldn’t need two years like you did.”

  “Enough of this. You don’t actually have to change at all. I’ll try not to bring up General Woodsworth any longer. Women aren’t given those types of opportunities, and I need to stop regretting that, since there is nothing that can be done about it.”

  “But there is. Send me to General Woodsworth’s with a letter. They would hire me if I had a recommendation from you. I will work there one month—that is all. Other than Mama’s singing, the house will be quiet, and you will finally have some peace. When I come back, I won’t be so prone to ripping dresses and disregarding my brother.”

  He sighed and stepped away from her. “Despite all the other reasons that plan wouldn’t work, do you really think I could honestly write you a letter of recommendation? As a maid?”

  She stood as straight as she could. She wouldn’t be intimidated by the man who, at one time, had spent hours catching frogs with her when they were children. “Then I will do it without your letter if you feel it impugns you to write one. I will find my own way into that household and show you that not only could I keep my job there for a month, I will have a letter of recommendation to bring to you at the end of it.”

  “Don’t get this in your head.”

  “It is already in my head.” Her mind was one space Nicholas couldn’t control.

  “I will never allow it.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Stay away from General Woodsworth. He is one of the most respected men in all of England. I will not have you marring my reputation with him.”

  “Fine. I won’t.”

  “Promise me. I know you won’t break that promise, and I don’t like that look in your eye. The last thing I need is to have to chase down my runaway sister.”

  It was too late. Patience had already made her decision. It might take some time to organize in such a way that Nicholas wouldn’t realize what she was doing, but it was as good as done. She was to be a maid in the Woodsworth household. An unfamiliar flutter of excitement beat in her chest. After two years of wearing black and being stuck at home, she finally had an adventure ahead of her. And the more she thought of it, the more she knew she needed this. She didn’t want to go naively from her brother’s house to some stuffy lord’s house without seeing what else was out there in the world. And she knew enough of the Woodsworth family to know that there was nowhere else in London she would be safer. No one crossed General Woodsworth. His household would surely be run as smoothly as his men were.

  “I promise,” Patience replied.

  Nicholas’s shoulders relaxed. “Thank you, Patience. Fortunately, I know you are incapable of lying. Just forget we ever had this conversation.”

  Patience couldn’t agree to forget. That would be a lie, and just as Nicholas had said, she never lied. Luckily for her, Nicolas didn’t realize the only thing she had promised him was that she wouldn’t mar his reputation with General Woodsworth. And how could she, when she would plan an experience that didn’t involve her brother at all? No one in General Woodsworth’s home would even know she was Nicholas’s sister.

  She was going to miss Ollie’s warm strength when she needed it, but other than that, she couldn’t think of a single thing she would miss about her home. It had become a prison, and she was finally going to escape.

  Chapter 2

  No doors in London were closed to Lady Patience Kendrick, even if she hadn’t had a chance to visit many of them. Papa’s death had delayed her entrance to society by two years. But she wasn’t approaching this door as Lady Patience. She was hoping to gain employment. She ran her fingers down the coarse fabric of her dress, the violets and creams of the soft greyish color jumping out at her. Two years ago, Patience would have never thought grey to be a color. She had missed color. Not as much as she had missed Papa, but she had missed it nonetheless. Her humble dress was too short, her jacket too big, and her boots? Her boots were the one thing she hadn’t been able to borrow. They had been beautiful until she had rubbed mud all along the sides and back of the black leather.

  Nothing felt right, but she would show Nicholas that even though she was the daughter of a duke, she could work and think of others. She wouldn’t become bossy and stuffy like her brother. Nor would he be able to claim her thoughtless and flighty like Mama. Her two remaining family members were such opposites. Papa had been able to hold them together, but with him gone, the house had turned into a tomb. When Mama left for France one month after his death and without packing her black clothing, Nicholas had declared he would mourn Papa for two years instead of the customary one. When Mama returned trying to brighten the household, Nicholas made it a point to darken his visage.

  If nothing else, this was a chance for Patience to be away from both of them. She was tired of springing back and forth between heady optimism and gloomy realism. This was her chance to see a different world from her own. Once she’d told Nicholas she could manage to live and serve under General Woodsworth for a month, she had to do it. Otherwise she would always wonder if he was right. Besides, she would have no other chance for something like this once she entered society. She didn’t want to go from her brother’s protection to her husband’s protection without ever proving to herself that she could stand on her own two feet.

