Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Downstairs Rules
    Downstairs Rules
    Downstairs Rules
    Ebook71 pages59 minutes

    Downstairs Rules

    By Sullivan Clarke

    3/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Ella Carter was born to service. Her parents have served Lord and Lady Chatworth since she was a baby, and when her mother dies she becomes Lady Chatworth's maid. But when Lady Chatworth dies, Ella's life is turned upside down. The new Lady Chatworth comes with her own maid, and Ella is sent to an even grander manor, where a new lady's maid is needed for Lady Ann Baxter. Lady Baxter is as headstrong as she is beautiful, and her older husband hopes that a maid close to her age with experience in tending to a lady will have a settling influence on his willful bride. When Ella learns from the stern butler, York, that Lord Baxter spanks Lady Baxter it comes as a shock. But when she learn that she, too, will be spanked if she fails to steer her ladyship towards proper behavior and keep Lord Baxter informed of he ladyship's misdeeds, she faces a conflict of loyalty. Ella is a lady's maid, and she does not agree with York's agenda.

    What's a maid to do? Ella wishes to be loyal, but that loyalty comes with a painful price for both her and her ladyship.

    Fans of Downton Abbey will love this Edwardian story that blends the life of the ruling class with the downstairs class in a tale where lines between family and servants becomes blurred, and where discipline and order are prized.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBlushing
    Release dateMar 1, 2015
    ISBN9781609686697
    Downstairs Rules

    Related to Downstairs Rules

    Related ebooks

    Historical Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Tea And Sympathy

      Jun 4, 2023

      The way that lives tangle together and how they can end so very suddenly are what is explored in The Wakes. It’s that rare and special thing, a novel about sorrow that is also filled with lightness and humour. And it’s absolutely my favourite read at

      3 min read

    • Article

      Helen

      Jun 5, 2023

      She was a friend of my family—the Carlins, as I have chosen to call them. She and my father met in the fifties through the editor of the architecture magazine where she began her career. My father had taken her out a few times. They were never lovers

      30 min read

    • Article

      At Her Historic Ancestral Home Belvoir Castle The Duchess Of rutland Is An Open Book As She Talks Candidly About Her Extraordinary Life In A New Autobiography

      Oct 10, 2022

      At Her Historic Ancestral Home Belvoir Castle The Duchess Of rutland Is An Open Book As She Talks Candidly About Her Extraordinary Life In A New Autobiography
      5 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Apr 22, 2022

      Books
      4 min read

    • Article

      “I Miss Dad Every Single Day”

      Jun 15, 2022

      “I Miss Dad Every Single Day”
      5 min read

    • Article

      Wounds That Won’t Heal

      Oct 30, 2017

      Wounds That Won’t Heal
      7 min read

    • Article

      You Can’t Keep A Good Woman Down

      Apr 20, 2022

      You Can’t Keep A Good Woman Down
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Courage To Be Happy

      Feb 1, 2023

      MARRIAGE and columns have this in common: you tend to repeat yourself. More than once in these pages, I have quoted the New Yorker’s legendary film critic Pauline Kael. After President Nixon’s landslide victory in 1972 she wrote: ‘I live in a rather

      3 min read

    • Article

      THRILLING & CHILLING

      Apr 8, 2022

      We’ve all read headlines about horrifying cases, both in South Africa and abroad, where a family of children are locked up by their parents in unimaginable conditions of neglect and abuse. This electrifying debut novel is based on just such an outrag

      2 min read

    • Article

      Winning Letter

      Sep 23, 2022

      I was having brunch recently with a friend. She was observing a young, in-love couple behind me. She commented that he was rubbing her back and showing such tender affection. As they left and walked past her, she said to them, “What an amazing couple

      5 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      May 18, 2022

      Great Read
      5 min read

    • Article

      Elizabeth Coleman

      Jan 8, 2024

      Elizabeth Coleman
      2 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Jul 22, 2019

      Elsa Joubert is best known for The Long  Journey of Poppie Nongena, but she also wrote a lot about her travels through Africa. In Cul-de-Sac she describes a journey of another kind: into proper old age (she is 95). Elsa moves into Berghof, a retirem

      4 min read

    • Article

      Ordinary People

      Feb 24, 2021

      Ordinary People
      11 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Aug 19, 2022

      Books
      4 min read

    • Article

      Reading CORNER

      Mar 5, 2023

      Life isn’t a bed of roses for three intriguing women If ever there was a time that we needed stories to escape into, this past summer has been it. And I particularly liked escaping with this novel. Love, glamour, secrets, broken hearts and a beautifu

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Arrangements: Coming of Age with Books

      Jun 26, 2018

      1.  “How many of you still play with dolls?” Depending on our moods: We rolled our eyes; we buried our burning faces in our arms; we groaned; we shrieked; we wished to be elsewhere; we were present. In the exact middle of eighth grade (the season in

