Manor of Secrets (12 page)

Janie snorted. “Lord
Andrew
Broadhurst? The earl’s son? That’s not going to make her happy.”

Lawrence stopped, another scrap of cake halfway to his mouth.

“She doesn’t like him?” he asked.

Janie narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think he’s poetic enough for her. He’s one of those classic English lords, with more marble than good sense. He loves cricket and polo and the weather, whereas she loves poetry and adventure.”

Lawrence laughed. “Hardly a match made in heaven, then?”

“The drawing room, more like. She’s a rich and hopeless romantic, Lawrence,” Janie said seriously as she deftly smoothed pink royal icing over a finger of cake and laid it on a tray. “A dangerous combination.”

“Hopeless?”

“Rich.”

Lawrence nodded. “I shall bear this in mind.”

“I’ll just finish these, and there is some fruitcake for slicing, too.”

“Miss Caldwell wants chocolate.”

“Well, Miss Caldwell will just have to sing for it.”
Janie tried to suppress the feeling of glee at thwarting the crafty girl.

“And tea?” Lawrence said, carefully arranging slices of fruitcake on a silver dish.

“The kettle has just boiled, but the china is still in the servery.”

Lawrence brought the teapot and Janie spooned in the leaves; then he held the pot while she poured the just-boiled water into it. A good kitchen — a good household — ran like clockwork, as clichéd as that might sound. All the cogs running together, never missing a beat, the mechanism smooth and untroubled, with no grit or extra grease to make it scratch or slip.

Just the way it should be.

“Thanks, Janie,” Lawrence said. He slipped his gloves back on, hefted the tray onto his left shoulder, and leaned over to kiss her on the forehead. “You’re a star.”

Janie felt the mechanism fail, catching on a fine piece of trouble in the gears. She watched Lawrence go.

Then she turned and reached down the cookbook from the shelf, opening it to Charlotte’s pages. She flattened them open and reread the description of the Italian count. She didn’t know if she was jealous or afraid, or a little of both.

“I should just get on with my job and be neither,” she said to herself, pressing the book closed. As she replaced it on the shelf and turned back to the icing, she thought she saw a flutter of pink at the window.

“My brain’s gone pink,” she muttered.

Then a flutter of jade green at the door made her look up and catch sight of Lady Beatrice.

“Oh!” Janie said, dropping the finger of sponge and its still-sticky icing. Pink splotched on the toe of her shoe.

“I
am
sorry,” Lady Beatrice said, stepping into the kitchen. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” Her voice was so different from Lady Diane’s. It was deeper, a rich contralto, and her inflections were different — probably affected by her years abroad. Her honey blonde hair trailed unruly wisps around features softer than her sister’s.

“It’s all right,” Janie said and waved a hand at the table. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

She was very glad Lady Beatrice hadn’t come in a few minutes earlier and seen Charlotte’s writing. Or worse, seen Lawrence’s affectionate peck on her forehead. It could so easily be misconstrued.

Janie wondered if she herself had misunderstood it.

“I can see that,” Lady Beatrice said. There was a smile in her voice. Something one rarely heard in Lady Diane’s.

“Can I get you something? Lawrence just took tea up to Lady Charlotte on the patio.”

Lady Beatrice looked out the kitchen door as if she could see the group on the patio through the walls.

“Actually,” she said, “I was hoping to speak with the cook, Mrs. Seward.”

Cold dread settled low in Janie’s belly. “She’s having her tea.”

Lady Beatrice stepped farther into the room and rested her fingertips on the scarred tabletop. Long, thin fingers. An ink stain on the index finger of her right hand.

“You said your name was Seward, didn’t you, Janie?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m the cook’s daughter.”

Lady Beatrice looked at her as if trying to see behind her words. Then she arranged another smile on her face. “To the manor born.”

“I was born here, yes,” Janie said. “But my father joined the Army soon after, and we moved.”

“But you came back.”

“My father died. In Africa.”

“I heard.”

Janie looked up from the cake she was icing. “You knew him?”

