Elizabeth Mansfield (5 page)

But there was more to delight the eye. The bed was flanked with side tables bearing charming china figurines—shepherdesses with beribboned bonnets and harlequins with masks over their eyes. Over the fireplace the mantel, too, held a figurine, in addition to an ormolu clock and two silver candlesticks. And in the wall opposite the fireplace, a doorway led to a dressing room.

Jane carried her candle to the doorway to peer inside. She discovered a chamber as lovely as the bedroom, with a chaise longue on one side, an elegant washstand on the other, and, in between, a long, marble-topped dressing table with an enormous mirror above. Jane gazed around her in delight. It was a charming place in which to dress.

She carried her candle to the dressing table to examine all the wonders that had been laid upon it—an abundance of combs, brushes, perfume bottles, cruets filled with mysterious fluids, vials of lotions and oils, embroidered hand towels, and aromatic soaps. Her sister Adela would have fallen into transports at the sight.

As Jane sniffed into a Chinese box containing a fragrant powder, it suddenly occurred to her to wonder why the items on this table were so explicitly feminine. Hadn't the butler said he'd prepared this room for the guest his lordship was expecting? Wouldn't shaving soap and a razor have been more appropriate than perfumed powders? Unless—

She gasped. Good God! Was the guest Luke Hammond had expected a
woman?
Had she and her ladyship interrupted an
assignation?

She had a vivid memory of how Luke Hammond had looked when he came in—his hair tousled, his forehead wrinkled, his expression troubled. His demeanor had certainly been that of a man who'd narrowly escaped being caught in some sort of guilty pastime. The more she thought of it, the more positive she became that her surmise was correct. He
had
planned an assignation. Her stomach churned in revulsion.

She turned back to the bedroom, the candle trembling in her hand. That blackguard! The man was just what she'd imagined before she'd met him—a wastrel, a ne'er-do-well, a gambler, and a lecher. And to think she'd imagined herself taken with him!

She gave a short, ironic laugh. The feeling had certainly been of short duration. Love at first sight indeed! She quite despised him now.

Well, she consoled herself, there was no need to feel downhearted. The man of the house might be a disappointment, but there was still the bed. Surely that could not disappoint.

She stripped off her dress as quickly as the back buttons permitted, and pulled off her stockings and shoes. Dressed only in her chemise and underdrawers, she clambered up the stepstool and flung herself upon the bed, sinking into the most voluptuous mattress she'd ever encountered. Then, pulling the eiderdown comforter up to her neck, she snuggled into the mound of pillows and sighed with pleasure. This was luxury. Tomorrow, no doubt, she would be consigned to a mere featherbed on a narrow cot in the servants' wing. But tonight was hers!

FIVE

The bed did not disappoint. Jane enjoyed a delicious, deep, uninterrupted sleep. Embedded in luxurious softness, she awoke reluctantly, groaning at the rude intrusion of the morning light. It took a moment or two to remember where she was, but when she did, the sense of delightful voluptuousness vanished. What time was it? she wondered in alarm. Would she be late for her very first interview with her new employer?

She threw aside the comforter and leaped from the warmth of her eiderdown wrapping into the cold air of the bedroom. No housemaid, she realized, had yet appeared to poke up the fire. Perhaps she hadn't overslept after all. One quick look at the clock on the mantel proved she was right. It was not yet seven.

As she dressed, she became aware of a new sensation—she was ravenous. Perhaps it was not too late to join the staff for breakfast. She did not yet know her way about the house, but she was sure she could find the way to the servants' dining hall. All she had to do was to locate the back stairs and follow the sounds of clinking dishes and low voices.

The route to her destination was just what she'd anticipated, but she did not anticipate what followed. First of all, the servants' hall itself was larger than she'd expected, and there were more than a dozen people sitting round a long table. The staff seemed to be almost as numerous as that at Kettering, a house perhaps four times as large as this one. To run this twenty-room town house, there were at least a dozen in staff—-two footmen, the butler, two or three other men, and at least half a dozen females.
Lord Kettering,
she said to herself,
is very well cared for indeed!

