Lily (13 page)

Oh, what nonsense! Her father’s respectability was hardly the issue right now. For that matter, neither was hers. She had to get through an unpleasant interview with a mean-spirited tyrant, that was all. But what if, after having impersonated a servant for more than two months, she’d begun to think like one, feel like one? Nonsense, she thought again. She mentally shook herself, drew her fist back, and gave Mrs. Howe’s closed door three sharp, fearless raps.

“Come in.”

She pushed it open and went in. The scent of fresh baking still lingered, no doubt from the scones Mrs. Belt had made this morning and which, of course, no other servant had tasted—with the possible exception of Trayer, Lily amended. The housekeeper was sitting at her desk, poring over what looked like a list of accounts. She didn’t move, and Lily understood that ignoring her was to be the first arrow fired from Mrs. Howe’s sheath. Lily folded her hands and assumed an attitude, probably exaggerated, of polite submission. The seconds ticked by and she began to feel almost amused; she’d expected a tactic more sophisticated, less childish from her adversary.

But something about the shape of Mrs. Howe’s hands on the desk—blocky and crude, nerveless, a man’s hands—made amusement seem inappropriate. Irrelevant. In spite of herself, Lily’s unease deepened.

At length Mrs. Howe laid down her pen and looked up. She stared without speaking for so long that Lily thought she herself might burst out laughing, or blurt out some incoherent confession of nameless crimes—anything to put an end to this silent, nerve-wracking staring. It’s a trick, she warned herself. Designed to bully and harass frightened little girls. Even so, it was hard to imagine those bright black bulldog eyes missing anything. Perhaps at this moment they were searching out the telltale places where Lily’s gown was still damp, or worse, the faint stains of blood that still lingered underneath her apron. Somehow she kept her own gaze tranquil and didn’t look away. But she wanted to. And Mrs. Howe, she knew, wanted her to.

The housekeeper got to her feet, the great cluster of keys at her waist rattling ostentatiously. For a heavy woman, she moved with an unsettling fluidity that struck Lily, in her present mood, as grotesque. “You missed breakfast,” she observed, standing beside her desk, in a voice much too soft to be genuine.

“Yes, ma’am.” Lily bowed her head penitently.

“But that’s against the rules, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why did it take so long to hand the master his tray, I wonder?”

“I can’t say.”

“Can’t say? Is that because you don’t know?”

Lily’s mind went frighteningly blank. “I… went up to my room afterwards to … I had forgotten my … I changed my stockings.”

“Changed your stockings? Why?”

“I—don’t know.”

“Was it stupidity? Was it because you’re a stupid girl, Lily?”

“No, ma’am, I just—changed them.” God, how she hated this! Anger coiled inside, tensing all her muscles.

“But I told you to come right back and help cook with the baking. Didn’t I?” She still hadn’t raised her voice.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Did you disobey me?”

“I—yes.”

“Why?”

She gritted her teeth. “I don’t know. I forgot.”

Mrs. Howe came closer. They were exactly the same height, and now their faces were inches apart. To avoid her eyes, Lily fixed her gaze on Mrs. Howe’s grim slit of a mouth. Her lips fit together like two halves of a muffin split with a razor. “Forgot?” she murmured. “Because you’re stupid?”

Lily couldn’t answer.

“Are you stupid, Lily?”

“No. No, ma’am.”

“No? Then why didn’t you do as you were told?”

“I… didn’t think.”

“Because you’re stupid?”

Her throat was so tight she couldn’t speak at all.

“Say it,” Mrs. Howe urged, her voice a throaty purr. “Say it.”

Lily’s chest was burning. “Please,” she whispered.

“Say it.”

“I’m not. I’m not stupid.” But a treacherous, icy-hot tear slid down her cheek, and it was worse than an admission. Lily bowed her head in defeat.

The housekeeper backed up soundlessly. On a table beside the desk were two metal buckets. She picked them up, her manner brusque now, her eyes no longer crafty, only cruel. “Stupidity is one of Satan’s disguises. It must be punished, for wickedness hides under it, beneath the serpent’s belly, waiting for the innocent and the undefiled. It must be punished.” She came forward and gave Lily the buckets, one in each hand. They were small; each held no more than a gallon.

