The “none of you” included everyone who had been at dinner the night before: her mother, sisters, and grandmother; Grandfather, nodding in his chair; the newly discovered relatives, Benedict Clarke and his mother; the two suitors, Meriwether Young and Raymond Allen, the duke; and even Dr. Zebulon Webb. Not too many years past, the doctor would not have been welcome at a formal family dinner, never mind an entire weekend party. Back then, the doctor had been no more than just another villager performing a service, in his case someone to do something to keep them all healthy or help them out if one of them got sick. But the war had changed so many things, and this was one of them. Now, it seemed to Kate, almost anyone could show up at dinner.
“Grace? Lizzy?” Kate said hopefully. “You’ll come, won’t you?” The thing she was hoping for was that there would be more than just her to keep the two—now three, if you counted Benedict—suitors happy. “Come on, Grace. We’ll just stroll around the place and shoot whatever we see. It’ll be fun.”
Grace shuddered. “That may be your idea of fun, but it isn’t mine. Shooting small animals for sport.” Grace shuddered again. “I think I’ll stay behind with Mother and do needlepoint, thank you.”
“Actually,” Meriwether Young announced, as if anyone had asked him specifically, “I think I’ll stay behind, too, look around the abbey a bit. I didn’t get to see much of it last night, and I’ve never been before.”
Well, that was a relief, and hardly a surprise, come to think of it. The older rotund man didn’t look like he could survive a brisk walk.
“I’d be happy to show you around,” Grace offered.
Wouldn’t she just, Kate thought.
“I suppose if others are staying behind,” Raymond Allen began, “then perhaps I might also—”
“What about you, Cousin Benedict?” Kate said with false sweetness, cutting Raymond off as she regarded her handsome new relative. “Will you be staying behind, too?”
“I will come,” he said with a smile, “but just for the stroll and to get some fresh air. I did serve in the last year of the war, and I find that hunting for sport no longer appeals as it once did.”
He managed to speak his words without judgment of others, and yet Kate couldn’t help but think: how insipid.
“Duke?” She turned to the other man. “I believe you were about to say you were going to stay with Mr. Young?” As insipid as the cousin was, it would be better if she only had him to keep entertained and not the duke as well.
“No, that wasn’t it at all.” The duke regarded Benedict as though taking up a challenge. “I was about to say that I’m going up to change now and shall be ready forthwith.”
So it was to be Kate, her father, Benedict, the duke, and the doctor.
Kate cast about for at least one more female to entice into coming. “Grandmama,” she said, “wouldn’t you like to join us?” As soon as she issued the invitation, she couldn’t help but laugh at her own desperation.
“You laugh,” her grandmother said, “but I was quite a shot when I was a young girl. Still, I think my shooting days are over, at least for this lifetime. I shall leave the hunt to you young people.” She paused briefly to cast an expression that managed to be both haughty and fond at her son in his red hunting jacket before adding a playful, “And Martin.”
“I think I would like to go,” Lizzy spoke up.
Kate had already forgotten all about Lizzy.
“I’ve never shot a shotgun before,” Lizzy went on, “or any other gun, really, but I should like to try. I think it would be fun—you know, aiming at things and then possibly hitting them.”
“That’s the spirit, Lizzy!” Kate said, thinking: two suitors, two daughters—at least now the math will work, even though she hoped to end up with neither. “Why don’t you run along and get Becky to find you a hunting costume? And everyone else who is coming: chop-chop! The morning is wasting!”
As Lizzy all but raced from the room, the other prospective hunters moving more leisurely, Mr. Wright entered.
“My lord,” the butler said. “If I might have a word.”
Kate drew closer to her father at this.
“Yes, Wright?” Martin Clarke said. “What is it?”
“It’s…the stable boy,” Mr. Wright said in a low voice.
“The stable boy?” Kate said. “The one whose uncle died yesterday?”
