Chapter 2
Late Night Tea
I t was really raining now, so loudly that the falling drops woke Beatrice from her sleep. Hudson had also stirred, too early, so that he had to go downstairs to get himself a drink of water, in the hopes that this exercise would send him straight back to bed.
“Surely it is far too early in the morning for you to be at your duties, Beatrice?” Hudson seemed to fill the space even in whispers. He held up his candle, competing with Beatrice’s own to light up to the large kitchen.
“Lord Carter…Yes…The rain…I couldn’t…” she struggles for words, sleep still heavy in her eyes and voice so that she almost slurred.
“What are you doing? It can’t be later than three o’clock…” he says, looking at the large timepiece on the far end of the wall.
“I hadn’t noticed. I might as well get a start of these fires…the wood is wet…” she searches her mind for an acceptable excuse for her early morning meanderings. She can’t, after all, say that the thunder scared her, so she decided to keep herself busy. Surely only ladies had the luxury of being frightened by something as trivial as thunder.
“Well, since we're both here, and you seem to be succeeding at stoking the stoves, why don’t you make us both a cup of tea…?” Hudson seems real oblivious to his charm. He doesn’t notice that Beatrice has flushed bright red and is struggling to remember even where the teapot is.
She stumbles through the now-excruciating process of making tea, unsure of what to say to the man now sitting at the large work table in the kitchen, moving his finger back and forth over the flame in front of him. Why had she not stayed in bed and pulled the covers over her head, the way normal people who are afraid of loud noises in the night do?
Beatrice wasn’t one to have a loss for words, but this situation, unexpected and almost surreal, has really rendered her silent. Try as she might, to say something appropriate, nothing came to mind. She thinks instead of the many questions that she has wanted to ask the Lord, questions that her station just wouldn’t allow. She watches the teapot intently on the stove and watches the blue and yellow flame dancing underneath it. If only, she and Hudson could be like that flame.
Her mind wanders effortlessly to places it really shouldn’t. She forgets, briefly that she is in the kitchen with Lord Hudson, as she imagines him standing in their bedroom looking at her lovingly as she brushes her hair, preparing for bed. She imagines too, how he would hold and shield her from the menacing thunder and lightning outside and hold her tightly until the menace was gone. She imagines many things in quick succession, but just in time manages to pull herself from her imaginings, as the water begins to boil, and she knows that Hudson is looking at her now, waiting for his tea.
Too quickly the tea is ready, and she sets down the tray in front of Hudson. She wants to ask him if he wouldn’t be more comfortable in the parlor, but the rapid beating of her heart lets her know that she wants him to stay right where he is.
“Sit…drink some tea with me…I’ll be out of your way soon enough…”
She wonders if he isn’t perhaps playing with her, if maybe he is aware of her attraction towards him, and so he is mocking her. But he speaks with such sincerity, though, that she thinks that he wouldn’t be able to mock another person if he tried. Beatrice sits down opposite him at the table, and they seem to be separated by an ocean. This both frustrates her, and fills her with the deepest sense of relief. She doesn’t, after all, want him to hear her heart, which is beating so loudly that she can see it through her shawl.
“How old are you?” he asks, suddenly, and she is taken aback by this question. She can think of a million reasons why he would want to know her age, but none of these reasons seems in the least bit appropriate.
“Twenty,” she says, looking deep into her teacup, wishing that she could disappear into the dark liquid.
“And how long have you been with us here at the Carter household?” Another probing question that makes no sense to her. She pulls her shawl over her heart which is really threatening to leap from her chest now.
“Four years…” she answers, looking up at him now, wanting both to see his face, and his intention. Whiles his face is obvious, his intention eludes her so that she finds herself looking deep into his eyes, searching for anything that will give away his reasoning.
“Four years? And this is the first time that I have shared a cup of tea with you? I must apologize profusely for this oversight on my part. Will you forgive me?” She notices a slight smile on his beautiful mouth and really thinks that he is mocking her. But his words are laced with such depth that she decides, much against her better sensibilities, to take them for what they are.
“There really is nothing to forgive, Lord Carter…There has never been, nor ever will be, a reason for us to share a cup of tea…” ‘Or anything else…’ she wants to say but doesn’t. Why would they, and why would he feel the need to apologize for this, what did he call it, this oversight?
Beatrice could, of course, read any number of things into this apology. She doesn’t though, careful now that she is in such proximity with him, alone. She feels that he can see through her, into her head, at the thoughts mulling around inside her. She concentrates hard to steady her thoughts and bring them to acceptable things, things that really have nothing to do with the two of them being anything but Lord and servant. It is hard, though, and each time she looks up at him, catching glimpses of him in the candlelight, her mind is again wondering.
Hudson really is a handsome man. This fills her with both desire, and a deep sense of regret. She hates the regret most because there really is no foundation for her to have such feelings in the first place. But she does, and she knows that she will have to deal with them, on her own, and very soon.
Beatrice gets up from the table and busies herself with gathering firewood for the stoves, for no reason at all. But the task of moving wood from one pile to another seems to distract her sufficiently from this strange conversation. She doesn’t even try to make sense of it, suddenly just wishing that Hudson would get up and leave her to her business.