“We’ve run out of sand to scour the floors, Lily. I want you to fill both bins in the kitchen garden shed. To the top. Don’t use any but these pails. Don’t stop until the bins are full. If you do, I’ll have to punish you again. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Impotence had solidified into rage, defeat into hatred. She wanted to do harm to Mrs. Howe with her own hands.

“We’ll cast the devil out together, Lily. Thank me for it.” She came closer. “Thank me.”

“Thank … you.”

“Thank you—?”

Lily closed her eyes for a second. “Ma’am.” Mrs. Howe smiled. In the pitch depths of her black eyes, Lily saw real wickedness. Shaking, she turned and got away.

The sun at high noon was a blinding lemon-yellow disc in the center of a colorless sky. It beat down on the dark rocks that emerged from the sea like prehistoric beasts. The tide was out, but the sand was wet and foam-covered all the way up to the sand hills and the shingle and the granite cliff’s base.

Lily crouched down at the last of the stone cliff steps and filled her two small buckets with sand. Straightening, she stared across the glittering rollers at the sharp knife edge of the horizon. Perspiration had soaked through the back of her gown; her face was beaded with it. Here by the shore the salt wind blew feebly, but above, behind the house among the outbuildings, not a breath of air stirred.

She grabbed up handfuls of her apron on either side and used them for padding between the buckets’ dun wires and the tender pads of her fingers, but nothing helped much anymore. Blisters had formed hours ago, and now the sores only stuck to the fibers of the cloth and made releasing the buckets at the end of her journey that much harder. Head down, shoulders hunched, she started the climb back up the cliff steps.

There were seventy-two steps. At the twenty-seventh there was a wooden landing. She paused there to catch her breath. The sudden cessation of movement made her dizzy, and she clung to the rough railing with one hand, eyes closed and heart pounding. Fainting would be too easy; she wouldn’t give Mrs. Howe the satisfaction. But one bin in the kitchen garden shed was still empty, the other not quite half full. Elemental arithmetic told her she had about seven hours of sand-hauling left to do.

She wished she could cry. Now that she was alone and no one could see, it would be all right—she would give herself permission. But, curiously, the tears wouldn’t come. She was holding them in, along with her fury and frustration. Or perhaps she was punishing herself for that moment of weakness, of shameful capitulation when she’d wept in front of Mrs. Howe. Sometimes she was able to think about Devon, and wondered what he was doing now, if he was all right, if his “visitors” had come yet. But most of the time she was in too much pain to think about anything. Mrs. Howe had found a vulnerable place inside her—pride or confidence, self-respect—and injured it. She was wounded. She hurt.

She picked her buckets up and started to climb again. The muscles between her shoulders were burning, and there was no way to ease the painful ache low in her spine. The sun blazed; her mouth felt as dry as the sand she was carrying. Twelve steps from the summit, she looked up. At first she didn’t recognize the man standing on the top step, holding the railings on either side with both hands and blocking the way. Then, squinting against the bright sun, she brought him into focus. Trayer.

Of course. He’d come to gloat.

Even though her legs felt sheathed in lead, she stepped up her pace, straightened her shoulders, and stuck her chin out. She tried to make her face serene, but she knew it was damp and red, probably freckled—and then suddenly the idea of pretending for Trayer Howe’s benefit repulsed her. Not a bone in her body cared what he thought of her. She trudged on until she was three steps below him, then stopped.

“Excuse me,” she said clearly, wondering how long he would taunt her, how long before he would let her past.

His satisfied grin widened predictably. He didn’t move. “Hot today,” he observed conversationally. “Could be you need some help with those buckets.” He raised his eyebrows but didn’t take his hands off the wooden rails.

“No, thank you. Please let me pass.”

Malice flashed in his black eyes, so like his mother’s they made her shudder. “ ‘No, thank you, please let me pass,’ ” he mimicked, rolling his hips in an exaggeratedly feminine way. Lily looked away in disgust. “Even fetching sand, you think you’re the goddam Queen of England. You don’t look it, though. Right now you look just like the slut you are.”

“Get out of my way.”

“Think you’ve landed in a soft spot, don’t you? Did a spread for the master, and now everything’s going to be easy.” She tried to squeeze past him, but he shifted his bulk to the side, cutting her off. “It won’t work, not for long anyway. But I’ll tell you what would work.”

