The Duchess Read online

  Bridget showed her how to dress the children, after they’d had breakfast, and she washed their faces and hands. An hour after Angélique had arrived in the nursery, all was in good order. They’d eaten and were dressed, the beds were made, and the baby had woken up and was no longer crying. He smiled as he held his arms out to Bridget, and she picked him up, just as the toddler threw a wooden horse at Emma’s head and missed her. She took toys out for them, and sat down with the baby in her lap to change and dress him. It seemed like an incredible amount of organizing and work, and good timing to be looking in four directions at once and keeping track of all of them. Helen did the laundry and washing up, but she didn’t take care of the children, which was entirely the nanny’s job. Angélique had no idea how Bridget did it—she was a magician with ten hands. Obviously growing up in a big family had helped.

  “And watch out for Mrs. Ferguson’s brother—he’s a bad one,” she said as Angélique smiled.

  “So I’ve heard. Sarah warned me.” He had quite a reputation in the house, apparently well deserved.

  “He went after one of the maids last spring when he was here. He’s a charmer. They sacked her when the Mrs. found out. She’s having his baby in two months, but no one talks about it. Her parents work one of the farms, so she went home to them. He’ll be a pretty baby, but she won’t come back to work here again, and she won’t get a reference from them. Remember that if he comes near you, and lock your door at night. Mr. Ferguson won’t bother you, although they say he has some fancy pieces in town, when his wife is here. I don’t think she minds—she’s too busy spending his money to care. And she has a wandering eye herself when they have guests.” Angélique was getting a vision of people with a lot of money, a spoiled, indulged woman who had married beneath her for her husband’s fortune, both of whom were unfaithful to each other, and didn’t care about their children. They were hardly people Angélique would admire, and it didn’t surprise her that her brother and his wife were their friends. It all sounded very superficial, and like a wasted life to her. Her father had been a different kind of man, but her brother seemed to prefer this very empty life and everything that went with it. In some ways, Mrs. Ferguson seemed like a younger version of Elizabeth. Bridget said that Mr. Ferguson was thirty-four years old, and she was twenty-five. She was easy to work for, if you stayed on her good side, flattered her occasionally, and kept the children away from her. It didn’t sound like a complicated job, just an exhausting one.

  They chatted all through the morning, as Bridget explained things to her. The weather was poor so they stayed in the nursery, although she said they usually went to the gardens if the weather was fine. And after Angélique read the children a story, which only the older two listened to, Helen brought their trays in for dinner. Bridget, Helen, and Angélique ate with the children. It was a hearty meal of vegetables and chicken, with ice cream and fruit for dessert. “Mrs. Ferguson always says to feed Emma less than the boys. She doesn’t want her to get fat, but I let her have pudding anyway. Poor little thing. We don’t want to starve her, no matter what her mother says. She has a lovely figure, even after four children, but of course she’s corseted to within an inch of her life. Her lady’s maid said she faints sometimes when they lace her up. Her waist is about the size of my arm.” Looking at Bridget, Angélique found that easy to believe, but she liked this friendly open girl, and hoped she’d do as well in the job, and manage it with equal ease. It was hard to imagine she would. And she felt a wave of panic wash over her as Bridget gathered up her things and got ready to leave. There was a tear in her eye when she said goodbye to the children and hugged each one of them, and then she looked at Angélique.

  “Good luck to you, then. I hope it works out for you here. They’re foolish at times, but they’re not bad people, and it’s a good job. If they spent more time in London with the children, I’d come back to them, but not here.” It was what she had said before.

  “Will you say goodbye to Mrs. Ferguson now?” Angélique asked, curious about her, more than ever after everything Bridget had said that morning.

  “No, she said goodbye to me last week. She’s not a sentimental woman. She’s more interested in herself. She knows she can always find another nanny. We’re easily replaced, you see, so remember that, and don’t play fast and loose with the job, or she’ll sack you and get someone else, just like she found you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Angélique said seriously, suddenly realizing that she was lucky to have this job if she had to work. Tristan could have sent her someplace worse, and wouldn’t have cared, just so he got her out of the house.

