A Murder in Time

by Julie McElwain

  Slowly, Kendra stood.

  “Miss Donovan? Like a lady’s maid, there are standards of behavior which are expected of a downstairs maid. You will not tell your betters to . . . to shut up. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You will not speak to your betters unless they ask you a specific question. You will, in fact, blend into the background. A good servant, the perfect servant, is not noticed. Is that understood?”

  “Yes. I promise no one will even know I’m there.”

  Kendra didn’t dare smile, but she left lighter, as though a burden had lifted. Helping serve a meal outside didn’t sound too bad. Much better than being a lady’s maid. Maybe things were looking up.

  She never dreamed her promise would be broken just as quickly as it had been given.

  11

  The heat struck Kendra like a punch to the face when she returned to the kitchen. In the short time that she’d been gone, the temperature had shot up at least ten degrees, along with the noise.

  For just a second, she leaned against the doorjamb and watched the maids and footmen race around the kitchen. She could smell the savory odor of roasting meat and garlic mingled with the odd smell of burning feathers. The latter she traced back to one of the workstations, where two maids were busy plucking and burning the feathers off of beheaded pheasants that were stacked on the counter like gruesome cordwood.

  Monsieur Anton was almost maniacal as he hopped between the stove, fireplaces, and counters, issuing orders in a mixture of French and broken English as he stirred, seasoned, and tasted whatever was simmering in the kettles and cauldrons.

  This is real. It’s not possible but it’s real.

  Aware that she was beginning to draw attention, Kendra straightened and crossed the room to where Rose was standing on her tiptoes, reaching for a large serving bowl.

  “Mrs. Danbury told me to join the lower staff.”

  Rose set the bowl on the cupboard with a clatter, spinning around to stare at her in dismay. “Oh, miss—no! W’ot ’appened?”

  “What? Oh. Nothing.” It took Kendra a moment to realize how that might sound to Rose. From lady’s maid to the lower staff. It probably looked like a demotion. Hell, it was a demotion—her first ever.

  “Are you all right?” Rose’s brown eyes brimmed with sympathy.

  “I’m fine.” At least, she was fine about her change of employment status here in the nineteenth century. She just wasn’t fine about being in the nineteenth century. She forced a smile when Rose still looked worried. “Honestly. It’s not that big of a deal.”

  “If you say so, miss.” Clearly the maid didn’t believe her.

  “Mrs. Danbury told me to help with lunch, but apparently that requires a change in clothes.”

  “Oh. Aye. Come along then.” Rose picked up the bowl, and brought it to another girl. “’Ere, Beth. Cook needs this for ’er tarts.”

  Following Rose out of the kitchen, Kendra marveled again at the warren of rooms in the servants’ hall, and the vast number of employees. It was like a beehive: constant people, constant movement.

  “How many work here at the castle, Rose?”

  “Aldridge Castle’s one of the oldest an’ grandest ’ouseholds in these parts,” the maid said with unmistakable pride. “We ’ave round four thousand servants in and about the castle.”

  “Four thousand?”

  “Aye, miss. And that ain’t includin’ outside ’elp for the ’ouse party.”

  “Good God.”

  “’Ere we are.” Rose opened a door and entered a room that looked like a cross between an old-fashioned seamstress shop and a medieval laundry. On either side of the stone fireplace were walls lined with open cupboards containing neatly folded fabrics, spools of thread and trimmings. In the center of the room was a wooden counter with a thick blanket tossed over it, and a dress laid over that. It was, Kendra realized, a primitive version of an ironing board. An older, heavyset woman was running an iron that looked like it weighed a ton across a brown dress, while the younger maid helped by keeping the material smooth.

  The older woman flashed them a hard look. “We’re a mite busy today, Rose,” she said, and handed the iron to her assistant, who immediately transferred it to the hearth to heat up again.

  “Aye, Mrs. Beeton.” Rose nodded. “But miss ’ere needs a dress.”

  Mrs. Beeton wiped the sweat from her brow. “What kinda dress?”

  “Maid’s dress.”

  “We don’t have time to sew a new dress.”

  “She can ’ave Jenny’s old dress. Since she ran off to Bath with Mr. Kipper and all.”

