Anne Barbour (4 page)

Jem touched his finger to his cap and made his way out of the stable yard and through the kitchen garden, and was soon speaking to a young female dressed in a rather shabby semblance of the garb worn by a parlor maid. She eyed him with curiosity.

“If you’ll wait here, I’ll tell Miz Carstairs you’re here.”

She ran lightly out of the kitchen, returning a few minutes later to inform him politely that the mistress of the house would meet him in the Great Hall.

Taking a deep breath, Jem followed her out of the kitchen and into the corridor that led to the upper regions of the house. He passed various rooms, whose functions were only dimly remembered by him as sources of homey odors—the fragrance of herbs and fruit from the still room—the scent of beeswax and soap from another small, recessed chamber.

Passing through several doors, they came to an arched hallway from which led several elegantly furnished parlors. Jem glanced cursorily into these, observing them through a haze of memory, until at last they emerged into a huge, vaulted chamber. This was the Great Hall, the formal entrance to the manor. It was sparsely furnished, and Jem wondered what had become of the suits of armor, the vast oak tables, and the ancient hangings that had been a part of his childhood.

“Mrs. Carstairs will be down momentarily.” With a swish of her skirts, the maid hurried away to her duties.

Jem slowly paced the stone flag flooring, finally stopping before a small pier table. An ancient halberd had stood here, which he had once tried to lift, nearly decapitating his sister. He moved to a stone fireplace, large enough to contain a whole tree. It was empty now in the warmth of summer, but in his mind’s eye he saw a dancing blaze, with boughs of fragrant greenery hung about to celebrate Christmas.

God, how could things have come to such a pass? His father murdered and his beautiful mother chiveyed out of their home, stealing away in the dead of night to avoid the wicked designs of Emanuel Carstairs.

Suddenly, unutterably weary, he placed both hands on the fireplace lintel and leaned his head on his arms. He stayed thus, motionless for some moments, until a sound behind him caused him to turn.

Abruptly, he jerked upright, his jaw dropping in amazement. There, floating down the great staircase toward him, dressed in a plain muslin round gown, was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.

Chapter Three

Claudia paused on her journey down the great stairs, taken by surprise at the aspect of the man who waited for her below. His silver eyes seemed to collect the light streaming in from the long, mullioned windows of the hall, and she was again struck by the air of tension about him. As he continued to gaze, she felt an odd trembling begin deep within her. Their eyes locked, and for an instant she felt an indefinable, almost frightening sense of connection with him.

She blinked and smoothed her skirt self-consciously before continuing down the stairs.

“You stated that you are familiar with the duties of butler,” she said rather breathlessly.

He did not reply, but continued to stare at her blankly. Lord, thought Jem, who would have thought that beneath those wretched, smelly men’s garments lurked this vision? Her hair was a glorious, wheat color, almost perfectly matched by great, glowing eyes of a light topaz. Her bearing was regal, and as she descended the great staircase, she resembled the carved statue of a goddess, all gold and ivory, sprung to life. He came to himself with a jerk only after several moments had elapsed.

“Yes, Mrs. Carstairs,” he murmured at last. “That is true. I am familiar with the duties of a butler, and I am at your disposal.”

She flushed, guessing that he had not recognized her at first as the female stable hand he had met yesterday. She drew herself up and addressed him coolly.

“As you perhaps noticed, we have no housekeeper. My Aunt Augusta—that is, Miss Melksham, ordinarily serves in that capacity, however, she is engaged elsewhere at the moment, so it has fallen to me to show you about Ravencroft.”

“My pleasure, ma’am,” returned Jem smoothly. “this is,” he continued, his arm making a sweeping gesture about the hall, “a most impressive chamber. Might one ask when the residence was built?”

“I’m not sure, Mr. January. I was told it came into being during the time of James the First. It—it was smaller then, of course, but subsequent generations have added to it.”

There was nothing in the conversation or in the new butler’s demeanor, thought Claudia, that should make her heart pound so, but she felt as overheated and shaky as though she had been running in the hot sun. It was as though they communicated on two levels, one quite prosaic, and the other unspoken and dangerous. She forced her attention to his next words.

