by A. W. Exley
I thought of father, sitting in his window. What I would give to warn him to duck, before the shell struck and shrapnel burrowed into his head.
Seth's fingers rested on the wheel. "I wish it were possible. There are many things I would unsee or have undone."
Neither of us spoke for a long minute. Overhead, the leaves rustled in a gentle breeze, and birds called to one another. My stomach rumbled, gosh I hope he didn't hear that.
"Shall we find lunch?"
Oh, he heard it. I covered my embarrassment by fussing with my hat and tying the ribbon around the brim. He opened the car door and held out a hand to me. I will admit, a girl could get used to be treated like something special, like a delicate thoroughbred, instead of being seen as the capable draft horse pulling the cart.
"Thank you." Once again, his larger warm hand enveloped mine. The words bubbled in my chest to right his misconception. To thank him for the ride, while pointing out I was a mere servant and beneath his notice. But his steady gaze stroked my face, and the treacherous words wouldn't make it past my teeth.
He was also still holding my hand. "My sword?" I asked.
"Of course." He opened the trunk and fetched my beloved katana, carrying it as we walked through the cool shelter of the trees.
Alice and Frank had spread two blankets a fair distance apart, giving each couple a certain amount of privacy. Not that Seth and I were a couple, quite the opposite. We were a duke and an imposter whose ravenous stomach needed feeding. I would confess all after lunch and just before he left. Yes, that was an excellent plan, no need to ruin a perfectly lovely day off.
We ate in silence. Or near silence, with the babble of the water and the lullaby of the birds overhead.
Seth leaned back on the blanket and stared at the sky. "Are you a reader, Miss Eleanor?"
"Ella, please, unless you want me calling you Lord Leithfield all the time."
"Definitely Ella, then." His gaze scanned my face; an unread intensity lurked in their depths that made heat race up from under my collar.
I dropped my gaze back to the sandwich in my hands. Well played Ella, that corrected his misconception about our relative positions. My mind grabbed his comment about books, and I resisted the urge to laugh. Books were my escape, they transported me to other worlds without step-mothers. What would a duke read? Perhaps the financial pages, and maybe the society gossip so he knew who was on the market and available? There was one book I read aloud to Alice at night.
"Shall I mortify you, and tell you I have read The Sheik?" The book was spoken of in hushed tones and considered far too scandalous for polite ladies to read, so naturally Alice and I had to obtain a copy.
His head turned to me, and his eyes widened. "Really? And what do you think of our heroine, held captive and violently abused, only to fall in love with her captor?"
I had little time for simpering females, perhaps because I was expected to be so capable. "I think she may have suffered heat stroke."
He threw back his head and laughed. "Who do you prefer then? The gripping tales of Tarzan, king of the jungle?"
I threw half a scone at him. "Don't be so daft. My favourites are Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker."
Something flitted behind his eyes. "Why such dark authors?"
"Because monsters are real. And in their words, I find a way forward." I couldn't meet his gaze, and concentrated instead on a sparrow trying to sneak the crumbs of a fallen scone.
He nodded as though my answer satisfied him. Then he laid down, hands behind his head. Not much of a talker, this one. I liked that. Silence between us didn't feel awkward, it was companionable.
Soon Alice began packing away, and I took our over plates to be stored in the basket. Blankets were shaken and folded.
Back at the exquisite motor car, Seth took my hand. He kissed the back of my hand, a soft touch to my skin that sent shivers up my arm. "Until we meet again, Ella."
The way he whispered my name shot through my body and curled my toes. Before I knew it, we were watching their motor disappear down the road. I kept the smile plastered on my face until they rounded the corner. Oh blast, I was supposed to apologise and lay bare my common origins. Instead, I pinched Alice. Hard.
"Ow!" she cried out and rubbed her arm. "What was that for?"
"For being so determined to see me horsewhipped. What the hell were you thinking, letting him believe I'm a lady?"
She smiled, that soft dreamy one someone who's falling in love gets. "Frank says he's ever such a nice chap, but needs a grounded girl. Someone who knows who she is, and not some flighty nose-in-the-air aristocrat."
I frowned. "I know exactly who I am, a lowly house maid, just like you. Let Frank find him some grounded aristocrat. My highest aspiration is to look after father and our property."
"You could be so much more, Ella. Just leave things be, for now. The poor duke needs a break from all the women thrown in his path. Don't you think it would be nice for him to spend time with somebody who isn't calculating his net worth?" The dreamy look on her face got even more mysterious.
I never thought of it that way. I knew my position in life, and had no ambition to climb the social ladder. If Seth found some comfort in lying in the grass and staring at the sky, then who was I to steal those few quiet moments from him? Soon enough the poor chap would be stalked and hunted by Louise and Elizabeth.
"All right, Alice. But please stop reading those romance novels. I don't think I can survive it."
She laughed and linked her arm with mine, the basket in her other hand. "Life is an adventure, and you have dwelt too long in the dark, taking on the role of slayer all by yourself. You need a handsome soldier to lighten your burden, and he needs a bright interlude before Louise sinks her claws into him."