  All that had led her here—to General Woodsworth’s home in borrowed servant clothing. She may not be able to serve under him in the army like Nicholas had, but she could serve under him in his household. If she could
just find a convincing way for the housekeeper to hire her.

  Nicholas had left for Bath three days ago. Before leaving this morning, she’d supervised the packing of her clothing and sent it ahead to Bath with a note explaining to Nicholas that she would be joining him in about a month.

  Mama thought she was on her way to Bath to meet Nicholas.

  And she was on her way to Bath.

  She was simply taking a longer route. By the time she actually showed up in Bath, she would be able to tell Nicholas of her accomplishment, and he would never again be able to say that she was incapable. The timing had worked out so perfectly that divine intervention must have taken a role. As long as Nicholas and Mama continued the lack of correspondence they had enjoyed while Mama was in Paris, nothing should go wrong.

  She raised her hand to knock on the door but stopped.

  She had come to the front door.

  What was she thinking?

  Patience slinked down the stairs, then strolled to the far-right side of the house. How would it look to be wandering about the property of one of the most powerful men in London? No one could suspect her of any wrongdoing just by being here, could they? The home wasn’t as large as her London home, but it was freestanding. The servants always entered her home from the right toward the rear of the house. The evening wind whipped at her hair as she trudged along the outside of the building. There was no path, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when she ran into a hedgerow without finding a door to knock on. She returned, this time looking for a path to the left of the home, but again . . . nothing. Still hopeful, she walked over the grass and gravel only to find that, just as on the other side, there was no door on the left, and thick bushes blocked the entry to the back garden.

  The Woodsworths weren’t a family of rank, but based on the size of the home and the general’s reputation for order, there must be a servants’ entrance at the back. But how to get to it?

  The hedgerow had a thin spot where it met the house on this side. Not an entrance or an opening, but there was a faint, muddied spot in front of it that suggested use. Surely the family didn’t expect the servants to enter through the hedges?

  With nowhere else to go, she plodded forward. Patience was thin, but as she eyed the slight opening, she wasn’t sure she would fit. She pushed one hand through first and then her arm. When her shoulder entered the hedge, the fabric on her sleeve caught on a thorn and pulled. A tearing sound made her heart sink. This was her one dress, her only dress. She stopped and considered her options. She could go home, change, and pretend this never happened. No one ever would have to know that she had run away to try to grow up a bit before being saddled with a husband.

  Or she could push forward.

  She pushed forward. The tear kept growing, and the thorn that caused it bit into her skin.

  A small price to pay for proving Nicholas wrong.

  She pushed farther, and more thorns pressed into her back and arms. The price of her pride was going up every second. She winced but was more than halfway through now. She continued on. She was able to push aside the bushes once her arms were both in. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any more tears in her dress. A few minutes more wrestling with the shrubbery and she wriggled her way into the back garden. She took in the large oak trees and manicured flower beds as she rubbed her scratched hands and face. She stared at the back of the large red brick home. There, at last, was a very unobtrusive-looking white door. The servants’ entrance.

  She had finally found it. She tucked a stray curl back into her borrowed muslin cap and tugged on her too-short dress.

  “What are you doing?” a deep masculine voice asked from behind her.

  She spun. A man with sandy blond hair and impeccable clothing stood rigidly at attention, watching her. His shoulders were thick, and he was taller than Nicholas by several inches. He was built like a ruffian, but his clothing was fine, too fine for a footman or groom. Who were all the members of the Woodsworth family? There was General Woodsworth, but this man was much too young to be the general. Not to mention, he wasn’t wearing a uniform. She wracked her brain trying to come up with any memory she had of the general’s family. He had two sons and a daughter, but one of the sons had died in battle at Kabul. The shock of it had hit the whole country, especially since—before that disaster—it was had been a time of relative peace. She knew plenty about General Woodsworth; she felt almost as if she knew him intimately, thanks to her brother’s ramblings about how unforgiving and strict the general was but also how he brought out the best in others through their trials. She knew next to nothing of the rest of the family. But if this was a son, he would have been in the army as well, surely. Perhaps he was a steward or some other person come to do business with the household.

