Hopefully, the morning would see all her questions answered.
At first light, Eleanor was up, washing her face at the basin in her room, unbraiding, combing, and re-braiding her brown hair before tucking it up with a few pins. What’s more, she needed no help from one of the Angsleys’ maids to dress as her buttons were in the front, and her day gown was positively plain.
After all the frippery, frills, and finery of the Season, she was positively gleeful wearing a simple, yellow, cotton gown and only one petticoat, along with her corset and chemise.
She had always been an early riser, smiling to herself thinking how she’d often tugged Beryl out of bed when they were visiting Turvey House together.
Wondering if any of the other Angsleys were up, Eleanor went quietly down the stairs and into the morning room. Breakfast had not yet been laid out, but a serving girl was quick to offer her tea or coffee and whatever she wished to eat before a buffet was set out.
Drats! She’d forgotten to ask for extra milk. Dashing after the girl and down the passageway to the rear of the house, she caught Mr. Stanley the butler coming indoors, his boots damp, shaking water off his coat in the anteroom next to the kitchen door.
They stared at one another for a long moment, and she had the feeling he hadn’t wanted to be seen entering.
How strange!
“May I help you, Miss Blackwood?”
“I just asked Mary for tea but forgot to request extra milk.”
He nodded. “I assure you, the kitchen staff already knows you enjoy plenty of milk with your tea. It will come out just as you like.”
She offered him her thanks, turned away to retrace her steps, then remembered the nighttime horseman. Spinning around, she was faced with an empty hall. The damp butler had disappeared as swiftly as dawn mist. Frowning, she returned to the morning room.
During tea and toast, she was greeted by Leo the cat, then the Angsleys’ long-time nanny, Mrs. Wendall, and her charges, who were Beryl’s two youngest siblings. Lastly, the three other young siblings arrived before Eleanor vacated the room.
Dashing upstairs to retrieve her cloak, she was determined to have a walk while there was still a little mist hovering over the sodden ground.
When in the country, Eleanor always brought her well-worn leather Wellingtons, as everyone called them for the war hero who designed them. At the back door, she removed her indoor kidskin shoes and slipped on these water-repellent boots with ease before heading out.
Due to the dripping trees and wetness everywhere, she hadn’t brought out her sketch pad. Settling her hood over her head, she strode off the terrace and into the rose gardens and the wilder terrain beyond. Everything smelled rainwater fresh, and she breathed deeply as she walked.
Halfway across the field at the back of Angsley Hall, a grouse flew out of the long grass ahead of her, startling her into giving a single shriek. In seconds, it had flown away.
Clapping her hands with amusement and to release the surge of energy caused by her initial alarm, Eleanor continued to walk with her heart beating a little faster. One never knew what one would encounter in a meadow or forest. To her, that was part of the appeal.
After walking at least a mile, she began to circle back toward the manor, hoping by the time she reached the hall, the adults would have arisen, and someone could identify the mysterious horseman she had seen the night before.
Better yet, maybe he would be seated in the morning room, and she could see him for herself.
On the path back to Angsley Hall, she came upon what Beryl and her family called the old granary lodge, a remodeled granary set close to the river where the older servants with nowhere else to go, who could no longer offer service, lived out their years. The year before, Eleanor and Beryl had experienced many a delightful afternoon eating sweet biscuits with Mrs. Latbury, the Angsleys’ former cook.
When the cook’s legs became too bad to stand at the worktable all day, she had retired to the outskirts of the property. She still managed to create batches of the best baked goods, inviting the girls there for lively discussions and slices of toffee cake.
Was it too early to intrude?
The old mill powered with an enormous waterwheel fed by the River Great Ouse had been replaced by a modern mill in the nearby village. Eleanor thought the whitewashed stone building to be cheerful, and the mill stone and surging water threading through the channel under the wheel to be rather romantic. It belonged to an era of folks making their own butter and cheese, neither of which the current staff at Angsley Hall or the larger one at Turvey House still did.
