London 1810
I should tell you about myself first. I am Lady Anabel Baring, wife to the lord Charles Baring, Earl of Cromer. I am of the North Umbrian gentry, our family being renowned for producing bold soldiers and fertile wives, which the southern nobles have always muttered had to do with too many Vikings in the convent. We do tend to the tall, pale, and on the ladies side, very buxom side, and I have the red hair that crops up several times a generation.
My mother taught me that a woman had two duties, to provide, educate and train heirs for her husbands house, and to keep order in the servants of that house. Honestly, as a woman, this was supposed to be my goal and my joy. It was not much of a burden to provide heirs for my husbands house. I mean, I had been married at sixteen, and by eighteen I had given him two boys (Charles and Henry), which seemed to satisfy him. It was not much of a burden, although he was. My husband was my senior by about twenty years, and about a hundred pounds. My marital duties were a chore that I feared might kill my husband (Charles, as our first boy was named for him, as Henry was named for his father). His face grew red, his breathing like the blacksmith bellows, and I feared the veins in his neck would burst. Instead, his member which tore into me burst instead.
I may not be the best wife in the world as far as keeping order in the house, I am not very stern with the servants, and the older ones tend to terrify me, but I am a garden of earthly delights, as my husband loves to point out at parties, and more fertile than a hundred hectares in Cambridgeshire. It was true, he didn't have to plow my field often to get our sons, and I think he was as glad to stop as I was. I knew I was supposed to just lie back and do my duty, but when he grasped my large bosoms, sucking and biting them, I felt a strange tension build up in me, an agitation, and when he eventually mounted me, I felt like I was building towards some great religious revelation. Either that, or Charles would burst a blood vessel and die, luckily he spent his seed long before either one of us found the gates of heaven. Still, I felt my marital duties awakened a need for something, a hunger. I don't know what for, but for something.
I was just nineteen when I convinced Charles that the with our second baby, the existing dragon (the only possible description of the head maid, entirely too religious even to make an acceptable nun) needed to be put out to pasture and we needed a new head maid. Since Charles had a new steel plant to get into production, he was convinced railway was going to become important and he wanted to be ready for the demand for volumes of steel, and that the new steam engines were going to change not only land travel, but sea travel as well. The future was steel, and my husband was making it. We needed a new maid, a new staff to show our growing prominence, to deal with a new round of social obligations and political obligations. We didn't just need to be like all the older houses who were ready to fade into obscurity, we had to shout how involved we were with the overseas trade and the new industries without actually saying "trade" or "industry". We were old nobility, we were supposed to pretend that squeezing starving peasants was a viable way to stay rich in a world in which that actually lost money.
The solution was twofold. Renovate the mansion to become a mixture of Oriental, Indian, and African styles, to showcase our deep connection to the greater colonies, and replace our doddering ancient, and largely inherited maids with a new staff. The new staff included a mix of Caribbean African maids and cooks from Charles's plantations there, and some excellent Chinese and Indian cooks to add exotic flavours for the many gala we must host to make sure that when discussion of naval construction, rail and road building plans, those discussions would be happening in rooms Charles was either the host of, or invited as guest too.
Kira was the new head maid. She had hair in dark tight cornrows, like tiny braids that make her dark African hair into a strangely compelling cascade of tightly leashed African passion. She is young for the position, only twenty two to my own eighteen, but the rest of the staff, all female from maids to cooks, all are kept under tight control by her. She is slim, having a delicate womanly figure, not as heavy breasted or wide hipped as myself, she is almost elfin in body. Not the sort of peasant body you would expect from a Caribbean girl off the plantation, she looked more like a noble in her features than most of those from the high houses like myself. She had a very expressive face, when greeting guests she was the picture of grace and hospitality, yet you always caught that cat like amusement that said while she gave proper deference to her social superiors, she in no way felt less than even the greatest of them. This carried on with her dealings with staff and tradesmen. She was nothing less than professional in her dealings, but when any of the tradespeople would attempt to press her due to her sex or race, they found her dominant nature rose to the surface and they uniformly came to understand that deals would be on her terms and she would be addressed as ma'am, with their eyes on the floor where they belonged.
It became my custom to express my wants and concerns about grounds, staff, and planning for events to Kira, and let Kira provide the instructions, corrections, and of course, administer the discipline in my name. I told you that I was never that comfortable keeping order in a great house, I come from country gentry, not a rising Earldom, but Kira keeps the servants in line like a born queen. I admire her. I started to watch her, I thought to learn how she does it, but the reality turned out to be something different.
I noticed it first when one of the Chinese cooks got into an argument with one of the local farmers. It turned out she had bargained down the price of the fresh eggs we were buying and pocketed the difference. You must understand, these farmers were our direct retainers. We paid above market price because we needed our local farmers to not only be doing well, but to be seen to be doing well, and know it was because of our house. It was a new age, the opinion of the commons mattered, as a friendly MP who knew that the favor of the lord was required for his seat was important to my lord husband's political and economic needs. When the farmer brought the matter to me, I knew that discipline needed to be swift, and visible. The staff needed to know this would not be tolerated. I told Kira that I needed to witness the discipline so that if I was asked by Charles, I could answer in truth that I had seen discipline carried out.
Oh, how my world changed that day. Kira smiled at me. Slowly, her eyes wandering up my body to meet my own. Those dark brown orbs locked onto my blue ones and I felt myself blushing as her smile widened to an outright grin.
"Yes My Lady, I think maybe you should see how order is kept in the house." Kira said and told me that she would send a maid to fetch me when she was ready to administer punishment. I felt a thrill go through me when she told me that she would have me summoned when she was ready. I don't know why it gave me a thrill to hear her speak that way to me, but at the same time, I was uncomfortable dealing with such harsh matters myself and was willing to defer to my maid in this matter.
Jenna, a short very round, and frequently disciplined young chambermaid came to summon me to the discipline. She was a chambermaid because she needed to be kept from the public at big events. She was a hard working girl, a short round bundle of dark skinned hard working bubbly cheerfulness, but you will never get any sense of propriety in her. She really did seem to have just come from the Caribbean, the sort of Caribbean that spoke of pirates and wenches, and all manner of sin rather than well ordered plantations and well kept manors. Jenna was babbling already.
"Oh Lady Annabelle you are going to love it. I watch every discipline she gives. Of course, that is easy, since half of them are me, but the rest are almost as good. I mean, when its not me I need to take a moment to finish myself, you know what I mean Lady Annabelle? Kira's punishments are enough to make me believe that God want's us to be obedient. I mean, God should just send Kira out, and he could skip the priests altogether. I mean, I prefer to skip them altogether." Jenna's babbling brought me into the room where Kira sat on one of the tables, a large wooden hairbrush in her hand, and her black boots peaking out from beneath her maid skirt as they swung lazily back and forth. She had very delicate ankles I noted, I caught myself blushing again as I noted. I was so busy noting that Kira didn't seem to have stockings on under her skirts as I believe I saw a bit of chocolate coloured skin above her boot top, that I missed Ming's nakedness.
Ming, the guilty cook, had taken her clothes off and stood naked before Kira.
