Free Wicked Godmother by MC Beaton

scullery maid’s better. Mrs Middleton privately thought Lizzie a very good worker indeed, but she nourished hopes of elevating the girl should their circumstances change and was apt to cover her very real affection for Lizzie with a brusque and authoritarian manner.
    ‘Perhaps you are right,’ said Lizzie listlessly, and Rainbird looked at her sharply. The scullery maid’s hair had lost its sheen, and her face was so pale it was almost greenish in the gloom of the servants’ hall.
    ‘What our Lizzie needs is some fresh air,’ said Rainbird. ‘Go and take a walk in the Park, Lizzie. Dave will help out with your duties.’
    ‘Can she take thet dog with her?’ asked Joseph eagerly. ‘It don’t do my position no good being seen with a mangy cur like thet. Luke is always teasing me.’ Luke, Joseph’s friend and rival, worked next door as Lord Charteris’s first footman.
    ‘I don’t mind,’ said Lizzie quickly, seeing Rainbird was about to protest. Lizzie would have done anything to please the feckless and vain Joseph.
    ‘Well, don’t let the beast near the kitchen,’ said Joseph ungratefully. ‘Meh cat must not be tormented.’
    ‘Why don’t you marry the flea bag?’ said the cook sourly. ‘The Moocher is the only thing you care about apart from your worthless self. Jessamy.’
    Joseph scowled at the insult. Jessamy, a corruption of jessamine or jasmine, was applied to the weak and effeminate. The Moocher rubbed himself against the cook’s legs, and Angus MacGregor absentmindedly bent down and stroked the animal. He, too, was fond of the kitchen cat because the Moocher was a mouser supreme.
    It was unthinkable that Lizzie should show her undistinguished presence abovestairs, so Rainbird went to fetch Beauty and told Lizzie to meet him at the top of the area steps.
    Somewhere down in the depths of Joseph’s self-centred soul twitched the faint stirrings of a bad conscience. ‘It’s very good of you, Lizzie,’ he said awkwardly. ‘The brute is as quiet as a lamb. You won’t have any trouble.’
    ‘Here, give the dog this bone when you’ve got him in Green Park,’ said MacGregor. ‘They aye take to someone who feeds ’em.’
    He wrapped a marrow bone up in an old page of the
Times
and handed it to Lizzie.
    ‘And put your shawl on,’ said Mrs Middleton sharply, for she too had just noticed how sickly the scullery maid looked.
    When Lizzie emerged from the basement some ten minutes later it was to find Rainbird already waiting with Beauty on a leash. Rainbird thoughtfully watched girl and dog walk down Clarges Street in the direction of the Green Park. He realized that all winter long he had been too wrapped up in fantasies about Felice to notice much that was going on about him. Felice, the French lady’s maid who had graced Number 67 the year before, had won her dowry and independence from service and had settled in Brighton. She had refused Rainbird’s offer of marriage, but she was still unwed, and Rainbird hoped she might change her mind. Now the Season was here, and there was no chance of a day off to go to Brighton until it was all over.
    He decided, if Lizzie should still look ailing in a few days’ time, to take her over to an apothecary’s in the City. Servants went to doctors only in extreme emergencies, as one visit to even the most undistinguished physician might take away a whole year’s wages.
    The day was sunny and warm but still had that slight tinge of cold somewhere in the soft wind to remind Londoners that, although it looked as if spring had arrived, a return to winter could be right behind it.
    Lizzie found she was beginning to feel better already. She took her shawl down from her head and wrapped it about her shoulders, enjoying the warm feel of the sun on her hair. Beauty was such a placid, amiable sort of dog, and it was pleasant to have company.
    She decided, instead of crossing Piccadilly to the Green Park, to take Beauty to Hyde Park, where she could enjoy