“Trayer—”

“If you was to give
me
a bit o’ snug for a bit o’ stiff, now, that would ease things up for you considerably. What d’you say, Queen Lily?”

She was rigid with anger, too furious to speak. She shoved one shoulder at him with all her strength, but it was like pushing on a rock. All of a sudden he reached out with both hands and grabbed at her breasts. With a cry of outrage, Lily dropped her buckets and batted his hands away. “Bastard!” she swore, while his ugly laugh rang in her ears. Weak-kneed, she backed down a step and stared at him, holding onto the rail.

“Oh, now, ain’t that a shame. Lost your buckets, did you?” He peered over the edge of the railing at the beach below, where her two empty buckets lay half buried in the sand, and shook his head in mock sympathy. “Now you’ll have to start all over. Want me to help you, your highness?” He took a step toward her, holding out a paw of a hand and grinning at her.

Lily imagined him backing her all the way down, one step at a time, laughing all the while. She planted her feet. Gripping the rail with one hand, she made a fist of the other.

“Miss Lily.”

Trayer whirled. Galen MacLeaf stood on the brow of the headland above them, legs spread, roguish blue eyes darting a challenge.

“I was telled to fetch you. Lowdy says master d’ want you right away.”

Trayer turned back. She looked away to avoid his eyes, but as she brushed by him he murmured, “Next time, bitch,” in her ear. A shiver tingled up the length of her spine to her scalp.

“Thank you, Galen,” was all she could say to MacLeaf. But the gratitude in her eyes told him how timely his arrival had been.

“I’ll pitch his fat arse into the sea if you d’ want un, Lily,” he said softly, touching her arm.

“It was nothing, truly. Best to leave it.”

He grinned his cocky, gap-toothed grin. “That’s as you please. But there’s the offer, whenever ee d’ need it.”

Although she tried to smile, she couldn’t quite manage it. She left him and set off toward the house, aware that behind her she’d left a friend and a dangerous enemy.

D
EVON CAME OUT OF
the lightest of dozes when he heard the door open and saw Lily tiptoe in. “Where the devil have you been?” he wanted to know. His eyes narrowed. He pushed himself up on his elbows painfully and asked a different question, in a softer voice. “What the hell have you been doing?”

Ignoring him, Lily went to the bedside table, where half a pitcher of beer still rested on the tray. She poured most of it into a glass—his glass—and drank it down without stopping. “What is it you want?” she asked directly, dragging the back of her hand across her wet forehead.

With lightning-quick speed she would not have given him credit for, his hand snaked out and caught hold of her wrist. He tugged on her arm, and she stumbled against the side of the bed. Turning her hand over, he stared at the raw, blistered flesh of her palm. He looked up at her in amazement, then reached out for her other hand.

She whipped it behind her back. “It’s the same,” she said stolidly. “What is it you want with me?”

Dropping her hand, Devon slid back against his pillow. “I want you to sit down.”

“Good,” Lily breathed, and sank down on the chair beside the bed. Every muscle in her body was screaming with exhaustion. But it was so cool and dark here, so quiet. When a moment passed and he didn’t speak, she let her eyelids close. She could almost fall asleep, right now. Later—a second? a minute?—she jerked herself awake in alarm. He was still staring at her. “How do you feel?” she asked guiltily. She thought he looked a little better, maybe not quite as pale.

“What do you do, Lily? What chores do they give you?”

The question startled both of them.

“I clean your house,” she answered simply.

“Yes, but what do you do?”

She sighed and leaned her head against the back of the chair. “Polish the furniture. Scrub the floors and beat the rugs. Dust. Tidy. Help in the kitchen, the laundry, sometimes the dairy.” Her eyes had slid closed again; she opened them to see if he was still listening. “Do what I’m told,” she finished tiredly.

“Why do you do it?”

“Why?” She laughed without any amusement. “To live.” She glanced across at him, into his serious face. The conversation had taken an odd, dangerous turn. She was afraid her own face might give something away, and slowly got to her feet. She tried to sound brisk. “Have you had your dinner yet?”

“I don’t want anything.”

She opened her mouth to argue with him when there was a light knock at the door. She had time to jump away from the bed and busy her hands with the plates and glasses on the tray before it opened.

It was Stringer, the butler. Lily thought he made a point of not looking at her. “Gentlemen to see you, sir. From the Revenue, they say.”