“Who was there?”
“A maid. A scullery maid, in fact. And she was nude—in my bed. She announced to me that she knew I likeda bit of downstairsand that she was willing to be my next conquest.” He smiled, still remembering the girl’s strong Yorkshire accent. “To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I told the girl that I could not bed her. It did not seem right. She was comely enough, I assured her, but she was a servant in the house.”
“Iwas a servant inyourhouse.”
“I know,” he said, wincing at how hypocritical he must seem to her, “And I see now how that was not fair to you. But with you, it was always so different. I wasn’t able to see you that way—as a maid. You were always just Olivia to me.”
He thought her eyes softened a bit at this description, but he couldn’t be sure.
“And this girl? She wasjusta maid?”
“She was a maid I did not know. A dependent in the household of my cousin. As I said, it did not seem right. When I refused, however, she nearly begged. I didn’t understand. The girl had never seen me before that moment. While I admit that I have been called handsome at turns, women generally don’tbegme to bed them.”
Olivia laughed. The sound lit something in him—it was the first time he had heard her laugh in thirteen years. He had forgotten how he loved her laugh, how genuine it was when she graced you with it, and how sparing she was with the sound. You always knew when Olivia laughed that she meant it. She didn’t bother with faking.
“You must have been perplexed.”
“I was. But, after some cajoling, she told me the truth. I don’t know if you remember, but, in that scandal sheet item, it said—bollocks, of course—that the maid, you, were dismissed with a generous parting gift.”
He looked up and saw that Olivia’s smile had faltered. She must know that that detail, about the generous parting gift, had been made up by the newspapermen to make the whole affair sound more dissipated. Still, it shamed him. It revealed how blind he had been to the power he had had over her, how he had made her vulnerable.
For a moment, confusion flitted across her face. But then it was gone. Instead, she nodded.
“Of course.”
“There was no amount even named—but the scullery maid had latched onto it. Apparently, her brother was trying to start his own sheep farm back in Yorkshire. He only needed a few guineas to do it. Once he had his farm, she could leave the south of England and go back home. When she heard that I was coming to my cousin’s estate, she thought she might make in one night what it would take her years to earn otherwise.”
“No!” Olivia said, her eyebrows raised. “Really?”
It felt good to tell someone the story, the real story, after all these years of keeping it to himself. He had told an amended version to his friends, a version in which he bedded the girl, but somehow it had not been nearly as comic as the truth.
“Well, I was unsure what to do,” he continued, “I still felt it was wrong to bed the maid—whose name was Tabitha, by the way. Yet I was moved by her and her brother and their sheep farm. And she had gone to so much trouble already. Taken off her clothes and presented herself to me. It was bold, to be sure.”
“What did you do?”
“Well, I struck her a compromise. I told her that I would not tup her, but that I would give her ten guineas for her trouble. And I advised her that she could probably sell the story to the scandal sheets for at least another. Really, they should call me the Eleven Guinea Earl. But, of course, it might be less or more that they get from the papers. I do not know the going rate for such stories myself.”
He had been dreading reaching this part in his tale and he knew he was rambling in the hopes that she had forgotten or would, at least, let this part pass without comment. He and Olivia had once had a joke, the silly type of thing that young lovers say to one another, that he should pay her ten guineas for every time he pleasured her with his mouth. That was how much he loved it. When he had first done it, she had been shy. She had said that she felt like he wasservingher. That she felt selfish. He had been so young and eager for it, for knowing how to please her and for being that close to her, that he had blurted out that he should payherfor the pleasure. It had become a joke between them—after he would finish pleasuring her, after bringing her to the kind of intense orgasm that aroused him so deeply, she would joke, “Where is my ten guineas?” That had always made him laugh so much.
Then she had disappeared. He hadn’t understood why. He had begun to imagine his life with her, how it would look. When she had left, he had been young—and angry. He thought that, maybe, she would read the scandal sheets and see the detail about the ten guineas and feel jealous and come back. It was the only time he had affiliated the scandal sheets and Olivia, the maids and Olivia. It had been juvenile and foolish. He did not feel secure enough with her to address it now. To recall such an intimate moment. And one that she might not even remember. She seemed, all things considered, to have largely forgotten about him over the years. Olivia was hardly nursing the flamingtendrethat, to his humiliation, he had been unable to subdue.
“You did not bed her?” Olivia asked, blessedly ignoring the bit about the ten guineas.
“I did not. Although she stayed in my room until morning. She insisted that no one would believe her otherwise, although I do think the enticement of a large, comfortable bed for someone used to scullery work formed part of her conviction on that score.”
“Surely,” Olivia said, dryly. “But what of the others?”
He fought off yet another blush. “Servants talk, as you know. And once I struck this bargain with this one maid, when I would visit the houses of my friends and relatives, more maids began to appear in my bedchamber. I’ve never been able to refuse one. With the stories they tell. Of course, I have no idea if they are true. Still, I find I can’t turn them away. Not even the girl who merely wanted a pair of ruby buckles for her dancing slippers.”
“Ruby buckles?”
“She wanted to impress the butcher’s son.” Montaigne smiled at the memory of that maid, a gap-toothed brunette with a strawberry birthmark on her face. He hoped she had gotten what she wanted.
“But your reputation. You shredded it so that you could give maids guineas?”
“I didn’t care for my reputation, then.” He searched for a way to explain it that would not come off astoopathetic. He did not want to reveal that, for years, after she had gone, he had been hopeless about his future. His reputation hadn’t mattered to him at all. Nothing had. “I didn’t want to marry. My friends and I didn’t have sterling reputations anyway. We were known for being wild. And…”
He trailed off. He wasn’t sure how honest he should be.
