Free Suzanne Robinson by Lady Dangerous Page B

and her desperation.
    Liza had a headful of book learning. She couldn’t empty slops. Under his tutelage, she learned to empty slops, clean boots, dust, sweep, lay fires, draw baths, polish silver, and serve a table. And she’d done it all out of rage at her father.
    Thinking back over her life before she’d come into service, Liza could remember a time when she hadn’t been hurt and angry. Long ago, when she was quite little and William Edward was a baby, then she’d had no notion of resentment and animosity. Her world transformed, however, one day when she was almost seven.
    William Edward came down with diphtheria. Days passed in which her parents hardly left his room. She was terrified and bewildered. Longing to help, afraid to leave the house for fear of somehow losing her parents as well, she had stolen away from her governess and gone to William Edward’s nursery. She crept toward his little bed, grasped the rail, and stared at her parents.
    Her mother was crying, but Mama cried a lot, and Liza had seen her do it too often to be frightened of the sight. What terrified her was Papa’s sobbing. She hesitated, afraid to remain, too frightened to leave. Then she put her hand on Papa’s shoulder. He jerked his head up and stared at her. She drew back her hand as she met his gaze and encountered for the first time his undisguised resentment and rage.
    “Why?” he said, wiping his tears with the back of his hand. “Why would the Almighty take my beautiful William Edward instead of you?”
    When she only gaped at him, he buried his head in his hands. “Go away. God, why didn’t you give me a son instead of her?”
    That day she learned she’d been unwanted. Mama followed Papa’s every wish and, under his sway, regretted her failure to give him a firstborn son. Not that she’d been neglected. She’d been given the upbringing of a proper gentlewoman. Papa, the son of a butcher, had seen to that for his pride’s sake. But while Papa spared no expense to send William Edward, whom he’d almost lost, to Eton and on a tour of Europe, and later to Cambridge, he’d not been so inclined when it came to providing for his daughter.
    Knowing her precarious position in his affections, she hadn’t complained. Yet all the while she labored under the burden of knowing that she, not William Edward, would have flourished on the meat and bread of such an education. So she taught herself with the help of governesses handicapped by the same prejudice that had robbed her of opportunity.
    She hadn’t complained. Not until Papa sent William Edward to Europe. William Edward had onlybeen fourteen, a lackluster student. After that, she screwed up her courage and asked for the same. Papa laughed. When she persisted, he grew angry, dismissing her longings without really listening to her. And so she stayed home.
    The next year, when she was seventeen, Papa discovered an interest in her. This was because she had suddenly become useful. Having spent his life building a fortune in banking and investments, he now wanted more than riches. He wanted gentility. He wanted acceptance in Society. Never a man to settle, he chafed under the besmirching heritage of his common background. Papa wanted his son to marry well. He wanted his grandchildren to have titles. He wanted to see it happen before he died.
    In order to do that, he would have to purchase a suitable bride for William Edward. Such a maneuver would take years to accomplish, for England’s nobility didn’t offer its daughters to butchers’ grandsons—even if they were extremely wealthy. Thus Richard Elliot designed a plan. His daughter, with a properly splendid dowry, would spearhead his movement to conquer Society. He had clawed and slashed his way into a fortune using his sly cleverness. He could intrigue his way into the gentry using his daughter.
    His one mistake was in failing to consider Liza. She was unknown to him. He saw her occasionally—at meals, after dinner. That is,