Sleepless in Staffordshire

by Celeste Bradley

  “Paned slops,” Bernie corrected him absently.

  “Indeed. So he had the artist paint him in the armor instead. Claimed he wouldn’t be preserved for posterity with a—pardon me, miss, but it is a quote—‘fat arse’.”

  Bernie smiled. “And is that why he is a ‘rogue’?”

  “Oh no, Miss Goodrich. He was a rogue because he was a cattle thief, of sorts. Whenever he visited another household, he would bring his ‘pet’ cow. No one could protest such a little thing, no matter how odd it seemed. it wasn’t until years later that he confessed that it was a different cow every time and that he was simply avoiding breeding fees, while tucking into his victim’s banquets and courting their daughters.”

  Bernie bit her lip against a laugh. Jasper was being rather salty but she supposed that came of having no lady about the house.

  She moved on to the next portrait, a brooding fellow with a long dark wig and a thin mustache. His bulky black velvet coat was absolutely festooned with tatting. “And this one? Was he a secret highwayman or a rum smuggler?”

  “Not rum. Lace,” Jasper responded promptly.

  Bernie frowned. “He smuggled lace?”

  “Oh yes. You see, at that time King Charles II was in the midst of a little tiff with the Flemish. To build England’s lace trade the monarchy placed an embargo on Brussels lace. Lord Kern didn’t wish to be without his frippery, so he shipped over a bit for himself and his friends. It became so lucrative that he rebuilt the family coffers twice over before the embargo was finally lifted.”

  “And no one ever knew?”

  “Of course they knew! How else would they get their lace? The king himself was a customer.”

  Bernie shook her head. “Politics.”

  Jasper nodded sagely. “Politics.”

  Bernie’s gaze lingered on Lord Kern’s sleeves as they moved on. Aunt Sarah didn’t believe in bold ornamentation. Mama had liked it very well.

  I miss lace.

  "Berrrrniiiiie!" Simon's howl echoed through the upper halls of the great house.

  Jasper's eyes widened. "Oh my. He must be hurt!" He turned to hurry toward the bedchamber.

  Bernie let out a sigh as she followed him, brisk but not panicked. "No. That 'Bernie' sounds entirely different. This one leads me to think that some chambermaid has caught him in his altogether."

  Clearly, this strange, intriguing glimpse into the life at Havensbeck Manor was over. It was time to get herself and her wee beastie back where they belonged. Bernie only hoped she and Simon could keep Aunt and Uncle from taking their adventures too much to heart and calling an end to their holiday altogether.

  In this, she knew Simon would be a solid co-conspirator.

  The next morning, even Aunt Sarah had been distracted from her previous evening's disapproval by the Christmas Eve Ball at Havensbeck Manor. She wasn't the only one. By the time Bernie had progressed from her room at the inn, down the stairs and into the dining room, no less than a dozen people had asked if they would see her there.

  The chambermaid for her room told her all about the gown she planned to wear as she filled the coal scuttle by the hearth. An elderly guest in the upstairs hall begged a dance with a teasing twinkle in his eye. A trio of giggling young women on the stairs informed Bernie, although she'd not asked, that they would be happy to help her with her hair.

  "Not that there's any little thing actually wrong with it, of course!"

  "Oh, no! It's just that we have ideas!"

  Bernie decided the correct response to all of the above was, "That sounds lovely."

  At their table, where Uncle Isaiah, Aunt Sarah, and Simon had already taken their seats, Bernie found an large, embossed invitation placed at a graceful angle across her plate. Simon was a-wiggle with curiosity and even Aunt Sarah couldn't take her gaze from the heavy parchment square as she nibbled on her toast.

  Bernie sat at her place and plucked her napkin from its folds to lay it painstakingly across her lap, as if she had no idea what they were waiting for. Then she smiled calmly at her family. "Good morning, everyone! My, the baking smells delicious today."

  Uncle Isaiah twinkled at her playful torture, but Aunt Sarah huffed. "Oh, you impossible child!"

  Bernie thought Simon would snicker at her little game, but his gaze was still riveted on the invitation. "Openit-openit-openit," he whispered under his breath.