  Bridget hugged her and was gone a minute later, and Angélique put the children to bed for their naps, while Helen picked up the trays and sent them downstairs in the dumbwaiter. The baby was hardest to get down, but eventually he lay in his crib, holding the bottle his new nanny had given him, and within minutes he fell asleep.

  She looked through the cupboard of nurses’ uniforms the nannies wore, found the two smallest ones, and then asked Helen to listen for the children while she went downstairs to the laundry, and tried to alter the dresses to fit her. She hurried down the back stairs with the two dresses, and found Mrs. Ferguson’s lady’s maid chatting with the laundry maids while they washed their employer’s clothes. They all looked at Angélique in surprise.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said hesitantly, “I need to alter my dresses, if I can have some gray thread and a needle.” Mildred, who was in charge of the laundry room, looked at her with a bright smile and took the dresses from her with ease.

  “I’ll do it for you. You’re the new nanny, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am. Angélique.”

  Mildred shook her head with a scolding look, as she got out the needle and thread and a thimble, after Angélique explained where it was too large, and glanced up at Angélique. “The Mrs. won’t want you being called by your first name around here. It’s Nanny Ferguson now,” she reminded her, as Angélique looked chastened, and Mildred smiled. “Happy to meet you, though,” Mildred said, and stood up and held the gray dresses up to her slim figure to check them, and then put some pins in them to mark them, and promised to have the dresses for her in the morning. “How are you finding the nursery so far?” she asked with interest.

  Angélique hesitated and then smiled cautiously. “A little scary,” she admitted, “Bridget just left an hour ago. This is my first nanny job. I’ve never had to manage four children.” She was breathless as she said it, and the other women laughed.

  “I’m not sure I could either,” Mrs. Ferguson’s lady’s maid said under her breath. Angélique heard one of the others call her Stella. “Not with that lot of little monsters,” she chuckled. “They wear their mother out in five minutes. I’m glad I never had children.” She was meticulously pressing a gown for that evening, and smiled at the new nanny. “Have you met Mrs. Ferguson yet?”

  “No, I haven’t. I just arrived last night.”

  “From London?” one of the other laundry maids asked her.

  “Hertfordshire. The house and grounds look very pretty here.”

  “The London house is nicer,” Stella said proudly. “I prefer it there, but it’s better for the children to be in the country. She likes them to stay here. It’s healthier for them than in the city.” Angélique nodded, and thought she’d better get back to the nursery then. She said goodbye to the ladies, and went back upstairs. She was sorry she couldn’t have her meals with them, and had to stay in the nursery with the children. It would have been nice to get to know the others, but she would be isolated most of the time with her charges, and Helen the nurserymaid. At least she had her to talk to.

  Angélique went through the bookcase when she got upstairs and found some books she wanted to read to the children that she had loved herself as a child. After that, she went downstairs to get her things, and struggled up the stairs with her cases and small trunk. There was barely enough room for all of it
in her bedroom in the nursery, but she piled them on top of each other, and slid the small trunk under her bed. It was still locked, and she left it that way, with her mother’s jewelry and her father’s money in it. Her entire future was concealed under her bed.

  “What did you bring all those clothes for?” Helen asked her. “You’ll never wear them.” And Angélique had noticed there was no mirror in her bedroom. Helen said that Mrs. Ferguson felt that nannies didn’t need them, nor kitchen staff.

  “I might wear a nice dress one day,” Angélique said wistfully, as Sarah peeked into the nursery for a quick visit on her break.