Her smile was infectious. I couldn't hold any ill feelings against her; she meant well. "You know, Frank taking you off my hands would also lighten my burden."
She shot me a dreamy look. Oh hell, she was actually considering it, better scuttle that while I can "Don't you dare run off with him and leave me with them all on my own."
Chapter Six
Seth, Duke of Leithfield.
Serenity House
"More dispatches, your grace," Frank Mercer said from behind. His footsteps were muffled by the deep pile of the carpets layered on the study floor.
Your grace. I still expected it to refer to father. Someone greying and with years of experience to tackle all that the role demanded. "On the desk, please."
My gaze stayed on the view across the front lawn. Or what used to be the front lawn, and now looked more like the plains of Africa. "You could graze sheep out there."
"We are. You just can't see them." Humour laced his words.
Another task to add to the never-ending list. As a boy, I remembered lawns so short and lush I once thought they were another type of expensive carpet. Now the grass grew rough and long. The turf created a potential battle ground, standing hay could hide the enemy, creeping up on your position. Or the turned, sneaking up on the house. We were so exposed, and I had so many reliant on me protecting them in their sleep.
I turned back to the inside view. I should have been motoring across Europe without a care in the world, save for which casino to visit next, how much champagne to drink, and which gorgeous girl to bed. The war changed everything. I lost my playboy status before I even had a chance to enjoy it, snatched away and replaced with the sobering reality of a dukedom. Now I worried about the hole in the roof over the south wing. We had dodgy electrics that made the lights flicker in the ballroom, and how was I to ensure no one was attacked in their beds?
Even worse, the matrons of England rose up to fling their unwed daughters in my path. Some were passably attractive, others looked like the horses they rode. I was more hunted than a fox with the hounds hard on its scent. I thought Serenity House would be my bolt hole, but I could still hear the baying at my back, coming ever closer. Only one woman has seen me, the man and not the title.
An oval face danced in my vision, one with unusual eyes, grey around the pupil, but changing to hazel at the outer edge. Complex eyes hiding a complex soul that shone with laughter and intelligence. A woman with blonde hair hacked short, as though it were getting in her way and she had no maid at all to contain it. I conjured the slender form of a young woman who thrilled in speed and carried a lethal sword. Some would call her willowy, but I had felt the lean muscle from wielding her katana. Eleanor Cowie was a conundrum, nothing about her added up to what I expected from a gently bred woman. There was one thing I truly wanted – more time to figure her out before the hounds ripped out my still warm entrails.
Frank dropped the stack of envelopes on the desk. The solid smack dashed cold water on my thoughts. I sighed and stared at the pile. They represented another weight pressing me down. The Great War was over, but the war at home still raged. I kept my intelligence position with the War Office as we fought a different enemy – the turned, or vermin. No, I couldn't think of what my father became as vermin. Turned reflected what happened to those unfortunate souls and allowed them to keep their humanity.
I picked up the first letter and tore it open.
A coded sheet directed my attention to report on the movements of the turned in Somerset. I was to chart locations and sightings, and overlay it with deceased and missing locals. London wanted to know the size and spread of the undead virus. Isolated rural communities made the task more difficult, not to mention the sheer number of men still missing after the war. The Somerset light infantry lost five thousand men, and their loss was small compared to the vast scale of death the war had wrought. They say over seventy thousand men alone are missing after the slaughter of the Somme Offensive. They will have no grave, except the mud of the battlefield. Perhaps in decades to come French farmers will dig up their bones when ploughing their fields. We have no time to mourn their loss, not until we clear out every dark corner of England and burn the last of the turned, sending them to eternal rest.
"Visiting cards are being crammed through the mail slot, too," Frank said.
I swore under my breath and caught the smile that tugged his lips. He knew I hated the trappings of society and thought it humorous that they had become just that, my trap.
Another expectation. I had arrived only a week ago, had not yet paid my respects to my own father, yet I was supposed to organise social events for the well-heeled, waiting to pounce and offer up their daughters as the next duchess. I needed the heads of a hydra to do all which everyone demanded of me.
The letter fell from my fingers and drifted to the littered desk. I ran my hands over my face, wishing there was a way to scrub away all the strings tying me up. I glanced up at Frank. "I'll be here all afternoon. Can you please see if anyone is available to mow the lawns?" May as well see if I can strike one thing off my list.
"If none of the lads are free, I can do it myself. I'm no stranger to a tractor." He nodded and slipped from the study.
I called Frank my ‘man of all things’ because that was what he did, everything. He had arrived on the estate when we were both five years old, and we've been inseparable ever since. When we inevitably got in trouble, he got the beating, and I would smuggle my pudding up to his room to try and make amends. Only school years pulled us apart, and continuing our adventures was my main reason for heading home on the holidays.
When I set off to Oxford he attended as my valet, but we were only there a few short months before war intervened. I signed up, proud to lead the local lads, blissfully ignorant of the realities of war. Frank followed as my sergeant. He dogged my every step, and over those hard years our friendship cemented further. That would outrage the social set, friends with your man servant. But what else could you call the man who always had your back and a spare cigarette? The man who dragged your unconscious and bleeding arse from no man's land? Some soldiers would have stepped over their titled officers and never looked back.
