Carla Kelly (15 page)

She pulled out a letter instead, which she would have returned without reading, except that the title in bold lettering caught her attention. “Waterloo Seed Farm,” she read. I like that better than “Quilling Seed Farm,” David. She read the letter to herself, noting the misspellings and shaky grammar, but impressed with the message. “So you would volunteer some of your wheat to others for trial, sir?” she murmured. “That is a good idea.” She folded her hands on the drafting table, looking at the list of names running down one side of the letter. “And I suppose these are all local landowners within easy riding distance, so you can check on your experimental wheat.”

She put away the letter and got down off the stool, curious to know if the bailiff would allow her to help him with the spelling and grammar. I hope he will not be too proud, she reflected. I would be, she thought honestly. Let us hope that the bailiff is a better person than I am.

The strawberries claimed her notice then. She weeded them and ate a few that interested her, thinking of berries sugared and fed to attentive gentlemen sharing alfresco luncheons. At least, her cousin Fanny had embellished that tale after one event of her London Season and passed it on to a cousin chafing at home. Susan tried to imagine feeding a sugared strawberry to David Wiggins, and could only laugh, shake her head, and weed a little faster.

Even the succession house felt lonely, and she looked about for the cat, who should have been shamelessly toadying about her ankles and nudging her for pets and ear rubs. Kittens, is it? she thought. She wiped her hands on some burlap sacking and walked around the succession house, peering into dark corners where David had pointed out beds he had made of toweling in the hope that the cat would pick a comfortable spot for “the blessed event,” as he put it. No luck. Of course, reasoned Susan as she made another circuit, what cat ever did the convenient thing?

She found the cat and kitten on the third circuit, lying on the bailiff’s uniform jacket, which had been rolled up and stuffed inside a box next to the bags of seed wheat. The cat was vigorously licking the slimy, unfinished-looking kitten curled up beside her, mouth open in a soundless meow. Then as Susan watched, the cat stopped, and with inward preoccupation, purred louder and expelled a second kitten in a gush of fluid onto Wiggins’ jacket.

“I hope your master had no plans for that coat,” Susan murmured as she watched in fascination. She was still sitting there an hour later, watching the last of four kittens arrive, when the bailiff returned. At least she assumed it was the bailiff. Seated on the floor between the aisles, she could not see him. She stayed where she was, comfortably seated with her legs crossed Indian style and the scrap of a blanket tucked around her. She knew better than to touch the kittens, but she continued to admire them, tiny, hairless, utterly dependent. It’s not that I am shy about getting up, she rationalized. It’s just that I do not wish to startle Mama Cat.

“All right, Susan, someone else is breathing in here besides me, and I don’t think Tim the cowman dabs . . . lily of the valley, is it . . . behind his ears. Although he should.”

Susan smiled but did not get up. “Your cat had kittens, and I have been observing.”

After lighting another lamp, he came toward the sound of her voice. “You really shouldn’t sit there on the cold floor,” he scolded mildly as he draped his coat around her shoulders and sat down beside her, leaning his back against the counter. He tickled the cat under her chin, smiling as she stretched her neck up. “And good job to you, my dear. You managed to miss all my clever birthing locations and wedge yourself onto my jacket. Why am I not surprised?”

“I hope the coat wasn’t a valuable memento,” Susan said when the silence threatened to extend beyond her comfort.

“No. I’m not one to gather memories that way.” He took up a corner of the coat that he had put around her shoulders and pulled it behind his back, drawing them closer together. “Thanks for weeding the strawberries,” he said. “Now, where are the ones you should have picked?”

They weren’t exactly touching shoulders, but Aunt Louisa would not have approved. “I ate them,” she said, feeling not even slightly repentant. “They were excellent.”

“I’m so glad,” he replied dryly. “Now, suppose Lady B asks for strawberries tomorrow morning, and I have to tell her that her lady’s companion ate them?”