“And was the late Mr. Carstairs’s family in possession of the manor for all those years?” His voice was bland, but beneath his seemingly cursory interest, Claudia fancied that she heard a certain intensity that put her on her guard.

“No,” she replied shortly. “My husband—acquired Ravencroft several years ago. I do not know for how long the previous owner’s family had been in residence.”

Jem eyed the widow narrowly. God, she was beautiful. Why had he not seen it the day before? Even though she’d been close to obliterated by hat, shirt, and stable dust, such beauty should have been apparent. No wonder Carstairs had lusted after her. He felt a tightening inside as he thought of her in thrall to that swine. He cleared his throat.

“How unfortunate that Mr. Carstairs, er, passed away before establishing his own dynasty.”

Mrs. Carstairs made no response to this, but merely turned away with a curt gesture and walked quickly from the room, leaving Jem to follow in some bemusement. In a moment, they stood in a large chamber, illuminated by the light that streamed in from large windows facing the manor’s front lawn. They had been an innovation by Jem’s mother, replacing narrow, badly crafted panes that had kept the room in a perpetual twilight.

“We call this the emerald saloon,” said Claudia, gesturing to indicate emerald-colored hangings. “We receive visitors here, and when I have a moment, this is where I read or take up embroidery or mending.”

The rest of the ground-floor rooms were dealt with briefly, and Jem found that after the initial shock of memory suffered in the hall, he was able to view the shreds of his past with equanimity. The great ballroom embraced its history in shadowed majesty, and the music room seemed to echo the strains of simple airs played on the spinet piano by his mother. They trod sedately through the blue saloon, and then the yellow. They peered into the Chinese drawing room and paused to admire the Restoration staircase. Then they reached the library. Here Jem received another jolt, not one of memory, but one much more recent in origin.

His eyes flew to the walls, lined with age-blackened shelves. In his youth they had been packed solidly with books, many of them bound with precious leathers, others dog-eared and spotted with use. In one of these, Giles Daventry had told him, was concealed the evidence of Emanuel Carstairs’s wrongdoing. Jem gaped at the shelves in shocked astonishment. At least a third of the books were gone!

Jem swung to Claudia Carstairs. “Where—” he croaked, before shutting his mouth to bite off the question. “Where,” he repeated after a moment, “are, um, all the books? That is,” he continued in a calmer tone, “there seems to be too many shelves for the number of volumes displayed. If you will forgive my impertinence, ma’am.”

Claudia eyed him curiously. She had the oddest idea that it was not the paucity of books in the Glenraven library that had caused that look almost of panic in the pseudo-butler’s eyes, but what was it? She was about to squelch his unwarranted interest with a lady-of-the-manor set-down, but decided instead on another tack.

“I sold them,” she replied baldly. She noted with interest the expression of amazed anger that leaped into his eyes, quickly shuttered to one of detached interest.

“Not that it is any of your concern, Mr. January,” she said crisply, “but my husband left me with very little. I’m sure you have already noticed that we are very down pin around here. I am, however, determined to restore Ravencroft to the prosperity it once enjoyed.” She paused for a moment and continued in a low voice. “I cannot tell you how it pained me to dispose of the books, but many of them, such as a first edition of Doctor Johnson’s dictionary, were extremely valuable. That particular collection, by the way, enabled me to purchase three mares of good stock.”

“I see.” Jem’s noncommittal reply covered an unpleasant churning in his gut. My God, he was lucky there was a stick of furniture left in the place. The suits of armor and the tapestries in the hall had undoubtedly gone to a dealer in antiques. Were they even now gracing the neo-gothic drawing room of some jumped-up Cit?

He followed her silently from the room, and by the time they had made their assent to the next floor, his emotions had subsided. He could not blame her for taking whatever methods were to hand. He supposed he would have done the same thing. He could always refurnish Ravencroft to his taste later, when the estate was solvent once more. But what about the one damned book he needed? Had she sold that, too? Daventry had been unsure of the title of the volume, recalling only with certainty that it had the word “rural” in the title. It looked to have been little used, he said, and it sounded extremely dull, which is why he had chosen it as a hiding place. At least, Jem reflected a little wildly, the number of tomes to be searched had been effectively diminished.