She walked around the old lodge, recalling which door led to Mrs. Latbury’s two rooms, thinking perhaps she would smell something good cooking. Finding the entrance, a blue painted door, she knocked, again hoping it wasn’t too early.
The door snapped open, and an unfamiliar face appeared—an old woman with her face scrunched up and her eyes narrowed as she peered out menacingly.
Eleanor flinched and tried to step back.
“You’re early!” the woman stated, grabbing Eleanor by the hand and hauling her inside.
Chapter Two
Eleanor shrieked in alarm, tripping over the threshold, her hood falling back over her shoulders as she did.
“Unhand me,” she demanded at once to the crone who’d attacked her.
“What on earth is wrong with you, Phoebe? I only wanted you to come out of the morning damp.”
Eleanor hesitated. Phoebe was the next youngest of Beryl’s sisters, and it dawned on her the woman was not wearing a threatening expression but trying to see her properly. What’s more, she wasn’t a scary old hag. She was no more than forty-five, Eleanor guessed.
“I’m sorry,” she said more calmly. “I’m not Phoebe Angsley. I’m—”
“Eleanor Blackwood,” a male voice interrupted, startling her.
Turning, she found herself staring up at the black-haired Grayson O’Connor and feeling her stomach do a little flip of excitement. He must have entered the granary room directly behind her.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said, making her take a step back.
Having gone to the main house searching for Eleanor, Grayson was surprised to find his quarry right back where he’d started, after awakening that morning in his mother’s home, a crick in his neck from sleeping on a cot.
His heart began to hammer at the unexpected sight. Eleanor’s eyes were the first thing he always noticed about her—intelligent, thoughtful, curious eyes. Then her lovely face and her luscious mouth, and then lower to her…
He stopped himself from looking lower. She was Maggie’s younger sister, probably too young for the likes of him.
“Let the girl come in and catch her breath,” his mother said. “So nice to have your company. First, my boy came last night and then this lovely sprite. Eleanor, is it?”
“Mum, this is John Angsley’s youngest sister-in-law, down from Sheffield.”
He strode past both of them, feeling as if the room had shrunk in size now that Miss Blackwood’s vibrant presence was contained in it.
Though she was no taller than an average woman and slender, as his mother had noticed, something about Eleanor reminded him of a woodland fairy from an etching he’d seen. Perhaps it was her gently pointed chin.
Today, her hair, the color of rich toffee, was in loose braids, and a little haphazardly arranged on her head. Knowing she’d done it herself without much care made him smile.
“Would you like tea?” he offered, checking to make sure the stove was stoked before settling his mother’s kettle on to boil.
“No, thank you,” Eleanor refused. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I was looking for Mrs. Latbury. I must have the wrong door.”
His mother glanced at him, then back at Eleanor.
“I’m sorry, dear,” she said. “Mrs. Latbury passed away about six months ago.”
He watched Eleanor’s face pale. She was a tenderhearted thing. At Turvey House, he’d see
n her lift a baby bird from the ground before insisting he help her replace it in its nest. Naturally, he’d done her bidding.
“I’m terribly sorry to hear that,” Eleanor said, her voice sincere. “She was a very sweet person, especially for a cook.” Then she covered her mouth. “Oh, gracious. I shouldn’t have said that. What I meant was…,” she trailed off.
He was enchanted by her fluster. But then what about Miss Blackwood didn’t enchant him?
His mother reached over and patted Eleanor’s hand.
“We knew what you meant, dear. Cooks are notoriously tough folk. But as you say, she was a sweet one.”
After a moment of silence, Eleanor nodded, then she brightened.
“I’ve forgotten my manners. You are Mrs. O’Connor, of course. We have met before, when you were up at the hall, and I do recognize you. I simply wasn’t expecting you here.”
“Plus, I squint something terrible now,” his mother confessed. “I probably resemble a raisin. Will you take tea with us, after all?”
