“I must say, I had nearly despaired of finding anyone suitable,” he said as he led her up the staircase at the back of the hall. “You wouldn’t believe the accents and manners I’ve had to endure in the course of these interviews. As soon as you opened your mouth, I knew you were the very person I had been seeking.”
“I haven’t accepted the position yet, my lord,” she reminded him severely. “And surely an accent should not be the first consideration when evaluating a person’s suitability to raise a child. I should think temperament and experience would enter in as well.”
“The experience you apparently have, and after our little altercation in the library, I suspect your temperament is all I could wish. You appear to have very strong views about right and wrong, and no difficulty in expressing them. I have no doubt you are well equipped to mold a young mind.” He gave her a sidelong glance, his eyes twinkling.
“Indeed,” was all she replied. She would not allow herself to be charmed by him!
Finally, after two more flights of stairs, they reached the very top of the house. “Here is the nursery,” he said, opening a door on the right. “Christabel, there is someone here who wishes to make your acquaintance,” he called out as they entered the room.
A spindly woman of advanced years came forward to greet them, her back as straight as a ramrod. “She’s been a rare terror this morning, my lord,” she told the Earl at once. Her shrewd grey eyes assessed Frederica as she spoke. “I’ve been trying to get her out from behind the clothes-press for half an hour, with no success. She’s playing one of her silly games, and tells me it is her cave or some such thing. I have a thousand more important things to do than coax a sulky child, I can tell you!”
“Very well, Mrs. Abbott, you may go about your other duties. Miss Cherrystone and I shall see what we can do.” He waited until she was gone before turning to Frederica. “Mrs. Abbott is a gem of a housekeeper, but I fear that she hasn’t the energy or the time to keep up with Christabel. Nor does she appear to have a natural rapport with children, never having had any herself.”
“Where is the child, my lord?” asked Frederica curiously, glancing around the large chamber. A few toys and books were arranged on two high shelves in regimented rows and a small table was neatly set for a meal. A little bed in the comer was smoothly made, and not a speck of dust nor a scrap of stray clothing was to be seen. It seemed to her a cold, sterile excuse for a nursery.
“Behind here, I presume,” replied Lord Seabrooke, crossing to a large clothes-press in the comer opposite the bed. Looking behind it, he said, “Come out at once, Christabel. I want you to meet Miss Cherrystone.”
In response, there was a high-pitched growling noise from behind the clothes-press, but no Christabel emerged.
“May I try, my lord?” asked Frederica. In spite of her misgivings about the situation, she could already feel the stirrings of sympathy for a child forced to live in these barren surroundings.
At his nod, she came forward and peered behind the enormous piece of furniture. She could see a small figure crouched in the corner at the other end. “Christabel?” she said tentatively. She was greeted by the same growling sound as the Earl had been. Drawing back in mock alarm, Frederica exclaimed, “Oh, my! There’s a bear back here! It’s hiding deep in its den, my lord!” The growling grew fiercer.
“Perhaps we can lure it out with a big piece of meat,” she suggested. Picking up a biscuit from the table, she held it where Christabel could see it. “Here, bear, I have some meat. Please don’t eat me!”
The growling changed to a giggle and a little girl in a rumpled pinafore emerged. She brushed back tousled golden curls and looked up at Frederica with enormous, clear blue eyes. She was the loveliest child Frederica had ever seen. “I’m a wolf, not a bear,” she informed her with an impish smile.
“Oh, yes. I can see that now,” said Frederica seriously. “Will you take this meat instead of my arm, Mr. Wolf?”
Christabel giggled again and took the biscuit from her. Instead of eating it however, she held one tiny hand out to Frederica. “Are you going to be my new nanny?” she asked, gazing wistfully up at her with those luminous eyes.
“Miss Cherrystone?” prompted Lord Seabrooke when she did not answer at once.
Frederica knelt down, never taking her eyes from the child’s face. “Yes, Christabel,” she said softly. “I’m going to be your new nanny.”