  “Ooh. And a right scandal that was. Not even a by-your-leave!” Mrs. Beeton sniffed, and gave Kendra a measuring look. “You part of the temporary help?”

  “Well—”

  “She’s been ’ired on,” Rose put in.

  “What happened to your hair? You been ill?”

  “I—”

  “She’s better now,” said Rose.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Um—”

  “Kendra Donovan. She’s an American.”

  “You’re a right chatterbox, Miss Donovan, ain’t you?” Mrs. Beeton remarked.

  Kendra smiled.

  Mrs. Beeton went over to a drawer, shuffled around, and pulled out a pale blue dress. Holding it up, she surveyed both the dress and then Kendra with a sharp eye. “It’ll do,” she pronounced. “But it needs ironing.”

  “Oh, but we’re in an ’urry, Mrs. Beeton,” Rose protested. “Mrs. Danbury—”

  “Would want her staff to look respectable.”

  Recognizing defeat, Rose let out a breath. “Oh, aye. But Mrs. Danbury says she’s to ’elp with the nuncheon. And Lady Atwood ’as a bee in her bonnet to set it up down by the lake. Monsieur Anton is anxious about the ’ole thing.”

  “Monsieur Anton is usually anxious. He’s French.” Mrs. Beeton briskly exchanged the dress on the counter for the maid’s uniform. “You’ll find a cap and apron in the third drawer, Rose. Maggie, bring me the iron.”

  Kendra didn’t know much about ironing—she’d always dropped her laundry off at the dry cleaner around the corner from her apartment—but she realized this was a far more laborious process. Without electricity, the iron had to be constantly reheated in the fireplace. Rose was beginning to look anxious by the time the uniform finally met Mrs. Beeton’s approval. She removed it from the counter and handed it to Kendra.

  “You can come back for alterations when there’s time. You’re a mite smaller than Jenny, so we’ll need to nip in the waist. Jenny did love Cook’s cakes.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Rose was already at the door. “Come along, miss.”

  In the bedchamber, Kendra changed into the new uniform. While Rose hung up her discarded gown, she put on the apron and mop cap. Unable to resist, she looked at herself in the small swivel mirror, and nearly sighed.

  “You look a proper maid,” Rose said with an encouraging smile.

  “My parents would be so proud.”

  “W’ot?”

  “Nothing.” She pressed her thumb and index finger to the bridge of her nose. Stay calm. Stay focused.

  “How long have you been at Aldridge Castle, Rose?” she asked as they went back down the servants’ stairs.

  “Ooh, since I was ten. Me sister worked as a scullery maid, and when she bettered ’erself, I got ’ired on by Mrs. Danbury.”

  “Where’s your family?”

  “They live down the road. Me pa has a field he tends for ‘Is Grace. Me brothers ’elp ’im. I miss me sister, who went off to London. I ’ave another sister that married an officer in the army, and lives in Colchester now. Then there’s the wee ones—”

  “Good God. How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

  “Fourteen. I ’ave six brothers and eight sisters. ’Ow many brothers and sisters do you ’ave, miss?”

  “None.”

  Rose looked astounded. �
��No brothers and sisters! Not a one? Was your ma ill, too?”

  “No. Busy. She and my father divorced. He remarried and has two children by his second wife. So I suppose I do have siblings. A brother and sister.”

  “Divorced?” If anything, Rose looked even more astounded. And a little appalled. “I don’t know anyone ’oo’s divorced!”

  Kendra realized she was talking too much. Life, societal mores, and people would change in the next two hundred years in ways that Rose could never hope to understand, and that Kendra could never hope to explain.

  She was grateful when they arrived again at the kitchen. Cook immediately homed in on them, directing Rose to the pastry room and Kendra to the lower staff dining room. “Eat now, ’cause Mrs. Danbury’ll want everything ready by the lake in an hour.”

  The lower staff dining room was down the corridor from the upper staff dining room. At least a dozen maids and workmen were already sitting around the table, eating. As soon as she sat down, a maid materialized with a plate, silverware and—shockingly, Kendra thought—a glass of beer. And not the lite version, either, she realized, as she sipped the fermented brew.