Susan couldn’t help herself. She nudged his shoulder with her own. “Oh, you know she will not!”

The bailiff chuckled and settled himself a little closer. “I know,” he agreed, and was silent then.

She could think of nothing to say. I have babbled enough today in front of the vicar, she thought. I feel just as uncomfortable as I did then in Lady Bushnell’s sitting room, but I refuse to blather on this time. Someone else can fill the gap this time.

But the bailiff did not. He sat close beside her, their hips touching now, with his legs drawn up. He watched the kittens through the space in his legs, every now and then reaching out to touch the cat. In a few more moments, she had organized the little morsels of life beside her and they were nursing. The cat heaved a sigh of her own and rested her head on the coat’s hatch marks.

“That’s a good use for an old relic,” Wiggins commented finally. “Five years ago I wrapped Lord Bushnell in it after he was hit. Ah, well.”

There wasn’t anything in his tone of voice to indicate that he needed comfort, but Susan had to resist the urge to move even closer and rest her head on his shoulder. She had heard stories about men and battle, and how some dreamed and suffered for years, but the bailiff did not appear to be one of them.

“It was just one more incident in your life, wasn’t it?” she asked.

He nodded, understanding her perfectly. “It was,” he agreed. “Of course, Waterloo was Waterloo, and nothing will ever compare to it, but I suppose you’re right. It was just one more thing. I suppose nothing really had the capacity to surprise me after Lady B retrieved me from death.”

She turned a little to look at him then, impressed with his solidity and the calmness of his nature. Someday, if I am very lucky, I will be so wise, she thought.

He looked at her, a question in his eyes. “What is it you want to say, Susan?” he asked.

“I don’t think I could put it into words,” she said frankly.

“Try.”

She looked at the cat then, and the kittens kneading to suck at her belly. “You impress me with your courage. I . . . I suppose I wish I were that brave.”

“You are,” he said simply. “You’re braver than all the Hamptons who ever lived.”

She laughed then. “That would not be difficult!” He was so close that she could smell soap, so she knew it was time to change the subject. “Actually, I came to tell you that Lady Bushnell let me drink tea with her.”

Immediately, she wished she had not said anything. The bailiff moved away slightly. She did not pretend that he was merely resettling himself. Their shoulders still touched, but he had shifted his hip out of her range. What did I say? she asked herself. Whatever it was, it was the wrong thing.

“Good for you,” the bailiff said finally. His voice was the same as ever, but it was different, too, in a way that baffled her. “But why should we be surprised? After all, Susan, you are one of them.”

“One of them,” she repeated. “I don’t understand.”

Wiggins got up then in one swift motion, holding out his hand to her. She let him pull her to her feet and take the coat from around her shoulders. He walked down the aisle, tossed his coat toward the peg, and sat on the stool at the drafting table.

“You’re too much of a lady to remark on how well I speak English,” he commented, resting his elbows on the slanting table.

If I can change the subject, I suppose you can, too, she thought, puzzled. “I guess I never considered it,” wishing her words did not sound so lame, but curious where he was going.

“When the elder Lord Bushnell made me one of his regimental sergeants, I started to study the officers,” he explained, not taking his eyes from her face. “I decided it would be well to imitate their diction and labor over my faulty grammar.” He smiled to himself, but it was a deprecating expression. “I don’t regret that particularly, but one of those little lords with a purchased captaincy took me aside before the battle of Salamanca. I’ll never forget his words. ‘You may sound like a gentleman, Sergeant Wiggins, but you’ll never be one of us.’” He grinned at her in genuine amusement. “He was right, of course, bless his blue blood, which, by the way, looked quite as red as everyone else’s when spread all over the Spanish plain. ‘One of us,’” he repeated, then took out his ledger, effectively dismissing her.