CHAPTER 4
“So you see, Milly, it is a respectable position, if rather unconventional. I believe it will serve my purpose admirably. It is really rather amusing now to remember what we suspected.” Frederica took a sip of her tea. “I am to start tomorrow, so we must decide which of my things—and yours—will be appropriate for me to bring along,” she concluded, having related the entire story of her interview with Lord Seabrooke and her acceptance of the post of nanny-cum-assistant housekeeper.
Miss Milliken frowned. “I am not certain I should call it precisely respectable, Frederica. If you consider how the child came into the world—which I would prefer you not do, actually—”
“It is scarcely poor Christabel’s fault, Milly,” said Frederica reprovingly. “She is the sweetest child, and simply starved for a bit of attention and amusement. After all, she had no say in the matter, and it seems most unfair that she should suffer for the sins of her parents.”
“You are still very innocent, Frederica,” said Miss Milliken with a sigh. “It may not be fair, but it is the way things are in the world. Darling though she may be, your little Christabel will never be accepted by Polite Society. The best she will be able to aspire to is a post as an upper servant. And there, I fear, her looks will be against her if she retains the promise of beauty you claim she possesses. A much worse, if more luxurious, fate may well await her.”
It took Frederica no more than a moment for Miss Milliken’s meaning to become clear. “Oh, no, Milly!” she cried, aghast. “That will never be, I am determined. With me there to guide her, to show her right from wrong, surely—”
“Frederica, are you not forgetting that yours is merely a temporary post? That your real purpose is to discover enough about Lord Seabrooke to persuade Sir Thomas to let you off marrying him? Or have you changed that plan? I will admit that as Lady Seabrooke you may very well have a lasting influence on the child.”
Frederica bit her lip in chagrin. “Of course you are right, Milly, and I had forgotten, so taken was I with Christabel. But I fear that Lady Seabrooke will have little say in the matter, no matter who she is, for it is apparent that Lord Seabrooke intends to keep Christabel’s existence a secret from her.”
“But my dear, you already know about her,” Miss Milliken pointed out gently.
“Well, yes, but I do not intend to become Lady Seabrooke! I thought you agreed with me on that point.”
“I thought I did, too,” said Miss Milliken so softly that Frederica did not hear her.
* * *
Early the next morning, Frederica arrived at Lord Seabrooke’s residence with a small trunk she and Miss Milliken had packed with items suitable for an upper servant in an aristocratic household, along with a few things Frederica had brought for Christabel. As before, she was admitted by the stout butler, whose manner was noticeably more friendly than it had been the previous day.
“So you’re to be the new girl, are you, Miss Cherrystone?” he said with a suggestive grin as a footman carried in her trunk. “Mrs. Abbott will be glad of your help, I don’t doubt, and I can’t say as I’ll mind having a pretty young thing like yourself about the house, either.”
Frederica smiled nervously and touched the bridge of her nose to reassure herself that her spectacles were in place. “You flatter me, I’m sure, Mr., ah...”
“Coombes,” he supplied. “But you may call me George. This is a friendly house—very friendly.”
“Of course.” She put a bit more distance between them, thinking that perhaps she should have considered wearing padding, after all. Wit
h more indignation than alarm, she wondered how such a man had managed to secure such a responsible post as that of butler. Certainly, she was more selective in the hiring of upper servants! “I’d best follow my trunk upstairs now,” she said politely, and hurried to catch up with the footman, leaving Mr. Coombes and his leer by the front door.
Her room adjoining the nursery was small but well furnished, she found, with a pleasant prospect of the back garden from its single window. Frederica waited a few minutes for someone to come and unpack her trunk before the realization hit her that the new nanny would almost certainly not be assigned her own maid. In fact, she would likely have to do without many of the privileges she had always taken for granted, for the duration of her stay. No doubt the experience would do her good, Frederica thought with a smile as she opened the trunk and began to unpack.
She was putting away the last few items of her absurdly small wardrobe when she heard a tap at the door to the nursery. Opening it, she discovered Christabel with a little bunch of daisies in her hand.
