Free PH02 - Do Not Disturb by Kate Kingsbury

the poor child this much distress, particularly as it had failed to do the trick. Maybe Gertie was pregnant after all. Heaven help her.
    “I know what I look like. I look like a blinking ghost, that’s what. And if I bring up me guts one more time, that’s exactly what I’m going to be. A blinking ghost.”
    “Now, now, the worst is over. You’ll be feeling better in no time,” Mrs. Chubb assured her, praying she was right. Gertie hadn’t even begun her duties yet, and the morning was half over. Madam would be down wanting to know why the grates hadn’t been cleaned and black-leaded.
    “I ain’t never going to feel right again,” Gertie declared, crossing her arms across her stomach and rocking back and forth. “Blimey, Mrs. Chubb, you didn’t half get me sozzled. And all for bleeding nothing.”
    “Well, we had to try, didn’t we? Perhaps we should ask Madeline for a potion after all.”
    “I don’t want no one else to know about this,” Gertie said, lifting her head with difficulty. “You promised me.”
    Mrs. Chubb felt even more guilty. Deciding she had better say something, just in case Mrs. Parmentier happened to mention it, she said carefully, “I’m afraid someone else does know about it, dear. I didn’t have much choice, you see. There you were, drowning in the bathtub, so to speak, and I couldn’t haul you out on my own, so I had to get some help.”
    Gertie’s expression changed to horror. “You didn’t,” she said hoarsely. “Did you tell Ethel? I’ll have to nail her blinking lips shut if you did. You know what a tattletale she is.”
    “It wasn’t Ethel,” Mrs. Chubb admitted, feeling more awkward by the minute. “I did go down to her room, but she wasn’t there.”
    “Thank Gawd for that.” Gertie’s relief was short-lived. “Wait a minute. Who was it, then? Not madam!” She said it as if Mrs. Chubb had told the King himself.
    “No, no, of course I wouldn’t tell madam.” She didn’t tell Gertie that she had been on her way up to do that very thing.There was going to be enough pandemonium when she told Gertie the rest of it.
    “So who, then? Come on, the suspense is bloody killing me.”
    Mrs. Chubb squared her solid shoulders. She was the boss here. She was responsible for the housekeeping staff, and as such she had done her duty as she saw fit. She had nothing to apologize for. Nothing at all. If anything, it was Gertie’s fault for getting herself into this predicament in the first place.
    Taking a deep breath, she said firmly, “Mrs. Parmentier.”
    Gertie’s shriek almost split the housekeeper’s ears. “What? Whatcha go and tell her for? Blimey, I don’t believe it. I don’t bloody believe it. Christ, the Black Widow herself.”
    At least the tirade had brought color back to the girl’s cheeks, Mrs. Chubb observed with satisfaction. “Here, here,” she said in an effort to reestablish her authority. “Don’t you talk to me like that. I’ll box your ears. You would have drowned, my girl, if Mrs. Parmentier hadn’t dragged you out of the tub.”
    Gertie’s jaw dropped open and the flush on her cheeks deepened. “She … what?”
    Mrs. Chubb nodded with more enthusiasm than she was feeling. “Oh, yes, indeed. She was wonderful. Lifted you out bodily, with no effort at all. Just like that. Whoosh! And you were out.” She demonstrated by lifting her palms straight up in the air.
    “Good Gawd Almighty.” Gertie sat up, her eyes growing huge in her flushed face. “Here, I wasn’t naked, was I?”
    “Starkers.” Mrs. Chubb said unhappily. “What else could I do? I could hardly put your clothes on you while you were sopping wet and unconscious. You were slippery as an eel. I couldn’t grab ahold of you.”
    Gertie slumped in her chair, her hands over her face, and moaned quietly. “I ain’t never going to live this down. I’ll be the laughingstock of the bloody village, that’s what. What am I going to do? What the bleeding hell am I goingto