Once Again a Bride (8 page)

He was suddenly aware that their shoulders were touching. Hers was warm against his coat sleeve. Under the dowdy black stuff of her gown was a slender, rounded body. She was lovely, he thought. He hadn’t quite realized. It had taken the touch of her warm and ardent spirit. Such a small shift would put his arms around her; a mere bend of his head would set his lips on hers.

Shocked, he stepped back. This young woman was living under his roof and his protection, in company with his sisters. “I’m doing all I can for my own people in Derbyshire.” It came out rather stiffly.

“That’s what these letters are about?”

“Yes.” He didn’t mean to be dismissive, but her nearness was deeply unsettling.

“There are so many. Do you need help? Perhaps I could…”

“I believe I have matters well in hand,” Alec lied.

Charlotte drew back at the undeniable snub. “I mustn’t keep you from your work then.”

“Thank you.”

She turned and strode out with a rustle of skirts. Alec sank into his desk chair and grappled with his entirely inappropriate impulses. Charlotte Wylde was alone—without family or any other protector—and under his authority as executor. She was extraordinarily appealing. She was recently bereaved, though how she could be mourning his reprehensible uncle he could not… She sometimes seemed even younger than her age—nineteen, he had discovered in his uncle’s papers… Of course, she was not a total innocent. She was a widow not a deb… one of his most agreeable liaisons had been with a widow. An utterly different case!

They were barely acquainted. She had entered so readily into his concerns… the quick sympathy in her eyes… for the workers, not for him. She was his aunt, for God’s sake! He snorted. This was maddening and pointless. The best thing would be to banish all thought of her from his mind. Alec returned to the letters awaiting his attention, and struggled for some time to follow his own excellent advice.

***

Ethan watched the houseguest storm up the stairs and wondered what had happened in the study to make her angry. Not likely to be Sir Alexander; he was never impolite. Must have been the visitor. There was a strange little man—refused to give his name, glared at Ethan like he was a thief when he tried to take his coat. They’d never had a caller like him before.

Ethan was suddenly reminded of Harry Saunders. Everybody back home knew Harry was a poacher, though nobody could prove it. He had the same half-furtive, half-sly, and insolent air about him as the man just gone. Harry was a sneak, always popping up where least expected and slipping a few rabbits or even a deer out from under the noses of the gamekeepers. He enjoyed it, too; wouldn’t trade the poaching for honest work despite some run-ins with the magistrates. The visitor was like that, only on the other side seemingly. Somebody—Mrs. Wright, maybe?—had said he hunted down criminals for pay.

Ethan tried to imagine tracking quarry through the wilds of London instead of the forest. You’d have to know where to search, where to lie in wait, but he couldn’t picture such places. He didn’t even want to—surely they’d be dark, filthy, and treacherous. He couldn’t shake the conviction that city dwellers were meaner and more crooked than country people. Look at some of the footmen he’d met from other households; all they seemed to think of was how to extract larger tips for tasks they were supposed to do anyway, and then wasting their money on drink and tailors and other useless trash.

Ethan wondered if her mistress’s bad mood would help him out with Lucy. He hadn’t made much progress there. She still avoided him, though he’d been as charming as he knew how to be. Now and then, he fancied he caught a gleam in her eye that said she wasn’t immune. But as long as she kept away from him, nothing could follow from that. And it was becoming more and more important to him that something did follow. Maybe he’d just go and tell her that her “Miss Charlotte” was upset. She’d want to know. It was part of the job to keep track of the moods of the gentry. Sometimes—mealtimes, for instance—you even had to listen at doors to get a jump on their requests.

Before he could go looking for Lucy, though, Miss Cole came down the stairs, a small envelope in her hand. “Ethan, would you take this note to Lady Earnton’s house?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Right away.” He wondered why she hadn’t rung for him to fetch the note. But Miss Cole had been flighty and unlike herself for quite a time now.

Nodding her thanks, she went back upstairs. Ethan fetched his coat and gloves and told Mrs. Wright where he was off to. It was a cold, raw March afternoon, the sun already slanting down, but Ethan didn’t mind. An errand was a chance to move. Delivering notes and packages and escorting the young ladies about was the best part of his job here in town. Nothing to compare to his long rambles in the woods during his time off at home; but for all he didn’t like London, there was always something to see. He spent far too much time kicking up his heels in the front hall, or setting tables, serving meals, then clearing off the tables again. Ethan liked to accomplish things, and none of that felt like an accomplishment.

