The Ambitious Barrister and the Maid

By Marianna Green

Young Sarah-Ann Jenkins, forced into becoming maidservant to a handsome, ambitious young barrister by her penny pinching relatives, decides to become his mistress.

After all, he has had his eye on her from the first, and she wants to make enough money to secure the future for her beloved but eccentric brother.

It is a practical arrangement. Sarah-Ann is well aware that Mr. Grand is a fortune hunter in search of a wealthy wife. Still, in the maid and the master discover such physical rapture together that they are reluctant to give it up easily.

And when she has reason to believe that someone in the household is plotting against him, her sense of justice brings her firmly down on his side.

This steamy romance, which has in it echoes of the Charles Bravo Balham mystery, is set in the mid Victorian UK at a time of massive social inequalities and sexual repression for women, is written as dark comedy and will delight readers who enjoy an historically accurate sensual read.

For over eighteens only..

• Language: English
• Publisher: Freya
• Release date: Sep 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463275313

Book preview

The Ambitious Barrister and the Maid

Marianna Green

Copyright © 2019 Marianna Green

All rights reserved.

Distributed by Smashwords

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter One

I stood in the back hallway of Croft House, another failed interview behind me, fighting back tears as the stiff housekeeper said, and We need a wench with more experience.

My aunt-by-marriage would never believe that I tried to appear willing. She said I had better abandon my high and mighty ways now that my brother and I had been left with nothing; that as I refused to be a governess, I must go into service, for there was no possibility of her agreeing to my going to train as a nurse at St. Thomas’ Hospital. She did not approve of such work for an unmarried girl.

Accordingly, for the last week, I had been failing to get work as a junior housemaid. Suddenly, it was all too much for my stoicism.

Mrs. Carr: where the devil are you? a man called irritably in the hallway. The housekeeper glanced about, but went on dismissing me. The voice called again, more irritably. I thought that perhaps I wasn’t missing much in not getting a place in this household. Then someone flung open the green baize door.

So here you are, Mrs. Carr. Where is everyone hiding today? This must be the master of the house. Besides being in a bad temper, he was tallish and spare, with wavy dark hair, sharp dark eyes, prominent high cheekbones, and fine clothes. People would say he was a handsome young man, as he was somewhere in his mid twenties. To me at sixteen that seemed mature.

On his appearance, Mrs. Carr’s sallow face flushed. At the time, I thought that the only reason a woman of forty might redden when a man in his twenties addressed her, must be through vexation.

She said, I am sorry, Sir. I don’t know what the lower servants are about. I was interviewing wenches about the housemaid’s post, and turning this one away when you called.

The man’s eye fell on me. I would have liked to think that he was wholly moved by pity at the sight of the tears welling in the eyes of the scrawny creature that I then was. There was indeed a spark of sympathy in his, but also some calculation.

That might seem to be a long word for a housemaid, but I had been educated to be a young lady.

Mr Grand was a man who thought ahead. He saw something in me that interested him. It wouldn’t do for now, for though sixteen, I had much filling out to do. He was ready to wait, just as he was prepared to wait for the right chance to further his career. He was a man who saw potentials closed to those with a less penetrating gaze. In pursuing his goals, he was patient.

She will do very well, Mrs Carr, he gave that cold smile he sometimes used. That solves your little problem. Now, as to mine -

The housekeeper was indignant enough to do what servants, even the higher ones, should never do. She cut him off, which was bad enough, and then she contradicted him. Hardly, Sir. I have no time to train her, and -

He drew back. She could not have done more to ensure I got the post. He looked down his well shaped nose at her and cut her off in turn. I just hired the girl, Mrs. Carr. That makes an end to the matter. See about her box and the rest.

Later on, I was willing to bet, he would see about my box himself.

Mrs. Carr thought herself ill used in being forced to take me on, though it was the good-natured upper housemaid Molly who trained me. I made myself obliging, but the housekeeper disliked me from that beginning. On my first morning, I heard her grumbling to the cook.

I cannot think why the master acted as he did. Had she been a bonny girl, and he a man who didn’t mind lowering himself, it would be a different matter.

Oh, I don’t know. Mrs. Davenport deftly trimmed a piecrust, These girls who are late in blooming often turn out to be the best looking.

I always liked her for that, though very likely she said it for the sake of disagreeing with Mrs. Carr, whom she detested. It made me take a brighter view of my own potential attractions.

Mrs. Carr said haughtily. Mr. Grand would never look on a housemaid in that light. Besides, the girl thinks herself too good for the post, I can tell.

She was right about that. Still, she was in no position to reproach me for that, thinking herself too good for hers. She never let us forget that she wasn’t born to serve, and that her late husband had left her a sum on which she could retire early if she chose, though for some reason, she didn’t.

