Marrying Money: Lady Diana's Story Read Free

need. If I had to try and find someone else to take care of this place and put together some sort of meal in the evenings, I’d be lost. And if I had to fend for myself and nutty Auntie Kay, well, we’d starve to death.
    “Please don’t do that, Millie. I’ll go on up and get her sorted out. And maybe we can see our way clear to giving you a bit of a pay raise, eh?” I knew I was fawning, but I was really scared she'd up and leave.
    “A pay raise indeed! I wouldn’t mind getting some of the back pay you owe me!”
    “I’ll write a cheque for you before you leave this evening,” I promised.
    “No , not a cheque. I’d rather have the cash, maybe tomorrow?”
    It was an ultimatum, I knew. I’d have to come up with cold hard cash for her or she’d be off . There’s no shortage of people trying to poach good help, believe me. Not that everyone would put up with the kind of cheek I get from Millie but then, not every cleaner would put up with the kind of family we have, either.
    Speaking of which, I’d better get up the four flights of stairs to the attic and see what I could do about getting Auntie Kay out of there before she freezes to death, or before Millie really does quit.
    Those attics have no heat, and I imagine she’s still prancing around in her flannel night-gown. She usually does this time of day. She dresses for formal dinner at seven. She doesn’t realise that the Era of Elegance is over at Alexandria House, poor dear.
    I was wheezing and panting when I got up those stairs. The family had been talking for a couple of generations about putting in an elevator, but it never happened, and now the upper two floors were hardly used except for storage. It no longer seemed worth thinking about. Not at the kind of builders’ quotes we received, anyway.
    Auntie Kay had locked herself into the very last room at the end of a corridor thick with dust. As I coughed and sneezed my way along it, I wondered whether I had the nerve to remind Millie she was supposed to clean up here, too. As the dark shadow of being Millie-less loomed over me, I decided maybe a bit of dust on the fourth floor wasn’t such a bad thing. But the hammering and banging from the old maid’s room was a bad thing. Kay was obviously barricading herself; this was not a good sign. The last time she really went over the top I had to call out the fire brigade to get her down from the very top of the old oak tree by the stable block. She claimed she had a dream where she’d been told to go to the highest point on the estate, and there she’d be given the answer. What was it with Kay and the highest point of things? .She never actually said what the answer was, or even what the question was. But after suffering the humiliation of having half the village watch as she was rescued from the tree by Ted Simmons and his cronies in the fire brigade, I wasn’t much interested in hearing her side of the story.
    Ted, of course, had made a real show of being the hero . He coaxed Kay along the branch until he could grab a hold of her, and even managed to ensure she kept some modesty in that awful flannel night- gown as he carried her down over his shoulder. Auntie Kay was screeching like a banshee the whole way down.
    Oh, the amused guffaws from the assembled villagers! I suppose I should be glad really, there’s not much entertainment around here. The Ashburnham family has to be good for something.
    When Ted finally helped Auntie Kay to the ground, she had looked up at him with huge wide eyes, told him he was her hero, and declared since he’d seen her in her ‘night attire’ her father would make him marry her, even if he had to get the shotgun out.
    That wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t promised to show him a terrific time in bed . The joke is probably still going around the village. I just hope Ted, who took it all in good fun, has gotten over his embarrassment now. Certainly, he still speaks if we meet in the street, and to his credit