An armchair—in her bedroom!
Her eyes very nearly crossed within five minutes. Barclay surely didn’t really like this, did he? He’d probably recommended it solely so he could laugh at the look on her face as she read it. So he could lord his supposedly superior intelligence over her.
“Well.” She slapped the cover closed and tossed the book toward her bed. “I’m not stupid just because I don’t want to read about a bunch of smelly fishermen out hunting whales.”
The tick-tocking clock agreed with her, practically nodding its head.
She pushed to her feet and decided to wander through the cottage again. It had been dark last night when she got here, and though she’d glanced into every room, she hadn’t really explored them.
Her expedition began in the next bedchamber, appointed with blue and white linens and light-colored furniture. Its window had much the same view of the wild-looking garden as hers did. She crossed the hall to the rooms opposite—these looked into the wood. For a long moment she stood at one of the panes, gazing out.
There were trees, of course, in London. But no proper woods. Perhaps tomorrow she would find the time to explore them a bit. Or follow that path through the heather that ended, she suspected, at the famous Cornish cliffs.
The next room was a bedroom only in the loosest sense—it had a bed, of sorts. But instead of bureau or chair, it had shelves. Filled, of course, with books.
Were she in the mood, she might have found it amusing. Today, it made her scowl. Whoever the Holsteins were, they had a serious problem with book collection.
Her scowl didn’t lessen when she stepped close enough to the shelves to see the titles. Many of them were the same as she had looked over in Holstein’s study earlier. Novels, some with familiar authors and titles, some she had never heard of. Some in German, most in English. All looked utterly pristine, their spines uncreased and pages, when she pulled one tome out, without the slightest wear.
Whenever Barclay got a new book, “new” didn’t mean new. Ever. One couldn’t eat a book. Couldn’t wear it. Couldn’t use it to keep warm on a bitter winter night. And so, they only ever picked up the cheapest ones in used-book shops.
But Holstein obviously had multiple copies of most of these. Just think of it—multiple copies of the same book.
She replaced the perfect example and perused another shelf. Let her gaze fall to the table, where an electric lamp sat beside yet another story in an untouched binding. This Mad Caper by Branock Hollow. Hollow’s fourth book, wasn’t it? Barclay had gone on and on about it. Which didn’t, apparently, say much if he liked Melville.
Rosemary reached for it, flipped it open. The first paragraph was promising. And since Barclay need never even know that she had tried ol’ Herman and given him up after a page . . . She headed back to the chair by her bed in her room and wasted the next fifteen minutes happily enough. This Hollow chap was no Austen, but he was a far cry easier to read than the whaler-loving American.
He wasn’t, however, distracting enough to make her lose track of time. At precisely the minute she had deemed right for walking out of the cottage, out she went. Along the path, through the garden, toward the front of the house.
Halfway through the profusion of blooms, her step hitched. An odd smell drifted on the breeze, one that didn’t fit with the fragrance of flowers and earth. But it gave her pause only for a moment, until she realized it was nothing but cigarette smoke. A common enough smell in London, just not one she had been expecting out here. She wasted no time looking around for the groundsman or stable hand responsible, just hurried along the path.
The carriage with its four matching brown horses was pulling up into the circle that Willa had driven their borrowed car around yesterday. She had rather expected Holstein to have an automobile too. Wasn’t that the latest thing for well-to-do blokes? Heaven knew he could probably trade in just a portion of his book collection and be able to afford to buy one. Though she doubted finances were much of a concern for him anyway.
She couldn’t imagine such a reality. To rise every day with no question of how to put food on the table. Of whether one should invest in a new pair of shoes or put back the coin for a winter coat. If one could afford to splurge on a hot cross bun on Good Friday.
The carriage drew to a halt, leaving Rosemary with the question of where in the world she was to wait for Mr. Holstein. Did she go ahead and climb in? Or stand on the stairs until he emerged?
Luckily she needn’t wonder for long—the door opened, and Holstein emerged in evening dress, and with a wrapped package tucked under his arm.
