Free Poppy by M.C. Beaton Page A

drawing room, where the rest were playing cards, and made his way to the hall.
    Stammers was already opening the door.
    Freddie staggered in. His hair was plastered down with rain, and his collar was hanging from its stud. His eyes had the glazed and mindless look of the totally drunk. He looked at his uncle and giggled faintly, and then fell in a sodden heap on the floor.
    “Take it to bed,” said the duke, disgustedly, to Stammers. “And get my carriage brought round. I can only assume that Mrs. Plummett has been left in the pub.”
    “Oh, no, Your Grace,” said Stammers. “Madam is belowstairs entertaining the staff.”
    “Really?” barked the duke. “Stammers, I would have expected you to have prevented such a thing. Mrs. Plummett, despite appearances to the contrary, should not be belowstairs, nor should she be encouraged to consort with the staff.”
    “It is not like that at all, Your Grace,” said Stammers loftily. “The situation is unusual, I admit, but Mrs. Plummett, Your Grace, sings like a true lady, and never, ever have we had such enchantment in our humble quarters.”
    “Dear me,” said the duke acidly. “You have been reading novels again, Stammers.”
    He stepped over Freddie’s unconscious body and pushed open the green-baize door that led to the lower regions, realizing with vague surprise that he had never seen the inside of the kitchen area since he was four years old.
    The servants started to rise, and Poppy faltered in midnote. The duke waved his hand as a signal for them to be seated, pulled forward a chair, and sat down.
    Poppy continued to sing, losing herself in the song, oblivious to his presence. It was the sad little ballad she had sung in the rain that day at Cutler’s Fields, and the duke was amazed once more at the pathos and yearning and dignity that the girl could bring to cheap music.
    When she had finished and was curtsying to the applause, the duke came forward and took her arm. “It was most kind of you to entertain the staff, Mrs. Plummett,” he said, “but your husband has arrived home and requires your attention.”
    He smiled and nodded to his staff, and then led her firmly out and up the stairs in silence until they reached the hall, where the only sign of Freddie was a damp pool of rainwater in the middle of the floor, which the servants had, as yet, neglected to mop up, being too enthralled with Poppy’s impromptu concert.
    “What’s up with Freddie?” asked Poppy.
    “Drunk,” said the duke coldly. “I did not send anyone to find you, Mrs. Plummett, because I assumed that you were with your husband. Pray, do you plan to give entertainments in my kitchen every night?”
    Poppy flushed, feeling unreasonably angry at the cool lack of emotion in his voice.
    “They asked me to,” she flared.
    “I have no doubt,” he said, staring at her curiously. “What interests me is, how did you come to be belowstairs in the first place?”
    “I lost my way,” mumbled Poppy.
    “Speak up, girl,” snapped the duke. “I cannot hear a word you are saying.”
    “I said I lost my way,” yelled Poppy. “Stone the bleedin’ crows, guv, wot the ’ell was I supposed to do?”
    “There is no need to take that tone of voice with me,” said the duke in freezing accents. “I merely wish to know why you did not immediately ask a servant to conduct you to the dining room.”
    “’Cos they asked me to sing, you deaf bleeder,” said Poppy, quite beside herself with rage and humiliation. Her newly acquired upper-class accent had crumbled.
    “I am not deaf,” said the duke, “nor is there any reason to be so angry. I must gather, therefore, that you are unaccustomed to servants and had not the courage to make any demands.”
    “Yes,” said Poppy, too humiliated to do other than tell the truth.
    “Then you should send for me and
tell
me these things,” said the duke patiently. “I am an ordinary man who happens to live in a very large house with a very large