21 The Mysterious Maid-Servant - The Eternal Collection

Barbara Cartland

Description

Have you ever been so desperate that you would do literally anything for money? This is the tragic situation Giselda finds herself in, with no money for an operation her younger brother desperately needs to save his life, and no one to turn to. Ground down by poverty she plucks up her courage to offer the only thing she has of value ? her purity. Choking back her pride and knowing that she is about to forfeit his respect, she approaches her wealthy employer, the handsome Earl of Lyndhurst, who is recovering from his injuries sustained in the Battle of Waterloo. Appalled that this frail and innocent young girl should be faced with such a terrible decision, he vows to find a way to help her without offending her dignity. He knows she would never accept his charity, and she refuses to confide in him the reasons for her family's poverty. Intrigued by the air of mystery about a girl of obvious quality reduced to the role of maidservant, the Earl decides to discover why a beautiful young woman of strong principles has been reduced to such extreme measures.Discovering her to have gentle hands and wonderful nursing skills he employs her as his private nurse and turns his sharp mind to uncovering her secrets ? and learns his own lessons in love in the process. "Barbara Cartland was the world’s most prolific novelist who wrote an amazing 723 books in her lifetime, of which no less than 644 were romantic novels with worldwide sales of over 1 billion copies and her books were translated into 36 different languages.As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, theatrical plays and books of advice on life, love, vitamins and cookery.She wrote her first book at the age of 21 and it was called Jigsaw. It became an immediate bestseller and sold 100,000 copies in hardback in England and all over Europe in translation.Between the ages of 77 and 97 she increased her output and wrote an incredible 400 romances as the demand for her romances was so strong all over the world.She wrote her last book at the age of 97 and it was entitled perhaps prophetically The Way to Heaven. Her books have always been immensely popular in the United States where in 1976 her current books were at numbers 1 & 2 in the B. Dalton bestsellers list, a feat never achieved before or since by any author.Barbara Cartland became a legend in her own lifetime and will be best remembered for her wonderful romantic novels so loved by her millions of readers throughout the world, who have always collected her books to read again and again, especially when they feel miserable or depressed.Her books will always be treasured for their moral message, her pure and innocent heroines, her handsome and dashing heroes, her blissful happy endings and above all for her belief that the power of love is more important than anything else in everyone’s life."