She watched him a moment more, but he was reaching for a pencil, and then looking for his ruler. One of us, she thought, amusement mingled with equal parts of exasperation. You propose to me, then tell me it was just a silly impulse. You almost tip the vicar into my lap. You set me up for Lady Bushnell to order about. You kiss me and trouble my mind and body. And myth and rumor have it that
women
are difficult to comprehend? I am so far removed from my sphere right now that I will do the only intelligent thing.

“Good night, sir,” she said. It was so easy to smile at him, and considerably smarter than tears or remonstrations.

“Good night, Susan,” he said, returning her smile with one of his own.

She could have passed him without the necessity of another word, and she did, but not before she reached out and touched his arm lightly as it lay on the desk. Figure that one out, Mr. Wiggins, she thought as she left the succession house and saved her laughter for the kitchen.

Before she prepared for bed in the silent house, she sat down to write to Joel Steinman. It was a cautious letter. She had never written to a man before, even if it was to the employment agent who had gotten her this job, and she hesitated a long time, redipping her quill into the ink any number of times. She told about the glove and Ben Rich, and his Welsh shepherd boy, and the kindness of the Skerlongs, and her own determination to be a lady’s companion to a lady with twice her own backbone, and miles more character and courage. She described that first disastrous piano encounter, and the bliss of finally drinking tea with the widow. She was careful not to mention the bailiff. After all, she reasoned as the ink dried on the quill again. Joel Steinman knows something about propriety. I must not let him think I am interested in the bailiff. I will add casually that I am interested in the governess position, but not that I am overly anxious, she thought, and put pen to paper again. In the main, this is true. I think I am well enough off here, if only I will concentrate on my duties and not try to figure out what the bailiff is up to, if anything beyond a mild flirtation. Aunt Louisa would have it that all men are rogues and flirts.

Perhaps she is right, Susan decided as she pulled on her nightgown, tied her sleeping cap under her chin, danced about because the floor was cold, and hopped into bed. Papa cannot resist a gaming table; perhaps the bailiff cannot resist lily of the valley and trim ankles. I wonder what else he cannot resist, she considered as she closed her eyes.

She was asleep then and dreaming of marsh birds looking for their hats, and tea pouring endlessly from a pot as high as the roof into a tiny cup far below while Lady Bushnell hanged on her ankles and tried to scoot her off the piano stool.

“Susan! Wake up!”

It wasn’t Lady Bushnell but the bailiff, and he was sitting on her bed, nudging her sideways with his hip to gain a little space for himself as he shook her shoulders. She snapped her eyes open, somewhere still between dreaming and waking, and put her hands on his face. Suddenly, in that curious semisleep, it was the loveliest moment of her life. He was warm, and he was close. Her fingers went to his lips. “Hush!” she said as he kissed her fingers. It seemed to be the most automatic of gestures to the bailiff, because he kept shaking her, and the lovely moment ended. She took her hand away, her mind still fuddled with sleep and the sharpest desire she had ever felt.

“Susan, you’ve got to wake up! I saw a light on late in Lady Bushnell’s room, but her door is locked and she doesn’t answer. You have to help me!”

Chapter Thirteen

She sat up, fully awake. Without another word, the bailiff pulled her from the bed and into the hall, hurrying with her to Lady Bushnell’s room. He paused outside the door, still gripping Susan’s arm.

“I was late in the succession house. When I was walking back to my place, I noticed Lady Bushnell’s light on. She’s never up that late.” He spoke rapidly. “I came upstairs and tried the door, but it’s locked, and she didn’t answer when I called.” He released her arm. “I want you to go in first.”

She nodded, understanding his position, and stood back against the wall as the bailiff tried to shoulder his way in. “Damn!” he muttered under his breath when the door would not give. He stepped back then, and kicked the door, which crashed open, the lock sprung.

Susan hurried inside, her heart in her throat, but Lady Bushnell was not in sight. She ran to the other side of the bed and stared down at the widow, who lay there looking up at her, her hand on her chest, her eyes huge with fright.

