‘Miss Beaumont?’
Marina spun round. She was being addressed by a liveried footman who was taking no pains to conceal his disdain at the sight of her shabby travelling costume and worn bonnet. Marina raised her chin a fraction. She might be poor and ill clad, but she was most certainly a lady. She would not allow herself to be daunted by a mere servant.
She narrowed her eyes as she looked at the young man. She was almost as tall as he was, she noted absently. ‘I am Miss Beaumont,’ she said in a frosty voice.
The footman could not hold her stern gaze. After a moment, he looked away. ‘Will you come this way, miss?’ he said, indicating the carriage that stood waiting to convey her across London to her employer’s house.
It was only a small victory—but it mattered to Marina. If she was to live in Lady Luce’s house, she must ensure that the Dowager’s servants treated her with respect. ‘Please see that my baggage is stowed safely,’ she said, pointing to the two old valises that contained everything she owned. The footman did as he was bid, picking them up as though they weighed nothing at all. ‘Thank you,’ Marina said with a smile.
The footman seemed taken aback for a few seconds, as if he were suddenly seeing a completely different person. Then he remembered his place and helped Marina into the carriage where she sank back against the cushions with a sigh of relief. She had arrived in London, at last. And in a very short time, she would be making her curtsy to the Dowager Countess Luce, the old lady who wanted a gay young companion to brighten her declining years. Marina had decided during the journey from Yorkshire that she could fill the role pretty well. She had often acted as companion to her grandmother in her final years, reading to her, playing or singing for her, even playing cards with her. In those last years, Grandmama had become most exacting, almost as if she were still entitled to be treated as the sister of a viscount. Lady Luce could not be any worse. Reclusive elderly ladies were all much the same, weren’t they?
Marina closed her eyes, trying vainly to shut out the noise and the overpowering smells. She had never imagined that London could be so full of raucous sounds—the cries of hawkers, each trying to outdo his neighbour, the shouts of draymen anxious to make their way through the bustle of traffic, the ring of horses’ hooves and carriage wheels, the underlying hum of a huge, pulsating city. At home, she had been used to the sounds and smells of farmyard animals, the cries of wild birds, and the howl of the wind across the moors. Nothing like this. She resisted the temptation to hold her nose or put her hands to her ears. If she was to live in London as companion to Lady Luce, she would have to become accustomed. She might as well start now.
Armed with this new resolution, Marina sat up and looked out of the window. She had no idea where she was, but the streets seemed to have become a little quieter. They were certainly more genteel than before: fewer hawkers, more gentlemen’s carriages. The houses had large windows and imposing entrances, some flanked by columns like a Greek temple. This was much, much grander than anything she had known in Yorkshire.
While Marina was studying the architecture on one side of the street, the carriage drew up at a house on the other. She had arrived! The footman, more deferential now, had jumped down to open the door on the far side and stood ready to help her out. As she stepped down, the front door was opened by a stately old man in black who was almost completely bald. What little hair he still possessed was white as snow and sat round his pate like a frill of cream round a pink pudding. He looked like something out of a fairy tale, Marina decided, though he should have been wearing a wizard’s robe rather than a butler’s uniform.
‘Welcome to London, Miss Beaumont,’ the butler said in an expressionless voice. ‘Her ladyship is waiting for you upstairs in her drawing room. Will you come this way, please?’ He turned and began to lead the way towards the imposing staircase.
Not now! Not yet! Marina looked down at her travel-stained clothing and her darned gloves. She needed time to make herself presentable before she was introduced to Lady Luce. The Dowager would take one look at her in this state and send her back to Mama by the first available coach.
Marina took a deep breath and paused just inside the door. ‘I am sure her ladyship does not wish to meet me until I have rid myself of the dust of the journey,’ she said in a voice that surprised her with its steadiness. ‘Have the goodness to bring me to a room where I may wash and change my dress first. The footman may bring my valises.’ Marina looked back to where the footman was extracting her luggage from the carriage.
The butler stopped short, then turned back and stared at her in apparent amazement for a few seconds. Finally, he coughed and resumed his earlier vacant expression. ‘As you wish, miss. Will you come this way? Charles, bring Miss Beaumont’s bags up to her room straight away.’
‘Yes, Mr Tibbs,’ replied the footman quickly, hoisting both bags with one arm so that he could close the front door noiselessly behind him.
Marina smiled to herself, a very little. She had just learned her second lesson. And so had Lady Luce’s servants.
Chapter Two
Marina looked round her small, sparsely furnished bedchamber. She supposed she should be glad that she had not been banished to the attics, with the servants. As a lady’s companion, she would be neither servant nor gentry, but something indeterminate in between. She must maintain her distance from the servants. Lady Luce and her guests would, in turn, maintain their distance from the companion. Marina would be alone.
The butler had informed her, in a somewhat fatherly manner, that she had been given a bedchamber on the same corridor as her ladyship’s so that she would be within easy reach, should Lady Luce have need of her services at any time. Marina had deduced that she was to be at her ladyship’s beck and call, twenty-four hours a day.
She shrugged her shoulders. What else had she expected? Her own grandmother had been equally exacting—and more than a little querulous towards the end of her life. Marina would just have to summon all her reserves of patience and understanding, and set about ministering to another old lady’s whims.
I shall pretend she is my own grandmother, Marina promised herself as she changed her gown. I learned forbearance then. I can surely do the same for another demanding old lady, especially as, on this occasion, I am being paid for my trouble.
She smiled at the thought of the money she would send to her mother the moment she received her first wages. Mama had said Marina would need to provide for her wardrobe, but surely she could manage with what she had brought from Yorkshire? A companion did not need many gowns to accompany her mistress when she took the air, or to wind her lady’s knitting wool. Marina had long ago decided to confine herself to what she already had. Her first duty was to her own family.
She considered her image in the glass that had been thoughtfully provided. It would do. Her grey gown, though creased from its time in her valise, was clean and neat, and set off with a fresh white collar. She looked like a lady, not a servant, she decided, with a small smile of satisfaction. Her dark brown hair had been neatly rebraided and pinned to the back of her head. Her newly washed complexion glowed with health. Her head was bare—she might be almost at her last prayers but, at twenty-three, she was not yet condemned to the spinster’s cap—and she wore no jewellery except the mourning ring that had been on her finger almost since the day she had learned of her father’s death. She nodded at her reflection in the mirror. Lady Luce would see, in her, the model of a demure, biddable lady’s companion, well worth the wage she was to be paid. The Dowager would have no reason to send Marina back to her family. That must be avoided at all costs, for Mama desperately needed every penny Marina could spare.
And now she must go down to meet the lady who would have the ordering of her life for months, perhaps years to come.
Marina took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders and made her way out into the corridor. Tibbs, the butler, was hovering not far away, waiting for her.
‘This leads to her ladyship’s chambers,’ he said, indicating a door near the head of the staircase. ‘No one else sleeps on this floor, except when her