The Painted Lady (9 page)

Granted he was likely bound for Bedlam anyway, but having a slight, slim, unsophisticated country girl look at him with trepidation affected his pride, his sense of self. Besides, such irrational fears could not be good for Miss Bannister’s mind. Turbulence, don’t you know.

The only way Kasey could think of to prove he meant the chit no harm was to leave, but he was reluctant to go somehow, even when he suspected the physician’s theories had more to do with money than with mental well-being. He’d just have to win her over with charm. That should not be an impossible task for a popular fellow like himself, should it? At least this experiment was not likely to have his arm chewed on.

“You know,” he said as the wagon road narrowed, “you never answered me yesterday. I could still leave, if you wish.”

Lilyanne paused to push her hood back, now that the sun was warming the morning air. She hadn’t put her hair under its cap yet, just pulled the dark mass back off her face with a ribbon. She thought His Grace’s indrawn breath was just another gasp for air. For all his mass and muscles, the duke was out of condition, like every other useless ornament of Polite Society. Why this should bother her enough to run the poor man ragged this morning was a question Lilyanne could not answer. Perhaps she was angry at Caswell because she hadn’t slept well last night, thinking of those selfsame muscles and mass, along with dimples and blue-green eyes that were shadowed in sadness. They ought to be dancing eyes, she thought, laughing eyes. They ought to be in London, where the women understood his teasing.

Lilyanne made sure Little Henry was within hailing distance, not hearing distance, before she replied. “I have done a little thinking on that matter, too, Your Grace.” She had been thinking of nothing else. “And I wonder if you believe Uncle’s course of treatment will help you. If you do not, you see, then it cannot work, and you should return to Town and seek help elsewhere.”

“Honestly?”

“Always.”

“Then, I do not honestly know. Fresh air and exercise never hurt anyone.” Kasey ignored his aching feet. “If they can help blow away the cobwebs in my brain box, I am willing to try. I know I am already sleeping better.”

“The evening tea has soothing agents in it.” They did not work as well as the sleeping potion in the pudding, but Lilyanne saw no reason to mention that.

“Do you know the sampler that hangs in my bedroom?” Kasey asked, as he placed her gloved hand on his arm and started to walk—more an amble—in the direction they’d been headed.

“Of course. I was the one who stitched it.”

He hadn’t noticed the needlework, only the message. “ ‘To thine own self be true.’ I must have heard it a thousand times, without reflecting on its import. What do you think it means, Miss Bannister?”

Uncle Osgood seldom asked her opinion, or took it when offered, so Lilyanne was not in the habit of frank, thoughtful discussions with gentlemen. “Why, I think ... that is, it must mean to understand one’s own nature, to be honest with oneself. To not act in violation of one’s own moral values. Perhaps it means to recognize your faults and try to correct them. Or to find your own path to happiness, despite what others might dictate. As you say, philosophers have been debating the phrase for centuries.”

He nodded, studying the path in front of them and leading her around a protruding root. “Are you?”

“Am I true to myself? I think so.”

“By all accounts and appearances you are an excellent example for your uncle’s theories: competent, collected, controlled.”

“I should hope so! I have had ten years of living with my uncle to learn moderation in all things.”

“But was that your nature before? Do you even now want to be here, doing good works? Your uncle’s work?”

The conversation was growing uncomfortable for Lilyanne. She removed her hand from his arm to raise the hood again, protecting her from his penetrating stare. “It is a rewarding life.”

“But not the life you would have chosen for yourself, I’d wager.”

“Wagering is an invitation to Turbulence, Your Grace. And my nature is none of your affair.” Lilyanne had not meant to open her own life for discussion, and she surely had not meant to utter the word “affair.” She saw an intersecting path ahead and headed in that direction, with relief. “Our dawdling here has caused me to be late for my morning chores. I will return by a shortcut through the orchard here, while you continue on with Little Henry.”

Kasey started to follow Miss Bannister on the narrow trail, for the sake of her company and the chance of finding an apple in the orchard, but Wolfie had other ideas.

Kasey tried to convince Little Henry that a gentleman never left a lady unaccompanied. Little Henry was not a gentleman, it seemed. The duke then tried to engage the youth in conversation, hoping to learn more about Miss Bannister. The grunted ayes and nays discouraged him. Wolfie had more to say: “Grr.”