“Mrs. Abbott says I am to come to you now. I’m glad, because you like to play and she doesn’t. These are for you.” She held up the flowers with a confiding smile.
“Why, thank you, Christabel,” said Frederica warmly, touched by the simple gesture. “Did you pick them yourself?”
The little girl nodded. “Mrs. Abbott let me go into the garden before anyone else was up this morning. Do you like them?”
“They’re lovely. I’ll put them here in the pitcher until I can find a better vase. Would you like to help me finish unpacking?”
“May I?” Christabel’s face lit up. “Abby never lets me come into her room.”
“Well, you may come to mine anytime you wish.” Frederica gave the child a quick hug. “I know we are going to be very good friends.” Christabel returned the embrace with an enthusiasm that told Frederica that she had been hugged far too seldom.
Frederica had brought along a variety of items to supplement the meagre collection of toys in the nursery, and Christabel thanked her enthusiastically as each was revealed. It was obvious that she had never been used to having much.
“Now, what would you like to do this morning?” Frederica asked when they had closed the last drawer, already good friends.
“Oh, I forgot. Abby wants me to say that she needs to talk to you right away. She’ll be here in a moment, I think.” As she spoke, the hallway door to the nursery opened, admitting the housekeeper. Frederica went into the nursery to greet her, with Christabel in tow.
“Why don’t you draw me a picture while I speak with Mrs. Abbott?” Frederica suggested. She pulled a tablet of drawing paper and a box of pastels from the stack of things she had brought along for Christabel and settled her at the nursery table. Frederica and Mrs. Abbott then seated themselves at the far end of the room. “Christabel said that you wished to see me?”
“Yes,” replied the housekeeper. “There are certain rules his lordship wishes you to understand, lest you inadvertently break them.” She looked past Frederica to the happily occupied Christabel. “You do seem to have a touch with children, miss. I never thought to distract her like that.”
But Frederica’s attention had been caught by Mrs. Abbott’s previous statement. “Rules?” she asked sharply. “What sort of rules?”
“I believe his lordship told you yesterday that he does not wish the child’s presence in this house to become common knowledge. To that end, she is not to leave the nursery except when it is least likely that she will be seen.”
“Do you mean that the rest of the staff is unaware of her?” asked Frederica in astonishment. “How can that be? I cannot imagine her being silent enough, even in here, to escape detection.”
“Only the female servants live on this floor, and all of us know about her. Mr. Coombes and the footman do not, but should have no reason to come up here.” Her expression was prim. “You will fetch her meals, and yours, from the kitchen, or Lucy, the chambermaid, will bring them up.”
“But surely Lord Seabrooke does not think he can keep Christabel caged in the nursery forever. A child needs exercise, and fresh air!”
Mrs. Abbott pursed her thin lips. “To tell the truth, I am not certain that his lordship has thought very far ahead. He only had the child brought to this house ten days ago. There wasn’t much else he could do when her nurse left her, her mama being dead and all.”
“Oh! Poor thing!” exclaimed Frederica sympathetically, glancing over her shoulder at Christabel. “But I should say it was the least he could do, under the circumstances.” She was not schooled enough in the ways of the world to realize that most men would ignore such a child.
“He’s always been good as gold to the little mite, and to Miss Amity, too. Some may call him a bit wild, but his heart is in the right place.”
“Miss Amity is Christabel’s mother?” Frederica knew Milly would not approve of her asking, but she was here to discover all she could, after all.
Mrs. Abbott nodded. “He always made it a point to visit her and the child two or three times a year. It fair broke his heart when she died a few months ago—right before he succeeded to the title, that was.”
So! thought Frederica. He had apparently continued his relationship with the woman long after Christabel’s birth—until fairly recently, in fact. But he had never married her, in spite of the child. No doubt she had been too poor to tempt him, she thought in disgust.