“And how old do you think I am, Beatrice?” he asks her when he eventually stands up and starts to make his way out of the kitchen. She isn’t sure if she should pretend not to know. Why would she, after all, know his age?
“Twenty-eight…” she says, without looking at him.
“Twenty-eight!” he confirms and takes his candle and half the light in the kitchen away with him.
It has just gone five o’clock, and Beatrice is grateful when the kitchen suddenly springs to life, servants filing in, ready for the day’s activities…
Chapter 3
Betrothed
S ummer effortlessly and without much of a fight starts to give way to the autumn months. The days have become remarkably shorter, and hunting has turned to fencing as a means of entertaining the young man at Carter Manor. Beatrice is more focused on her job at the large country home now, especially since Hudson Carter’s hunting boots no longer need polishing.
She strays often towards the library where most of the fencing takes place. But there is no job for her here, nothing to do but to dust and sweep. Beatrice also gets the impression that she is in the way, and so she just leaves the Lords to their mock-duelling and disappears into a part of the house where she is not confronted constantly with the image of Hudson.
Beatrice calls him Hudson in her mind, sometimes, when she is alone, only when she is alone, she whispers his name to hear how it sounds when spoken by her. She is no lady, though, so it sounds hard and unrefined. She knows too, though, that with practice, she has managed to roll his name off her tongue almost with as much creaminess as he seems to utter every word that comes out of his mouth.
Everything about Hudson tugs at Beatrice, more and more it seems until she is absolutely consumed. She knows that there is no way that he would feel the same way, not so much because of their different positions, but because every time he
sees her, she is dirty and working, something that she has to do because firstly, it is her job, and secondly, if she did nothing, there really is no telling what she might do with the thoughts running like wildfires in her head.
“Great news…” Mrs. Seymour shrills as she enters the kitchen one morning. Everyone stops what they are doing, paying to the old battle-axe that attention she commands.
“Well, go on then…” Silos James Warden, the butler, asks her, slightly irritated. Silos appeared to be in a constant state of irritation, so it was easy to ignore him.
“Lord Carter is to be married…by next summer it seems, spring even. He has just announced his engagement to the Lady Katherine Frampton. Isn’t it just wonderful news?” she asks, not really expecting anybody to answer her.
“Announced it where, woman?” Silos asks, keeping the conversation between Mrs. Seymour and himself, reducing everyone else in the kitchen to mere spectators.
“To me, you fool, to me. And within a fortnight, we’re to have a magnificent ball to announce the engagement formally, right here at Carter Manor. Heaven knows this house could do with a bit of excitement to see us through the winter. Come, come, Mr. Warden, we have very many things to discuss…” She pulls Silos by his arm towards the back stairs that lead to the help’s kitchen and dining room. “I’ll make us a cup of tea and tell you all about my ideas for this happy event!”
Lord Carter is getting married… These words ring in Beatrice’s ears long after Mrs. Seymour had disappeared down the stairs. She knows already that this must be Hudson. He is the eldest of all his brothers and the only one with a disposition suitable to matrimony. She scrubs the same spot on the kitchen floor for the longest time, trying to ignore the words still resounding in her head, like the gong of the huge bell in the church square. Beatrice doesn’t know how she should feel about this news, but the one thing she can’t help is the tears now streaming down her whitewashed face.
She manages to hold herself back from sobbing, though, so it is easier for her to disappear into the background of the activity in the kitchen. Some staff are already preparing the afternoon tea, the rest busy with dinner. Beatrice manages to slip outside into the crisp coldness of the midmorning, bucket in hand. She doesn’t even realize that she has lost the dirty water in the bucket by the time she gets to the stables. Inside the stable house, she finds Hudson’s boots, and holding them to her fiercely, and breathes in the smell of the man she never had, but whom she is about to lose forever.
Now she lets herself cry, for her loss, and for the emptiness she now feels inside. Trying to contain herself, she finds it difficult, to breathe, and even to think, her thoughts overlapping into one another like the waves of the ocean off Dover, which she remembers from her childhood. Why did her mother send her here, to die a million deaths before she had even known life? Why could she not have stayed with the only family she has ever known, on a small farm far from this place with this man she shouldn’t love but does? Why did her mother have to be taken from her so suddenly, snatched away by fever like a thief snatches a purse from a pocket in a busy market?
She knows that she could never have had Hudson, not really. But the idea had been one that she gladly entertained until the day that she would find love a little closer to her station and forget about him. Now, it seemed that he had found love, with Lady Katherine Frampton, and in less than a year, they would be married.
Society was a cruel and vicious master, a master who decided that a man like Hudson Carter, tall and strange and ginger, would never, could never, look at a girl like her. She hated society and everything it stood for. She hated Hudson Carter for not noticing her. She hated everyone who would congratulate him in two weeks’ time for what would undoubtedly be called a most fortunate engagement.
“You’re the oldest, and you have to do this…” one of the Carter brothers, Beatrice couldn’t see who and they all sounded exactly the same except for Hudson, whispered to his brother as he closed the door to the stable house behind them.