“The same,” Mr. Wright conceded. He addressed his words to the earl. “He came to the kitchen. He demands to see you, says it’s a matter of the greatest urgency.”
“Oh,” Kate said, “I do hope nothing is the matter with Wyndgate!”
“He didn’t say what the matter was, Lady Kate, only that it was urgent, as I’ve already said.”
“Well, then,” Father said brusquely, “why haven’t you shown him in?”
Mr. Wright looked scandalized as he lowered his voice yet further. “Because, sir, he is the stable boy.”
The earl stared back at the butler.
“He’s dirty, sir,” Mr. Wright said. “We can’t have someone like that just traipsing through the house!”
“But surely the maids can clean up after him if he touches anything.”
For once, the butler stared back at his master as though he were the one in charge.
Kate laid a hand on the earl’s arm. “I don’t think there’s anything else for it, Father,” she said, finding herself feeling quite pleasantly eager at the prospect that suddenly lay ahead. “It looks like you and I will have to go to the kitchen.”
Chapter
Ten
Will Harvey stood and waited, not too many paces into the kitchen from the back door, hat in hand, uncomfortable. In the years he’d been at the abbey, he’d hardly ever come inside the main house, even if it was just the kitchen. He hardly knew any of the staff, outside of other stable workers, except on sight, and only a few like Mrs. Owen and Fanny by name, and he didn’t like being here now. In fact, he’d tried to talk himself out of coming today at all. But his sense of what was right and just had prevailed, and so, here he was.
As he observed the hustle and bustle of the kitchen, he saw the earl enter the room. This, he’d expected. What he hadn’t expected was that the earl would have his eldest daughter with him.
Unlike with much of the staff, Will knew who all the family members were, by sight and by name, for they regularly came to ride the horses he tended.
And of course he knew who Lady Kate was, better than all the others. He still remembered that first time he’d met her, when they were both but three years old, that one day of friendship between them. When he’d returned to the estate four years later to claim his job as junior stable boy, he’d seen her again, and almost every day since then. But they’d never once spoken of that first day—he doubted she even remembered it as he did—their relationship settling into one of young lady of the house and worker on the estate, their only rare bond an exchanged glance and mutual smile in appreciation of something one of the horses had done. When he was seven, he’d initially felt stung by the change in her behavior toward him, so cool compared to his warm memory of her. Then he’d become resentful and, finally, resigned. After all, wasn’t this the way their world was supposed to be? There was no point in wishing it different.
As the earl strode up to him without hesitation, Will hoped they couldn’t see the evidence of the tears he’d cried the night before, anguished sobs he’d muffled with his pillow after he and his aunt had retired to their separate bedrooms. In the morning, Will had washed his face thoroughly, but you never knew. No matter how careful you were, you never knew what someone else might see in you.
“We were all so sorry to hear about your uncle’s death,” the earl said solemnly, a sincerely sympathetic expression on his face. “Such a horrible business, that. Ezra was with us for so many years. I cannot imagine this place without him.”
Will could remember no particular closeness between his farmer uncle and His Lordship—indeed, it surprised him th
at the earl knew his uncle’s given name. Still, he was willing to accept good wishes on the face of it.
“Thank you, my lord. I’m grateful for your kind words.”
“Yes,” Lady Katherine said. “We are all so very sorry.”
He met her eyes briefly. Even with her face partially obscured by the black veil of her hunting costume, those extraordinary blue eyes were so piercing. Not to mention that while he was accustomed to village girls and farmers’ daughters looking at him in a certain way, none had ever looked at him as boldly as this. Immediately, he looked away from that gaze.
“Thank you, Lady Katherine,” he said. Then he added, “You’re very kind,” not sure he meant it.
“Mr. Wright said something was wrong,” the earl prompted.
“Is it Wyndgate?” Lady Katherine put in. “Is he all right?”
