"Get out of here you ruffian! You brute! You horny bastard!"
I dodged the things that were being thrown at me and tripped over my trousers as I fell out the front door. I looked back and watched the father of the lovely young woman I was just with watching me from the doorway.
"If I ever see you anywhere near my sweet Sophia again I'll have you hanged!" he yelled at me.
I laughed and pulled my britches up, buckling them back.
"I pray, sir, if you can get the authorities to agree with you, I will gladly comply to a good hanging."
Something was thrown and I ducked as it clanged away. The door slammed and I chuckled to myself as I looked at what was thrown. A pot, by the looks of it. I shrugged and climbed into my carriage that had been waiting for me to do a bit of rutting before I headed home. Who would have known the heir to the Baron Jacoby could be such a minx in the bed! And who would have known that Lord Jacoby himself would have come home so early from the gathering and caught me doing some very unsavory things to the Lady Sophia. I haven't had so much excitement since... well... that lovely kitchen maid and her proclamation that her pregnancy was my fault.
It took a while to get to my manor that was on the other side of the country but once I got there, the footman opened the door and bowed to me.
"Lord Barma..."
I stepped out and went to the door where a maid and butler stood, the butler holding a small tray with a card on it.
"Sir, Lord Higgaby stopped by earlier and left a calling card."
"I'll go and see him sometimes later in the week. Send someone to get hot water for my bath." I ordered as I took my coat off and dropped it on the floor. "And someone get my coat before I have them removed from the house!"
I went up the stairs to my bedroom.
***********************
I opened the door and found a young maid standing next to my bed. I guess my father must have hired her, for she was young but wasn't exactly attractive. Very plain. But her breasts! Dear lord... what he had not put into her face he surely exceeded with this woman's bosom.
"Milord." She said with a curtsy. "I was sent to bathe you."
I lifted an eyebrow. "Were you? Do you plan on coming in the bath with me?"
The maid gave me a smile that did not reach her eyes, which insinuated that she was about to tell me politely to shove it.
"No, milord, I was merely sent to wash you. The hot water has not arrived as of yet if you want me to remove your clothing for you."
I lifted my other eyebrow.
"Were you instructed to do this?"
"I was taught to do this." She explained with a slow nod of her head. "Does this process displease you?"
"Not at all... it's just that Uma never does this. Then again, I wouldn't want her to do this but..."
"She said that you seem to get cleaner when another person does it for you. She had mentioned, actually, that you would not appreciate her cleaning you."
"At least the old tart is smart."
The door opened and buckets of hot water were trailed in by three butlers and one bucket by a maid. The doors closed and I looked at the maid who was patiently waiting at the side of my bed.
"What's your name?"
"Minerva." She said quickly. "Please remove your clothes and get into the bath."
"How about you help me?" I said with a grin.
The maid –Minerva? What a horrid name!- only gave me a soulless smile.
"I believe that you are capable of removing your own clothing."
I bowed my head to her and began to remove my shirt and my pants. I threw them on the bed and then removed my undergarments. I turned to her and stretched just to tease the maid but when I stopped stretching I saw that she was over by the wash basin testing the water. I frowned at her and walked over, putting my hands on my hips.
"So, how do we do this?" I asked.
"You get in the tub and I will wash you."
I sighed, stopping the advances, and put a foot in the tub but yelled. It was scalding!
"You bitch! It's hotter than hell!"
The maid looked up at me and then stood up.
"I don't appreciate being talked to like a common whore, milord. If you will actually stick your whole foot into the water and not just your toe, you will see that it is actually warm, not scalding. Unless you're saying that your skin is as sensitive as a young virgin's?"
I gaped at the maid but she had put my pride on the line. I stepped my foot into the water and unfortunately, she was correct. I sunk down into the water and relished in the warmth.
*****************************
Minerva
How humiliating is this? Uma said that I would be getting a promotion from working in the kitchen to working with the duke but I didn't know I was going to be babying him. And he was such a pompous ass! To think I would be so filly as to look at his privates while he stretched and blush like a little girl... I have three boys already, I know what a man's penis looks like and I did not have any interest in the duke's.
Thus, I hate the fact that my duty is to be the duke's personal maid to replace Uma since she said his demands are becoming too much for her. I would have taken house maid than taking care of this rake of a man. I knew what he did with his spare time and I don't think he even takes things seriously. It's all a game for him...
"So, old Uma is quitting her care of me, eh?"
"It would seem so."
"Eh, at least you're more pleasant to look at. Not that much but it's better than wrinkly skin and that old person smell... So, will you be sleeping in my bed or in another room?" he said with a smirk to me.
"I will be going home like I usually do, sir."