He walked fast. He knew the way to Sir Alexander’s aunt’s grand place; he’d been there several times before and could be quick. He’d take the chance and look in on his grandparents on the way home. They were visiting his Aunt Liv, and her house wasn’t far out of the way. Aunt Liv was one family member who liked London; after being up to town a few years as a housemaid for the Wyldes, she’d married a local grocer and stayed on living here. No one would be the wiser if he spent a quarter hour or so at her house.

His grandad always had good advice, and he could talk to him about his plan for the future and how to get on with it. Everything was in place. Old Elkins was more than ready to give up his place and move to his daughter’s farm in Cornwall. The joint ache this past winter had like to done him in. He’d taught Ethan most all he knew. There was just the last step, the trickiest one, of asking. That and dealing with his dad’s disappointment. The second part was what kept him quiet when everything else pushed him to act.

“I think we should make Callie her own place here in the schoolroom,” Charlotte said. “The dormer would be perfect.”

Lizzy eyed the nook doubtfully. Anne, almost fully recovered now except for regaining lost weight, smiled from a chair by the hearth.

“We can clear it out and make it perfect for her. I’m sure she’d calm down if she had a refuge like that.”

The calico cat, crouched under the other armchair, made no comment. Since being released from the storeroom, she had been even more wary of everyone but Lizzy. “Not like a pen,” said that young lady now.

“Not at all. Very cozy. She can come and go as she likes—around the room.”

“It’s not fair that she must stay shut in here.”

“You are allowed to take her to your bedchamber…” began Anne.

“You know, I think Callie might prefer it,” Charlotte put in. Arguing with Lizzy was always a mistake; she had the cunning and tenacity of a barrister. “Cats need to know every bit of their territories, you know. But this house is too large for Callie to explore, full of unknown corners. I think it makes her uneasy.” That was one way to describe swarming up a curtain and spitting on her host, Charlotte thought.

“How do you know so much about cats?”

“I like to read.”

Lizzy made a face at her. They had had this discussion. “Oh, all right,” the girl said.

Under Anne’s amused gaze, Charlotte and Lizzy cleared out the small bookcase and other bits and pieces that had collected in the dormer. They created a nest from old blankets and a hidey-hole from an upturned hatbox. Lizzy moved the cat’s food and water dishes closer. “Callie can watch the pigeons from the window ledge,” Charlotte pointed out.

When they were finished, Lizzy coaxed her pet from under the chair and carried her to the dormer, plopping down on the blankets with Callie on her lap. “This is your place,” she told her. The cat curled in her lap. “She likes it,” Lizzy pronounced.

Relieved, Charlotte sat in the abandoned chair, her ankles now safe from lashing claws. Anne smiled warmly at her, and Charlotte thought, not for the first time, how agreeable it was to have female companionship. The days had been passing so pleasantly. She had grown very fond of Anne and Lizzy; Frances seemed much more at ease and welcoming. Lucy was happy too, making friends among the staff, greatly admiring its efficiency. The whole household was a delight—well, except for its master.

Alec had gone distant—and mainly absent. Or perhaps this had always been his habit, disrupted by her arrival. Mostly, he was shut in his study, not to be disturbed, or out at his club or… somewhere. Somewhere not lacking in female companionship of a wholly different sort, she suspected. Charlotte and the girls most often ate dinner without him in one of the small parlors rather than the dining room. The meals were lively and enjoyable, but she sometimes missed…

However, Alec obviously found her uninteresting, as well as useless. Why had she offered to help with the pile of correspondence that grew every day on his desk? He’d made it clear he judged her quite incapable, the sort of ignorant chit who simpered over Byron and wasted his precious time. She certainly wouldn’t bother him again.

“Tell us a story from the globe,” Lizzy urged.

Much better not to think of him at all, Charlotte told herself, and searched her mind for one of her father’s tales about far-flung places and exotic peoples. Briefly, her throat grew tight; so many times, she had sat with him just as Lizzy did now, begging for stories. Holding quite a different cat, however, she recalled with smile. “You remember Captain Cook?”

“He sailed all around the Pacific Ocean,” Lizzy answered.

“Very good. Well, when he first arrived at New Zealand in… 1769, I believe it was, he had great difficulties with the Maori tribesmen.” Watching Anne and Lizzy grow attentive, then engrossed, Charlotte felt contentment spread through her. She had always wished for sisters, and it was almost as if she had them now.

