"Go take Billy that orange juice, I can clean up in here," she informed as she reached around the smaller girl and grabbed hold of the plant before squeezing around her to the sink.
Rebecca needed sometime to think, anyway, and cleaning had always been a help. She needed to think about what she would do over the next few weeks as it neared what would have been her brother's twentieth birthday. She didn't want the festivities that young men often indulged for the sake of 'fun.'
It was then as her arms were dipped in several inches of warm, soapy water and her thoughts far off from those of proper young men, that the door to the kitchen opened and Lord Briggs entered the room, followed by the unexpected Lord Marshall.
"Ben, what are you doing? Don't you have a maid for that?" Briggs exclaimed at the sight of the young man cleaning.
"Yes, I do, but seeing as I haven't given her a day off, making her work including her customary days off, I figured there would be no harm in giving her today off and doing the dishes myself."
Briggs looked bright red. "Is this how you run your household, do you honestly expect my daughter to be privy to this once you marry her?"
"Lady Catherine would do quite well to learn the benefit of labor and, no, dear Sir, i have no expectations for your daughter to be privy to anything once I marry her as I do not plan to do so!"
Briggs turned even brighter shade and marched out as Marshall shook his head.
"Ben! I must say... I appreciate your mastery over your own household, but people are beginning to talk. They think you wish relations with that servant of yours, if you haven't already started them, so I would find a wife or find her a new home before further questions are raised. No wife wants to be the mistress to a slave...."
Marshall then gave him a weak smile, feeling sorry for whatever was going on in the young man's world before tipping his hat and leaving.
Rebecca practically collapsed, sitting down quickly on the kitchen floor as she looked around and tried to make sense of what she would do now that she had offended the rather important Lord Briggs. Few other proposals would come her way now...