And so was his staff. That was her second surprise. The table was laden with platters of the most tantalizing food. It seemed quite like a festive banquet—shirred eggs, sliced ham, soused herring, and piles of biscuits and buns. Her already eager appetite was painfully whetted.

While she stood on the threshold, hesitating, they began to notice her. A hush fell over the room. Jane, embarrassed, took a step back. One after the other the servants rose uneasily to their feet. Jane raised a restraining hand. "No, please," she urged, "you needn't stand for me."

As they awkwardly sat down again, she turned to the housemaid nearest her. "Can you show me where I might sit?" she asked.

"Y' don't wish t' eat
here,
miss," the maid answered, bobbing shyly. "The family takes their breakfast upstairs in the mornin' room."

"Yes," Jane tried to explain, "but I'm not family."

"You be a guest, ben't ye?" a footman asked, getting to his feet again. "I'll be 'appy t' show you the way."

"I'm not really—" Jane began in explanation.

She was interrupted by a woman who was seated at the head of the table. "You see, miss," she explained, rising, "the family doesn't usually come down before nine." Older than the others, she was evidently in charge. Jane surmised that she was the housekeeper. "We'll send up some breakfast for you at once, if you like."

Jane sighed and shook her head. They were finding her intrusive. "No, don't bother," she said, deciding not to disrupt their regular routine. "I'll wait for the family." And she turned reluctantly away from the delicious aromas.

"T'ain't no bother, miss," the housekeeper called after her, but Jane had already started up the stairs.

A tall clock at the top of the stairs chimed eight. She had a whole hour to wait. Feeling hungry and very much alone, she wandered about the marble-floored foyer, peering up at the paintings that adorned the walls. Then she decided to examine the rooms that opened on to it. As she was crossing the hallway, she came face to face with a man hurrying toward the magnificent stairway that curved gracefully up to the second floor, his eyes fixed on the half-dozen starched white linen neckcloths that hung over his arm. He did not notice her until he almost collided with her. At the sight of her he jumped in surprise. "I beg pardon, miss," he said in hurried alarm. "I didn't expect... that is, I know I should be usin' the back stairs, but there ain't us'ally anyone in the hall at this hour. I'm Varney, his lordship's valet, y'see, an' he's waitin'—"

"You needn't mind me, Mr. Varney," Jane assured him and stepped aside to let him pass.

The fellow smiled in relief and scurried off.
If Lord Kettering's valet is rushing about with neckcloths,
Jane reasoned,
it means that his lordship is awake and—oh, joyful prospect!—that breakfast will follow shortly.

After she'd examined a large drawing room, two small sitting rooms, and the morning room, she discovered the library. It was a beautiful, high-ceilinged room with a highly polished parquet floor, a huge fireplace flanked by two leather armchairs, and, opposite, a wall of tall windows facing the rear garden. The other walls were covered, floor to ceiling, with heavily laden bookshelves. Jane's eyes widened with admiration. Her father had had what he'd called a library, with a collection of three hundred books. Here there seemed to be thousands.

The thought of her father's books made her sigh. His books should now have been hers, but they'd all been seized by the creditors with the rest of his property. She had never ceased to regret the loss.

How fortunate Lord Kettering is,
she thought,
to have so impressive a library.
Did he appreciate this treasure that was housed under his roof? "Not very likely," she said aloud. It must have been the former Viscount Kettering who'd collected these books. Certainly the present viscount, preoccupied as he was with wenching and gaming, was not given to such intellectual pursuits.

Jane, on the other hand, was delighted to have discovered this room. This library was just the place for her to divert her mind from her pangs of hunger. She began to look over the titles. She discovered that the shelves contained a huge collection of Latin and Greek classics, a section devoted to biblical and religious treatises, and another on histories. And this was only part of the collection. One could spend a lifetime in this room, she thought, and not read everything.

As her eyes rose to the higher shelves, she glimpsed, quite near the top, a book that looked familiar. Her father had had a red-leather volume—a great favorite of hers— that he'd mended with a mismatched patch on the spine. The off-color patch on the spine of the book on the shelf above was a perfect duplicate of the one she remembered. Could it possibly be the same book? Could a book from her father's collection have somehow found its way here?