* * * *

Breakfast consisted of toast and eggs. Happily, Kasey liked his eggs soft-boiled. He was amazed at how much flavor a fellow could get out of a few grains of salt, although he did pinch an extra few from Lady Edgecombe’s empty place setting while Sir Osgood’s head was bowed in another lengthy grace. Miss Bannister frowned, but Kasey could swear her mouth turned up at the corners. She had her ugly mobcap on again, and he vowed to eat that first, when he became hungry enough. Perhaps in an hour.

After breakfast, Kasey was assigned to polishing silver, to his extreme displeasure.

“I protest, sir. I would not perform such menial tasks in my own home, and did not hire on to be a servant in yours. I did, in fact, pay you enough to hire seven polishers. Wearing silver buttons.”

“Indeed you did, for a course of treatment which consists of learning patience and diligence, and the rewards of a job well done. Your rebellion shows that your brain has not yet accepted the path of equanimity, that your mind is still in turmoil. Simple, repetitive tasks is what I prescribe in these cases, to calm that chaos inside.”

Miss Bannister having mentioned that she was going to the kitchens to help with the baking, Kasey asked if he might not go with her instead. “Surely kneading bread is almost as mind-numbing as polishing. Or I could stir the batter. I am superb at mixing paints, and that cannot be half as difficult.”

Lilyanne herself answered no. She did not want to spend the morning with this man in the confines of the kitchen, or anywhere, for that matter. He was too unsettling. Besides, Mrs. Dowdeswell was used to the balky chits they sent to her domain, warning the girls that they could either work or go hungry. Lilyanne doubted Cook could confront a duke, much less a young, handsome one. Why, if he showed those dimples, Lilyanne feared, Mrs. Dowdeswell would be making Caswell cream cakes, instead of teaching him diligence. And the rogue was liable to take his coat off and roll up his sleeves in the warm kitchen. No, that was not a sight Lilyanne wished to see. That is, she did not think Cook or her young assistants should be exposed to such raffish ways. The poor girls might become overheated and overstimulated. Over Lilyanne’s dead body. She would not let a Town buck set up a flirtation with her unsuspecting staff!

“Polishing silver is usually the butler’s job, but Dowdeswell has been laid up with the gout.”

Kasey examined his plate in case a crumb had escaped his notice. Surely Dowdeswell had not developed the gout from his wife’s rich cooking.

“You will be better employed there, Your Grace,” Sir Osgood agreed, “without the distractions of a busy workplace.”

Kasey thought he would be best employed trying to remove the chip Miss Bannister seemed to have on her shoulder, but her raised chin discouraged him from trying for the moment. Besides, every butler’s pantry he’d ever seen had at least one bottle of wine.

So Kennard Cartland, Duke of Caswell, spent the morning spreading some vile concoction on ugly epergnes and convoluted candelabra, only to wipe it off again. Alone with his thoughts, Kasey did not think he was making much headway with his hostess or with his haunt. He did, however, make great headway on a bottle of fine wine hidden behind the polishing rags.

* * * *

After a luncheon of cold meats and cheese—which he was sharp-set enough to appreciate, or made mellow enough by the wine not to mind—Kasey was set to raking leaves. At least this time Miss Bannister was nearby, although Henry, Little Henry, and Wolfie were in the gardens also. Lilyanne was packing the leaves around the roses for winter protection, much the way she was using the gardeners and the guard dog as buffers for her own safety.

Trundling over what seemed his hundredth wheelbarrow full of leaves, Kasey complained. “I cannot see where this is helping. Rubbing, raking, and running through the woods have nothing to do with apparitions.”

“Have you seen any visions since you got here?” Lilyanne asked, honestly concerned, but also ready to call for Little Henry and his weapon.

Kasey dumped the wheelbarrow and said no.

“Have you heard any voices in your head?”

“No.”

“Well, then the treatment is not not working. As Uncle explained, you truly do have to learn patience, Your Grace.”

What Kasey was learning, and none-too gracefully at that, was how many places a gentleman could develop blisters.