Sujets

• Downton Abbey
• Mills & Boon
• Thomas Hardy
• Jane Austen
• Harlequin

Informations

• Publié par: M-Y Books
• Date de parution: 14 octobre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781782130833
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE MYSTERIOUS MAID-SERVANT
But now he realised that she had a grace that made her figure, thin though it was, an undeniable
enticement, and that her big eyes filling her small pale face were beautiful rather differently from the
way he had interpreted beauty in the past.
All his women had been, he thought, like full-grown roses, big-breasted, seductive and
voluptuous. In contrast Giselda was the exact opposite.Author’s Note
The descriptions of Cheltenham in 1816 are as historically accurate as possible. The Montpellier
Pump Room was pulled down and rebuilt the following year. The Weighing Machine from William’s
Library is now in the Cheltenham Museum.
The Duke of Wellington paid three more visits to Cheltenham in the post-war years, but he was
not the only illustrious visitor to the beautiful Gloucestershire Spa. In 1823 the visitors included four
Dukes, three Duchesses, six Marquises, ten Earls, fifty-three Lords and seventy Ladies!
The Duc d’Orléans stayed for three months and later became Louis Philippe, King of France.
Colonel Berkeley lived with Maria Foote for several years. She bore him two children.
Always flamboyant in his behaviour, when the Editor of the Cheltenham Chronicle criticised his
conduct, he was furious and, when the newspaper went on to make uncomplimentary remarks about
the ladies of the Berkeley Hunt, the Colonel with two friends proceeded to the Editor’s house. While
his friends guarded the door, the Colonel horsewhipped the wretched man.
But Colonel Berkeley was a great benefactor to the town. He helped start the Cheltenham Races
stand he was later made Lord Seagrave and then 1 Earl Fitzhardinge.
Berkeley Castle is still one of the most beautiful castles in England. To find money for its
preservation and to restore it to its former grandeur, Berkeley Square and the estate in the heart of
Mayfair were sold in 1919.
Thomas Newell became Surgeon Extraordinary to King George IV.CHAPTER ONE
1816
“Damn and blast! God Almighty, you curst fool – take your clumsy hands off me! Get out – do you
hear? You are sacked – and I never want to see your ugly face again!”
The valet ran from the room and the occupant of the bed continued cursing volubly with
soldier’s oaths that came easily to his lips.
Then, as he felt his rage abating a little, he saw a movement at the far end of the big bedroom
and realised for the first time that a maid-servant was attending to the grate.
She had been obscured from his view by the carved foot of the big four-poster bed and now he
raised himself a little higher on his pillows to demand,
“Who are you? What are you doing here? I did not realise there was anyone else in the room.”
She turned and he saw that she was very slight with a face that seemed unnaturally small beneath
her large mobcap.
“I – I was polishing the – grate, my Lord.”
To his surprise her voice was soft and cultured and the Earl stared at her as she moved towards
the door, a heavy brass bucket in one hand.
“Come here!” he ordered abruptly.
She hesitated a moment.
Then, as if forced to obey his command, she walked slowly towards the bed and he saw that she
was even younger than he had first imagined.
She stopped at the bedside, but when he would have spoken she stared down at his leg exposed
above the knee and at the bloodstained bandages, which the valet had been in the process of
removing.
The Earl was about to speak when she said, again in that soft but undoubtedly educated voice,
“Would you – allow me to remove the bandages for you, my Lord? I have some experience of
nursing.”
The Earl looked at her in surprise and then said ungraciously,
“You could not hurt me more than that damned fool I have just driven out of my sight.”
The maid drew a little nearer and, putting down the heavy bucket, she stood looking at the Earls
leg.
Then, very gently, she moved a piece of the bandage to one side.
“I am afraid, my Lord, that the lint that has been covering the wounds was not properly applied.
It is therefore stuck and will undoubtedly be painful unless we can ease it off with warm water.”
“Do what you like!” the Earl said gruffly, “and I will try to restrain my language.”
“Forget I am a woman, my Lord. My father said a man who could endure pain without swearing
was either a Saint or a turnip!”
The Earl’s lips twisted in a faint smile.
He watched her as the maid went to the washstand.
Having first washed her hands in cold water, she emptied the basin into a slop-pail. Then she
poured some of the hot water with which his valet had intended to shave him into the china basin.
She brought it to the side of the bed and with some cotton wool, she began deftly to ease away
with the soaked wool the bandages where they had stuck to the innumerable scars that had been left
by the surgeon after he had removed the grapeshot from the Earl of Lyndhurst’s leg.
He had been shot at close range immediately above the knee and it was only by a tremendous
effort of will, and because he used all his authority as a General that his leg had not been amputated
immediately after the Battle of Waterloo.
“It’ll become gangrenous, my Lord,” the surgeon had protested, “and then your Lordship will lose
not your leg, but your life!”“I will take a chance on it,” the Earl had replied. “I am damned if I will go through life
“dot-andcarry-one”, unable to even mount a horse in comfort.”
“I am warning your Lordship – ”
“And I am disregarding your warning and rejecting your very debatable skill,” the Earl had
replied.
It had however been some months before he could be brought home to England on a stretcher in
considerable pain.
After enduring what he considered indifferent treatment in London, he had come to
Cheltenham because he had heard that the surgeon at the Spa, Thomas Newell, was outstanding.
The Earl was indeed one of the many hundreds of people who visited Cheltenham entirely
because of its exceptional doctors.
Although Thomas Newell had made his Lordship suffer more agony than he had ever
encountered in the whole of his life, his faith in him was justified, for there was no doubt that the
scars on the leg were in a healthy condition and beginning to heal.
He did not swear again, even though he winced once or twice as the maid removed the last of
the bloodstained lint and looked around for fresh bandages.
“On top of the chest-of-drawers,” the Earl prompted.
The maid found a box containing bandages and some lint, which she looked at critically.
“What is wrong?” the Earl enquired.
“There is nothing wrong, except that there is nothing to prevent the lint from sticking to the
wounds again. If your Lordship will permit me, I will bring you an ointment my mother makes that is
not only healing but also will prevent the lint from sticking.”
“I should be glad to receive the ointment,” the Earl replied.
“I will bring it tomorrow,” she said.
Having arranged the pieces of lint on the wound, she secured them in place with strips of clean
linen.
“Why must I wait until tomorrow?” the Earl enquired.
“I cannot go home until my work is done.”
“What is your work?” he asked.
“I am a housemaid, your Lordship.”
“You have been here long?”
“No, sir, I came here yesterday.”
The Earl glanced at the brass bucket on the floor beside the bed.
“I imagine you have been given the roughest and heaviest jobs,” he said with a frown. “You do
not look as if you are capable of carrying such a heavy burden.”
“I can manage.”
The words were spoken with a note of determination in the maid’s voice, which told him that
what she had had to do up to now had not been easy.
Then as he watched her fingers moving deftly on his leg, the Earl suddenly noticed the bones of
her wrists.
There was something prominent about them, something that commanded his attention and
made him look even more searchingly at her face.
It was difficult to see her clearly, for her head was bent and the mobcap obstructed his view.
Then, as she turned to choose another bandage, he saw that her face was very thin, unnaturally
so, the cheekbones prominent, the chin-bone taut, the mouth stretched at the corners.
As if she realised she was being scrutinised, her eyes met his and he thought they too were
rather large for her small face.
They were strange eyes, the deep blue of an angry sea, fringed with long eyelashes.
She looked at him enquiringly and then a faint colour rose in her cheeks as she continued to
apply the bandages.
The Earl looked again at the prominent bones of her wrists and knew when he had seen them
last.
It was the children in Portugal, the children of the peasants whose crops had been destroyed!They had been left starving by the warring armies who lived off the land and who, especially the
French, left nothing for the native population.
Starvation!
It had sickened and disgusted him, even though he knew it was one of the inevitable horrors of
war. He had seen too much of it to be mistaken now.
He realised th