Amanda Scott (6 page)

She had written no more than a line or two when the doors opened again to admit a short, round little woman, whom Greyfalcon greeted as Mrs. Wigan.

“Wigan did say ye’d sent fer me, m’lord.” She gazed curiously at Sylvia, who looked up at her and then, catching Greyfalcon’s eye, returned to her task.

“I did send for you,” he agreed. “We’ve a guest for the night.” Sylvia looked up in protest at that, but he went on smoothly, “As you see by her attire, Miss Jensen-Graham enjoys masquerading as a servant, and I have agreed to indulge her fancies before I return her to her father in Oxfordshire. You did mention earlier today that you are short a scullery maid, I believe?”

Sylvia gasped. “You’d not dare!”

He did not so much as look at her. “You will put her to work, Mrs. Wigan, and I shall hold you personally responsible for her safety. She is to sleep the night in the housekeeper’s room, if you please, and it will be much the worse for you if she not still there come morning.”

“Greyfalcon!”

“My lord, do you be tellin’ me that there is a young lady?”

“A young woman, certainly. As for whether she qualifies as a lady at the moment, I leave you to judge for yourself.”

“’Tisn’t fittin’, m’lord,” Mrs. Wigan began firmly, speaking as one who had known him and served his family for a good many years. “Ye ought not to be doin’ this, truly ye ought not. What would yer lady mother be sayin’, I ask ye that.”

“My mother would certainly prefer that I keep Miss Jensen-Graham safe from harm. She would certainly say I ought not to allow her to go about in public dressed as she is.”

“Considering that you dragged me down I don’t know how many public streets, that’s a bit thick, my lord,” said Miss Jensen-Graham sarcastically.

He looked at her. “I don’t recall asking for your opinion.” He turned away then, before she could inform him that whether he wanted it or not, he would certainly hear her opinion of his despicable plan. Taking Mrs. Wigan by the arm, he led her nearer the desk, speaking now in urgent, low tones. A moment later, the housekeeper turned back to Sylvia.

“When yer finished wi’ yer letter, miss, I’ll be just outside the door.” Her tone was stiff but resigned.

Sylvia waited only until the door had shut behind her before leaping to her feet to launch her attack. “How dare you!” she cried. “Do you forget who I am, sir? Do you forget that my uncle is none other than the Marquess of Lechlade, friend to many in high places, including the prime minister himself? How do you suppose he would respond to the information that you had kept his niece captive overnight, that you had forced her to serve in your house as a scullery maid?”

Greyfalcon regarded her quizzically. “I don’t know,” he said slowly, letting his gaze move slowly from her tousled hair down her body to her feet. “I do know that he is in town, however. Shall we go to Lechlade House and ask him what he thinks of it? I can take you there at once, if you like.”

Sylvia suddenly wanted nothing so much as to throw the inkstand at him. He knew perfectly well what her stuffy uncle would say if he were to hale her into his presence dressed as she was. Speechlessly, helplessly, she stared at him, telling herself that if it was the last thing she ever did, she would be revenged upon him for this day.

Greyfalcon’s features relaxed at last and his blue eyes twinkled as he read the intent in her expression. “You might just as well give in gracefully, you know. There is nothing you can do about the situation at the moment, except to obey me. Later, perhaps, you may get your revenge.”

It was as though he spoke to humor a child, and it was almost the last straw. The inkstand stood rather too near her right hand, and her hand fairly itched to pick it up. But even as the thought crossed her mind, she saw the expression in his eyes begin to harden and she knew she did not dare. Instead, she said with as much calm as she could muster, “You said we were to leave the city immediately.”

“You also heard me say, at Brooks’s, that I am expecting company to dine. I can scarcely change that arrangement without giving rise to just the sort of chatter I’d prefer to avoid. I shall have my dinner party, and we will make the trip into Oxfordshire tomorrow in a single day. If we were to leave at once, we shouldn’t get much farther than Colnbrook before dark, and I’ve not the slightest intention of racking up at an inn with you, my girl.”

“Goodness, my lord, you are mighty concerned with the proprieties for a gentleman who has just insisted that I spend the night at your house.”

“Mind the sarcasm, miss. You will be under the eye of Mrs. Wigan, who is the soul of respectability. And, Sylvia,” he said, returning to that warning tone she had already learned to detest, “remember that I shall hold her responsible for your actions. Be certain before you act that you wish the consequences of your actions to be visited upon an innocent woman.”

“I don’t believe you would do such a thing,” she said stoutly.