  “You look like a proper nanny,” Sarah commented, smiling at her, and Angélique was happy to see her. She felt as though she had at least one friend there. They chatted for a few minutes, and then Sarah left, and the children woke up, and they kept Angélique busy, while she read to them. She taught Simon and Emma to play a game she found in a cupboard, and then she bathed them in a tub she filled with water she had to carry herself, with Helen’s help. And by the time she had finished the bath, Helen brought the tea trays in. The day had flown by, and when she put them to bed at seven, after reading them another story, she was ready for bed herself. And tomorrow was going to be a big day. She was going to take the children down to the library to see their parents, and meet the Fergusons. She was curious about them, and as she slipped between the sheets after reading by candlelight for a while in the nursery parlor, she wondered what the future held for her. The Duke of Westerfield’s daughter had become Nanny Ferguson, and it was hard to guess what fate had in store for her next.

  Chapter 4

  It took Angélique longer than she’d expected to get the children ready to see their parents the following afternoon, even with Helen’s help. She held the baby while Angélique dressed the others, and she brushed Emma’s curls until they gleamed, and then tied a pink ribbon in her hair. The boys looked immaculate, and the baby was chuckling as she played with him and put on a delicate white infant’s dress, and a little white sweater. He was a strapping boy, and heavy in her arms, as she carried him downstairs and held Emma’s hand. The children were excited to go down—it had rained all day, and they had had to stay in again.

  Angélique couldn’t wait to explore the gardens and the park, and Helen told her there was a maze. She was anxious to see the grounds, although she knew that they were less extensive than where she’d grown up. But the Fergusons were said to have one of the prettiest gardens in Hampshire. And as they came through the servants’ doors on the main floor, Angélique was suddenly dazzled by an enormous chandelier. All of the candles were lit. It was already dark outside, and the gleaming crystals were spectacular. She glanced around and saw that the décor was very grand, and she had been told by Sarah that there was a ballroom in the east wing.

  The furniture was a mixture of English and French, and they had very important paintings. There was a long red runner in the main hall, and Angélique could see that it was a showplace more than a home. She could hear voices in the library, and she saw about twenty people there, talking and laughing and playing cards, as she stood in the doorway with the children, wondering which of the elegant women was their mother. Emma ran to her first, and an exquisite creature in a heavy blue-velvet gown walked toward them, as the two boys dove into her skirt while Eugenia Ferguson held her daughter’s hand, and met Angélique’s eyes with an icy blue gaze. Her dark auburn hair was piled in a mountain of curls on top of her head in a fashionable hairdo Stella had arranged for her. And she was wearing sapphires on her ears, with an enormous matching pin at her waist. The vision she presented took Angélique’s breath away as she curtsied to her, and knew she was expected to, not because of her rank, which was insignificant, but because Angélique was now a servant and the woman was her employer. Angélique looked demure and played the role well, and each woman was struck by the other’s beauty. The children’s mother hadn’t expected the new nanny to be so pretty.

  “You’re the Latham girl, are you?” she said haughtily as the children buzzed around her, and then deserted her to see their father and throw their arms around his legs. He was strikingly tall, and had straight blond hair. He was very handsome, and from the evidence, very rich. “Your cousin spoke highly of you,” Eugenia said pleasantly. “He’s been promising you to me for months.” Angélique was stunned by everything she had just said.

  “My cousin?” Angélique had no cousins, except distant ones, and King George, and she strongly doubted that His Majesty had recommended her to this woman. She looked at her employer blankly, with wide innocent eyes.

  “His Grace, the Duke of Westerfield, of course, Tristan Latham. He said you’re distant cousins and a charming girl.” Angélique’s mouth nearly fell open when she heard that her own brother had claimed that they were cousins, which of course sounded more respectable than pawning his sister off on her, which he didn’t want to admit. And if he had been suggesting her for the position for months, then he had been lying in wait, as her father was failing, biding his time, until he could ship her off. It was why he had been able to send her away so quickly, as soon as their father died. He had been scheming for months. It stunned her to hear it. He was even worse than she thought.

  “Oh…Tristan, of course…”

  “His wife, the duchess, and I,” she said, to impress the others around her, “are dear friends. We’re constantly together in London.” Angélique nodded, as she tried to keep her eye on her charges, who were wrapped around their father, and showing off for the guests. Visiting their parents was a huge treat for them.