Excitedly she pulled over the ladder that rode on railings along the upper shelves and mounted it to get a closer look. She climbed six rungs of the ladder but found the book still out of her reach. A bit nervously, she glanced down to see how high she'd come. The floor looked much farther away than she'd expected. However, since she'd come so far, she would be not only foolish but cowardly to retreat before achieving her objective. Only one more rung would do it.

Carefully she climbed another step. Clinging to the ladder with one hand, she extended her other arm and, with her index finger, managed to pull the book out an inch or so. If she stood on tiptoe, she reasoned, she could manage to get a real grasp on the spine. But just as she raised herself on her toes and reached up for it, a loud masculine voice below her exclaimed, "So
here's
where you've been hiding." Startled, she turned so abruptly that the ladder slid from under her. Suddenly there was nothing underfoot. The air was whistling past her ears. She was falling.

Sheer, icy terror enveloped her. The seventh rung had been frighteningly high. She was surely doomed, if not to death, then to broken bones and a cracked skull. A scream escaped from her throat, but before the cry had fully emerged, she felt herself thump against something that was not the wooden floor but a solid human body. Her tumble through the air was miraculously halted. It was a moment before she realized she'd been caught by two strong arms.

But the terror was not yet over. The weight and force of her fall caused her rescuer to totter back. Another frightening moment passed before he managed to regain his balance. Once his footing was secure, she was able to look up. The face looking down at her belonged to Lord Kettering.

"Good God," he gasped, trying to catch his breath, "but there's more heft to you than meets the eye."

The sense of gratitude that had welled up in her immediately died. "If the heft is too great, my lord, then I suggest you put me down," she said with asperity.

His eyebrows rose, and he smiled with a wry amusement. "You are
welcome,
ma'am, I'm sure."

She felt herself color at his mild reproof. "I'm... sorry. I do thank you."

"You should. I saved you from what could have been a nasty fall."

"Yes, I... I... know. I'm truly grateful."

She wondered why he did not put her down. All at once she became acutely aware of the closeness of his chest and arms and of the fact that she was clutching him tightly round his neck. He could probably hear her heart beating. Grateful as she was for his rescue, she could not forget who this man was. She was not the sort of female who would permit herself to be held in the arms of a man she knew to be a libertine. Besides, it was necessary to her dignity to put him in his place. Withdrawing her arms, she eyed him coldly. "If I'm as heavy as you say, my lord, I can't help wondering why you are still holding me."

His eyes glinted into hers. "Not too heavy, I assure you. Quite a delectable armful, if truth be told." Nevertheless, he set her on her feet.

Completely discomposed by his pleasantry, she turned away and busied herself smoothing her skirts. He, meanwhile, knelt down and retrieved the book that had taken the fall in her place. "Is this what you went to so much trouble to get? Malory's
Morte D'Arthur?
"

She nodded but kept her face averted. "My father used to read it to me when I was a child. I haven't seen it since he... for many years."

"Don't tell me you managed to read the title from way down here."

"No, it was the patch. See it there? Papa's book had a patch just like that."

Lord Kettering examined the spine. "This is the Caxton edition—rather rare, I believe. There cannot be two Caxton Malorys with identical patches. Do you think this can possibly be—?" He opened the book and looked inside the cover. "Good God! Was your father Glenville Douglas?"

"Yes!" Jane peered at the book over his shoulder. "Oh, my! That's Papa's bookplate!"

His lordship gave a short laugh. "My father collected most of these books. Do you suppose he stole it from yours?"

"Oh, no, you mustn't believe that," Jane assured him. "My father was almost impoverished when he died. The books and everything else went to his creditors, who must have put everything up for sale. I'm sure this volume came to your father's hands quite legitimately."

"I'm relieved to hear it. Nevertheless"—he closed the volume and handed it to her—"it gives me great pleasure to restore it to you."

She thrust her hands behind her and backed away. "No, no, I couldn't—"