Carla Kelly (3 page)

She was as startled as he was. The dimple disappeared, and she looked in dismay from Robert to Sally, as though waiting for a reprimand.

“Come now. It's an easy question,” he said, egged on by some demon that seemed to be amplifying his voice until he sounded almost like he commanded troops again. He could see his mother coming toward him, alarm on her face. He held up a hand to stop her. “I want to know where you are from and what is your name.”

The servant's face had drained of all color now. She swallowed several times, and if anything, her carriage became even more regal. She looked him right in the eye, something he had never seen before in a servant. She spoke quite distinctly.

“My name is Emma Costello, sir, and I am from County Wick-low.”

“Well, curse you, then, and all your bog-trotting relatives,” he said, and he turned on his heel and left the room. In another moment he slammed out of the house, ignoring his mother, and hurried down the sidewalk. He was too upset for Fae. It would be White's and a bottle of brandy. Maybe two.

VEN THE RELATIVE SERENITY OF WHITE'S IN midafternoon could not assuage Lord Ragsdale's curious combination of vast ill-usage and shame of the dreariest sort. After a brief appearance in the main hallway, where the billiards players lounged between games and laid outrageous wagers on the evening's activities, he eased himself into the reading room. He sank with a sigh into his favorite old leather chair (wondering all over again why ordinary homes didn't have such simple pleasures), snapped open
The Times,
and burrowed behind it.

There were several articles that should have interested him. Napoleon had left the French Army under the tender mercies of Marshal Soult in Spain, and Soult had cat-and-moused General John Moore all the way to La Coruña in swift retreat.

“Bother it!” John Staples growled as he turned the page. And here was Napoleon in Paris again, enduring another diplomatic minuet by the lame but adroit Talleyrand. “Spit on all Frenchmen!” the marquess muttered and buried his face in the announcements of weddings and engagements. Yes, spit on the French, he thought as he perused the closely written lines to read of friends about to succumb to one stage or another of matrimony. If the French had not nosed about the Irish in the last century and given them cause to revolt, he would still be looking at the paper with two eyes instead of one. And he might still have an army career.

He folded the paper and rested it on his chest, allowing reason—or a close cousin to it—to reclaim him.
John, you idiot, you have made a scene in front of a servant
, he chided himself. He winced at the memory of the shock on his mother's face and Robert's frank stare. Like all good butlers, Lasker had developed sudden amnesia, irreversible until the evening meal belowstairs in the servants’ dining room, Lord Ragsdale was sure.

Lord Ragsdale knew that once Lasker spread the word below-stairs about the master's rudeness (probably with raised eyebrows and then the sorrowful pronouncement that the late Lord Ragsdale would never have exhibited such rag manners), he would suffer several days from a slowdown in domestic efficiency. Until the staff recovered from this attack on one of their own, the maid who delivered the morning coal while he still slept would rattle it a little louder in the scuttle; his shaving water would be only lukewarm; there would be scorch marks on his neck cloths; and the béarnaise sauce would be soupy. Such were the subtle punishments handed out by powerless people.

He had only managed the barest glance at Emma Costello when he flung himself out of the gold saloon and was rewarded with a look of bewilderment. If he had suddenly struck her with his fists instead of his words, she could not have looked more surprised. He thought about Emma Costello and County Wicklow and doubly swore at himself for being a fool. He had spent his lifetime upstairs and far from servant gossip, but he knew enough about the hierarchy below-stairs to assure himself that Emma would not be treated well there, either. No one liked the Irish. He should never have shouted at her.

He sighed again and rubbed his forehead above his dead eye. It seldom pained him now, but he massaged the spot out of habit. When his eye was still a raw wound, some imp—was it too much laudanum?—twitted his agonized brain until he began to think that if he rubbed hard enough, his sight would return. It never happened, of course. When the pain lessened, he could only wonder at his foolishness.

So much self-flogging made him restless. With an oath, he got up, listened to the leather chair sigh for him, and moved to the fireplace, where he stood staring down at the flames. Rain scoured the windows again and matched his melancholy.

As soon as the rain let up, he would return to Curzon Street and apologize to his mother and Robert Claridge. An apology to Robert's sister probably wasn't necessary. Sally had watched his brief explosion with the wide-eyed stare of someone destined always to be a fraction late with the news. One didn't have to apologize to servants, of course, so he needn't say anything to Emma.

He returned after dinner at White's and a brief visit to Fae Moullé. She had opened the door to his two-rap knock with her usual cheerful demeanor and helped him out of his overcoat, chattering half in French and half in English about some neighborhood happening. In the early days of their relationship, her bilingual patter had amused him, excited him even. Now as he allowed her to unwind his muffler and put her hands in familiar places, he felt only a certain irritation that she couldn't confine herself to one language or the other. Hot words rose to his lips, but he forced them back. No sense in tempting another work slowdown among those he paid; one from Fae would be much more uncomfortable than lukewarm shaving water. He kissed her instead, allowed her to lead him toward the bedroom, and then changed his mind.