  “I’m very grateful for this opportunity, ma’am,” Angélique said politely, although she wasn’t grateful to her brother for plotting against her, in anticipation of their father’s death, perhaps even hoping for it, so he could take over Belgrave, and at last inherit the title, the estate, and have an enormous fortune of his own. And Eugenia Ferguson liked having the impoverished cousin of a duke in her employ, and even better having the duke himself indebted to her for assisting his young relative. She had asked him why he didn’t employ the girl himself, and he had responded that it would be too embarrassing for her, to work for her own family as a servant. He had assured Eugenia that she was both well educated and well behaved, and would even be able to teach the children French if Eugenia chose. He said that the girl’s mother had been a lowborn French woman a distant cousin of his had married, and the girl had been left a penniless orphan. Angélique would have been horrified to hear her mother described as “lowborn” when she was related to the king of France, which meant that Angélique was related to the current one, Charles X, not to mention the British monarch, George IV, on her father’s side. But even with the little she knew, Eugenia was pleased. She liked having an aristocratic nanny for her children, and thought it gave her more prestige. It had always bothered her that her father had been a mere baron, and a life peer, so her brother couldn’t inherit the title. And Harry Ferguson had none at all. But his fortune more than made up for what he lacked in noble birth.

  Eugenia thought Angélique looked very proper and dignified, and as the young woman crossed the room to the children, to rescue their father from them, Mrs. Ferguson whispered to a friend that she was a poor cousin of the Duke of Westerfield. It almost made Angélique want to spin around and correct her and explain that she was his sister, and not his cousin, and had been banished from their home only days after her father’s death. But she said nothing, and got the two boys under control, while still holding the baby in her arms, and she saw that Emma had a mouth full of sweets she’d taken from a silver dish, unobserved by her mother.

  “You can take them back up now,” Harry Ferguson said with a look of relief. “You’re the new girl, are you?” he asked, and she nodded and curtsied to him too.

  Eugenia didn’t object as Angélique led them out of the room and through the servants’ door to the back stairs. The children didn’t seem surprised by the short visit—they were used to
it. They had been in the library for only slightly more than ten minutes, just as Bridget had predicted. And their parents wouldn’t see them again for another week. Angélique knew that was the norm in most families, but thinking of the close relationship she had shared with her father, she felt sad for them. With parents who almost never saw them, they would be missing so much, and she felt a strange obligation to make it up to them, particularly Simon, who would be leaving home in less than a year, to go away to school. He still seemed like a baby to her at four. And leaving for boarding school at five seemed even worse than what had happened to her at eighteen. At least she had grown up in the warmth of her father’s love. He would never have parted with her as a child, and she would have missed him far too much. And even little Rupert, who could barely talk, would follow his brother to Eton in three years. Angélique thought they were much too young to be sent away from home and felt sorry for them.

  She read them a story when they got upstairs to help them settle down, after the excitement of seeing their parents and their guests. They seemed to like Angélique reading to them, particularly Emma, who cuddled close to her and asked where Bridget was, with a wistful look. She had taken care of them for two years, which was a long time in their lives. She was the only nanny they remembered and the person closest to them.

  “She’s going to visit her sister,” Angélique explained. She didn’t promise them that they would see her again, because she wasn’t sure they would. Angélique didn’t know if the Fergusons would let Bridget come back to visit; some parents didn’t, and Angélique wondered if the Fergusons were among them. Angélique vowed to herself to try to make it up to her charges. Even if she didn’t plan to stay forever, she wanted to do the best she could.

  She got them all into their nightshirts, one by one, without Helen’s help, and was proud of herself for doing so. She put Charles, the baby, down first, then Rupert, who climbed out of bed twice while she tucked Emma in, and Simon after that, and then she caught Rupert again, and put him back to bed. The two youngest boys shared a room, and Emma and Simon each had their own.