***

Lucy crouched by the kitchen hearth, keeping a close eye on the curling iron she was warming over the coals. It was tricky getting the heat just right—hot enough to curl hair well and properly, but never so hot as to singe it. She’d heard awful stories of maids who burnt off the little ringlets ladies liked to wear dangling by their ears. She could so easily imagine the bits of shriveled hair in a row on the dressing table—and the smell! Miss Charlotte would never give her the sack over such a mistake; she’d understand. That made it even more important to get things right.

“I have found that the iron should be touchable,” said a voice from above. “If it burns the fingers badly, it will do the same to hair.”

Lucy scrambled up to face Miss Cole’s high-toned dresser. Jennings’s fabled experience and assurance still overawed her. She couldn’t help dropping a curtsy. It was received with a slight smile.

“You are doing hair now?”

She would not be tongue-tied and awkward like a country bumpkin, Lucy told herself. “No, ma’am. I was just going to practice, like, on Agnes.” The kitchen maid giggled over the pile of potatoes she was peeling.

“Ah.” Under Jennings’s calm, evaluative gaze, Agnes’s smile faded. “Commendable.” Even the housekeeper sometimes deferred to Jennings, who was rumored to be the highest paid of all the staff. She hardly even looked like a servant. Her gowns might be in dark colors, which you would expect to fade into the background, but they were beautifully cut and draped. Lucy had heard that the dresser sold her mistress’s castoffs, a perk of her position, and made her own wardrobe. Tall and thin, with a bony face, Jennings kept her hair drawn back in a tight bun and was somehow more elegant for that. “Come along,” she said to Lucy. Behind her back, Agnes crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue, but Lucy didn’t feel the slightest urge to laugh.

Agnes’s eyes bugged when Jennings turned and caught her. “Remove the curling iron from the fire,” the older woman said. Agnes jumped to obey.

Lucy followed Jennings up to the chamber she occupied, next to Miss Cole’s dressing room. She had her own little sitting area in a corner, and Lucy was waved to a chair. “I understand you have a deft hand with a flatiron.”

Lucy flushed with pleasure. “I’ve tried to get it right.”

“You like your work?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You don’t mind being a servant?”

“Mind…?” Lucy wasn’t sure what she meant.

“Some see it as demeaning, you know. My own sister works from dawn to dark on her husband’s farm—exhausting, dirty work and barely feeding them these days—and still thinks herself better than I.”

“Farm labor is dreadful hard.” Lucy remembered the constant toil from her childhood. Her father rose every day stiff and aching and went to his bed tired out.

“So it is. I, on the other hand, am not tied to a scrap of played-out land. I have a valued profession, for which I’m very well paid. If I find I’m not valued, I can leave whenever I like and find a better place. I am not a slave.”

Lucy wondered why Jennings was telling her this. It was interesting, but it made her a little uncomfortable. “No, ma’am. Of course not.”

“Not everyone is in my position, of course. I’ve made sure to acquire the right skills.”

Lucy knew it was true. Fine ladies, duchesses even, fought to hire the best dressers. They stole them from each other and gave them all sorts of privileges to keep them happy.

“The more you know, the more independence you have. I’ve noticed that you like learning things, Lucy.”

Lucy nodded. “That I do.”

“I’m glad you have some ambition. I hate to see a girl with skill waste herself.”

Was liking to learn the same as ambition? Lucy wasn’t sure.

“In time, you might get a post such as mine here in London, at the highest levels.”

Lucy didn’t dare tell her that she longed to go back to country. She was sure Jennings wouldn’t approve.

“Do you have any schooling?”

Lucy nodded proudly. “My mother made sure we all went to the village school every day we could. I can read and write and do some figuring.” She nodded again for emphasis. “I don’t get cheated in the market.”

“That’s good.” Jennings showed one of her thin smiles. “I would be happy to teach you what a superior dresser needs to know, if you like.”

“Oh, yes, ma’am.” Lucy was thrilled at the thought. She had no doubt of one thing—the more you could do, the better off you were likely to be in this world.

Jennings bowed her head magisterially. “I believe learning should be passed along, to give as we have been given to, and in helping others advance themselves. When they deserve it.”

Ignoring the touch of steel in Jennings’s voice, Lucy said, “Thank you, ma’am. Thank you very much.”

“Is she going to tell Cook I was cheeky?” muttered Agnes when Lucy returned to the kitchen for the curling iron. Clearly this had been worrying her ever since Lucy left.

“Who?” Ethan lifted a luncheon tray ready to go upstairs.