He laughed. "You're cute..."
"What's so funny?"
"You really think you go home and come back like usual? When you're my maid, you stay at the mansion twenty-four hours a day, every day. You don't get 'breaks'."
I gawked at him. "Milord! I have three children I have to attend to! I cannot just leave them."
"How old is the oldest?"
"Barely six and ten-"
"Bah! He can take care of the others! When I was sixteen, I was already having great sex with lovely girls. If he can have sex, he can take care of himself."
I stood up and went around to the front of the duke, where I smacked him in the face.
"You, sir, are the most deplorable human being I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I have responsibilities to do and catering to your every whim is not one of them. As of today, it will be the last of personal service."
The duke looked at me and his green eyes suddenly got very cold.
"You may do as you will with your work, wench, but since you dared to insult me in my own house as well as my own private bath, you will not work as anything above a scullery maid. If I see your face again I will make sure to tell the authorities your precious sixteen year old has stolen from me. Get out of my sights!"
I held in my tears of rage as I tromped out of the room and down the hallway.
Uma was walking toward the room and stopped me.
"Minerva, child, what's happened?"
"I cannot work as that man's personal maid. You will have to find someone else."
"Why is that?"
"I have three boys to take care of and I cannot just leave them to their own. Duke Barma did not take kindly to that."
"Oh dear... well... I thought you were most qualified for the job but I guess you're not."
"I know what I am capable of, Uma, but that man is a tyrant, a rake, and a horrid man. I pray for the woman who takes his hand in marriage."
I walked off but heard Uma behind me.
"Will you be back tomorrow then?"
"Yes but as what, I do not know. I must get home to my children."
I got halfway down the stairs when Uma called out, "You're lucky you still have a job, young lady!"
It took all of my willpower for me not to tell her that I quit because there is no way that I can and there are no other families around who would take a maid in. I didn't really care what I did as long as I got paid for it; though being a scullery maid was the lowest of the low...
********************
I opened the door to my small house and heard laughter coming from the kitchen.
"It's gross!"
"It's not that bad! Stop overreacting."
"He's not, it's nasty... You cannot cook."
I walked around to the threshold of the kitchen to see my three boys in there. The oldest, Bastion, was dipping his ladle into the pot on the stove while the other two, Eadric and Xerxes (or X) were at the table watching him. Bastion tasted what was over the fire and made a face.
"Ugh... Damn it! I thought it would be nice to have something done before Mum got home..."
"Language, child."
Bastion jumped and whipped around to me, his red hair getting in his face.
"Mum... uh..."
"So that's where X learned those words; you say them behind my back..."
Bastion blushed at being caught and I walked over to the soup.
"I thought it'd be nice if I made dinner for us all but I ruined it. I'm sorry, Mum, I didn't mean to waste the food. I followed it just like you do when you cook it..."
I lifted the ladle and tasted the soup myself. I made a face but I knew what was missing.
"Don't worry, love, you just missed an ingredient, that's all. We can fix this."
"How did your promotion go, Mummy?" X asked, pulling on my skirts.
I turned around but he wasn't there.
"Where are you?"
"Right here."
"X, you're invisible again. She can't see you."
"Mummy!" I heard him cry, running into me though I couldn't see him.
"It's alright, love, we can work through this. Here, take my hands." I held them out and felt tiny hands in mine. "Let's sing your song, alright? I'll start it for you: When I'm lost and can't be found..."
"All I do is make a sound. If no one hears me when I shout, move things around and throw things about. When they scream they'll call out 'ghost' but that is what I need the most. Cuz if they say it loud enough, Mummy will come to gather me up!"
As he sang he began to become visible again and finally was solid again.
"There, good job."
"Good job, X." Bastion said, rustling his platinum blonde hair.
"Good job." Eadric said.
"Mummy, I'm scared."
"Don't worry, it'll get easier. Remember when Eadric almost made the house burn down because he sneezed?"
"That was not funny, Bastion. And I recall that you granted someone's wish and made their husband a pig. We had to get someone else to believe us so that the woman's husband would come back."
"Boys..." I turned Xerxes' face back to me and touched his cheek. "Control will come with time and patience. If nothing else, you have the least destructive gift of the three of you."
"Why did God make us this way, Mummy?"
"God didn't do this, sweetling. God does not bestow gifts like this to men."
"Then it's like the butcher said and we're from the Devil." Bastion said.
"Mummy!" Xerxes cried out.
"Bastion! No... None of you are from the Devil. In all honesty, I don't know what made you all have these gifts but they were given to you for a reason. It might have been your father that allowed this to happen, it might not. My sister had said that he had his own quirks... Enough of that. Let's fix this soup and eat."