My Lady Below Stairs (4 page)

Agnes studied the paisley carpet for a moment. “You're right.”

“Thank you.”

Agnes shook her head with a smirk. “Keep saying things like that and no one will take you for her ladyship.”

Jane looked down her nose at her friend and waggled her fingers in a dismissive gesture. “Off you go then,
girl.”

“Better. Still a little too friendly-like, but you'll do.
We'll work on it when I get back. Strip out of those clothes
and put on one of milady's shifts. I should be able to get
some help hauling the water, please God. If Lady Sybil's
seen lounging abed still, no one will think a thing of it.”

“Really?”

“Some days, she don't rise till three or four of an af
ternoon.”

Jane's day began before the sun showed its face in the tiny window of her attic cell. She settled back into the fine linens. “I think I'm going to enjoy being Sybil.”

“Just don't get too used to it. Bad pennies always turn back up. And as pennies go, the real Lady Sybil's the baddest.”

After Agnes left, Jane stared up into the festooned silk
draperies hovering over the bed. In her garret room, there were bare rafters above her little straw-tick. Jane wondered how many times she could roll over in this
luxurious bower before she tumbled out.

Five was the lucky number.

Jane undressed, stashing her threadbare clothing in the bottom of the wardrobe, neatly folded under Lady
Sybil's riding boots. Then she found the drawer that held her half sister's unmentionables.

Half sister.
Funny how she'd never thought of Lady
Sybil in such familiar terms before.

Must come from rifling through someone's undies,
Jane
reasoned as she ran a finger along the lace trim at the neck of the fine lawn garment.
And planning to wear
them.

Even after Jane donned the shift, the drawer was still full. Sybil had left with nothing but the clothes on her
back.

Surrounded by excess, servants at her beck and call, a
doting father, a grand match in the offing—what on earth had possessed Lady Sybil? Why would anyone in
her right mind run from such a life?

And where is Lady Sybil now?

Sybil arched her back and grasped the rungs of the iron headboard to steady herself. A large lump moved under the thin quilt and settled between her legs. With very little prodding, she raised her knees and spread them
wide.

“Che bella bambina,”
came a muffled voice, desire-
roughened and throaty. “
Mi piace il tuo culo?”

“English, Giovanni,” Sybil reminded him with a sigh. “Otherwise you may as well talk to the washstand. What did you just say?”

Her lover's linguistic abilities were sadly lacking
sometimes.

But his tongue more than makes up for it,
Sybil decided.
She gasped as shivers of pleasure licked her thighs.

He worked his way up her body, bypassing the part of her that most longed for his touch—
the wretch!
Giovanni
dipped his tongue into her navel for a quick tease and then poked his head from under the covers between her breasts. He nipped each one gently and then turned his
blinding smile on her.

“Mi piace il tuo culo,
little one.” Giovanni took a pink nipple between his teeth and bit down hard enough to make her squirm. “How you say... ‘I like your bum?’”

Sybil smiled and reached under the covers to palm his firm buttocks. Perhaps she should try to learn his tongue. If they were going to live in Italy, she'd need to speak the language. “
Mi piace il.
.."

“Il
tuo culo?”
he prompted.

“Mi piace il tuo culo,
too!” she said with triumph.

“
Bene,
very good. You are learning.”

“But I can't imagine that phrase will be particularly useful in polite conversation. Not in Milan, at least.”

“It had better not.” His brows lowered slightly.

“Maybe Venice,” she teased.

His dark scowl would have terrified a lesser woman along with most men. Sybil merely laughed.

“Only with you, Giovanni,” she said, as she pushed a lock of hair behind his ear. “Yours is the only
culo
I
piace.”

His satisfied laugh resonated through her body as
well. “
Eccellente, il mio cuore.”
He pressed his lips to her
breastbone in a soft kiss. “My heart.”

He raised himself on his elbows and looked down at her, his artist's eyes taking in every line and plane, highlight and shadow of her body. She was used to his scrutiny and she welcomed it. After sitting for the painting, she'd grown to love his hot gaze on her skin. Giovanni made her feel tinglingly alive. None of her pale English
suitors had managed that, despite all their fine words and
fair manners.

Giovanni was probably ten years or more her senior.
His raven hair was shot with a few silver threads, his dark
eyes touched at the edges with a fine line or two. Determined trenches ran from the corners of his mouth to his
hawkish nose. His cheeks and chin were darkened by the
shadow of a beard. Sybil ran her fingertips along the prickly jawline, remembering how delightfully wicked it had felt rubbing along the skin of her inner thighs.

Giovanni had a fascinating face. A mercurial face. A passionate face.

And one Sybil had decided she couldn't live without.

Now there was a hint of puzzlement playing on his features. He cocked his head at her.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I told you I am a man of no property, but—”

“Yes, that may be, but you
are
a man of amazing talent,” she said, rocking her pelvis into him. Why did he insist on dwelling on the difference in their stations? It made no difference to her that she was a lady and he a commoner. The man was as well-hung as her father's Thoroughbred stallion and he was rock hard yet again. “
You're even a fair-to-middling painter.”

“Ah, for that outrage, you will pay!” Giovanni began
tickling her ribs.

She squealed with mirth, trying in vain to free her
self.

“Mercy, Giovanni,” she gasped. “
Per piacere.”

“Admit it! I am an outstanding painter.”