“He’s fine,” Will said. “It’s nothing to do with the horses. I came to talk to you about my uncle.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” the earl said. “We’ve already said we know what happened and that we are all very sorry.” Realization dawned in the earl’s eyes. “Are you here about getting time off? Because if you are—”
“It’s not that, either!” Will said, beginning to feel impatience with these people.
“What, then?” Lady Katherine demanded, forcing him to look at her again.
“I came,” Will said, “because I felt it my duty to warn you.”
“Warn us?” she said. “That sounds ominous!” Strangely, she didn’t appear disturbed in the slightest at the idea of something being ominous. He had to give her some grudging credit: unblinking bravery was a fine thing in a person. Or perhaps, he thought, she is just being foolish. “Do tell!” she urged with a smile and a flash of those blue eyes.
“The circumstances of my uncle’s death were most unusual,” Will began.
“Yes, we’d heard all about that, too,” the earl said, practically brushing him off. “An unfortunate business… Your poor aunt… But what has any of that to do with a warning for us?”
Something in Will grew angry then. These people! As if strange tragedy could only come to the poor while they were above all that.
Still, he had to warn them.
“My uncle was dead,” Will said, “and then he wasn’t, and then he was again.”
“I really must stop you there,” the earl said. “We have heard all about this, but surely even you must realize that to suggest such a thing is insane. It could never happen!”
“With all due respect, I don’t think you understand, my lord. I’m not sure even I understand! But here is the thing: people go through their lives believing a thing could never happen. But never is only never until a thing does happen.”
“But it never happened in the first place!” the earl said with some exasperation.
“My aunt saw it with her own eyes.”
“Then she is delusional!”
“Are you calling her a liar?”
“Of course not! Did you not hear me use the word ‘delusional’? The poor woman is grief-stricken. Of course she is imagining all this.”
“I don’t believe so, and I do believe her. Which is why I have come here and why I am concerned. Whatever this is, it’s already happened once—to my uncle. What if it happens a second time? What if there is a danger of recurrence? So I thought it my duty to warn—”
“Yes, yes,” the earl said brusquely now, all sympathy seemingly gone. “Now you have. And now I shall warn you. Were it not for the debt I feel I owe to your uncle and aunt for being such good tenant farmers all these years, and were it not for the even greater fact of you being better with horses than anyone we have on staff, I would dismiss you right now. No, let us have no more talk of this insanity.” He nodded sharply. “Please extend our condolences to your aunt when next you see her. Good day.”
“Good day to you, too, my lord,” Will said, unable to keep a slight sneer from his voice as he addressed the earl’s retreating back.
“You know,” Lady Katherine said in a surprisingly soft voice, “we really are all so very sorry for your loss. If there is anything…”
She put one hand out, as though she might touch his arm, before letting it fall to her side. Perhaps, he thought later, it was the look on his face that made her drop that hand.
“And I thank you for it,” he said stiffly, feeling a confusing combination of emotions: outrage, hurt, a rare vulnerability, “but there is nothing anyone else can do. My aunt and I—we take care of ourselves.”
Will didn’t particularly care to have anyone feeling sorry for him. And did she really feel genuinely bad for his circumstances or did she feel bad that, if the stable boy were insane, he might be sent away and then who would take best care of her favorite horse?
With no more words said on either side, Will watched Lady Katherine follow her father from the room.
Well, Will thought, at least I tried.
Chapter
Eleven
Fanny watched Lady Katherine walk away, her blond hair contrasted stunningly against her black hunting costume, and she thought, not for the first time, that it simply wasn’t fair. The daughters of the house had such beautiful hair colors: Lady Katherine’s blond, Lady Grace’s warm auburn, Lady Elizabeth’s rich black. While she, like the housemaids, was stuck with mousy brown. Come to that, why were the footmen allowed to be so handsome while the female staff were all confined to being plain?
She’d been watching and listening to the exchange among Lord Clarke, his eldest daughter, and Will Harvey, but now that the first two had left and the third was about to depart the way he’d come, through the back door, she couldn’t let that last thing happen.