  Unlike breakfast, lunch was a speedy affair, with everybody racing through the meal that consisted of boiled potatoes and freshly picked peas, slabs of roast beef, lashings of gravy, and thick, lighter-than-air slices of bread with generous pats of butter. Real butter. Real bread. Not a preservative in sight. The meal was unpretentious and filling, and Kendra was surprised that, like breakfast, she finished it all—and enjoyed it. At this rate, she wouldn’t need Mrs. Beeton to take in her dress; she’d be filling it out in no time.

  “So . . . what’s next?” she asked the young maid seated next to her.

  “Lady Atwood’s gipsying.”

  “Gipsying?”

  “Aye. We’ll need to bring the lot down to the lake.”

  The lot, Kendra soon realized, was four long wooden tables and several dozen chairs, which were loaded into a horse-drawn wagon, along with enormous wicker baskets carefully packed with starched, hemstitched linens, polished silverware, china, and cut crystal. Smaller linen baskets, laden with food, spices, liqueur, and wine, were carried out under the watchful eye of Mr. Harding and Mrs. Danbury. Kendra found herself in charge of one of them, and joined the procession as it marched out the servant’s door and down a flagstone path flanked by hedgerows, winding its way around one of the many gardens.

  For just a moment, Kendra allowed herself to forget about her crazy situation and drink in the sheer physical beauty surrounding her. It was nice to be outside, to feel the sun beating warmly on her face and the faint breeze that carried the perfume of honeysuckle and rose, lilac and peonies. Beyond the ebb and flow of conversation and steady shuffling of feet around her, she could hear the drone of bees, the chirp of birds, the rustling of shrubs, and long blades of grass. It wasn’t silent by any means, but Kendra was keenly aware of the lack of twenty-first-century noise. This was a world with no automobiles or airplanes. No jets would streak across the sky. There was no mechanical thrum of tractors plowing across the fields or cars moving along the country roads. Steam locomotives were in their infancy, with another ten years to go before England developed its first public steam railway. On water, steamboats were just beginning to chug their way into a territory dominated by sails.

  Oh, God. Had it only been two days ago that she’d jumped on a Boeing 747, flying 567 miles per hour, touching only clouds?

  The flagstone path fell away, replaced by a ten-minute walk up a gently sloping hill before curving down into a forest. Kendra could feel the strain in her muscles as she shifted the wicker basket, but she doggedly kept pace. No one else seemed to find it an effort.

  The floral scent of the garden gave way to the more loamy smells of the forest. Shadows, cast by tall pine trees and ancient oak and elm, dueled with the sun’s light. Between the tall, spiky weeds and woods, Kendra saw the gleam of blue, heard the splash and murmur of moving water. She caught herself from stumbling over exposed roots and pushed forward. Again, she shifted the basket to relieve the dull ache in her arms. Two minutes later, they arrived at their destination, a picturesque dell ringed by trees and rock formations and a lake. Water cascaded down sheer rocks at the far end.

  Kendra saw that the horse-drawn wagon was already parked (could you park horses?) on the other side of the trees so as not to ruin the tranquil ambience of the area. Mrs. Danbury and Mr. Harding must have come with the wagon, because they were already there, keeping an eye on the footmen who were setting up the tables and chairs.

  It was like a Ralph Lauren ad come to life. Somebody had even produced—and lit, for heaven’s sake—heavy brass candelabras on the tables. Lady Atwood may have wanted to dine alfresco—gipsying, as the maid had called it—but that didn’t mean she wanted a picnic, Kendra reflected wryly as she helped shake out the white linen tablecloths and napkins.

  Footmen uncorked bottles of fruity white wine and set them in the lake to chill. Bottles of red were kept to the side. The servants congregated around two of the tables that were laden with plates of food that would be served: baked trout swimming in cucumber sauce; roast beef and ham so thinly sliced it was almost transparent; baby asparagus salad as a side dish. Butter cakes were set alongside fruit stacked like pyramids.

  Mrs. Danbury checked her pocket watch, and nodded to Mr. Harding. There was a military precision to planning such an event that Kendra hadn’t appreciated before. She’d been to similar functions, but always as a guest.

