Anne Barbour Read Free

don’t know. I suppose, like so many others, I thought of London as a font of riches for someone who possessed a modicum of intelligence and a willingness to work hard. I had visions in my head of finding employment in a noble house where I might work my way up from scullery maid to housekeeper.”
    “Or perhaps to catch the eye of a wealthy protector?”
    Martha stared in affront. “Had that been my goal,” she snapped, “I did not lack the opportunity. However, though I was open to almost any sort of employment, I drew the line at renting out my body.”
    For a moment, a startled flash leaped into the earl’s dark eyes. “My apologies,” he said, his lips twitching.
    “As it happened,” she continued stiffly, “I never did reach London. In fact, it took me about a year just to get as far as York. I was fourteen, and work was hard to find there.”
    She closed her eyes for a moment against the memory of endless hours trudging the streets of the city, accepting rejection with the little dignity remaining to her. How many nights had she returned cold and shivering, to a ragged nest created in a doorway or a stairwell? She had lived by her wits, stealing food and evading the attentions of the many predators who prowled the malodorous streets of this major metropolis.
    She drew a deep breath and continued. “I was fortunate at last to find a position as kitchen maid in the house of a rising merchant. I did my best, and my work pleased the Murchisons’ cook. She was a kind woman, and when a position of upstairs maid became vacant, she recommended me. I became friends with another maid—a young woman who acted as abigail for the daughter of the house. I learned from her the duties of a lady’s maid, and filled in for her several times when she became ill and could not work.”
    Martha lifted a hand to her eyes. “The poor girl died of the white sickness when I was seventeen, and I was chosen to become Miss Emily’s abigail.”
    “You seem to have been greatly favored by circumstances, Mrs. Finch.” There was nothing but a sort of remote curiosity in his voice, and Martha felt herself bristle.
    “I have found, my lord, that circumstances are what you make of them, and any favor I found came through my own endeavor.”
    “Now, that I have no difficulty in believing.”
    The implication of this statement was not lost on Martha, and a tide of heat rose to her cheeks once more.
    “At any rate, when I was nineteen I met Matthew Finch, who owned a bookshop in St. Martin’s Lane, not far from the river. He was a fine man, and not long afterward, he asked me to be his wife. I was widowed when I was two and twenty.”
    She twisted her hands in her lap and felt compelled to speak once more to forestall the comment she saw forming on his lordship’s lips.
    “Perhaps I should mention here that Mr. Finch was in his sixties when we married. No, it was not what would one could call a love match—although I did love him—very much- He was a good husband, and— Her voice caught. “I grieved at his passing.”
    Lord Branford yawned. “I suppose you did.”
    Bran closed his mouth immediately, rather shamefaced. That was not well done of him. Though he might think her story a tissue of lies from start to finish, he had been able to ascertain before he met her that she was, indeed, a widow. As such she might well grieve for a husband, elderly or no, and he had no right to belittle her loss. He found he was having a difficult time maintaining his skepticism with this woman. She was vastly appealing and a peculiar recognition of spirit tugged at him. He almost felt as though she were a dear friend, unrecognized but returned to him after a long absence.
    What nonsense. He straightened in his seat.
    “And now you find yourself without a provider,” he said.
    He observed with some amusement the growing anger that Mrs. Finch was unable to hide beneath her supplicant exterior.
    “I have no need for a provider,” she replied