Adam decided that he really needed to finish his assignment and leave Marsley House. More than ever now. He shouldn’t have been so honest with her. He shouldn’t have kissed Suzanne earlier and comforted her a moment ago. He was almost as much a lecher as Whitcomb. Had she known about her husband’s character? Had she cared that the duke hadn’t been faithful? A strange thought as he accompanied her up the grand staircase to the third floor.
Placing his hand at the small of her back, he guided her toward the servants’ quarters. He caught her glancing to the left, toward the corridor where the nursery was located. Had she been back to the room since they’d talked that night?
He had too much curiosity about Suzanne.
A tendril of her hair had come loose from her severe bun and he wanted to push it back into place. He kept his hands to himself.
“We need to find you another maid,” he said. There, a good enough distraction and one that might occupy his thoughts for a few moments.
She only nodded.
“Is there anyone on staff you would like to promote?”
She shook her head.
He wished she would speak and wondered why she was suddenly so silent. Was it due to the proximity of the nursery? Or did it have something to do with the fact that she’d dismissed Ella? Although she was walking with her hands folded in front of her, he could tell that she was still trembling.
“The woman needed to be dismissed,” he said, his voice rough.
She glanced over at him.
“You didn’t like her,” she said.
“No, I didn’t.”
She didn’t say anything to his admission.
“I don’t know if any of the maids would like to have Ella’s position,” she said. “It does come with a significant increase in wages, does it not?”
He nodded. Since he’d recently reviewed the quarterly expenditures he was aware of what was paid to every person. Mrs. Thigpen and the cook earned substantially more than the rest of the staff, but that was because of their positions and their longevity. His salary as majordomo was the equivalent of what was paid to five footmen.
“Do you think Ella told them I was mad?”
He glanced at her. “I don’t think Ella communicated with the other maids at all,” he said. “She considered herself above them.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Thigpen might have a recommendation,” she said when he stopped in front of Ella’s door. “Someone not like Ella in any way.”
“I don’t think that’s a difficult requirement. Ella was unique in her disagreeableness.”
After opening the door, he stepped aside for her to enter first.
Ella’s room was larger than a normal maid’s quarters, but not as spacious as his rooms or those assigned to Mrs. Thigpen. The hierarchy in the servants’ ranks at Marsley House was as pronounced as that of the army. A lady’s maid was below the rank of governess or majordomo but higher than those maids assigned to the family quarters. They, in turn, were above the public room maids, who were over the scullery maids. Stable boys figured somewhere in the mix, but Adam was damned if he knew exactly where.
He looked around him, wondering if the duchess had the same impression he was getting. Ella didn’t reveal who she was with her personal possessions. The single bed was neatly made; the pillow looked as if it had been fluffed before being placed at the head of the bed in the middle of the mattress. Her clothes were hung on the hooks arranged on the far wall in militaristic precision by color. The only item on the small bedside table was an oil lamp with a gold shade.
A vanity had been provided, topped with a mirror. Here there was only a utilitarian brush, a comb, and a small tortoiseshell-topped box of hairpins.
No perfume scented the room. Instead, there was a curious herbal odor, almost as if Ella had kept plants on the windowsill.
He began opening the drawers of the small bureau below the window. He intensely disliked going through a woman’s unmentionables, be it this assignment or another, but he couldn’t pick and choose. You couldn’t falter in your mission just because you didn’t like certain parts of it.
He found the bottle in the bottom drawer, tucked beneath Ella’s nightgowns.
Holding up the brown bottle stoppered with a cork, he asked, “Is this it?”
She nodded. “Are the contents green?”
He uncorked the bottle, upended it on the tip of his finger, and nodded. “It’s green.” He tasted it, immediately identifying the main ingredient. “It’s also opium,” he said.
“Opium?”
“Did you know?” he asked as he put the cork back in the bottle.
“Of course not,” she said.
She still stood at the door, her hands fisted at her waist. The tautness of her demeanor made him think that she could easily explode into anger. Or tears. Of the two, he preferred anger. It was certainly justified.
Why was Ella giving Suzanne opium?
“She always said my father told her to do it.”
That didn’t make any sense. “Why would your father want you drugged?”
She shrugged, which wasn’t an answer, at least one he wanted. He didn’t push her to explain, however. Sometimes, it was better to wait until someone was ready to talk.
He closed the drawer, looked around, and decided he’d found everything there was to find.
The duchess still hadn’t spoken. He abandoned patience for a more direct approach.
“Suzanne.”
She glanced at him wide eyed, but didn’t correct him. Nor did she fix an imperious stare on him and demand that he remember her rank. They’d gone beyond that, hadn’t they?
“Why would your father want you drugged?”
“Do you know anything about my father?” she asked.
“A little. He was with the East India Company.”
“A director,” she said. “He’s a man who’s never seen an obstacle. He doesn’t abide them.”
That still wasn’t an answer.
She sat on the ladder-back chair beside the bed, taking some time to arrange her skirt. She was playing for time and he knew it.
Just as he was at the point of asking again, she looked up at him.
“It’s very important for him to be able to dictate the outcome of events. At least those over which he has some control.”
He didn’t comment. Hackney was a bully, which was a less polite way of saying the same thing.
She looked at the bottle still in his hand and then away, blinking rapidly. If she cried, he’d simply gather her up in his arms and comfort her again.
“He thought he could control you,” he said.
“Evidently.” Her voice was dull.
He tossed the bottle onto the bed and went to her, drawing her up in his arms. This was getting to be a habit.
“Suzanne,” he began, looking down at her face.
He wanted to kiss her again. Yet he wasn’t the type of man to be dominated by his impulses. He was disciplined, set on his course, dedicated to his duty. She was a detriment to that, a temptation he couldn’t obey. That’s what he told himself even as he bent his head to kiss her again.
Ella’s room was a strange place for a forbidden embrace. Still, he didn’t move even after he lifted his mouth from hers. Instead, he brushed his lips against her heated cheek, then each closed eyelid, tasting her tears.
“You shouldn’t cry,” he said. “You should be enraged, not sad.”
She blinked open her eyes and looked up at him. He stepped back, dropping his arms when all he really wanted to do was keep holding her.
“I have more experience with sorrow than I do with rage, Adam.”
“You shouldn’t,” he said. “Not in this case. You deserve better than to be treated like a puppet, Suzanne. No one has that right.”
She didn’t answer, merely began moving toward the door. Glancing over her shoulder at him, she said, “At least I don’t have to deal with Ella anymore.”
He didn’t respond. Sooner or later he was going to finish his assignment, and there would be no further reason to remain at Marsley House. No reason whatsoever to try to protect the Duchess of Marsley.
The thought was accompanied by an unsurprising amount of regret.