Maggie gripped the curved banister to steady herself. Stunned by his words, she sank onto the step. This announcement had taken her utterly by surprise. It was the last thing she would have expected—or welcomed.
“Exactly what this family does not need,” Nora complained. She trudged into the kitchen, arms piled high with dresses requiring laundering and pressing. Once more, Nora thought to herself how odd it was to come from upstairs where the Darlington family was slowly waking to face the day. Downstairs, the staff had been awake already for hours, preparing the morning meal and beginning their daily duties. They cleaned out the ashes from the fireplaces and lit new fires so the house would be warm when the family woke. Breakfast was already working. There were pots bubbling over with fragrant meals, breads baking in the oven, the sizzle of bacon in a fry pan. The dishes from the staff’s breakfast earlier that morning were stacked in the sink. The cook’s assistant would see to those once the Darlingtons had been fed. And all this for a highborn family of six! Well, five, with Lord Wesley away at Oxford. Nora shook her head again, muttering, “The Darlingtons have enough expenses without taking in orphans.”
“And penniless orphans at that,” replied Mrs. Howard. As the head housekeeper, Mrs. Howard was put in charge of keeping Wentworth Hall running. A difficult task, by any measure, and Mrs. Howard often looked pinched about the face, as if constantly in pain. It was hardly a secret that the family’s ledgers were stretched to the limit. Not a day passed when Lord Darlington wasn’t chastising his wife over some little luxury she’d bought the girls or a new piece of furniture she’d purchased for the baby’s nursery. He’d always been an old cheapskate but these days more so than Nora could ever recall before.