“Oh, Lady Bushnell,” Susan exclaimed in a soft voice. She quickly pulled down the widow’s nightgown, which had ridden up around her knees, and nodded to the bailiff, who stood on the other side of the bed. “You’ll have to help me, David,” she said.

The bailiff came around the bed, knelt down beside the widow, and picked her up gently. With a sob of relief, she turned her face into his chest and tightened her arm around his neck. “I knew you would come,” she said, her voice scarcely louder than a breath.

Susan felt tears start in her eyes as the bailiff swallowed, then held the widow close for a brief moment before lowering her carefully to the bed. Susan hurried forward to pull up the blankets and smooth down the pillow, then stepped back as the bailiff sat on the bed, holding tight to the widow’s hands. “Get her some water,” he ordered Susan over his shoulder.

Surprised at the steadiness of her hands, Susan poured the widow a drink and handed the cup to the bailiff. She rested her hand on his shoulder for the smallest moment, and felt her own fear dwindling. “Just a sip, now, Lady Bushnell,” said the bailiff in a tone that allowed for no argument. Your sergeant’s voice? Susan thought as she sat in the chair next to the bed. “Very good,” he said when the old woman obliged him. “Can you tell us what happened?”

Never taking her eyes from his face, the widow nodded. She gestured weakly to the pile of old letters strewn by the bed. “I was going to . . . to read these before I turned out the light.” She paused, as though the sentence had worn her out, and pressed her hand to her heart again. Tears of frustration welled up in her eyes.

The bailiff raised her other hand to his chest and held it there. “No hurry, Lady Bushnell. Take your time, please.”

She smiled at him and closed her eyes for a moment. The bailiff looked at Susan and she could see his jaw working from the tension he was trying so hard to hide from the widow. Impulsively she leaned forward and touched his leg, the only part of him she could reach without getting up.

“My heart . . . I felt like I was suffocating, and all the time, my heart was racing,” the widow continued, her eyes, large now with amazement, on the bailiff again. “I got up to get a drink of water and I fell.” She closed her eyes again. “It was like that other time.”

The bailiff frowned and was silent for several moments, absorbing what she had said. “Do you mean this is what happened before, when you told me you tripped on the stairs?” he asked, his voice firm.

She sighed like a child caught in mischief and forced to confess. “It was. I told you I tripped on a loose rug. I didn’t tell you it was because my heart was racing and startled me.”

“Lady Bushnell . . .” he began, then stopped. “Oh, never mind,” he concluded, resignation evident in his tone.

“It’s happened a few other times,” the widow admitted. “I was . . . afraid . . .”

“. . . I would tell your daughter-in-law,” he concluded with some asperity. “Lady Bushnell, you are a scamp and a rascal and old Lord Bushnell would scold you up one side and down the other if he were here!”

She nodded, smiling now. “Yes, he would, wouldn’t he?” Her voice grew serious again. “But he’s not here; none of them are. And neither is the army, and the battles are over, and they have all left me behind! How dare they do that?”

She was silent then, the tears spilling onto her cheeks. Chilled to the bone by Lady Bushnell’s anguish, Susan knelt by the bed and wiped her eyes with the edge of the sheet. She rested her head against Lady Bushnell’s arm. “David has to go for the doctor, my lady. I’ll stay here with you,” she murmured.

“Sergeant, I insist that you do nothing of the kind. And that is an order!” she said, her voice weak but determined. “I’ll have you court-martialed!” she added, clutching his hand tighter.

“I wouldn’t care, madam,” he replied gently. “I’m still going for the doctor. You can dismiss me tomorrow.”

“And I will,” she insisted, but there wasn’t any fervor behind the threat. “You can be sure of it.”

David chuckled and leaned forward to kiss Lady Bushnell’s cheek. She stared at him. “Sergeant, you’re taking liberties,” she warned, but made no move to release his hand.

“I am for sure, but if you’re letting me go tomorrow, it doesn’t matter! Now hush and let Susan give you another sip of water. I’ll be back with the doctor.” Gently he loosened her grip on him and got up. He went to the door and, with the slightest gesture, indicated that Susan follow him.