  “’Ere they come,” whispered one of the maids, who apparently had ears like a bat. Half a second later, Kendra heard the voices interspersed with feminine laugher and masculine chuckles.

  They were an exotic parade, thirty men and women in total. The Duke of Aldridge led the way. On his arm was a small, plump woman in a vivid blue dress and bonnet decorated with an enormous peacock feather. Alec was right behind him. He looked more handsome than the last time she’d seen him, probably because he wasn’t scowling. Instead, he seemed relaxed, smiling at the woman he was ushering into the clearing. Kendra couldn’t see the woman’s face, since it was angled toward Alec, and obscured by the bonnet and gauzy white veil she wore. Wife or girlfriend? Kendra wondered as she observed the intimacy between them.

  She nearly jumped when Alec turned his head suddenly, looking straight at her. Even from that distance Kendra could see the green eyes narrow in suspicion. His companion turned, too, and looked at Kendra.

  She wasn’t beautiful, Kendra noted with some surprise. That, she supposed, was her own prejudice. Guys who looked like Alec usually had a beautiful woman on their arm. This woman—Kendra pegged her to be in her early twenties—had pleasant enough features, but her skin was severely pockmarked, destroying any hope of beauty.

  When the woman turned back to say something to Alec, drawing his attention, Kendra deliberately shifted her gaze to the rest of the group. It was odd that there were more women than men. Societal mores, she’d have thought, would have paired up the sexes.

  She spotted the brats, Sarah and Georgina, at the end of the procession, dangling off the arms of two young men who were dressed like the other men in the party—cravats, shirts, vests, coats, breeches, and boots—except the points of their collars were so starched and exaggerated, their cravats so elaborate, that their chins were swallowed up in yards of fabric.

  “Lady Atwood, you’ve simply outdone yourself,” trilled an exquisitely lovely blonde in a sugary pink-and-white striped dress and matching coat and hat. She paused to admire the table settings. “’Tis absolutely delightful.”

  “You are too kind, Lady Dover.” The woman on the Duke’s arm gave a gracious nod. “Thankfully, the weather is cooperating. ‘Tis been a dreadfully chilly summer.”

  As the nuncheon began, Kendra concentrated on her duties, but couldn’t help but overhear snippets of conversation. In many ways, this was no different than social gatherings in her own time. Chatter centered around mutual ac
quaintances and the latest gossip from London. Yet she nearly dropped a plate when someone mentioned the health of King George and the political intrigue surrounding the Prince Regent.

  Sweet Jesus. Mad King George. The guy America had revolted against. He was freaking alive!

  “Careful with the dishware,” one of the maids whispered.

  “Sorry.” She shook off her sense of amazement, and tried to pretend she was watching a period play. There was a lot of flirting going on, plenty of fluttering of ivory fans and eyelashes. It was weird to think that in another two hundred years people would flirt by pole dancing, twerking, and sexting.

  The lunch seemed to stretch on interminably. But maybe that was because the maids were required to stand silently in the background. The footmen had the more active job, replenishing wineglasses under Mr. Harding’s direction, and serving the food under Mrs. Danbury’s eagle eye. When one of the young ladies dropped a spoon, Mrs. Danbury snapped her fingers, and a footman scooped it off the ground and replaced it with a clean spoon within seconds. If this had been a restaurant, it would’ve registered five stars.

  The fruit and cheese were offered at the end of the meal, along with glasses of Madeira. Kendra finally understood the purpose of the extra ladies when several of the young men approached for permission to walk with the young ladies around the area.

  Chaperones. This was an era where ladies were practically kept under glass until they could be wed off.

  Shaking her head—if she’d been dropped in the middle of Mars, she couldn’t have felt more alienated—Kendra turned her attention to the mundane task of scraping off remnants of food from the china plates, and stacking them in the wicker baskets so they could be carted back to the castle for washing.

  The scream that cut through the idyllic atmosphere was so shocking that, for the second time, Kendra nearly dropped the plate she held. Everyone froze. Then instinct and training kicked in. Kendra put the plate down and began running in the direction of the screams. She made an instinctive movement for her service weapon, her fingers brushing her skirt.