“He tried to keep the child’s old nurse on, but she wanted more than he could afford, it seems,” Mrs. Abbott continued. “He even gave up his fancy women and entertainments for a time to pay rent on the house in the country after Miss Amity died, rather than neglect what he saw as his duty. When the nurse gave notice, he let the house go and brought the child here. Now that he’s come about, though, I imagine he’ll be his old self in no time. You know what young men are, miss.”
Frederica tried not to shudder at the thought of Lord Seabrooke—her fiancé!—keeping mistresses even while he had this child and her mother tucked away in the country somewhere. This was worse than she had imagined! And as to his fortune... “You say he was without money only a month or two ago?” she asked. “Why was that?”
The housekeeper nodded and leaned forward confidentially. “It’s really not my place to say, miss, but you must be able to hold your tongue or his lordship would never have hired you. The Alexanders were not a rich family. Master Gavin’s father never had much, being the younger son, and what he did have he gambled away. I’d say it was a mercy he went to his reward before he could pauper his son completely.”
“I take it you’ve been with the family for quite some time,” observed Frederica. Mrs. Abbott was proving to be a valuable source of information, indeed.
“Since before Master Gavin—that’s his lordship now—was born, miss. I came as housekeeper soon after his parents married, back when his grandfather, the fourth Earl, was alive. Lord Edmund used to put on airs even then, I remember, the few times he visited.”
“Lord Edmund?”
“Master Gavin’s uncle, his father’s elder brother. He and Mr. Alexander had a falling out soon after Master Gavin came into the world. After that, Lord Edmund wouldn’t have nothing to do with his brother, nor Master Gavin, neither. But it seems Lord Edmund didn’t do no better, for no money came to Master Gavin with the title. Just more debts.”
“No money?” asked Frederica looking about. “But this house, the furniture, all the servants—”
“Don’t you worry, miss, you’ll get your wages,” said Mrs. Abbott reprovingly. “His lordship’s well enough off now. He’s engaged to marry an heiress, I hear, and did quite well out of the marriage settlement. The child, poor thing, is a bit of a skeleton in the family closet, you might say, so you can see why she must be kept a secret. I expect it’s only till after the wedding.”
“I...I see.” And she certainly did. All these fine trappings were being paid for with her money! He really was nothing but a fo
rtune-hunter. Thomas had said nothing about a marriage settlement, and she had never thought to ask. “What would happen to Lord Seabrooke were this heiress to cry off?” she enquired sharply, earning a startled look from the housekeeper at her tone. She smoothed the resentment from her features, trying to appear only mildly curious.
“There’s not much left for him to sell,” answered Mrs. Abbott after a moment. “This house is entailed, of course, along with the Brookeside estate, so he can’t sell those. He might have to let most of the servants go, I suppose.” Her face puckered thoughtfully, then cleared. “But I can’t imagine that the lady would cry off. Word is she’s some spinster from the country, for all she’s rich, and surely any girl must count herself lucky to have landed such a handsome husband as his lordship.” The housekeeper smiled fondly.
“In spite of his ‘fancy women and his wild ways’?” Frederica struggled to beep her voice from shaking with fury.
“Ah, the nobility don’t look at these things the way you or I do, miss. They marry for reasons that have nought to do with love, nor even respect, often as not. The young lady trades her money for his lordship’s name and title, his position in Society. ’Tis common enough. No doubt she’ll learn to look the other way, maybe even take a lover herself, if she’s discreet. Though it’s not what I’d want for Master Gavin,” she said with a sigh. “He’d do much better to forgo the money and find himself a wife he can love, and who will love him in return. He’s had too lonely a life.”
Frederica had to bite her tongue to check all the scathing comments that rose to mind.
“But that’s neither here nor there,” said Mrs. Abbott with a brisk shake of her grey head. “I came to tell you what’s expected of you, not give the family history. You are to take the child out into the garden only when no one else is about. Cook knows about her, and his lordship’s man, of course, but not the newer servants. You may have Thursday afternoons off, leaving her with me or Lucy. When you’re not busy with Christabel, you can make show of helping about the house to keep up the pretense of being assistant housekeeper, though you’ve no real duties there. Any questions or complaints can be sent to his lordship through me.”
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