Chapter Ten

Leaves were like bills, Kasey was discovering. There were always more. Then, too, once you had the job done, it was all to do again after another week, another wind gust. He quit when Miss Bannister went inside to fetch more string to tie some weeds together for drying. Kasey supposed they were more herbs used for the teas, since no flavorings seemed to go into the meals. He told Little Henry he had to check on his horses in the stable, and the youth nodded, then followed him, Wolfie at his heels.

Like everything else at Bannister Hall, the stables were plain but tidy and well-kept. His cattle were in large adjoining stalls, but the duke knew they’d been out, for he’d seen them in a fenced area this morning. He checked their feed and bedding, and found nothing to criticize except a bit of dirt and dust where Castor must have rolled.

Now here was a job befitting a man of his rank and means, His Grace thought as he searched for a brush and currycomb; no gentleman was above grooming his own horse. It was a suitably mind-numbing task, besides, so not even Sir Osgood could complain. He led Castor out of his stall first, tying the gelding to the crossbar, and went to work on the bay coat, whistling.

“The master, he don’t hold with whistlin’
,
” Little Henry said from the other side of the stable.

“Then we won’t tell him, will we?” Kasey kept on brushing, kept on whistling. “And keep the dog out of here, will you? He makes the horses nervous.” Hell, he made Kasey nervous.

Little Henry had chores enough of his own, so he went back outside before he was set to mucking out the empty stall. “I be right across the yard, then.”

“Fine, if I decide to run amok I’ll be sure to call out for you.”

Little Henry nodded uncertainly, but he did leave, and Kasey went back to the gelding, thinking about Miss Bannister and what it would feel like to brush that long black hair of hers. His whistling grew louder and just a bit more lively.

“La, I knew that couldn’t be one of the grooms,” a voice trilled from the other side of Castor.

Kasey straightened up and looked over the horse’s shoulder to see Lady Edgecombe leaning on her parasol, a vision in buttercup yellow today, with very little fabric cupping her bounty. He hadn’t been whistling all that loudly, he knew, so she must have seen him enter the stables and followed. Her smile was more of a fox finding a hare, than a casual hello. “My lady, good day. I see you do not keep to the Bannisters’ schedule.”

“What, are you daft?”

“That seems to be the question, ma’am. Sir Osgood is noncommittal about it, noncommiting, at any rate.”

She laughed at his jest, but the sound grated on Kasey’s sensibilities. He must indeed be crazed in the cockloft not to find the lush and lovely viscountess attractive, but he preferred Castor’s company right now. “Do not let me keep you from your walk, my lady. We won’t have many more such clear autumn afternoons.”

“Walk? La, I was just going to get one of the boys to drive me and my maid around the countryside, Your Grace. I don’t suppose you would tool us about in your curricle? No, it’s most likely locked up in the carriage house with my own gig. Sir Bannister is so punctilious about these things.”

Kasey had not thought to look for his carriage. The duke could not blame Bannister for making it harder for the inmates to escape, but, dash it, he was not a prisoner here. Kasey intended to stay the week, but he preferred to know that he could leave any time he wanted. He’d speak to the doctor later. Right now, His Grace had another thought. Lady Edgecombe obviously had freer rein than he was afforded, with no locks on her doors, no schedule of menial chores, and she must also have access to a food supply—real food, not the pap served at Bannister Hall, Her curves were too well cushioned for this kitchen. Also, her gown never came from her maid’s needle, nor that plumed bonnet.

“You get to leave the grounds, then?” he asked.

“Only so far as the village, but it is something. I would go mad in truth if I had to spend all of my hours in this benighted place. I am hoping your presence will enliven the days. Or nights.”

What Lady Edgecombe was hoping for was as blatant as her half-bared breasts. An affair for a week and then, perhaps, a way out of her comfortable incarceration. “I am sorry, ma’am, but I doubt I am good company these days. I seem to be at somewhat loose ends myself.”

“Fustian. Whoever heard of an attics-to-let duke? A pox-ridden old peer, perhaps, but not one in the flower of his manhood.”

Kasey made sure he kept the horse between them, lest the lady get a notion to pluck a bouquet. “Thank you. I will keep that in mind, the next time I feel I am losing mine.”

“I am not insane either, you know.” Her tone of voice indicated that might be the reason for his standoffishness.