  Of course Bernie was more eager than anyone to find out what it was, but her nature could be a bit on the contrary side. It seemed she never wanted to something if someone else deeply wanted her to do it.

  Besides, she knew who had sent the invitation. At least, she thought she knew. And if it was who she thought it was, it wasn't the one she wished it was.

  I'm not contrary. I'm insane.

  Her natural common sense reasserted itself with a snap. Without further play, she picked up the heavy folded sheet and carefully lifted the plain amber-colored wax seal from the paper without breaking it.

  "Dear Miss Goodrich,

  I hope this finds you in good health. I regret that I could not converse properly with you yesterday. It is my hope that you intend to grace with your presence the Christmas Eve Ball at Havensbeck tonight. Although your attendance will be reward enough, it is my dearest wish that you might charitably grant to me a waltz."

  Bernie closed the invitation and slipped it discreetly to her lap beneath the table. Then she looked up at her companions.

  Simon looked confused. Uncle Isaiah wore his raised brows like an unfamiliar hat. Aunt Sarah, on the other hand, gazed at Bernie with very wide eyes.

  "My goodness," she breathed. Then she blinked and shook off her amazement, trying to look blasé. "I had no idea young John Barton was so articulate."

  Eloquent. Gracious.

  Romantic.

  Bernie forced a light smile. "Neither had I."

  Beneath the table, she slid her fingers across the simple seal. It was a simple mark, a shape really. Nothing but a trio of curved lines, as might denote something on a map. A road, perhaps. If one hadn't see the graceful calligraphy closure at the bottom of the letter, one might have no idea what it signified. A river.

  In hope, your grateful host.

  M.

  Matthias ripped his cravat loose yet again. "Blasted thing!" He'd meant to roar the words. Instead, he sounded frantic to his own ears.

  Jasper, who had just entered the master's bedchamber with a tray of coffee in his gloved hands and three freshly ironed cravats over his arm, gave Matthias a glance of veiled exasperation. At least, Matthias imagined that he did. He was certainly exasperated with himself.

  He dropped his head and held out the snarled cravat in defeat. "I cannot do it. Rescue me."

  "Certainly, my lord."

  Jasper stepped before him and turned him away from the mirror. Matthias peered downward over his own nose, trying to see what his butler was doing.

  "Stop trying to look, my lord. You're denting the folds."

  "Oh, well. Haven forbid I dent the folds." But Matthias gazed at the ceiling obediently anyway.

  It only took Jasper seconds to do what Matthias had been failing at for a quarter of an hour. Normally, Matthias had no trouble dressing himself, tying his day-to-day linen cravats with the simplest of knots. This independence had led his creatively-starved valet to seek other employment years ago.

  The formal silk cravat was another story, it seemed. Matthias examined Jasper's handiwork in the mirror. "This looks intricate." It was snug and high and uncomfortable, that was for certain. Matthias felt as though he should continue to gaze at the ceiling if he wanted to breathe properly.

  "It is the current mode, my lord. Right to the minute."

  "Ah." Matthias backed down before Jasper's fashion sense. "As long as it isn't yesterday's style. You know I cannot bear to be twenty-four hours behind the latest fashion."

  Jasper ignored Matthias's mockery. "Me neither, my lord."

  He poured Matthias a cup of blisteringly hot coff
ee. Black and harsh, the way he'd learned to drink it in the West Indies.

  That tropical place was a memory so distant that it seemed a fairytale in this wintry Sussex valley. Matthias gazed absently at the tracings of frost that clouded the glass of his bedchamber window, turning the view of white, mounded landscape into a crystalline outline.

  "She laughs," he told Jasper without turning. "But she is an orphan. How does she laugh when she's lost so much?"

  Jasper looked up from placing the fresh cravats in their proper drawer.

  "Perchance it requires practice, my lord." Jasper never gave in to maudlin emotion, but Matthias heard the faint trace of compassion in his butler's cool tone.

  "Yes, perchance it does." He couldn’t imagine ever feeling light enough to laugh. Laughter required some buoyancy of spirit, and Matthias's very feet felt as though they were made of lead. Most days it was all he could do to keep them moving forward.

