“Who is that?”
“Sukey, no doubt. With the water for my bath.”
“Oh, of course. I quite forgot.”
“She has excellent timing.” Fiona smothered a giggle. “Just go, darling.”
Thomas cast a look at the closed door when Sukey knocked upon it again, hastily did up his breeches, threw his dark coat over his shoulders without bothering to put his arms in the sleeves, then picked up his boots.
“The footman will assist you with those.” Fiona smiled indulgently. Thomas’s dark curls and flushed cheeks gave him the look of a lad lately come from a first assignation. Yet he was only a few years younger than she, and nearly as experienced in the myriad pleasures that awaited lovers behind closed doors.
He smiled boyishly. Damn it all. If she was not careful, she might very well fall—
Never, she told herself. Not with him. In any case, Lady Fiona Gilberte did not believe in love and had never experienced that unnerving emotion.
“Give my regards to your beautiful neighbor if you should happen to see her on the street.”
“I shall do nothing of the kind.”
Thomas laughed. “Of course not. Good night, my dearest.” He clutched his boots while he gave her one last kiss, nipping her lower lip with the gentleness of a man whose passion had been fully satisfied.
“Good night, Thomas,” she said softly.
A clanking and sloshing sound came from the hall outside her door as the unseen servant set a bucket of water down heavily and gave a rather theatrical groan.
“I will leave by the other door,” said Thomas. “Though I should like to see Sukey scrub your creamy skin. The little minx must enjoy attending you, Fiona. Tell me, have you two ever—”
“Do shut up,” Fiona whispered. She waved to him, one hand on the doorknob so her maid could not come into her bedchamber too soon. He blew her a kiss and closed the other door behind him with a faint click and went down the back stairs. Lady Fiona counted to five, opened the door and looked out to see…a large, nearly full bucket standing in a puddle of water. But there was no sign of Sukey.
The puddle of water, nice and hot, seeped quickly into one of her silk slippers. Fie! Was she supposed to lift the damned bucket herself?
Fiona would not. Indeed, she could not. She peered into the corridor and saw Sukey at the other end, talking to the footman, Summers, who usually helped Thomas with his boots. The fellow had one hand on the little maid’s round rump and the other was sliding between the front folds of her gown to feel her breasts. As usual, Sukey seized every opportunity to find someone who would appreciate her charms.
“Sukey!”
The maid whirled around before the footman had a chance to let go of the front of her gown. Her breasts popped out, pink-tipped and plump and startlingly white in the half-light of the hall. The footman gasped out an apology, whether to the maid or to her, Fiona could not tell.
Sukey drew the edges of her opened gown together, in no very great hurry to do so.
Fiona only shrugged. She was well aware that the wanton maid thought nothing of displaying her body, having been encouraged to do so by her lecherous master—Fiona’s late and unlamented husband—who had been so kind as to seduce the new girl at once and get her with child in the first year of her employment at Aldrich Hall. Sukey had given the unfortunate infant, a boy, to Coram Foundling Hospital on the day of its birth and never spoke of it again.
But Fiona had kept her on nonetheless, feeling that Sukey would be unlikely to disapprove of her mistress’s own affairs. A prudish innocent might whisper to the housekeeper and other servants. Therefore, Sukey was permitted a degree of familiarity that Fiona would not countenance from the rest of the staff.
The maid was well paid—and allowed to choose from milady’s discarded dresses and inconsequential jewelry from milady’s discarded lovers. Were she not bribed in this fashion, Sukey might take it into her head to carry tales to the London scandal sheets, as Fiona knew.
She looked at the footman, who stood up even straighter, his dignity preserved by the rapid decrease in size of a magnificent erection still somewhat visible under his tight breeches. Her late husband had hired only servants with the proportions of classical statuary, liking to watch them rut and romp from various peepholes that he’d had drilled into every secret place in the vast Mayfair house.
At first Bertie had invited Fiona, his newly wedded third wife, to join him in this pastime; but she had politely declined. Her explanation: it was quite impossible to sound properly authoritative to servants she would see naked, whether or not they would know it.
Her elderly husband had not seemed to mind her refusal, since he had married her chiefly for her decorative qualities anyway. And he had cared not a whit that she was no longer a virgin, and had never asked her for particulars on that score.
A good thing, too. She would have hated to explain, with the customary tears and tragic protestations of ruined innocence, that he simply wasn’t the first man who’d bedded her. Or the second. Or even the third.
She had married Bertie for his money, not having a penny to call her own despite her impeccable bloodlines. Fiona’s father, the impoverished son of a venerable earl who was never going to die, had made the match—and as good as sold his only daughter, she often thought.
This particular footman, Summers, had been hired just before Bertie’s death and perhaps had not known of his master’s voyeurism. But Fiona imagined he might well prove a satisfying stud. He seemed to be trying not to look at Sukey as the maid sauntered down the hall to her mistress.
“Come. Prepare my bath,” she said impatiently. “The water is precisely the right temperature. And do not look at me like that. Such impertinence.”
Sukey tossed her head and gave Fiona an insolent look before bending down to the bucket’s handle. She hoisted it with ease and brought it through the doorway without spilling a drop, kicking the door shut behind her like a performing pony.
She lugged the bucket through the bedchamber into a connecting alcove, where a gleaming tub stood on lion’s paws of bronze. There she lifted the bucket high and poured in the hot water all in one go, a crystalline stream that splashed into the cold water already in the bathtub, sparkling in the candlelight. Steam rose from the tub in delicate wisps.
“Shall I undress you, my lady?” Sukey inquired, looking as if she knew perfectly well that someone already had, at least half way. The rumpled state of her mistress’s black velvet gown—the disheveled bed, which looked very much as if someone had been clawing at the covers while in the throes of bliss—gave the evening’s delights away.
Of course, the maid knew nothing of the lovers in the house across the street…Fiona caught a knowing glance from Sukey. Hmm. Perhaps the girl had she seen the show. “There is no need for that, I can manage. Just go.”
Sukey nodded and took her leave, swinging the empty bucket by her side and closing the door quietly enough behind her. Fiona heard the maid’s footsteps echo down the hall and return, then patter down the stairs. Evidently the easily aroused Summers had decamped. Fiona had no doubt that Sukey hoped to finish what she’d started.
If she didn’t waylay Summers, the maid would have to find another man to tease. It was a miracle that Sukey got any work done at all.
Fiona undid the ties of her bodice and let the black velvet gown fall into a heap on the floor, stepping out of it. Since Thomas had already done away with her drawers, she was quite naked, not having bothered with stays.
She pushed the dress aside with one foot and walked to the alcove, enjoying the feel of the cool night air on her heated skin, wearing nothing but the triple strand of pearls. The rim of the bathtub was wide, warmed by the water within, and there she perched,