She got up quietly, rested her hand for a moment on Lady Bushnell’s cheek, then joined the bailiff at the door. He took her hand and tugged her into the hall.

“Just keep her quiet,” he whispered, his lips close to her ear.

She nodded, then turned toward him. “What if she dies? I’m afraid.”

He grabbed her in a quick hug then. “You’ll do, Susan. Take care of her for me.”

“I will,” she promised as he released her, “but I’m still afraid.”

He was backing away from her down the hall. “Think on this, then, Susan. You look really lovely in flannel, but I don’t care much for sleeping caps.”

You are a rascal, she thought as she went back into the bedroom, took a deep breath to fortify herself, and sat in the spot the bailiff had vacated. Lady Bushnell was crying now, and Susan wanted to cry, too. She wanted to run back to her room, barricade the door, and wallow in her own fear. Instead, she took a firm grip on Lady Bushnell’s hand and wiped her eyes again.

“Is your heart still racing?” she asked, dreading whatever answer was coming.

Lady Bushnell nodded, the fright in her eyes unmistakable.

“Then let me help you sit up,” Susan said. “I’ll put this pillow behind your head. There. Is that better?” Please let it be better, she thought.

To her relief, Lady Bushnell nodded. “I could use another sip of water.”

Susan gave her another drink, dabbing at the corners of the widow’s mouth when half of it dribbled out. She tucked Lady Bushnell’s hair into her sleeping cap again and retied the strings. “The doctor will be here soon, and then we’ll see,” she said.

To her dismay, the widow began to cry again, noisy tears of childlike frustration layered over with equal parts of resignation and misery. Alarmed, Susan wiped her eyes again, murmuring soothing sounds that had no words as the widow clutched at her heart and gasped for breath. Casting aside the proprieties, Susan hugged the woman close to her own heart, as though willing its steady beat to communicate its regularity to the afflicted one. With a sob and a strength Susan would not have credited, the widow’s arms went around her and they rocked together on the bed.

In a few minutes, the tears turned into hiccups, and then silence. Susan held the woman close, running her hands over her back and feeling the delicacy of her bones, the fragility that age distilled. “That’s better, now,” she soothed, letting the widow rest against the mounded pillows again.

Lady Bushnell closed her eyes for a moment, her hands tight around Susan’s. “Whatever happens, you must not tell my daughter-in-law,” she insisted, her voice weak but charged with fervor that came from a reservoir deep within.

“I do not know that the matter will be in my hands,” Susan whispered honestly, unconsciously matching the tone of her voice to the widow’s as though they shared a great secret.

“It must be!” Lady Bushnell said, her eyes wide open and fierce, “‘else she will use this as the final excuse to pull me into Bushnell and keep me there.”

“My lady, it may be that you need more attention than either David or I are capable of,” Susan tried to explain. “How wonderful, really, that she cares so much.” At least she will not look at you like Aunt Louisa, measuring your worth and value and begrudging food in your mouth.

“I will be an exhibit!” the widow hissed. “I will be a national relic!” She took Susan by the ties of her nightgown and pulled her closer. “Miss Hampton, I do not think you can understand this, but I have ridden with giants and I do not intend to be fed pabulum or turned into a shrine to be visited and tiptoed around!”

She lay back then among the pillows, exhausted by her exertion. She closed her eyes again, and spoke with the greatest effort. “My daughter-in-law will coddle me and cosset me and talk baby talk,” She seemed to sink into the pillow. “It is not a warrior’s end.” Eyes still closed, she turned her head restlessly toward the door. “Sergeant Wiggins would understand. He knows what it meant to be part of that adventure.” She slapped her hand feebly against the bedclothes. “I wish that you had gone for the doctor instead of him. He understands.”