  Jasper turned as he left the bedchamber. "Like many things, my lord, perhaps the first time is the hardest."

  Chapter 10

  Bernie sat next to Aunt Sarah in the sturdy carriage that Haven had provided for John Barton's use. John and Uncle Isaiah sat across from her, as gentlemen did, taking the rear-facing, less comfortable seats.

  John caught Bernie's gaze and issued her a self-conscious smile. She nodded politely back with an awkward smile of her own. Next to her, Aunt Sarah rustled with repressed urgency. Never had Bernie felt under such scrutiny! How could she ever learn if she liked someone if every single twitch was noted in some sort of matchmaker scorebook?

  Dancing later would be better. Bernie tucked her arms inside her cape and folded them beneath her bosom. Her bodice felt too tight. This had been her last silk gown from her life before. She and Aunt Sarah had ripped it out and remade it into this one two years earlier.

  The pale green silk still fit fairly well, although her eighteen-year-old bosom had been a little smaller. Bernie felt restricted, as if Aunt Sarah had sewn her chaperoning vigilance into every seam.

  Which was an unfair thought. Aunt Sarah had done her best, spending evening after evening painstakingly snipping threads in order to salvage the greatest portion of fine fabric. Then she and Bernie had spent hours poring over pattern books, trying to find just the right cut that would complement Bernie's new height and figure, and put the reclaimed silk to best use.

  The result was this simple gown. The once fuller skirts had been remade into a slender column, allowing the extra fabric to be used to lengthen it. The old ruched bodice had been ironed out and used for the cap sleeves, and the new bodice, made from diagonally pieced squares, was plain but for a running thread of darker green embroidery, simple leaves and vines climbing the lattice pattern. Bernie had never had time to progress past her early ladylike accomplishments into flowers and intricate animal figures, like the ones her mother had done with such skill.

  "No matter," Aunt Sarah had told her briskly at the time. "The gown is still finer than any I've ever owned, and I've managed to keep breathing in and out."

  The girlish ribbons that had once made silk bows around the hem had been picked apart and seamed into a single band, which Bernie now wore wound in her hair. She was grateful for it, for her hair tended to toward rebellion at the best of times. At the moment, it was so full of pins that she felt like a hedgehog.

  Of course, she was well aware that she was focusing on these tiny discomforts to conceal the great galloping nervous excitement that threatened to make her leap from her seat and pick up her skirts to race ahead of the sedate team pulling the carriage.

  Wouldn't Aunt Sarah twitch then?

  Her First Real Ball. That was the only reason for her excitement, of course. She had spent the afternoon forcing Simon to dance with her, turning about their inn room, bumping into chairs, trying to remember everything she could from her brief time with the dancing master her mother had hired for her when she'd turned sixteen. Of course, she knew all the country dances. Assemblies might be few and far between in hardworking Green Dell, but even poor farmers liked to kick up their heels occasionally.

  But the quadrille and the waltz were distant memories and Bernie feared she would not recall the steps when in the reputedly grand ballroom of Havensbeck.

  And in his arms.

  No. Stop thinking that. His note was simply friendly. She was new in town and the lord of the manor was merely being gentlemanly. She'd heard gossip from the chambermaids at the inn that Lord Matthias likely wouldn't even attend. And if he did, no one believed he would stay long. Certainly no one thought he would dance.

  Except he asked me to dance. He wrote it down, right there in the invitation.

  Her belly flipped at the memory of those words.

  The handwriting had been more decorous and fine than that contained in the long anguished letters from the river, but it had been the same, she told herself. Simon thought so, although "less drunken" was perhaps not a sufficient reason for the difference.

  She wished she could take it out and look at it again, as she had a hundred times today. However, she dared not bring her aunt to comment upon it to John Barton, who apparently had no awareness that the older couple believed him to be her correspondent.

  Although your attendance will be reward enough, it is my dearest wish that you might charitably grant to me a waltz.

  Oh, would this carriage ride never end?

