The Scandalous Life of a True Lady by Bárbara Metzger Page A

prettiest female ever with all that red hair, and what a cunning bonnet. Cherries were all the thing this season, according to Ackerman’s Repository, but feathers were more suitable for night, didn’t miss agree?
    Simone had never conversed with a whirlwind before, and never had a lady’s maid of her own in her entire life. She would have dismissed the girl on both counts, but Sally was the only one in the house to smile at her. Worse, the new gown fastened down Simone’s back. She could never get out of it on her own, and asking Mrs. Judd to help would have been beyond her. More importantly, Sally said she already had kettles of water on to heat for miss’s bath, and did she prefer rose scent or lilac for her soap?
    A bath, in a full tub young Jeremy Judd was already carrying into the room? That sounded like heaven. She smiled back at the grinning pair and decided to enjoy the wages of sin.
    Sally helped wash Simone’s long hair, bringing her mum’s own recipe shampoo, hot towels, and chatter about her beau, a footman at the next household, but Mum thought Sally was too young to be courted at sixteen, and what did Miss Ryland think?
    Simone thought she just might enjoy being treated like a lady, especially now, when she was becoming anything but.
    Sally was humming, which was a good sign, Simone thought. No one ever sang at the baron’s house, not even the children. Sally was obviously happy in her work, and Simone vowed to be happy in hers. She’d try, anyway.
    Sally clucked her tongue over the shabby, dreary gowns that comprised Simone’s wardrobe, as if trying to decide which to burn first instead of which to lay out for dinner.
    “Oh, I shan’t need to dress,” Simone told her. “I ate such a large tea I’d be content with a slice of toast here in my room later.”
    “Mum says you are to sup in the dining room like a proper guest, with Mr. Harris. She’s fixing a special meal, she is, everything he likes. Do you fancy syllabub? Mum’s is the best.”
    Simone did not care for the sweet dessert, but her tastes did not matter, not to the chatelaine of the house. “Your mother does not approve of me, does she? Or my reason for being here.”
    “Oh, it ain’t you, miss. Mum was an actress herself, and she ain’t one for looking down on any female what wants to better herself. You’re a guest, plain and simple. It’s himself she’s worried about.”
    “Major Harrison? Then he really is in danger?” That was not gossip, Simone told herself. She needed to be prepared for protecting her protector.
    “The master always finds trouble, but Mum is worried you’ll bring him worse.”
    “Me? That is, I?” She’d gone at the baron with a fireplace poker, true, but she did not usually accost gentlemen. She looked around the lovely room. “Why would I hurt him when he has been so kind?”
    “Without meaning to, I am sure, miss. It’s that we were all hoping the master’d be done with his havey-cavey doings now that the war is over.”
    “Havey-cavey?”
    “Dark, you know. Secret. For the good of the country, but that’s all I can say about the master’s work. He’s not much out in public, which is why Mum worries about strangers. Mr. Harris’ll tell you more, if he thinks you ought to know.”
    The secretary would tell her, if she had to threaten him with her bread knife. Simone had to know what she was getting herself into. “Then I better wear my new gown, don’t you think?”
    *
    Mr. Harris was going to be late for dinner. It was taking longer than he expected to find Baron Seldon at one of the lesser gambling clubs the man was known to frequent. Once he found Miss Ryland’s former employee, he quickly defeated the man at cards, soundly. He seldom played with fools like Seldon, for there was no challenge in it. Now he hurried the baron into debt without listening to the puffgut’s boasting and blathering so he could savor his glass of brandy without having a sour taste in his mouth. Then he