He sat on the bed next to her but placed her hands carefully in her lap. “No, not now, Fae.”

Her lower lip came out in that familiar pout. He looked at her and wondered why he had thought that expression so attractive.
Grow up, you silly widgeon
, he wanted to shout. He took her hand instead, noting how shapely it was, how each nail was filed to a softly rounded tip. Such effort was probably the work of an afternoon for Fae.

He turned slightly to face her. “Fae, my love, what do you think about when I am not here?” he asked.

A number of expressions crossed her face, but the one that kept recurring was a vague puzzlement that sank his spirits even lower. She just looked at him, as though wondering what he wanted her to say.

“Really, Fae,” he plunged ahead, warming to his topic. “When we're not together, what thoughts cross your mind?”

Again that silence.
I don't pay you enough to think, do I?
he considered, and the realization made him rub his forehead once more.

“Do you ever read?” he asked, his voice gentle.

“Read, John?”

“Yes, Fae. That's when you open a book and examine its lines from left to right with the object of interpreting the words on the page. Some do it for enlightenment; others for entertainment,” he explained patiently, his insides writhing.

She was silent as she took her hand out of his and gave him her profile. “I think about what I am going to wear and how I should arrange my hair.” She brightened then. “When the delivery boy comes with food, he always jokes a bit and asks what I think about politics.”

“And what do you tell him?”

Fae turned back to regard him, her eyes wide in her flawless face. “Oh, I just laugh.” She gave him a demonstration, her tinkling laughter as lovely as her features.

He grinned then, pulled her up, and slapped her lightly on the rump. “Fae, well, it was a stupid question, wasn't it?”

Her hands went to his neck cloth then, but he removed them and put on his coat again. “Some other time, m'dear.” She was starting in again in her Anglo-Franco babble as he closed the door quietly behind him.

The evening sky was spitting out snow as he hurried along the street. If he didn't feel any worse for his encounter with his mistress, he also felt no better. When he returned home and allowed Lasker this time to help him out of his overcoat, he suddenly realized that it wouldn't take much to send him off to Norfolk finally, to an empty estate and a full wine cellar.
I have avoided it too long
, he thought. He stood indecisively in the hall, wondering where his mother was.

“She is at cards, my lord,” Lasker pronounced.

“Lasker, you are amazing,” Lord Ragsdale murmured. “I don't even have to speak to get an answer from you.”

“Just so, my lord,” Lasker agreed as they walked along together. He opened the door to the morning room and closed it quietly behind him.

Lady Ragsdale looked up from her solitaire and patted the chair beside her. John shook his head and stood over her, looking down at her hand.

“Mother, you're cheating again,” he commented.

“Of course I am,” she agreed equably. “How do you expect me to win at solitaire unless I cheat?” She took his hand suddenly and kissed it. “My dear, whatever is the matter with you these days?”

He sat down then and, leaning back, stuck his long legs out in front of him. “I don't know, Mother.”

She smiled, glanced sideways at him, and then cheated again. “You remind me of someone on the verge of something.”

He smiled back and returned the card she had just laid down to her hand. “If I had uttered such a nonsensical bit of illogic back at Brasenose in my Oxford years, my don would have kicked me down the stairs!” He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. “As it is, you are probably right.”

“Very well, then, son. Go to bed.”

“Yes, Mama.” Lord Ragsdale stood up and stretched. “By the way, it is snowing again.”

While he watched, she put the offending card back in its place before her. “We are still going to Oxford tomorrow.”

“Yes, Mama,” he repeated, smiling slightly. He may not have apologized in words, but she understood.
How dear you are to me
, he thought as he admired her calm beauty.
Perhaps if I am extremely lucky, one day I will have a daughter who looks like you.

She blew a kiss to him as he stood in the open door. “Son, you have a chance to redeem yourself tomorrow.”

“Hmm?”

“My dresser is not feeling good enough to travel. Emma Costello will travel in her stead and look after Sally and me.”

He sighed, started his hand toward his forehead, and then dropped it. “Then I will be on horseback, madam,” he replied crisply as he left the room.

Robert Claridge was still up, but only just, when Lord Ragsdale knocked on his cousin's door. When he opened it to Robert's sleepy “Come in,” his young cousin sat up quickly in bed, as though trying to appear at attention.

“For heaven's sake, relax!” John admonished as he closed the door and sat himself down beside his cousin's bed. “I am only your cousin, and by the eternal, I am a stupid one. Forgive me for my outburst this afternoon, Robert,” he apologized simply.

Robert scratched his head and lay back down again. He punched his pillow into a comfortable ball and looked at his cousin. “Don't trouble your head about it, my lord,” he said. “My aunt Staples explained why you haven't much love for the Irish.”

“No, I haven't,” he agreed, grateful to his mother all over again for smoothing his path with his young relative. “But that's no excuse for such rudeness to your servant.”