Dangerous 01 - Dangerous Works Read Free

and tea, the good India tea.”
    Eunice scurried away, relief on every line of her face.
    Chambers, austere in butler’s black, opened the door with a flourish fifteen minutes later. Eunice, who floated in behind the teacart on a flutter of ruffles, asked in her reedy voice, “Shall I pour, my lady?”
    “Yes, yes,” Georgiana said with an impatient wave toward the tray. She glanced up to see the butler backing toward the door.
    “Chambers!”
    “My lady?” He stopped at the door and stared at the wall behind Georgiana’s left shoulder.
    “I wish to show you something. You had schooling, didn’t you? You have some Greek?”
    “Greek, my lady?” he said through tight lips. “Of very little use in my current position, I fear, but yes. I studied as a schoolboy.”
    Local vicar no doubt. Even a boy destined for service got that much—more than any girl, even a Duke’s daughter, she thought bitterly.
    “Very well,” she said holding up a piece of parchment. “Take a look.”
    He hesitated, eyes fixed on the wall.
    “Come, come, man. It won’t bite.”
    Chambers took the paper between two fingers and held it as if it would indeed bite him.
    “Well?”
    “It appears to be a poem, my lady. By a person named Moh-rho.”
    “Moero. Correct.”
    “I’m not acquainted with that writer. We didn’t, that is, I have not had the privilege.”
    “I’m not surprised. She isn’t much read.”
    “She?” His face remained impassive, but distaste was palpable in his voice.
    “She,” repeated Georgiana. “Now look at the Greek and listen to this: “Nymphs of Anigrus, river maidens, who, who, always? Forever? Still? walk with, with rose colored feet on the deep, greet and hail and save Cleonymus who set these fair pictures—statues probably—to you, goddesses, beneath, beneath something, some sort of tree?”
    Chambers stared at the paper still pinched between his fingers.
    “Well?”
    “What is it you wish, my lady?”
    “Your opinion, man. Is it adequate? Nymphs are goddesses, are they not?” That much at least she knew; though, how they looked was beyond her. “Do they walk? Glide? Tread? That’s more formal. What do you think?”
    “If this is your translation, I’m sure it must be correct just as it is,” the old man said through lips so tight she feared for his tongue. She ought to let him be.
    “Do you care for it Chambers? In Greek or in English, either one?”
    “Care for it, my lady? It is not my place.” He raised his eyes from the poem only to look back at the wall, avoiding eye contact. “I have no opinion.”
    An unholy urge to goad him came and went. Infantile gestures never satisfied.
    “Will that be all, my lady?” The voice betrayed no emotion.
    Georgiana set down her quill. “You my go, Chambers.”
    She sank back in her seat and lifted her cooling tea. Her butler was a gray cipher of a man with no more interest in her poems than Eunice had.
    There were twenty people on Georgiana’s staff, and not one of them so much as looked her in the eye, much less engaged in conversation. To expect more was ludicrous. Differences of class aside, not one person had taken any interest in her study of Greek in the eleven long years since Andrew left.
    Andrew cared, at least he did once. She squeezed her eyes shut. Andrew again. The man’s horridly scarred face—and the untouched face of the long-gone schoolboy—haunted her, had done so since she saw him at Groghan’s store. Thoughts of that face left her unable to get any work done.
    She replaced her cup in its saucer with a slap. The clang of crockery made Eunice jump. Everything made Eunice jump.
    “Stay put, Eunice. I’m just gathering my references.”
    Georgiana rose on a swish of silk skirts, tossed the cup and saucer onto the tray, and pulled Liddell’s Lexicon and a handful of others off the shelf. She spread them on the desk and began to flip absently through them, checking various words. “Nymph” was clear and consistent.