They had climbed to the second floor by now, reaching what his employer referred to as “the bedroom wing,” and Jem was again assaulted by memory. Down that corridor had been his parents’ suites, and just two doors along that one there were his sisters’ rooms. The young widow opened each door in turn, explaining briefly the use to which the room was now being put. Jem discovered that Mrs. Carstairs had chosen his mother’s room for her own, and that the yet unseen Aunt Augusta resided in the older of his sisters’ chambers. In another corridor, Jem held his breath as Mrs. Carstairs paused outside yet another chamber.

“This room has been unoccupied since my husband moved in here twelve years ago. We did not need the space, and since it is in an out-of-the-way location, it was simply left as it was in the days when the—the other family lived here.”

She opened the door to reveal a large, airy, sparsely furnished bedchamber.

Jem couldn’t stop himself. He moved into the room and twitched at the holland cover that covered the bed. He caught his breath. My God, he might have just risen from it, a gangly youth of twelve years. The colorful quilt lay as though smoothed in place only yesterday. As in a dream, he moved blindly to cupoards, a rocking horse tucked into one shadowy corner, and shelves on which lay a short lifetime full of treasures. He had nearly broken down and cried in front of everybody when he was told he would have to leave behind his model ship, and the crudely fashioned statue of the Red Indian chief Powhatten.

“I’m so sorry my darling,” his mother had said softly, tears springing to her own blue eyes. “We must leave right now, and we can only bring what we can carry. Perhaps someday ...” But she had choked off the rest of her words and hurriedly finished filling his small valise with things a fellow could very well do without—shirts and underclothing and such.

He held the ship in his hands, lost in thought, until he became suddenly aware that Mrs. Carstairs was staring at him, a very odd expression in those fine, butterscotch eyes. He replaced the ship with an awkward smile.

“Please forgive me ma’am. A room unused for so long— I’m afraid my curiosity got the better of me.”

Claudia gazed at him speculatively, but said nothing.

After that, there was little left of the tour, and as they descended via a narrow flight of servants’ stairs, Claudia enumerated his duties.

“We have no house steward, I’m afraid, so you will have to double as ... Oh.” She stopped abruptly as a tall, spare figure approached them from the other direction. “Here is Aunt Augusta.” She extended her hand to the older woman who, ignoring Jem completely, thrust into Claudia’s hands several papers she carried.

“Would you believe,” she asked rather breathlessly, “what I found in an old cupboard in the laundry room? A whole parcel of Emanuel’s lists!”

When her niece made no response beyond a baffled lift of her brows, the old lady continued. “They all concerned household procedures he wanted put into effect—and it’s my belief the staff simply crushed them up and stuffed them in the cupboard where he’d never find them again.”

Claudia stared at the papers in her hand for some moments, her expression putting Jem in mind of someone who had just been handed something dead and odorous.

She said only, “Very well, I shall burn them.” Turning to Jem she remarked in an odd, controlled tone, “My husband was a rather compulsive note taker. He made lists of absolutely everything. We’re still finding them. Aunt,” she continued, still in that remote voice, “here is the young man I was telling you about. He is to be our butler, at least”—she glanced at Jem dubiously—”temporarily.”

Miss Augusta Melksham inclined her head toward Jem. She appeared to be on the shady side of fifty, and was astonishingly angular. She was tall, with a prepossessing nose, around which her plain features were arranged with precision. Her hair incongruously, was arranged in a profusion of iron-gray ringlets that quivered about forehead and cheeks, punctuating her conversation in a prim dance.

“He seems very young” was her only comment to Claudia. She eyed Jem assessingly. “And very poorly dressed,” she concluded.

Jem shifted uncomfortably, feeling like an errant schoolboy brought before the headmaster. “I... ” he began, but closed his mouth quickly as Miss Melksham lifted her hand.

“I think you are of a size with Morgan,” she said, and turned her head. “Claudia, will you show Mr.—January, is it? What an odd name, to be sure. Will you show Mr. January to Morgan’s quarters? I would do so myself, except that I am late for my appointment with Mrs. Skinner to go over next week’s menus.”