Free Betrayed Countess (Books We Love Historical Romance) by Diane Scott Lewis

and scrutinized her. “Child, don’t kill yourself. Most people round here has small use for reading. I read a bit, to get by. Some smart people get hired to write letters, but wouldn’t want you around most of them who be doing the hiring. What fancy school was you educated at?”
    Since Maddie never questioned her origins, she assumed Kerra had told her of the new girl’s reluctance to divulge her background. “I … I thought it would help my English, too, to practice this.” The Cornish dialect confused Bettina at times; her English lessons hadn’t prepared her for such a guttural sound.
    “Your English ain’t so bad.” Maddie patted her shoulder with the hand not slick with oil, her smile tired. “Just keep talking, it’ll come about. You’ll make more, no doubt, when you begin servin’ in the taproom. Enjoy your day o’ freedom.”
    Bettina turned from Maddie, hiding her frown. She walked through the kitchen and out the back door. It was a clear Sunday afternoon. She missed attending church, but refused to endure a service not of her faith, although she had to admit that her faith had diminished after her father’s death and the anarchy that followed. She stopped by the stables to check on the horse, then started up an overgrown path in the hillside. The early autumn wind stirred the tall grass around her ankles. Beyond the jagged cliffs, the ocean rippled like a cerulean satin scarf, but her thoughts remained agitated.
    Desperate to get word to her mother, Bettina didn’t know if Maman had traveled to Boulogne or stayed in Poissy. What if she sent a letter to Poissy, would that be safe for either of them? The revolutionaries might have stopped all mail meant for the aristocrats. She didn’t believe in Armand’s promise to tell her mother she went to England, after his trickery with the package. She resented his mandate to be secretive, yet the hostility and cruel gossip she’d experienced seemed to prove him right. With her sheltered upbringing, could she distinguish the good intentioned people from the bad? Hadn’t she trusted her old guardian?
    She remembered that sense of underlying tension between Madame Hilaire and Armand back in Boulogne. It was something that had pertained to her in the sly looks, the whispers, but her frantic mind had flung it aside. Armand had served her family without a blemish starting years before her birth. What could have compelled him to deceive her the way he did?
    Bettina kicked a stone before her down the path. Her thin shawl gave her little protection in the cooling wind, and she hurried along to warm herself. A startled rabbit hopped out of the gorse in front of her and scurried across the slope. Bettina noticed a man on a striking black horse, two-thirds of the way up the hill. He appeared to be watching her, and that gave her a dizzy, strange sensation—as if she could be any more out of her element. He turned his horse and galloped up the hillside toward the mansion perched at the top, vanishing into a clump of trees.
     
    * * * *
     
    “When you take orders, know what they’re asking for,” Maddie said on Bettina’s first night serving in the taproom. “We have ale, beer, two-penny, and the Porter’s a combination of all three. Stout is extra-strong Porter. Canary, Port, Sherry and Rhenish be the popular wines. Of the spirits, brandy’s a favorite. Not the English type, but the one smuggled from France—a taste of danger for these Cornish rapscallions.” Maddie winked at her.
    Bettina took a tray stacked with drinks and jiggled it awkwardly around the tables populated with miners, farmers and fishermen. Their body odor wafted around her. Bettina coughed in the smoke coming from clay pipes, her actions quick and unsteady as she hurried through her serving.
    “Where you been hiding this one, Maddie? Here, sweetheart, sit on me lap,” one fat, fishy-smelling oaf urged; he patted his greasy breeches. She lurched to sidestep him and almost dropped her