“I lived here after my own father died. My sister was kind enough to take me in until I — until I married. I remember your mother’s cooking fondly. I have yet to find someone who can make a roast or cook a vanilla soufflé as well as she can.”

Janie thought she might cry. Lady Beatrice loved her mother’s cooking. Lady Beatrice was going to offer her mother swags of money to move out to Italy or some other distant place. A place where a single woman living alone would need a cook.

But not a kitchen maid.

“You’re a cook yourself, I see.”

“Just the second kitchen maid.”

“Well, if your mother is training you, I’m sure your skills already rival some of the other houses in the neighborhood. Those cakes look delicious.”

Janie kept her eyes on the cakes so Lady Beatrice wouldn’t see her aggrieved expression. She hated to be patronized. Especially by someone about to rip her life apart.

“May I?” Lady Beatrice’s long fingers extended to the already-frosted cakes.

Janie nodded, her hand gripping the edge of the table.

Lady Beatrice delicately picked up a piece of cake and nibbled the end. She closed her eyes.

“Delicious,” she said and then opened them again. Hazel eyes. Not blue, like Lady Diane’s. “You’ll go far, Janie Seward.”

“I’m happy to be here for now,” Janie said, and pulled the bowl of frosting closer. “With my mother.”

“Of course you are,” Lady Beatrice said, and then lowered her voice, almost as if speaking to herself. “A girl should be with her mother.”

A new knot of anxiety bubbled in Janie’s throat. What if Lady Beatrice asked
both
of them? What would she choose — her mother? Or her home?

“Why were you upstairs?” Lady Beatrice asked.

Cold dread hardened below Janie’s breastbone. The woman in front of her had every tool needed to ruin her life. She could take her mother away. She could tell Lady Diane about her secret wanderings around the house.

“Lady Charlotte asked me.”

“Why?” Lady Beatrice reached casually for another cake, and Janie let silence settle as she scraped the bottom of the bowl of icing as if the answer to the question lay there.

“No chocolate?”

Miss Caldwell stood in the door, one hand on each side of the frame. She glared at Janie, but Janie felt she’d never been so glad to see the Caldwell girl in her life.

“I’m sorry, Miss Caldwell,” Janie said hurriedly. “Lady Diane ordered yellow sponge. I can make sure we have chocolate for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” the girl asked. Her voice was low and growly. More dangerous than it would have been as a shriek.

“Thank you for the cake, Janie,” Lady Beatrice said, moving toward the door. “And the chat.” She paused and spoke directly to Miss Caldwell. “We should let Janie get on with her work.”

“I just have one more request, Lady Beatrice,” the Caldwell girl said airily. “Won’t be a moment.” She paused, waiting for Lady Beatrice to pass her by. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

Lady Beatrice flashed an indecipherable look at the girl, and then left the kitchen. Janie noticed she turned left — toward the servants’ staircase — instead of right to exit through the courtyard.

Miss Caldwell watched her go and then stalked into the kitchen.

“You could show a little deference,” Miss Caldwell said. “Or don’t you think the rules apply to you?”

“I try my best, Miss Caldwell.” Janie laced her words with submissiveness but seethed inside.

“Well, you’ll have to try better than that,” Miss Caldwell hissed, looking ready to strike. “A
good
servant turns away
from her betters when seeing them in the hall. A
good
servant is invisible. She doesn’t wear filthy kitchen clothes upstairs.”

Miss Caldwell flicked a hand toward Janie’s limp cap and stained apron.

“A good servant knows her place. She knows what’s wanted before anyone else. You should have had chocolate. Just in case.”

Janie stared at her silently.

“A good servant …” Miss Caldwell was right up in Janie’s face. “… does not raise her eyes to her mistress.”

Janie knew she should look down at her feet. At her hands clasped before her. She knew she should bow her head.

But she didn’t. Instead she looked Miss Caldwell directly in the eye.

“You are not my mistress.”

Miss Caldwell’s face drained of all color, and Janie felt a swell of triumph.

“If you’ll excuse me, Miss Caldwell,” Janie said, again lacing her tone with deference, “I have work to do.”