He saw Eleanor hesitate, and her gaze flew to him. His heart seemed to thump as they made eye contact, but he nodded encouragingly. His mother loved company. He came over as often as he could from Turvey House, not even three miles away.
As their estate manager, he lived in his own home on the Cambrey property. He had tried to convince his mother to live with him, even more forcefully after she left her service as seamstress for the Angsleys, but she wouldn’t budge from their estate and loved her place at the lodge.
“Yes, tea would be very welcome,” Eleanor agreed.
Gray felt a measure of relief. It would make it easier to tell young Miss Blackwood the disturbing news he had brought from Turvey House the night before.
“I was expecting Miss Phoebe for a needlepoint lesson,” his mother explained. “Normally, I don’t go snatching people off my front step.”
Eleanor laughed softly before sitting at the small table in the room that served as kitchen and parlor, with the only other room being his mum’s small bedroom.
He liked how Eleanor didn’t put on airs. Even with two sisters having married titled gentlemen, both becoming countesses, she remained living in a modest country cottage with her mother, Lady Blackwood, widow of a penniless baron.
Moreover, though Eleanor traveled between the country estates of her two brothers-in-law, or she stayed in one of the earls’ townhouses in London, she didn’t seem to have changed her unassuming, easygoing nature one whit.
Five years ago, he’d first met a young lady with a love of horses and of the natural world, who had a sweet purity that charmed him. Artless, happy, Eleanor found pleasure in rainbows and butterflies. He remembered wondering how she would fare in London when she came out as a debutante.
As it turned out, the year before, she’d handled it with quiet aplomb. His close friendship with her middle sister’s husband, John Angsley, whom he called Cam, meant he’d heard a great deal about how Eleanor had grown bored during the Season and disgruntled in London.
Thankfully, she’d also easily seen through the masquerade of ladies and gentlemen putting on their best face, sometimes a patently false one, to gain ground on the marriage mart.
Sometimes, he had wondered why it mattered to him how she fared in London. Having been tasked by Cam with coming to find her at Angsley Hall, and now seeing her again, however, left him in little doubt of his feelings for her.
He was smitten with Miss Blackwood.
“My mother retired a couple months back as her eyesight was too poor to continue as Lady Angsley’s seamstress,” Grayson explained to Eleanor before glancing at his mum. “By the way, where are your spectacles?”
When she shrugged, he sighed and set the filled teapot on the table, before reaching for three cups. She was always losing her new eyeglasses.
“Do you have any milk?” he asked, recalling how Eleanor liked milky tea.
“Of course,” his mother said. “Lift the stone. It was delivered fresh an hour ago.”
He lifted a flagstone from the floor to reveal his mother’s cold storage and drew out a stoppered jug of milk, knowing the thick cream was on top. If Eleanor hadn’t been there, he would have scooped it off with a spoon and devoured it.
“I know what you’re thinking, lad,” his mother said, and he cringed, hoping she wouldn’t tell Eleanor.
Thankfully, she didn’t say anymore, but the smirk on Eleanor’s face indicated she’d guessed.
“I won’t be offended if you want the cream, Mr. O’Connor,” she said, then offered him an impish tilt to her head.
“Do you call my boy mister?” his mum asked, surprised.
“Mum,” he warned her, shaking the jug to blend the cream for all of them, and then pouring some in the bottom of each cup.
“I’m only wondering why she doesn’t call you Gray like everyone else.”
“Because she’s not family,” he said. “And she’s a lady.”
Eleanor laughed, and he felt as if he might be blushing at his own faux pas.
“Don’t listen to him, Mrs. O’Connor. I am simply a regular miss. My sisters are titled ladies, but none of us by birth.”
“I’ve not met your eldest sister,” his mother said, “but Lady Cambrey is certainly diverting and quite the beauty.”
“Yes, she is,” Eleanor said without a hint of jealousy.
