All I Want Is You by Elizabeth Anthony Page B

Duchess taking orders, which could take hours.
    The other maids said they’d do my jobs, so I stayed with Nell up in the attic, and I grew more and more afraid for my friend. I changed her sheets, I held her hand, and as I toiled up and down the flights of stairs with hot water for her, I realised dimly that the guests had started to arrive. I hadn’t even had time to wonder who they might be.
    But on my way up the stairs yet again with a tray of tea for poor Nell, I suddenly heard Margaret’s voice behind me.
    ‘Why, Sophie. I’ve just been looking for you in the servants’ hall…’ She broke off. ‘Whatever is the matter?’
    Beyond caution, I blurted out Nell’s tragedy. Margaret pursed her lips and hurried away; I thought – I
hoped
– that was the last I’d see of her. But we maids were just having our usual snatched meal before starting to prepare the guests’ dinner when Lady Beatrice burst into the servants’ hall, looking magnificent and furious.
    Poor Mrs Burdett, who’d just come in, was unfortunate enough to catch Her Ladyship’s full wrath.
    ‘You’ve a very sick maid upstairs,’ announced Lady Beatrice, her hands on her hips. ‘You’d leave the poor girl to die? You want to pretend nothing’s happened?’ Mrs Burdett didn’t know yet about Nell because I hadn’t had a chance to tell her. ‘My God,’ said Lady Beatrice, ‘would you all smuggle out her corpse and bury her somewhere at the dead of night?’
    I rather thought that Mr Peters would. He stepped forward, adjusting his metal-rimmed spectacles, and started to explain, but in the end Lady Beatrice interrupted him and declared that she’d drive to town herself to fetch the Duke’s physician. Then her eyes fell on me. ‘You. Sophie, isn’t that your name? Come with me – Margaret tells me you’re the only one around here who has any sense.’
    So I went with her, and though I was concerned for Nell, my mind was whirling. I knew that Margaret must have told Lady Beatrice about Nell, and I wondered suddenly if Margaret had told her mistress about the kisses and caresses the two of us had shared. My heart thudded, my cheeks burned.
    I kept glancing all the time at Lady Beatrice as she drove. I noticed everything about her – I couldn’t help it. Her short dress and matching coat – oh, in cream and coral silk, so lovely, her fine stockings and her shoes with their little heels. The way she drove her motorcar with such confidence.
    I wanted to be like her.
Not like Margaret, not a servant, but like her. She was humming as we careered down a narrow country lane – ‘Rockabye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody’
–
but she was frowning, and I could tell she was furious about Nell. My pulse was racing.
    I think somehow I knew that my life was going to change very soon.

Chapter Five
    Doctor Blakey came back to the Hall in his car and he called an ambulance to take poor Nell to the Oxford hospital. After Nell had gone I went to find Eddie, who was out in the courtyard polishing the Duke’s Rolls-Royce and whistling.
    ‘You are scum,’ I told him. I was so angry. ‘Scum, to abandon poor Nell, and to speak to her so cruelly.’
    Eddie cocked his head insolently. ‘Could be me, could be one of quite a few others. She put it about a bit, did our Nellie.’ He started whistling again and turned back to the shiny motorcar.
    ‘She loved you,’ I insisted. ‘You know she loved you.’
    He came close, smelling of sweat and car polish. ‘Well, Miss High-and-Mighty. You’re really turnin’ out to be quite sweet-lookin’, ain’t you? But they say you’re too stuck up to be interested in any courting. You kept poor Will Baxter dangling, then went cold on him. Know what you need? What you need is a bit of
this
inside you…’
    Before I realised what he was talking about, he’d grabbed my hand and put it on his crotch. With shock flooding through me I realised he was aroused; he wanted me, or thought he did. I kicked hard at his