She turned and walked away into the larder, where she could catch her breath and calm her heart in the cool, blank darkness.

I
think I’ll wear red tonight.” Fran lounged on Charlotte’s bed, her voice setting Charlotte’s teeth on edge. “David likes red, doesn’t he?”

“I haven’t the faintest.” Charlotte wished Fran would go away. She wanted to write. She wanted to put a scene in her story where the Italian count kissed the heroine.

“He’s your
brother
,” Fran said. “You have to know.”

“He’s twelve years older than I am.”

“And still not married,” Fran mused.

Charlotte tuned her out as she went on about bugle beads and handkerchief hems.

The only thing Charlotte could think of was Lawrence’s lips on hers. Surprisingly soft, and tasting of raspberry jam.

Charlotte licked her lips. Or perhaps raspberry coulis.

Charlotte smiled. Raspberry coulis was part of her mother’s dinner menu. She knew Lawrence’s secret now. That he tasted the food from the kitchen. Perhaps when no one was looking.

“And my dress isn’t really red, I suppose,” Fran said. “More of a raspberry color.”

“I love raspberries,” Charlotte said, and giggled, feeling like an infatuated girl in a penny romance.

“You really are wretchedly poor company today, Charlotte.” Fran blew her hair out of her face and stood. “Maybe if I leave you alone, you’ll be more sensible at dinner.”

Charlotte tried to arrange her face into an appropriately contrite expression. She might have twenty minutes to write.

“Why would your aunt be talking to that Janie person?” Fran’s question cut across Charlotte’s distraction. Her eyes narrowed when Charlotte looked up sharply. “And why on earth would she be in the kitchen?”

“Why were you?” Charlotte retorted, but she was thinking about what Janie may have discovered.

“I went to see where they had hidden the chocolate cakes.”

“Mrs. Seward doesn’t hide cakes.”

“How do you know? Servants could be stealing things right out from under your nose and you’d be too busy daydreaming to notice.”

There was a knock at the door, and Sarah the housemaid entered. “I’ve come to see if there’s anything you need before we have our dinner, Lady Charlotte.”

“Why didn’t Janie come up?” Fran asked, her eyes wide with counterfeit innocence. “Since she’s being trained as a lady’s maid.”

Sarah’s face registered surprise, injury, and anger, and then went blank, all in the space of a few seconds.

“Janie?” She looked at Charlotte for confirmation.

Charlotte tried to shrug casually. “She’s a smart girl. She could be better than a cook. Send her up, Sarah.”

Sarah nodded mutely, and Fran flounced out of the room after her. Charlotte finally felt able to breathe. She lay back on her bed, looking up at the canopy, letting her mind drift. She didn’t need to daydream about possibilities anymore. She could daydream about reality.

A swift knock on the door interrupted her thoughts and Sarah entered, looking mightily cross. She curtseyed quickly, not looking Charlotte in the eye.

“Janie, my lady,” she said.

Janie came into the room looking at least as cross as Sarah.
She had flour on her apron, and her cap was limp from the steam of the kitchen.

“Janie!” Charlotte said and stood up, but Sarah hadn’t moved.

“That will be all, Sarah.”

Sarah paused. A tiny hesitation, as if she was considering talking back. But she just curtseyed again, threw a furious glance at Janie, and shut the door behind her.

“I thought we were keeping this a secret,” Janie said before Charlotte could speak.

“We —” Charlotte stuttered. “We are.”

“Miss Caldwell knows,” Janie said. “Sarah knows.”

“I told them I’m training you to be a lady’s maid.”

“But you’re not.” Janie’s face was like granite.

“I could,” Charlotte said, warming to the idea. “I’d rescue you from drudgery and dishes.”

“I don’t want to be rescued.” Janie wouldn’t even look at her. Why was she so recalcitrant? She was like a mule. Resistant to change. Resistant to everything.

“What’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter?” Janie finally looked up. “I just left a kitchen full of unpeeled potatoes to come up here. I
have
a job. I don’t do hair. I don’t know a diamond from paste. I’m not fit to be a lady’s maid.”