Rosemary took a moment to absorb the image, so she could regale Elinor with it when she got back to London. Her insufferable employer, looking dapper and polished and so very cleft-chinned as he came down the steps. To look at him, one would never know that he could be such an inconsiderate oaf. He looked nice, kind, thoughtful as he shifted the package—probably a gift for someone in the Penrose house—and looked up to spot her, sending her a polite smile. And no doubt the blighted lawyer thought his good friend all things noble and admirable.
But if she were to hazard a guess, she’d say neither Peter Holstein nor Gryffyn Penrose had ever gone, gift in hand, to a poorhouse or orphanage. She had her doubts whether they had so much as tossed a two-pence to a beggar on the street. Their kind always seemed to think anyone who was poor deserved to be. Or were crooks.
A funny little discomfort wormed its way through her veins. But she wasn’t a crook. She didn’t do what she did because she found pleasure in hurting anyone, like some of those sleazy back-alley moneylenders. She wasn’t a swindler. When she stole, it was from those who could well afford to lose a bit, and to feed those who couldn’t well afford to miss another meal. Not that she was a modern-day Robin Hood exactly, but . . . but more a Robin Hood than a crook.
And really, what choice had she had? What was a girl to do when she found herself in the gutter at the age of eight? There’d been no option but to steal, if she wanted to survive. And now she had no other skills to keep her and the dozen children in her charge out of that gutter.
“You look . . . look n-nice, Miss . . . Gresham.”
He managed to say it in a way at once warm and dismissive—in that manner that indicated he would have said the same had she emerged in a gunnysack, simply because it was the thing he ought to say.
She pasted on a smile that went more genuine than she meant it to when she recalled the way Mrs. Teague had lectured her on proper dinner attire as she was ready to slip back out to the cottage. As if the housekeeper had thought her so utterly devoid of sense that she meant to emerge in a gunnysack. “Thank you, Mr. Holstein. And for inviting me to join you in the first place. I do hate to intrude.” On your precious space, you oaf.
He didn’t seem to hear her silent addition. Just motioned toward the carriage and the servant waiting to help her into it.
The groom, or driver, or whatever he was, greeted her with an outstretched hand and a smile considerably more attentive than Holstein’s. He was a handsome chap, aside from the unfortunate arrangement of his yellow teeth. Not that she was one to judge such things. It was pure luck that her own teeth hadn’t rotted and fallen out from poor nutrition long ago.
“Evening, miss.” Maybe he was a footman? No, she thought those were reserved for inside the house. Maybe. He grinned as her fingers landed in his palm. “Hope you’re enjoying Cornwall.” He said it with the thick accent of a Cornish native. No h at the start of hope, the rolling r at the end of you’re. So very opposite the clipped tones of London.
“Thank you, yes. It’s lovely.” She rewarded the fellow with a warm grin.
Holstein was there behind her as she used the man’s hand to vault up into the carriage. “K-Kenver. How is . . . how is y-your new . . . wife?”
Rosemary settled on the cushion, lips twitching. Genuine interest on Holstein’s part? Polite inquiry? Or a warning to her not to flirt with Kenver?
The c
ushion received her like a friend, soft and gentle. She ran a hand over the smooth upholstery, better by far than any to be found in her flat.
Mr. Holstein ducked through the doorway.
“You want me to take that package up with me, Mr. Holstein?”
But he continued his entrance, pausing for just a moment inside as he regarded Rosemary. Having the sudden certainty that she’d taken his usual spot, she had to stifle an exasperated sigh.
Then he sat on the seat opposite and directed his oh-so-polite smile toward Kenver. “B-Better . . . not.” He nodded toward the out-of-doors at large.
Rosemary bent her head to look out the window. How had she failed to notice the black clouds hunching their shoulders over the horizon? There would be rain tonight, and likely tomorrow. She hoped poor Kenver had a mackintosh up there with him. And that Willa got back to the village before it let loose.