  Mathias sensed the very air grow warmer in the ballroom, as if he felt touch of sunlight on his skin on a cloudy day. He turned, aware that the rest of the guests had also looked up suddenly, as though the guest of honor had arrived at last.

  Or perhaps it was only he who awaited her. He felt as if he'd been waiting for years!

  Which was ridiculous. He hadn't even known of her until a few days before. And yet there she was.

  Bernadette.

  Yet she was very different from the canvas-bound girl in the plain bonnet and the mis-knitted gloves.

  Now, Miss Bernadette Goodrich stood in a gown so elegant it was very nearly severe. She was indeed tall enough to lend a regal air to the fullness of her figure. Still, her unmistakable smile beamed out at them all. He felt as if she had invited them all to her ball and now glowed her welcome.

  Her hand still remain tucked into the young vicar's elbow. Matthias felt a jolt, seeing her on another man's arm. However, Barton was a family friend. Of course she would arrive with the vicar, along with her aunt and uncle.

  Perhaps he was like a brother to her.

  Keep telling yourself that.

  Mathias thought the fellow looked mightily proud of himself, walking into the ball was such a prize on his arm.

  You felt like that once, remember?

  The dark thought rose and then washed pale and silent, the shadow fading in the light of Bernadette's smile upon him. Mathias stepped forward, catching her eye and bowing deeply. As he'd hoped, she released Barton's arm to issue a low curtsy of her own in return. When she straightened, she clasped her hands before her as she waited for his approach, now standing slightly apart from the vicar.

  Mathias thought he done that rather neatly, and hoped that no one had noticed. "Miss Goodrich. You came. You're here."

  She laughed a little. "Yes, Lord Mathias. And you are here as well, at your own ball."

  She laughed at him. Well, it was true he was acting the loon. He didn't care one little bit.

  John Barton cleared his throat. Matthias tore his gaze away from Bernadette. Her eyes snapped green fire in the candlelight, how captivating! He forced a civil nod to the vicar, who was, after all, his very own vicar, a good man carefully chosen for Haven's greatest benefit.

  "Hello, Barton." His welcome sounded rather lackluster. Must do something about that. "You're here, as well."

  Barton was looking at him, or rather, through him, as if inspecting a seed in his glass of lemonade. Whatever the vicar saw made him lift his hand as if to snatch Bernadette back into his custody. He caught himself and fol
ded his hands behind his back, clearly dismayed at his reaction.

  So the vicar was courting her.

  Bernadette, however, stood equidistant between the two men, her bright gaze taking in the bedecked ballroom, oblivious to raised hackles or any other sort of territorial conduct. If Miss Goodrich was being courted, she showed no awareness of it.

  She has no idea he fancies her.

  Matthias didn't allow his thoughts to progress any further down the notion of who else might fancy the cheerful Miss Bernadette Goodrich.

  "The staff has outdone themselves on the decorations," he said, although he'd barely glanced at them. Then he had an inspired notion. "And the tables are absolutely laden with refreshments and cakes."

  The emerald gaze fixed on him instantly. "Cakes?"

  Matthias nodded and turned a bland gaze upon Barton. I am lord of this hall. I do not fetch cake. The vicar shot him a grim, defeated glance, then bowed smartly to Miss Goodrich. "Would you care for something, Bernie?"

  Perhaps Barton sought to underscore his familiarity with the use of that family nickname, but Matthias, painfully alert to her every expression, saw Bernadette draw back slightly at the diminutive.

  Matthias understood something in that instant. "Bernie" was the girl who wore thick shapeless coats and scampered in the snow with her little brother. Tonight Miss Goodrich wanted to be something more. Not someone else, precisely, but beyond simple Bernie. As she had every right to. Tonight, she was without a doubt a grown woman, regal and refined. A woman named Bernadette.

  When she replied to the vicar, her tone cooled ever so slightly. "If you please, John. Cake and, hmm."

  "Champagne?" Matthias suggested.

  "Truly?" Bernadette's eyes widened as she glanced about for her aunt. Matthias enjoyed her moment of lip-chewing indecision. "Well perhaps, hmm, later, if there is to be a toast."