Molly the upper housemaid was, as I said, good natured. She was a hefty, ruddy, naturally confident girl, and had an eager young man who would propose as soon as he had enough put by. She was fond of gossip. Besides teaching me my household duties, she instructed me in listening at keyholes without being caught.

I am sorry to say I enjoyed this. Besides, it is a priceless source of information for a servant. We learned many things about the master, who was nothing like as bad tempered as I had supposed. In fact, he was generally a jolly fellow who teased the maidservants and talked of horse racing with the male staff. An ambitious barrister, he was aiming to be an MP, and no doubt hoped to move on to the House of Lords.

He had inherited this house from his father. It was a fine Regency place set in ten acres of grounds just off Mitcham Common, about eight miles from the City of London.

I felt almost at home in this area, it was so rural. When I walked out on the common on my half days, I passed farm workers herding their beasts. He had also inherited the housekeeper, the upper footman and a tidy sum besides. It seemed that this inheritance was not enough for his expensive tastes, and he was in danger of either going into debt or of being forced to make economies.

There is nothing for it, Grand, joked his friend Mr. Harper from chambers one evening after dinner. You’ll have either to reduce on your expenses, or marry a rich widow.

If I don’t get more briefs soon, I must sell one of my horses, and perhaps cut down on the staff.

Molly and I pulled faces. I had sharper hearing than she, and could hear, though she had her ear right at the keyhole.

If you marry a wealthy widow, you shan’t have to.

No, but I would damned well have to close my eyes and pretend it to be someone else every time I primed myself to do the deed.

There’s some nice looking, youngish widows on the lookout for a fine looking young chap with ambition.

You find me one then, eh, old fellow? Then I’ll think about it. But mind, I only want one who I can enjoy between the sheets, besides enjoying her fortune.

Then they rose, and we scampered away as fast and as quietly as mice.

Molly whispered, I hope Bert pops the question before Mr G. starts sending us off. But maybe he’ll find some rich woman who suits.

I felt put out, and it went beyond the danger of losing my place, or concern that the new mistress might be even stricter than Mrs. Carr. I only hoped that Mr. Grand had to search long to find that rich widow whose body he liked.

Over the last few months, I had filled out. All at once, it seemed, I had full round breasts and hips to match, making a contrast to my narrow waist, while I kept the country rosy glow to my skin. I had always thought of my face as plain, and had to agree with Mrs. Carr’s low opinion of it. Suddenly, my features fitted together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Now that many people looked admiringly on it, I took a kinder view of it myself.

I had to smile over how my new, rounded shape under my high-necked, dull brown maidservant’s gown drew looks from males of all ages, even with the thick bibbed apron on top.

I had thought on that first day that the master had seen something in me overlooked by others. As the months went by, he had started looking at me thoughtfully, giving me a special smile, and calling me ‘My pretty’.

I was sly enough to be coy, but a baggage in more than my eavesdropping habits. I enjoyed these approaches. It would be foolish to deny it. They gave promise of a future intimacy. I looked forward to more. It might be shocking, but I would not resist him for too long. If he had intentions regarding me, then I had intentions regarding him.

Respectable opinion would say that I should prize my virtue above any jewel; that a serving maid who encouraged her master’s attentions was a foolish slut heading for disgrace.

I could not see it that way.

It seemed to me that I had a greater duty in looking out for my strange younger brother than in hanging on to my physical virtue. Poor Jim would always be hopeless at dealing with the world on its own terms. I must care about that more than the possible rights of some future husband who might come along and offer me marriage in return for my virginity.

Only through incredible luck could a girl in the circumstances I now found myself, make enough money through respectable means to keep the two of us comfortably. I saw that clearly I had no intention of being got with child, either. A wise midwife had passed on some obscure wisdom to me about how a woman could tell from her internal juices at which times she was likely to conceive. It involved handling one’s secret parts, but I had always enjoyed doing that. I had torn the delicate membrane through riding horses with an unladylike straddle. A girl handling herself was rumoured to lead to terrible things, but I didn’t believe such nonsense.

I thought I might as well enjoy myself while I was selling myself. A fat, aging, charmless master I might have brought myself to endure, but I was happy that Mr. Grand appealed to me as a man.

He stirred me in odd ways, calculating bad hat though I thought him to be. I had, as a younger girl, imagined how nice it must be to watch your true love walking down the road while think him altogether wonderful. Such sweetness was not to be for me; I must look for the future, and I was glad I had no romantic illusions about my master.

He never stirred me so much as when he came on me unexpectedly. That is, unexpectedly for him; I always had time to arrange my lips into a tempting pout, and to set my eyelashes batting over my startled eyes -and pretend discomposure: and that is another long word for a housemaid.

He would run glowing eyes over me, as if he was thinking of doing as much with his hands, and my innards would tingle. Sometimes, his eyes would go to my breasts, and I would give the briefest tilt of the sides of that pout before I dropped my curtsey.

He always called me by name. This,