Page 41 of All Scot and Bothered
“Truly charming?” Alexandra challenged, “Or simply in comparison with yourotherconversation companion? My inscrutable brother-in-law.”
Cecelia wheezed out a nervous giggle, leaving the question unanswered. “Speaking of him, Genny, I’ll say the extra cleaning staff did a smashing job. One could never tell that only yesterday this entire place was crawling with police.”
Withhim.
She could feel his presence here. A sword over her head. A threat in her ear. A liquid weight low in her belly.
A thrilling, perplexing clench between her thighs.
I kissed Ramsay.
“The police did less damage than I feared,” Genny said with a relieved sigh. “More clutter than anything. We were even able to open for the evening. Now, let me take you on the tour.”
Belowstairs at Miss Henrietta’s School for Cultured Young Ladies was a revelation.
Because it was, in fact, a school for cultured young ladies. And uncultured ones. Older mothers. Immigrants. And people who might otherwise be sent to the workhouse.
Cecelia was barely aware of the enthusiastic Lilly joining their tour group as Genny led her and the Rogues past classrooms packed to the gills with women and, yes,even little girls, describing each class with aplomb and pride.
The ingenious arrangement both dazzled and humbled Cecelia. Some ladies sewed elaborate costumes, presumably for the employees abovestairs, training to be seamstresses and modistes. Others toiled in the kitchen with the chef, feeding the students, employees, and customers lavish meals while learning about a career in service to a grand house.
There were ongoing lessons in deportment, speech, civics, penmanship, and basic mathematics.
Genny led her past rooms of foreign ladies learning English, and beyond that, women operating a mock switchboard that resembled the one for the new telephone service the government had begun installing in the city.
Cecelia paused there, hoping to catch her breath as she took it all in. How brilliant. How utterly—
“One wonders”—Francesca’s sharp tone cut through her thoughts as her friend regarded Genny with narrow-eyed suspicion—“how these women, the young girls especially, afford their tuition.”
“The house pays it,” Lilly rushed to answer. “And men aren’t allowed belowstairs. Not ever. Even all the instructors are women.” She glanced over the line of ladies pulling large plugs from the switchboards and reconnecting them. Some worked with confidence, and others struggled, squinted, and became flustered beneath the regard of visitors.
To ease them, Cecelia moved down the hall away from the classrooms, toward a large arched door at the back of the manse. “How extraordinary,” she marveled, strange and unwanted tears threatening to brim in her eyes as the enormity of her new position impressed itself upon her. She turned to Lilly.
“You pay for their educations by—by entertaining the wealthy with vice? How do you feel about the arrangement?”
“It’s our choice and we make it.” Lilly’s answer rang with resolution.
Cecelia paused, searching the girl’s kohl-lined hazel eyes for fear or deception.
“Why?” Alexandra whispered.
“Why give any of those hard-won earnings to people you don’t care about?” Francesca pressed further. “Are you quite certain Henrietta doesn’t—didn’tforce you to?”
Lilly’s eyes darkened, and her wig trembled with her outrage as she stepped from beneath the duchess’s touch. “I have the most honest profession in the world, Your Grace,” she answered with a dignified calm, though it was obvious she’d been offended. “I’d rather dress in pretty clothes than sew them. And I’d much rather fleece wealthy men for money than serve their food or clean out their chamber pots. I like what I do. Most days I love it. Show me many people who are so lucky.”
“Truly?” Cecelia asked, a bit heartened by the emphatic declaration. “Do many of the other employees feel the same?”
Lilly patted her on the arm. “Here at Miss Henrietta’s, we’re lavished with handmade clothing tailored just to us. We get to sleep late and play all night. We’re served meals that any toff would be proud to eat. We’re provided rotating days off and medical care when we need it. This is far better than what’s out there on the streets or in factories. All that’s required of us is to keep our mouths closed, our ears and eyes open, and we each give an equal percentage of our earnings to the running of the school.”
“Well…” Francesca breathed in disbelief. “I’ll be buggered.”
Genny stepped forward, smoothing her hands over the lavender bodice that accentuated the pink hues in her ivory skin. “Many of the girls here are the daughters, mothers, sisters, or other kin of the women who work or have worked upstairs. The customers often lavish the lucky girls with jewelry, money, and gifts that they’re allowed to keep or send to their families.”
“But… what about the other day, Lilly? You’re not expected to… service the clientele?”
Her brown shoulders shook with laughter as she met Genny’s eyes. “That was my own business, ma’am. Some women find a full-time keeper, and a few rare ones get themselves husbands.”
“Husbands?” Alexandra gasped.