Maggie had handled her London Seasons in absolutely the opposite manner to Eleanor—from all accounts, enjoying every moment of sparkle and dazzle, of dancing and champagne, and the attention of men, especially the Earl of Cambrey, whom she snagged for her own.
“Does she stop by here?” Eleanor asked.
“What, here?” His mother’s tone was horrified, and they all laughed at the notion. “Before I retired, when I was up at the hall, Lord and Lady Cambrey would come over to dine with his relations. The Angsleys aren’t like other families, they treat all us servants as family, too, and I was invited to meet your sister one evening. I even got to hear her play the piano. Didn’t I, Gray?”
“Yes, Mum,” he agreed.
“Do you visit your son at Turvey House?” Eleanor asked, and Gray watched his mother’s face cloud over as it always did at any mention of the place.
“No,” she said simply, then turned in her seat to look at him. “Lad, there are biscuits in the tin. Nothing like Mrs. Latbury’s homemade shortbread, I’m afraid, but tasty.”
They passed a pleasant few minutes before Eleanor suddenly frowned at him.
“I only just recalled, you said you were looking for me. Is that right?”
He paused.
“Yes, I rode over here late last night—”
“I saw you,” she interrupted, “from my bedroom window. You were the horseman in the storm.”
The thought of her in her bed caused a tightening in his loins. For a moment, he said nothing more.
“I lost sight of your horse by the stables,” she added. “It was either very brave or very foolish of you to ride in such weather.”
“Most likely foolish,” muttered his mother, though he knew she said it lovingly.
Eleanor stared at him, her brown eyes seemingly richer and darker than he recalled.
“You came here to see me?” she asked.
He had to tell her, wishing it wasn’t going to upset her while knowing with certainty it would.
“I came here to warn you. You must not—nay, you are forbidden—to go to Turvey House.”
Chapter Three
Eleanor gasped. She’d been staring at Grayson’s mouth as usual, watching his attractive lips form words, wondering what it would feel like to be kissed by him. She’d been kissed during her debutante Season by a rascal who waylaid her behind a copse of trees in Kensington Gardens in broad daylight after a picnic. Her mother had been distracted for only a moment. That was all it took.
She was initially horrified but then, out of sheer curiosity, didn’t push away the young man. It was her first kiss, and Eleanor h
ad truly wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
Apparently, nothing at all, was her conclusion.
Still, other girls said a kiss could make one’s head spin and ones’ feet lift off the ground. Others said it caused one’s heart to race. Moreover, she’d read for herself about other more wondrous changes to the body that could happen upon being overly excited by a man.
All she’d felt was a crumb from the rascal’s sandwich brush off his lip onto hers, followed quickly by a strong upheaval of revulsion. She’d thought she might lose her delicious picnic lunch. Then he’d walked away, whistling happily as if he’d conquered an army.
Gray’s words penetrated her thoughts.
“Whatever do you mean, warn me? I’m going to Turvey House tomorrow. I’ve come all this way.”
“You cannot,” he said, his tone firm.
“What’s the matter at Turvey?” his mother asked.
Gray glanced from her to his mother, and a shiver of fear ran through Eleanor.
Finally, he said, “It’s Margaret. She has a slight fever.”
Eleanor stood up. “I must go to her at once.”
“No, that’s why Cam sent me. They don’t want to take a chance on her having something contagious.”
“That’s absurd. I’m her sister. I must go tend to her.”
“Don’t be selfish,” he snapped.
“Gray!” his mother admonished him.
“How can you say that?” Eleanor asked him.
He’d never said a cross word to her before, except warning her once to duck when she rode under a low branch ahead of him.
“I say that because I don’t want Margaret to have to worry about you. She has their little one, Rosie, to think of, and she doesn’t want Cam to fall ill. And she needs to focus on feeling better and not worrying whether you are going to get sick, too.”
Eleanor paused, and then looked at Mrs. O’Connor, who nodded her agreement. She sagged back into the chair.
“Is she very sick?”
The Midnight Hour: All-Hallows’ Brides Page 55