“Believe it. Have you finished with that letter?”

She swallowed hard, for his tone had left nothing to doubt. “No.”

“Do so. Then get you to the kitchens. I daresay Mrs. Wigan can find you something more suitable to wear than that rig.”

Sylvia glared at him, but he turned away toward his desk and she had nothing to do but to sit back down and finish her letter to Joan.

W
ITH EVERY PLATE AND
pot she scrubbed that night, Sylvia cursed the Earl of Greyfalcon and plotted ways to be revenged upon him. Mrs. Wigan had suggested rather diffidently that Miss Jensen-Graham might prefer to spend the evening in the housekeeper’s room rather than up to her elbows in soapsuds in the scullery, but Sylvia had refused, not trusting Greyfalcon for a moment and believing her doubts fully justified when he appeared in the kitchen at half-past ten o’clock, smiling and jesting as though he had merely come to thank the kitchen staff for a job well done and not to check up on his reluctant guest.

“I thank ye, miss,” the plump housekeeper said in an undertone when the earl had gone back to his friends upstairs. “I did not think he would come.”

“Well, I did not doubt it. I know you think he is doing what is necessary, Mrs. Wigan, but your master is a tyrant, and that’s all there is about it.” She shook lukewarm, sudsy water from her hands and reached for a cloth to dry them.

“’Tain’t fittin’, a young lady like you in a scullery,” said the housekeeper, “that’s certain sure. But wi’ ’s lordship in ’is cups, as ’e was t’day, there be no gainsaying ’im, and wi’ all them gentlemen and who knows what else upstairs, I daren’t leave the kitchen, fer there be no certainty they’ll stay put wi’ ’is lordship in the dining room, when all be said and done, though the rest of the ’ouse be mostly wrapped up in ’olland covers. Ah, what ’er ladyship would think of the goings-on in this house nowadays. It don’t bear thinkin’ of, miss, and that’s a fact.”

“I believe you,” Sylvia said dryly. “Look here, Mrs. Wigan,” she added, intending to tell the woman she would be even safer at the Earl of Reston’s house. But she bit the words off unsaid, remembering that Greyfalcon had said he would hold the housekeeper responsible for her presence in the morning. In his cups, the woman had said, and no doubt she was right. He had certainly been drinking when she had seen him at Brooks’s, and she remembered thinking the drink she saw was not his first. And he certainly would be drinking more tonight with his guests. If he were sober, she could not believe him so unfair as to take his anger at her out on the innocent housekeeper. But if he were to waken with a sore head the next morning, he might be capable of anything. She dared not take the chance. “’Twas nothing of importance,” she said at last. “Are there any more of these awful pots?”

“Never ye mind, miss. Now ’e’s been an’ gone, ’e’s not like t’ show ’is face again. We’ll leave the rest fer Sally t’ look after. She’ll not mind.” Their voices were pitched low, for it had been Mrs. Wigan’s suggestion that it would be best to keep Sylvia’s identity a secret from the kitchen help, and Sylvia had heartily agreed with her. She knew she needn’t worry about any of them recognizing her in future, assuming she should ever again, by any mischance, find herself at Greyfalcon House and they should see her in her own clothes. Dressed as she was now, in one of Mrs. Wigan’s own dresses, it had proved necessary to bunch the excess material at the waist and to tie it around and around with her apron strings. Thus, she looked rather thick-waisted—square, in fact—for there was an overabundance of material everywhere, and the light-gray color of the dress made her own complexion look sallow. Add to all that the fact that her hair was bundled into a mob cap and that the lighting in the kitchen left much to be desired by anyone who wished to see what she was doing, let alone to recognize her at a later date, and Sylvia was quite certain she had nothing to fear in that regard.

She agreed at once and without regret with Mrs. Wigan’s suggestion that they retire to the housekeeper’s room, but when she discovered that Greyfalcon’s cavalier suggestion that she spend the night there meant sharing a bed with the housekeeper, she balked again. “I couldn’t, Mrs. Wigan. Whatever would your husband think?”

“’Tisn’t what Wigan thinks as counts, miss,” the housekeeper replied with dignity. “’Tis what ’is lordship thinks. Wigan ’as slept on the wee sofa more than once. ’E’ll not mind doin’ so again.”

“But I could just as well sleep on the sofa,” Sylvia protested, keeping laughter at bay with difficulty.

“That ye’ll not, miss. I’m ter keep ye safe wi’ me, and there’s no sayin’ them young lads won’t be burstin’ into my sittin’ room as well as any other room in the ’ouse.”