Fanny hadn’t had much occasion to talk to or even see Will Harvey in the past, but whatever she had seen, she’d always liked.
“Will!” she called after him as he placed his hand on the knob.
Will turned.
“I’m ever so sorry about your uncle,” she said, twisting her hands together.
“Thanks, Fanny,” he said. “You’re very kind.”
“Would you like to stay for a bit?” she offered. Then she gestured toward the long table. “Perhaps have a cup of tea with me?”
“Fanny!” Mrs. Owen admonished with a bark. “We’re working here. You’re supposed to be working here. This isn’t some sort of…teahouse!”
“Mrs. Owen,” Fanny said firmly, straightening her back. “I’ve already completed my morning’s work. I’ve even packed up the hampers for Jonathan and Daniel to take for the barn luncheon Lord Clarke and his guests will be enjoying after the hunt, so I think I might be entitled to one measly cup of tea. And one for Will, too.”
Mrs. Owen shot a quick glance at Will. “I’m sorry about Ezra, Will, sorry for your family’s loss.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Owen,” Will said.
“All right,” Mrs. Owen told Fanny, softening. “One cup of tea each.” And then she hardened again. “But just one! And try to keep out of my way.”
“Oh, thank you!” Fanny said, her shoulders inching up in pleasure at the prospect of doing something different for a change. “Why don’t you go through to the servants’ hall?” she suggested to Will. “I’ll bring the tea.”
A moment later, she did so, having found some leftover dessert from last night’s dinner to bring on the tray, too.
But Will didn’t appear to be interested in having anything sweet. Really, he didn’t even seem all that interested in the tea as he sat there looking dejected.
Empathy caused Fanny’s own expression to shift away from the pleasure she’d been feeling.
“Oh, you mustn’t mind them too much,” she said. “The earl and his daughter. Those people. They never think anything we have to say is important. Why, look at you. You try to help them, and they think you’re insane!”
As soon as she uttered that last word, her hands flew to her mouth as though she might be able to push it back. She’d seen how Will’s
expression had darkened when the Clarkes had used that word. She certainly didn’t want Will to think that she thought such a thing about him, too.
“It’s fine, Fanny.” He waved a dismissive hand. “If I stop and think, I can understand why someone who hadn’t seen it with their own eyes wouldn’t believe me.”
“You didn’t see it, either, though,” Fanny said, again unable to stop herself. “Your aunt did.”
“True,” Will said. “But she did, and I believe her.”
“I don’t blame you. If it were my aunt, I’d believe her, too. Well, if I had an aunt.” Fanny paused. “I believe you, Will.”
He looked at her with gratitude. “Thank you, Fanny.”
Fanny enjoyed that for a moment, someone actually thanking her for something. Then: “Do you think it was a vampire?”
Will had finally been about to take a sip of his tea, but now he stopped. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“A vampire! You know, like in Mr. Bram Stoker’s Dracula? If a vampire bites you on the neck, you die for a bit, then you come back to life, only now you’re a vampire, too, who wants to bite people and, you know, drink their blood.”
Thankfully, Will didn’t treat her suggestion with the same scorn Mr. Wright had when she’d raised the idea the night before, but he did shake his head.
“I don’t think so,” Will said. “No one said anything about there being any bite marks on his neck, and I didn’t see any in that area myself when I…saw him.”
“Oh.” Fanny felt a bit disappointed. “Probably not vampires, then. Vampires are so obvious, it kind of makes you wonder why, once the evidence is there, anyone ever suspects anything else.”
Fanny propped her elbows on the table and cradled her face in her hands, trying to think of some alternatives. While she sat there, a cat made its way into the room, a mackerel tabby, strolling the perimeter before eventually hopping into her lap.
“Who’s this?” Will asked as Fanny petted the feline.
“This is Henry Clay,” Fanny said proudly. “He’s my mouser. You can’t have a good clean kitchen without a great mouser.”
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