Her laughter was growing desperate, but she managed
to choke out her belief that yes, Giovanni Brunello was
indeed a master with canvas and oil.

And a veritable wizard with his blessed hands and
mouth and male member.

“That's better,” he said, mollified. “And now you shall be rewarded.”

His head disappeared under the blanket again. Bliss
tickled along her ribs and over her belly. The small hairs
between her legs swayed in the heat of his breath. She arched into his mouth. His tongue circled her sensitive spot, drawn tight and tender. A helpless moan escaped her lips as she clung to the bedstead for support.

Then suddenly Giovanni pulled back the covers so he could look at all of her. He replaced his mouth with his brilliantly talented hand and continued to massage her
wanting into white-hot need.

“You were to be engaged this very night,
cara mia,”
he
said. “And yet you ran away with your Giovanni. Why
did you do it,
Sybella?”

She bit her lower lip. Her father would demand the
very same thing. And with more cause. Lord Somerville needed the money her future husband had agreed to funnel into his faltering estate. Lord Eddleton had promised to give up his shares in the
Pearl,
a whaler combing the Pacific, as Sybil's wedding portion. When the ship came to port, heavy with ambergris and oil, all her father's financial troubles would be over.

Sybil's conscience pricked over abandoning her sire, but at least she was saving Lord Eddleton the trouble of trying to shore up her father's debt-riddled estate. Lord Somerville had even had the gall to offer one of his unentailed properties as Sybil's dowry. Viscount Eddleton had no idea the bridal gift was mortgaged to the rafters.

Giovanni changed rhythm, stroking her harder. Thoughts of her father and his solicitor's schemes receded into a dark corner of her heart. The wanting was knife-edged now.

“Why,
cara mia?
Why did you agree to come with me?”

“Because I'm selfish!” Her voice was ragged with need.
His touch threatened to unravel her, despite the niggling guilt. Her father would just have to think of some other way out of his predicament. “Because I want you and I must have you, devil take the hindermost. There. Are you satisfied?”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Not yet.”

He covered her body with his and she shattered into spasms as he entered her.

“Now,
il mio cuore,”
Giovanni said as her inner walls
fisted around him and her mouth hung slack with spent passion. “Now, I am satisfied.”

“Be a love and fetch the eggs, there's a good girl,” Agnes mimicked under her breath as she slipped Jane's
woolsey cloak from the peg by the back door and wrapped the thin garment around her shoulders. “If Jane's lolling
about in a tub like the bloody Queen of Sheba,
her ladyship
ought not to begrudge me the use of her wrap.”

Agnes pulled the hood up and tied its rough tabs under her chin. She hated to admit it, but Jane was right
about the eggs. If no one could find the real Sybil, no one
must miss the real Jane.

No one had missed Jane yet. Her work kept her in out-
of-the-way places about the massive residence.

So far, so good,
Agnes thought as she slogged across the
alley. She'd gather the eggs and leave the basket on the counter for Cook to find. But someone was bound to notice when the chamber pots went unemptied and the washing piled up.

Then Agnes would have to come up with some story to explain why Jane had gone missing, something people would accept without question.

Agnes lifted the latch and entered the dim, dusty chicken coop. She'd expected a terrible, acrid stink, but the stable lads must have changed the hens' bedding re
cently. It was no more unpleasant than beating a feather
bed during spring cleaning.

Agnes reached under the first biddy, darting her hand
in quickly to avoid a pecking. She came up with a warm brown egg to tuck into her small basket.

Can't use a sick grandmother for an excuse,
she thought. Jane had no family on her mother's side that anyone knew of. Maybe Agnes could invent some for her. Not a grandparent. They would likely be dead already.
An un
cle. A rich uncle. A rich uncle who'd just learned he had a niece
and wanted to shower her with his wealth.

“If a body's going to invent relations, they may as well have deep pockets and open hands.” Agnes shrugged philosophically.

No, that'll never do,
she mused.
Jane would never come into money and run off without sharing her good fortune.
Maybe a
dying
uncle. A kindly old vicar with no one to tend to him and Jane drops everything to rush to his side.

Yes, that was more believable.

“There ye are, love,” a deep voice drawled behind her. “I knew ye couldn't stay away.”

Agnes hadn't even heard the coop's door open. A pair of hands grasped her shoulders and spun her around.

“Ian Michael MacGarrett!”

He'd bent to kiss her but caught himself just in the nick when he recognized her. He scuttled backward as though Agnes were a snake in the straw.

“Miss Agnes! What're you doing here? And wearing Jane's cloak? Where is she?”

There'd never be a better test of her fib, so Agnes launched into the tale of the dying vicar while she worked around each roost, scrupulously avoiding Ian's gaze. She could spin stories with the best of them, but the telling of them was an art she'd not quite mastered yet. Not if she had to look someone in the eye.

Who knew gathering eggs would be good for something besides procuring the wherewithal to make omelets?

“And after the sad passing, Jane says she'll be back, quick as ever she can,” Agnes said, trying not to sound too pleased with herself. Really, this story was ideal and
she told it well, if she did say so, adding a neat little flourish at the last moment about how the unhappy illness had
all begun with a toothache. Like Mr. Roskin, Agnes sus
pected Jane's stint as Sybil might be a long one while they
searched for the real lady. This tale would serve them well. Who knew how long an old vicar with a rotting tooth might linger? “So it just goes to show, it don't pay a body to neglect his teeth.”