“Goodness.”

“Ye might well say so. I didn’t be meanin’ t’ tell ye this, but they’ve women with ’em, Wigan says, and that be when they behave the worst, a’chasin’ of each other up and down the stairs, like as not. ’Tis no fit place fer ye t’ be.”

Sylvia agreed, but at the same time she wished she had sufficient courage to creep out into the corridor to see what she might see. She had never before passed the night in a rake’s house, and she thought that perhaps her education had been sadly neglected. Men chasing women, and perhaps the other way around as well, from what Mrs. Wigan said. She longed to question the woman further, but she knew it would be of no use. Mrs. Wigan, just as Greyfalcon had said, was the soul of propriety, and was already looking self-conscious at having revealed so much. A moment later, she was pointing to Sylvia’s cases, standing in a neat row beside the high patchwork-covered bed.

“Ye’ll be wanting yer own things now, miss.”

Sylvia thanked her, did no more than what was absolutely necessary by way of preparing for bed, and made no further argument about where she would spend the night. It occurred to her as she pulled the thick patchwork quilt up to her chin that she was more tired than she could remember ever being before. It was the last thought that passed through her mind that night. The next conscious thought she had was one of annoyance. Someone was calling her name, and she wished they would stop.

“Miss, miss, ’tis time ye were up and about. ’Is lordship done called fer ’is horses and chaise already. If ye be wishful ter break yer fast, ye’d best bustle about.”

Sylvia groaned, stretched, and turned over to find Mrs. Wigan, fully dressed, leaning over her with a candle in hand. “Go away,” she said sleepily. “It isn’t morning yet.”

“Aye, that it is, and no mistake, though ’tis earlier than I’d expected ’is lordship t’ be about. Now, ye just stir yerself, miss, else ’e says ’e’ll come t’ fetch ye ’imself. I’ve told ’im I’ll not be allowin’ no such of a thing, but ’e’s in no frame of mind t’ be withstood, an ’e takes the notion into ’is ’ead, an’ so I’m warnin’ ye.”

Sylvia sighed but did as she was told, donning her tan traveling dress and a pair of dark-brown kid boots and tidying her hair into a neat bun at the nape at her neck. It appeared that she was meant to break her fast in the housekeeper’s room, for there was bread and cheese laid out upon the table in the sitting room, and a pot of tea besides. She seated herself and did ample justice to the simple meal, looking up when the housekeeper returned.

“I am ready, Mrs. Wigan. When does his lordship intend to depart?”

“At once, miss. Wigan’ll fetch yer cases.”

“Who is to go with us?”

“What’s that, miss?” Mrs. Wigan looked confused by the question.

“I assume that Greyfalcon has arranged for a maidservant to accompany me,” Sylvia said patiently.

Mrs. Wigan shook her head. “There be no maidservants, miss, only Wigan and me, the boots, and me nephew, who comes in ter oblige when ’is lordship entertains.”

“Well, what about Sally, then, or Cook?”

“Cook don’t travel, miss, not if it was ever so, and Sally lives out. Don’t be many young wenches willing ter work in a bachelor’s ’ouse, lessin’ they lives nearby and not in. And I doubt Sally’d be wantin’ ter go into Oxfordshire, when all is said and done, miss. That be why the master be wishful ter make the journey in one day, don’t you know.”

Sylvia nodded, but she wasn’t by any means certain that she wanted to spend the entire day shut up in a traveling coach with Greyfalcon. She discovered when she met him upon the doorstep that she needn’t have worried. He had no wish to share such accommodations with her either. A light traveling chaise stood waiting at the curbside, drawn by a team of magnificent black horses. A fifth horse—this one a large, handsome bay—stood waiting patiently behind the chaise. A pair of uniformed postboys were already mounted on the offside horses, and Wigan himself was tying the last of her cases into the boot.

“Good,” Greyfalcon said when he saw her. “I am in no mood to be kept waiting.”

“You look like a bear with a sore head,” said Sylvia sweetly. “Ape drunk, were you?”

“That, my child, is none of your affair.”

She appeared to consider his words for a moment, then said, “Well, do you know, I think it is very much my concern if you are to be my sole protection on this long and no doubt perilous journey.”

“It will be perilous, indeed, if you mean to bait me,” he replied with equal sweetness. There was a glitter in his indigo eyes that told her he meant what he said, so she nodded submissively and placed her hand gently upon his arm.