"Let's see, Elise...you've been here five weeks. Am I right?"
Elise's eyes darted around the room, taking in the intent but impassive faces of her employer's personal staff. Mr. Hal, the steward, was to Lord Conroy's right. Beside him stood a handsome but older woman, Mistress Beatrice the head maid. On the lord's left were Allan the chauffer, Daniel the butler, and Vincent the man servant. Elise then looked down to see her chest rising and falling rapidly, the movement throwing up into view the slightest hint of cleavage with each breath, and considered her own position as Master Conroy's private secretary. The heat began to rise in her cheeks.
"Elise?"
Startled, she looked up quickly.
"Yes, sir?"
She felt their disapproval, even though they did not show it. Conroy remained calm, even perhaps seemed a bit indulgent as some emotion flickered at the corners of his mouth before he spoke.
"I hired you five weeks ago, Elise, did I not?"
"You did, sir."
"At that time, did I not only make my expectations known to you but also then instruct Hal to elaborate the details?"
Elise's eyes fell back to the front of Conroy's credenza, studying the mahogany grain.
"It is as you say, my Lord."
"Wait outside the door, Elise."
His voice was cold, perfunctory. Her legs trembled as she backed the twelve steps to the jamb and pulled the door closed on the six of them. Five weeks she'd been his private secretary. She'd accepted the job, accepted the oddity of Mr. Conroy enacting upon his large estate, set on a Tennessee bluff above the Mississippi, an on going play of late-Victorian manners. It was like one of those public television series, except Mr. Conroy had real investments, real and important philanthropic interests, and no patience with foregoing modernity—electricity, indoor plumbing, gas heat, or telecommunications—except when it came to interpersonal relations.
As she had stood before the credenza, the evidence of her non-performance sat there in front of Conroy: the half-sorted mail and messages, the forty unopened emails, and yesterday's tea cup. It was just so hard to get up in the morning here in the country, and too easy to pull a volume from the shelves of his fabulous library and lose an hour.
Elise stewed in her growing distaste for her performance to date and was startled when the door to Conroy's study opened again.
She crept in. Dread reached through the satin of her corset, pulling her forward by the navel as her knees pushed the petticoats of her dress forward to within three paces of the credenza. She gave a small curtsy and looked up through her lowered brows to see that Mr. Conroy was alone behind his desk.
"Miss Helton... Elise, your performance to date has been terrible. Given your obvious talents, your performance is utterly inexcusable. Each of the persons behind you has formed the opinion that you are possessed of lazy and reprehensible work habits."
She noted now that the other members of his personal staff stood near the wall behind her, their hands clasped before them in watchfulness.
"No doubt, given that you are fully a woman and not a youth, you are set in your ways. That might be reason enough to fire you, Elise.
"It might be, except that, even despite how dreadfully and inadequately you've performed even the simplest of your duties, you've also managed to demonstrate great promise and some real moments of brilliance.
"On account of that potential hiding within you, Miss Helton, I'm going to knock you into new ways...if you agree."
Anger had risen within her at the sting and truth of his words. Elise let it take her, thinking that she could brazen her way past this upbraiding as she had always done before when called on substandard performance.
"I do not agree, sir, and I believe that I have put in the full number of hours expected of me this past five weeks."
Conroy was on his feet, around the corner of the desk, and clutching the hair at her neck in his fist as her mouth closed upon the final consonant. Before she knew what had happened, she was toppled with her waist across his knees and Daniel and Allan holding her wrists outstretched in front of her. Just as she thought to kick, she felt Hal and Vincent firmly grip her ankles and pull her legs apart.
"What the fuck? You can't do this to me, Mr. Conroy!"
His fingers twisted in her hair as she felt the weight of his chest press onto her shoulder blades and crush her breasts against the side of his leg as he leaned to whisper in her ear.
"My dear, in fact I can. It is in your contract. It says that recognizing the complicated nature of the responsibilities of a private secretary, you acknowledge the likelihood that upon occasion you may be corrected for shortcomings in your work."