It still seemed odd to take up residence in the old house. I left for boarding school at ten. In the intervening years, I had only spent Christmas here. Frank and I would set off with candles and explore nailed up corners of the house. Bloody lucky we never burned it down in hindsight. The silence unnerves me at times, too quiet. Like the calm before an all-out artillery assault. I thought the old mill would bring it all back, bloody men scattered over a field, but Ella's presence made the silence bearable.
A soft tap sounded at the study door.
"Enter," I called without looking up from the mound of mail. By necessity I had three distinct piles; urgent, can wait, and ignore until they vanished entirely.
Feet shuffled over the floor with a hesitant step. Warrens, the butler. While only in his late fifties, events aged him. I knew he was the one who had dealt with father when he turned with the only weapon at hand, a 9-iron. Poor man had been practising his golf stroke outside when father arose. While he did what he had to, it haunted him. The faithful retainer spent every day expecting to be hanged for murder and trying to absolve the stain on his soul.
"Yes, Warrens?"
He cleared his throat. "Cook would like to know your plans, your grace."
"As always, I will have a simple dinner in the small parlour across the hall." I didn't see the point in putting the staff through the charade of a formal dinner for one person. I didn't need white-gloved footmen watching me sip at a delicate consume. It was like living in a blasted zoo, your every move and emission examined. In the trenches I had shared tight quarters with Frank, who slept on a mat by my cot. We ate with the men, bowls in our hands and hunched over a fire when it was cold, or in any shade when the sun burned our skin in summer.
"As you wish, your grace." He lingered still, an indication of a burning question that needed to be extracted rather than volunteered.
"You don't approve, I know, but times move on. We lost so many men, and the war is not yet over. I cannot bear the waste of time and resources to embrace pointless traditions, like a seven course dinner attended by five footmen, when I am quite capable of eating a simple meal from a tray."
Warrens heaved a sigh. He fought a losing battle, and God knows I know what that looks like. He needed to fall back and regroup. Given the set look on his face, he intended to do just that.
"If I may be so bold, your grace, sometimes it is not enough to labour in the dark when one must be seen to lead." He kept his hands clasped behind his back, spine rigid. Too old to serve, Warrens kept the house ticking over, adapting easily from butler to hospital manager when it became a recuperation house for recovering soldiers.
I suspected it would be futile to try and hide in the country. Desperate matrons would soon start lobbing their daughters through the lower windows. Which reminds me, must check on defences to keep the turned out. The hollow void gaped in my chest at the thought. There were days I wanted to curl in upon myself and have the world cast a blanket of forgetfulness over me. One week, it hadn't even been one week and already they pounded on my door. They wouldn't even grant me the time to drink myself senseless and forget.
I met the butler's steady gaze. "We shall host a dinner then. Tell cook, and if you would be so kind as to invite forty locals to join us for the evening."
One eyebrow shot up, the closest Warrens would come to a whoop of joy. "Very well, your grace. Shall we say this Saturday?"
"Yes. And please ensure Miss Eleanor Cowie is invited." Another letter fell victim to the sharp opener. This one heavier in my hand.
"Miss Cowie, your grace?"
"Yes. Ask Frank, he's stepping out with her maid. He'll know what relatives she is staying with."
Warrens frowned as he searched his memory. "I shall enquire, your grace."
"Good." Ella's presence might be the only thing that would make the damn night bearable.
Warrens coughed into his hand. "There is one other small matter, your grace."
He said that with the same bland tone as my commanding officer used to tell me to throw my me
n over the top in a suicide mission. "Which is?"
"The village fete, your grace. It has been some years since we last held one. Many of the local women are planning a festive event to celebrate your return, armistice, and of course, the summer harvest."
Good God, save me from judging the best jam or knitted sock. "What exactly would be the nature of my participation?"
"Cutting the opening ribbon, and perhaps if you would be so generous as to judge an event?" His bushy eyebrows raised in expectation.
While the battlefield was never quiet, the constant artillery bombardment could induce a type of deafness. Your ears became overwhelmed by the pitch and noise and all you hear is a constant drone. I imagined the fete would deliver a similar aural overload. Frank had better pack a hip flask — a large one.
"Very well, Warrens. Tell the local matrons I will be in attendance."
He looked chuffed, his chest swelled. He either just won a bet by talking me into attending, or he was certain he'd win whatever vegetable orientated events a fete held.
"One other thing, Warrens. I need maps, detailed topographical maps of Somerset." The War Office wanted to send troops into the countryside to finish off the turned, but first we needed to identify where the most attacks were occurring.
War never ends, it just changes form.
Chapter Seven
Ella Jeffrey
When duty calls…
The shrill cry of the telephone made me jump. It pierced the silence like an ice pick through the skull. I waited, listening for Stewart's feet as he answered the contraption. The message would then be relayed to Lady Elizabeth. While the device allowed us to communicate more easily over distances, a call so rarely brought kind words. The high-pitched bell was more often the warning alarm of incoming bad news.