  Well, she would never know without asking. She cleared her throat. “I might ask you the same,” she said in her practiced imitation of Rebecca’s accent. “What are you doing here?”

  The man pulled a pocket watch from his inner pocket and flipped it open. “It is 11:15. I always walk in the garden at 11:15.”

  That was the least helpful answer she had ever received.

  He returned his pocket watch to his breast pocket. “And now you know what I’m doing, and yet I still don’t have a clear picture of why you are climbing through our bushes.”

  Our bushes? He must live here. He must be the other son then. The one that hadn’t fallen. She had spent so much time plotting how to get here. Why hadn’t she looked into the family?

  “I was on my way to the servants’ entrance.”

  “Through the bushes?”

  “It is quite preposterous, isn’t it? If my brother hadn’t expressly recommended this house to work in, I would turn around and find another place of work.”

  He glanced once again between the bushes and her. His frown deepened. “You are looking for work?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well then, I would suggest removing the leaves from your hair and straightening up. Mrs. Bates only hires the most upstanding staff.”

  Patience immediately ran her fingers through her hair. Several leaves fell to the ground. She looked up to thank the stranger, but he had turned around and was walking deeper into the side garden. Sighing, she straightened her back. Her posture was normally quite good—it had been drilled into her since she was a child. He had just caught her at a bad time.

  When she reached the door, she raised her arm to knock and noticed the red lines striping her hands. The tear at her shoulder was jagged, and she hurried to tuck the material back into her dress, hoping it wouldn’t be noticeable at first glance. Who placed bushes so close to the side of the house that the servants couldn’t even get to them without injuring themselves?

  Apparently General Woodsworth did. Was this part of the reason Nicholas felt she had been coddled? Because she never had cause to traipse through bushes riddled with thorns?

  She pressed her lips together. It wasn’t her fault that she hadn’t seen much beyond the borders of their drawing room in London. She hadn’t been presented to society, and other than at church and lessons, she didn’t have much contact with the outside world. Not everyone could join the army like her older brother had.

  Not everyone could serve under the prestigious General Woodsworth.

  She wrinkled her nose, even though Nicholas wasn’t here to see it. He was going to have to eat his words when she handed him a letter of recommendation from General Woodsworth. She just had to get hired.

  She knocked and waited. Shuffling announced that someone was on the other side. She pulled at her dress once again, then tried rubbing some of the red stripes on her hands to calm them down.

  She was licking her thumb, about to run it down one of the long streaks, when the door opened.

  Patience froze, her thumb still near her mouth.

  A woman in a cap stood expectantly, waiting for he
r to say something. Patience pulled her thumb away from her mouth and tried to mimic Nicholas’s serious expression. She eyed the keys around the woman’s waist. The housekeeper, perfect. What had the man called her? Mrs. Bates? She was the one to ask about work. But how did one go about asking for work? Patience had never done it before. She hadn’t even assisted with the hiring of help.

  “I’m here for a position.”

  “We aren’t hiring.” The stout housekeeper closed the door.

  Patience was left standing there, her nose just inches from the door. What had she expected? For the housekeeper to welcome her with open arms? Her clothing was on its way to Bath. Mama wasn’t expecting her home. Those had seemed the impossible parts of her plans. She hadn’t considered what she would do if she wasn’t hired.

  Patience took a deep breath. She only had one more shot at this. The housekeeper might open the door a second time, but she most certainly wouldn’t a third.

  She knocked again, this time more forcefully.

  No answer.

  She knocked again.

  Grunts of complaint came from the other side of the door, but it opened.

  “I said we aren’t hiring.” The housekeeper started closing the door once again.

  “No, you don’t understand.” She needed this chance, and General Woodsworth’s household was the only one that would do. She placed her hand just above that of Mrs. Bates on the opposite side of the door. “My brother served with General Woodsworth. He assured me he was the best of men, that he would do anything and everything to help someone in need, especially one of his men. My brother thought he would want to give me work since I am in need of it.”

  “Lots are in need of work.” Mrs. Bates glared at Patience’s hand, but she dropped her own. “And lots of men have served under the general. Can you imagine how many men and women we would have in our employ if that was all it took to get a position here? We would have thousands of maids. I do feel sorry, miss, but you will have to find some other place to take you in for your four shillings a week.”