Rosemary would have done well to bring a wrap too. She’d not grabbed it though—nor had she remembered her handbag. Drat, she never forgot her handbag—far too convenient for hiding small valuables, not that she’d need it for such tonight. And she kept her picks in it. One never knew when one might need those.
Perhaps that novel had been more distracting than she’d thought.
Kenver closed the door, and silence pounced with a whoosh. Rosemary hoped against hope that the Penrose place was nearby. What in the world was she to talk about for who-knew-how-long, with a man who likely wouldn’t even attempt to reply to half of her comments?
The carriage rocked as Kenver climbed up onto the front, and a moment later the horses tugged them forward. Rosemary kept her gaze directed out the window, fully prepared to pretend the awkward silence didn’t bother her in the slightest. To pretend that she was accustomed to quiet rather than always having younger “siblings” around her, clamoring for this or for that or just clamoring. To pretend that it didn’t faze her in the slightest to be out on a road with practically no traffic or noise or sirens or bobbies’ whistles.
Holstein cleared his throat. “I f-feel I . . . I should ap—pologize again.”
So then she would pretend instead that she had already forgotten how right he’d been to call himself an oaf in that letter he’d waved at her. Pretend conversation wasn’t even more awkward than silence. She brought out a smile that said I am but your humble servant. “Think nothing of it, Mr. Holstein. You are entitled to act however you wish in your own home.”
In her experience with the so-called gentle class, it was exactly what they thought, what they based their every action upon. Why, then, did his brows draw together? Why did he shake his head?
“N-No one has the . . . r-right to be . . . to be rude.”
The corner of her mouth quirked up before she could stop it. “No? Your counterparts in London seem to disagree.”
He sighed—a heavy, quick chuff—and looked to the window. “Trust m-me. I know.”
He most assuredly did not know. He’d never been a ragamuffin hiding in an alley, praying for a pence or two to fall from a wealthy gent’s pockets. He’d never been spat upon by some dandy just for having the audacity to exist. He’d never had the police called on him just for being poor and orphaned and confused by it all.
He had enemies though. Her presence here was proof of that. And the upper-crust bullies likely plied their skills on their own, not just the lower classes.
Blast it all, she didn’t want to be fair. It was more comfortable to simmer about it. And besides, he likely deserved the scorn of those upper-class bullies, given his presumed allegiances.
They reached the end of his long, winding drive, but rather than turn toward the village, Kenver directed them to the right. She and Willa hadn’t ventured this far, so her gaze took it all in through the window. Here, away from the cliffs, trees stood sentinel. The expected elms and moorland trees bending into the wind, and a few that looked suspiciously tropical. “Is that a palm tree?”
He smiled and shook his head. “C-Cabbage tree. We . . . we call them C-Cornish palms though. From . . . from New Z-Zealand.”
“Well.” They were more of the tropics than she’d ever see. She’d tell the family they were palms. Make the place seem foreign and romantic. “It’s beautiful country.”
“H-Have you s . . . seen St. M-Michael’s Mount?”
She’d never even heard of it. So a shake of her head, a lifted brow.
He smiled. It made the cleft in his chin all the more charming and lit warmth in his blue-green eyes. Not that Rosemary cared for such things, but Ellie would. She was only noting it so she could spin a compelling tale.
“The St. Au . . . Aubyn f-family castle. There is a p-painting . . . a painting of it. In the p-parlor.”
She waited a moment, but he said no more about it. Because, she supposed, there was no point. Apparently it was a lovely enough place, if someone painted it, and if his family admired said painting enough to hang it prominently in their home. But she could hardly comment on it until she had seen it. And he would hardly waste words trying to explain it to her when a picture could say it more clearly.
As to why he’d brought it up, then . . . She nodded. “I’ll have a look at it tomorrow. Is it near here? The place, I mean, not the painting.”
He set the package in his lap. “Ab . . . about fif . . . fifteen miles.”