      5 min read

    • Article

      Left To Lose

      Jul 10, 2022

      Around the time she gives up her name, it starts to feel like this entire revolution isn’t worth it anymore. The world is probably lucky that Kelian—she still remembers Kelian, in spite of everything—is there to pick up the pieces, the way he always

      11 min read

    • Article

      Autumn Reading

      Mar 25, 2020

      A charming novel about a ready-to-retire Paris psychiatrist, who is counting the hours until his final session. Our protagonist has never spoken to his next-door neighbour, although he hears the old gent rattling around at night. He has never enquire

      7 min read

    • Article

      Happy Reunion

      Mar 27, 2022

      Anew novel by Marian Keyes is always a treat. I can’t think of another author who manages to explore such gritty themes with so much warm humour. The stories that feature members of the Walsh family are probably my favourites, so I was thrilled that

      1 min read

    • Article

      Night Visions

      Sep 10, 2022

      Night Visions
      6 min read

    • Article

      Lost Children

      Aug 4, 2022

      Lost Children
      5 min read

    • Article

      Dawn Neesom Mind Of My Own

      Apr 5, 2022

      Dawn Neesom Mind Of My Own
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Downstairs Rules

    3/5

    6 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Downstairs Rules - Sullivan Clarke

      Downstairs Rules

      By

      Sullivan Clarke

      Copyright 2015 Blushing Books and Sullivan Clarke

      Published by Blushing Books at Smashwords

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

      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 book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Published by Blushing Books®,

      a subsidiary of

      ABCD Graphics and Design

      977 Seminole Trail #233

      Charlottesville, VA 22901

      The trademark Blushing Books®

      is registered in the US Patent and Trademark Office.

      Clarke, Sullivan

      Downstairs Rules

      eBook ISBN: 978–1–60968–669–7

      Cover Art by Owlight Designs

      This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as Blushing Books' or the author's advocating any non–consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.

      Table of Contents:

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      About the Author

      Blushing Books

      Chapter One

      Ella Carter gripped the handle of her suitcase and stepped closer to the edge of the platform, craning her neck as she eyed the line of cars and carts approaching the platform. All around her were happy reunions – friends, relatives, lovers. Train stations were such happy places.

      This was the second train ride she’d taken in her twenty–five years. The first was to Brighton, where her parents had moved when she was just three years old and they’d gone to serve in Lord Chatworth’s fine home. Prior to serving Lord Chatworth, they’d been in service to his brother, Sir Richard Chatworth.

      But her parents’ decision to marry had caused complications among the staff – petty jealousies had arisen among some of the other maids, all of whom had secretly desired Malcolm Carter before he’d set his sites on pretty blonde apprentice cook Louise Jennings. After several years of watching his fair wife suffer from the backbiting, which had not lessened once Ella was born. Finally, Malcolm had gone to Sir Chatworth and informed him that the conditions were unlikely to change. Women, he said, would be women and it would be easier for his family to start anew somewhere else than it would for all the other maids to be replaced, even if they were in the wrong.

      I’d rather lose the lot of them than part with my best valet, Sir Chatworth had insisted. And if I cannot stop you from going, the least I can do is keep you in the family. So the Carters had been sent to serve Chatworth’s brother.

      Ella had grown up thinking of herself not just as a Carter, but as an extended member of the Chatworth family. Lady Miriam Chatworth had sons but no daughters, and adored her maid’s little girl. She insisted upon seeing Ella whenever Louise brought her to the house. Louise played with Lady Miriam’s sons, even though Lady Miriam’s visiting aunt once rebuked her for allowing the boys to mingle with rabble.

      What’s rabble? she’d asked her mother later that night.

      It’s an unkind word that high–born people use to describe low–born ones, her mother had said.

      Are we rabble, mummy? Ella had asked

      There is no rabble, my dear. We all have parts to play, her mother had said.

      Like a game? Like chess?

      Louisa had smiled. Yes, like chess.

      Daddy plays chess, Ella had said. Sometimes in the evenings, he would play chess with Gibbs, the footman.

      Yes he does, her mother had replied, and the pawn and the rook are as important to the game as the queen.

      Daddy says the rooks and pawns die trying to protect the queen, Ella had observed.

      Perhaps, Louise had observed, smoothing her daughter’s blonde hair. But once the game is finished, all the pieces go in the same box, don’t they? In the end, death claims us all. And we all come to our creator as equals. Never let anyone tell you there is no pride in service. Christ was a servant, after all.

      Her parents’ pride in service was heightened by the status of the family they served. Louise was still quite young when she discovered that even among servants there was a caste system of sorts. The servants of nobility were just as prone to

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1