“Jennings. I…” Agnes showed him the face she’d made earlier.

Ethan laughed.

“I don’t think she will,” Lucy assured her. Jennings’s mind had seemed to be on other things.

“Do her good to loosen up a bit.” Giving Lucy one of the smiles that sizzled right through her, Ethan went out.

***

After luncheon, Frances Cole invited Charlotte to join her in the drawing room. Lizzy and Anne exchanged speaking glances and disappeared up the stairs, but Charlotte was happy to accept. As she’d discovered on her third day in the house, Frances was engaged in a mammoth embroidery project—a wall hanging for the Wyldes’ Derbyshire home—and always looking for additional hands. The sisters saw it as a penance, but Charlotte enjoyed short doses of fancy work. She and Frances had already spent several pleasant hours in this way, and they had shown Charlotte another side of the older woman. Embroidering, Frances was relaxed and happy, full of stories about her childhood doing needlework with her mother.

She had narrated several such anecdotes, and Charlotte was just finishing a rose petal when Frances said, “I wrote to my cousin Amelia Earnton to tell her that Anne will be able to join the dancing class she has arranged after all. I’m so glad. I feared she would be too ill.”

After a moment, Charlotte remembered the name. This was the aunt married to an earl. “Dancing class?”

“It’s often done. They’ve gathered a group of young people who will be making their bow to society next year.”

“To teach them to dance?”

Frances smiled. In this peaceful mood, she seemed almost another person. “If they need it, but more to introduce them to each other, so they have some acquaintances when they are thrown into the whirl of their first London Season.”

“That is a very good idea.” How she would have loved to have a readymade circle of friends in town, Charlotte thought.

Frances set a complex knot stitch. “Amelia will be taking over supervision of Anne more and more, of course. I suppose I shall hardly see her at this time next year.” She sighed. “It will be just Lizzy and me left. Lizzy will not like that.”

“I don’t think she will…”

“Oh, don’t misunderstand me. We are quite fond of each other—despite what I may say in the heat of the moment.” Frances smiled again. “But Lizzy requires so much activity! She really should go to school.”

“Perhaps she will reconsider once Anne is busy elsewhere.”

“Perhaps.” Frances didn’t sound as if she believed it. They sewed in silence for a while. “In a few years they will all be off to lives of their own. Alec will marry, naturally, and I shall not be needed in his household.”

Remembering stories she had heard of the ill treatment of poor relations, Charlotte grew concerned. “You would not be turned out?”

“Oh no. Alec would never do that. And in any case James, his father, left me a tidy sum in his will. I am quite independent. It just seems that my… work… the work I was given to do fourteen years ago is nearly over. It’s odd to think of.”

“You have been a very busy person.”

“Too busy sometimes,” Frances laughed. “But I am less and less so. I used to help James a good deal with the estate work, but Alec prefers to handle it himself.”

Charlotte was well aware of that!

“Richard is at Oxford; Anne is nearly out.” She shook her head.

“What would you most
like
to do?”

“What?”

“It is a subject I have been thinking and thinking about myself. For some reason, I never considered it much before. But we need to, don’t we? If we don’t, who will?”

“Will…?”

“Think about what we want—ourselves, separate from what others may need or plan.”

“Ah.” Frances said nothing more for such a long time that Charlotte wondered if she had overstepped her bounds. At last, however, she spoke very quietly, eyes on her sewing. “There was a time when I thought… hoped, perhaps, that James… He was twenty years older, of course. But I was about the age of his wife—my cousin Elizabeth. It seemed no impediment. However, he did not… there was never any approach to…” She stopped, pulled dark green threads through the cloth several times, then added, “He talked to me quite frankly, you know, trusted me. We were good friends, and I believe I was a comfort to him in many ways. And I had the children; I loved… love the children as if they were my own. I had less than many women have, but also more than a great many.” She glanced briefly at Charlotte, then dropped her gaze to the needlework again.

“Since he’s been gone, I feel just a little… lost. Everything is so different.”

Moved, Charlotte leaned forward and put a hand on one of hers. She had no words to offer. Frances’s story made her feel young and inexperienced. But she could show how much she sympathized.

Frances gave her a warm smile. She turned her hand up and squeezed Charlotte’s. “It has been so short a time, but you feel like one of the family,” she said.

Charlotte’s eyes pricked with tears. Nothing she could have said would have been more welcome than this. Frances patted her hand and went back to her needle. The moment passed; the conversation retreated to more general subjects. But Charlotte would hold it close in her heart ever after.