So do I, Lady Bushnell, Susan thought. Oh, you don’t know. I feel all the cowardice of the Hamptons welling up inside me. Papa would blench and run, offering a thousand excuses with a charming smile. Aunt Louisa would bluster and gobble, and then before you knew it, would have backed out of the room. But I must sit here because David told me to.

And I want to, Susan discovered with a shock as she went to the basin for a washcloth, squeezed out the moisture, and added a drop of lavender. She wiped Lady Bushnell’s face, humming to herself something she remembered from Mama. The tune went back beyond her memory, before there were even words.

“Lullabies, Miss Hampton?” Lady Bushnell said finally, her voice more calm now.

“Is that it?” Susan asked, smiling in spite of herself. The lavender calmed her. “See now, if the sergeant were here, all you would get would be military tunes.”

To her gratification, Lady Bushnell smiled and opened her eyes. Her hand relaxed over her heart, but her eyes went to the door again. “I would like to hear his footsteps about now, wouldn’t you?” she asked. “He has a nice stride.”

“I’ve noticed.”

Lady Bushnell chuckled, then tightened her hand over her heart again. “Susan, imagine watching a whole army with that certain swing to their walk. Is it any wonder we did not so much mind riding in the rear?”

Susan laughed out loud, leaning forward to touch her forehead to Lady Bushnell’s. “Now you confess what kept you following the drum!” she teased gently.

The widow smiled back, her eyes dreamy now, the hurt and pain lessened. “Miss Hampton, do you know what it is like to be loved?”

Susan shook her head. “I wish I did,” she replied frankly, then grinned at Lady Bushnell. “Of course, there is the vicar . . .”

“No, not him,” the widow said almost impatiently. “He would probably think he had to ask permission to hold your hand, and then only after sitting in my parlor for a year or two.”

It was too many words at once. Susan brought the glass to her lips again for another sip. Silence followed, a silence so long that Susan thought she slept. The bailiff did not ask my permission to kiss me, she thought as she rested her hand lightly on Lady Bushnell’s arm. I think he could have done anything he wanted without a word to show for it. “Maybe I could guess,” she ventured, her voice soft even to her own ears.

“In that case, get my letters,” ordered the widow, just the hint of command back again. “After all, if I am determined to die tonight, I want you to read them to me first. It has been so long.”

“But every day I see you with them in your lap,” Susan said. She knelt by the bed to pick up the letters closest to them, put them within Lady Bushnell’s reach, then went to the desk by the window, where she remembered others.

“Susan, let me give you some advice for when you are old.”

There was something so serious in Lady Bushnell’s voice that Susan returned to the bed and sat on the edge of it, the letters in her hand. “I like to think that I will appreciate useful advice,” she said. “No other Hampton does, so it must be a good thing.”

Lady Bushnell gathered the letters closer to her as a mother would gather her children. “When you are old, my dear, you may be surrounded by people who love you. Your children may be there, your husband, too—and don’t look at me like that! I am certain you will find a husband.” She held the letters close to her face for a moment, then rested them on the coverlet. “Or it may be that you will be alone, as I am, and relying on the help of paid employees.”

“Oh, but . . .” Susan began.

“Hush! I know David Wiggins cares about me; he always has. I am beginning to think that you do, too. But you are both in my employ, and that is not the same as family.”

“No, it is not,” Susan agreed simply.

“My advice is this, and perhaps it’s advice that you can use now: don’t ever be too proud to ask for help.” Lady Bushnell looked at her with a steady gaze as little spots of color blazed out from her cheeks, replacing her pallor. “So I am asking your help now. If this is to be my last night, I want you to read my letters to me. They are all I have left of my loves, and it has been so long.”

Susan returned her gaze, confused at first, and then let out her breath in a sigh that came up from her bare toes, as she began to understand. “I did not realize . . . we all thought . . . the letters on your lap,” she stammered, the words spilling out of her. “Oh, my lady, a little trouble like this comes with age. We didn’t know it was so serious! Were you afraid that if David knew your eyes were this diminished, he would tell your daughter-in-law?”