Accessible, then. Perhaps, if it were truly spectacular, she’d make an attempt to see it while she was in the area. Though she hadn’t the foggiest notion when she’d do such a thing. “Mr. Holstein, it occurs to me that we haven’t discussed my hours. I am familiar enough with manor houses to know that most employees get a half-day off sometime during the week.” Though that had always struck her as unfair—even factory workers got a full day, on Sundays. What made these dandies think they could demand more? If she were mistress of a place like Kensey, she wouldn’t be so stingy with her staff’s free time.
“You are . . . you are not h-household st . . . staff.” For all his stuttering, his tone was mild. “I am . . . well aware of th—that. You will h-have the s-same schedule you . . . you would have had. In London.”
Her heart jumped up into her throat. In all her plying of Mr. Hall in the pub, she hadn’t thought to ask him what his usual schedule was.
But Holstein was only pausing for a long breath. “Half days on . . . on Saturdays. S-Sundays off.”
That would leave plenty of time for sightseeing, then. She nodded, careful to keep her countenance clear. As if she had expected nothing less. “Excellent. Thank you, sir.”
He returned the nod, and she thought for sure he’d let silence fall. Instead, he said, “And y-you may . . . you may b-borrow one of . . . of the carriages. Any t-time I am . . . I am not using them.”
She had a suspicion that was most times. Surely a man who so hated having anyone interrupt him wasn’t the type to go out to the local pub every night for a pint and a pie or to catch a moving picture—if they even had such things in the village. So it wasn’t exactly a sacrifice to offer the use of his vehicles. Still, it was more than she would have thought a gentleman would feel obligated to offer an employee.
She shifted on her plush, overly comfortable seat. Having been so busy getting her story ready to come here, she hadn’t paused to wonder what kind of man this new “employer” of hers would be. And she was far from ready to accept that he was really all generosity and kindness—it was too directly opposed to all she’d ever known of his type.
Gentlemen never gave freely.
But if this one tried to get anything from her other than a tidy library, she’d teach him a few lessons about how tough a Cockney girl could be.
He was frowning at her. “Are you all . . . all right, M-Miss Gresham?”
Her face must have fallen into hard lines. She smoothed it out and put that smile back on. “Of course. And thank you, sir, for the offer. No doubt I’ll take you up on that.”
The carriage slowed and turned, though they couldn’t have come more than a
mile on the main road. “Does Mr. Penrose live nearby?”
Holstein nodded. “V-Very. I often . . . walk. When not in . . . in evening dr—dress.”
She made a mental note to head in the opposite direction if ever she went out on foot for a bit of exercise. And covered it with a grin. “A concession I rather appreciate, given these shoes.”
After the expected returning smile, Holstein repositioned the package again and turned toward the door, obviously anticipating a quick arrival at their destination. Having nothing to reposition, Rosemary settled for watching said destination approach out the window.
They turned onto a drive of crushed rock. The grounds were well-tended but decidedly lacking the extravagance of Kensey Manor. No exotic blooms rioting for dominance, other than a few of those cabbage trees lining the drive, and otherwise just the usual trimmed shrubbery and careful flowers. An expanse of lawn before a modest house of grey stone blocks that had become a haven for climbing ivy. Pretty. Prettier than she would have expected of Gryffyn Penrose. She rather thought he’d live in some grand, imposing structure that was all hard lines and ancestral paintings of barristers of generations past. Perhaps with those electro-magnets on the windows to shrill if someone dared open the pane without permission.
This was . . . charming. Irritatingly charming. What business had a glowering blighter like Penrose to live in such a lovely, cozy place?
She could imagine the family in a house like this. They’d all have to share bedrooms, but they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves otherwise. The little ones could tumble about in the yard, chasing one another. And a cat. They needed a cat to scramble up that elm there.
The halting of the carriage jolted her from that dream—which was just as well. She’d never have a place like this. Her family would just have to settle for Kensey Manor, even if it were too large.
Pressing her lips against the grin, Rosemary nodded when Holstein motioned for her to precede him out the door. Kenver was there again to help her down, though she paid little attention to whether or not he graced her with a smile. Her gaze pulled to the wooden slab of a door with ancient-looking iron fittings as it flew open.
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