“Yes, yes, otherwise we’ll be ruined. But to marry a woman I don’t love…that is…” Hudson speaks in his signature baritone.
“What has love to do with marriage brother? The Frampton fortune would save us from the poor house. That should surely be motivation enough…” The younger man spoke with such decided maturity that Beatrice correctly assumed that it had to be Mark. He had a way of sounding far beyond his years, even when he was engaging in the juvenile frolics that were the signature of youth.
“Love has everything to do with marriage…” Hudson starts.
“And who is it exactly that you love?” Mark interrupts, sounding like he was about to prove his point emphatically.
“No one, but that is beside the point. Actually, that is the whole point. I know I do not love Katherine bloody Frampton!” Hudson seldom sounded angry or agitated. And right now, he sounded both.
“Well you will have to suck it up and soldier on old chap, or we will all be ruined. I can hardly picture our mother in the poorhouse, at her age. And father, well he has had one foot in the grave for most of my life, so it won’t be long now. And once he is dead, then what? You must marry the Lady Katherine…And you can amuse yourself with love as a married man!”
Mark leaves Hudson alone now, to accept and resign himself to his fate. Hudson leaves the stable house a moment later, without seeing Beatrice who has tucked herself behind the saddles. So Hudson doesn’t want to marry Katherine? Why then would he do this? And why would this union save the Carter household from ruin?
Society was a hard master, yes, but it was obvious to Beatrice now that it was also very fickle. She knew, with every part of her, that she wanted no part of this world. And she knew that she would have to get Hudson out of her system quickly too and work hard to find the love that would save her from this most uncomfortable state.
Little did Beatrice know, though, that a few days later, her life would be irreversibly changed...
Chapter 4
An Unexpected Visitor
F our beautiful stallions draw a dark mahogany carriage into the gates at Carter manor, and everyone scurries, knowing that whoever is carried in the cab must be very important indeed. A footman waits at the bottom of the stairs leading to the front door, and as the carriage approaches, he runs to meet it, pulling the three steps of the back, placing them just below the door, pulling the dark door outward to release its occupants.
There is a long anticipation as the occupants seem to pause, for dramatic effect. They seem determined to make an entrance, and so they are content with waiting until they have a suitable audience before making their much-anticipated appearance. The footman almost wants to peep into the cabin, the maids too, but they restrain themselves, knowing the sheer inappropriateness of this.
Lord Hudson Carter appears in the doorway just then, flanked by a very curious Mrs. Seymour. Three maids flank Mrs. Seymour, and the welcoming committee is complete. Lord Hudson Carter Senior was confined to his bedchamber, ill again, and Lady Carter, Hudson’s mother, was anxiously waiting in the library to know who their guest was. The three youngest Carter boys were in London, doing what it is that young men of great means and little responsibility did.
A refined gentleman, advanced in his years, appears in the carriage door, and after inhaling the country air, as though he hadn’t in his life smelled air so fresh, took the three steps down from the carriage onto the gravel. He looked at Hudson, then at Mrs. Seymour, and then at the three maids. The footman had since replaced the stairs and disappeared around the side of the carriage, leading the horses away to drink after what must have been a very long journey.
Everyone watches this man standing in the picturesque setting that is the front of the Carter house, looking like he just stepped out of a whole other world, far removed from the calm country. The world where life was fast paced and exciting although his own involvement in this excitement was questionable. The audience cannot believe that such an elaborate carriag
e brought just one person to their door, but when he starts to speak, their attention immediately moves from what they think should have happened here, to what actually is.
“Horace Colborne, barrister…London” the old man introduced himself, tilting his hat at the maids, then at Mrs. Seymour, before taking it off completely and shaking Hudson Carter’s hand. “I have a most pressing matter to discuss with the Lady Beatrice Davenport.” He seems to sing Lady Beatrice Davenport, excited to at last make her acquaintance, although it is clear that he has no idea who this Lady actually is.
“Hudson Carter, Lord,” Hudson says, before saying quite emphatically, “I think you must have called on the wrong house Mr. Colborne. There is no Beatrice Davenport here, certainly no Lady Beatrice…” Hudson sounds like he is mocking the old man, mimicking his singing of the name. Everyone who knows him, though, knows that this is most certainly not the case. “If you will follow me Lord Colborne, we would be most pleased if you partook of some refreshments before you continued your search for Lady Davenport.” Hudson directs Mr. Colborne through to the parlor.
Mr. Horace Colborne has indeed come a long way. The trip from London has been exhausting too, but Horace has been occupied with his thoughts more that the exasperation of the trip. He knows that Beatrice Davenport is somewhere within these walls, and he knows too that she is certainly no lady in this manor.
He knows too that the news that he carries is going to turn the manor, and society at large, on its head.
Beatrice Clark is the daughter and only child of the late Earl of Berkshire, Robert Davenport. While Robert was known to have no children, and therefore no heir, imagine Horace’s surprise when he opened up a letter attached to his childhood friend and client, the earl’s last will and testament, a letter that was only to be opened upon his death, to discover that Robert had in fact fathered a child, in his youth.
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