by Regina Scott
“Of course,” he said. “And I hope you’ll join us for dinner as well, Miss Thorn. I can have someone watch Fortune.”
The cat glanced up at him as if she recognized her name, but her gaze seemed to chide him.
“My mother has been unwell,” he said. Was he telling the cat or Miss Thorn? “The doctor advises us to keep her away from any sort of animal.”
Fortune pulled back from him, hopped from his lap, and stalked off across the carpet, tail in the air. Had he offended her?
Miss Thorn inclined her head. “I understand.”
That made one of them. “We keep country hours,” he explained. “No need to dress. Say six?”
“Perfect.” She raised her head to keep an eye on her pet, who seemed to be inspecting the standing candelabra.
Miss de Maupassant rose, forcing Gregory to his feet. “Thank you for your explanations and your hospitality, my lord. And now, you must introduce me to your mother. It has been a long day, and I have only so much charm to spare.”
He nodded, but he was certain the nearly christened Miss French was wrong. She had entirely too much charm. He felt it tugging at him even now. Would his mother take to it, or was this ruse doomed from the start?
Chapter Two
In the end, Marbury the butler saw Yvette upstairs to meet the earl’s mother. She understood the need. It furthered the fiction that she was a paid companion and not someone approaching the lady’s equal. She just wasn’t sure why she was disappointed the earl did not escort her himself.
He had walked her to the door of the golden sitting room. “If you need anything,” he’d repeated, “you must let me know.”
She’d offered him a smile. “I can take care of myself, my lord. You need have no concerns.”
Miss Thorn had nodded agreement, while Fortune hurried to the door as if determined to leave with Yvette.
She could almost wish for the cat’s company as she joined the butler now. That Mr. Marbury also had concerns was evident by the way his brows came down over his sharp nose.
“Did his lordship explain your duties?” he asked as they climbed the stairs past the sculpted stone forests.
“I am to attend to her ladyship from breakfast to bedtime,” Yvette replied, lifting her skirts as they came out onto the navy carpet that ran down the upper corridor of the north wing.
“More than that,” he assured her. “Lady Carrolton relies on her companion for advice on dressing, care for minor medical issues, and entertainment.”
“Bon,” Yvette said, gaze on the serene landscapes they were passing on the blue-silk-hung corridor. “I will make her happy.”
Marbury stopped before a paneled door. “I am sure you will do your best, but I think you should know, Miss French, that the countess is rarely happy. I would not want you to set your expectations too high.” His kind smile softened the words. “Yours is the most difficult position in the household. I will help you any way I can. I will introduce you to her ladyship now and return later to see how you’re getting on. Good luck.” Squaring his shoulders, he knocked on the door.
A frail voice, barely audible through the wood, said, “Come in.”
Mr. Marbury gave Yvette an encouraging smile before making his face impassive and opening the door.
This room was as beautiful as the others, but darker, in part because the gold velvet drapes along one wall were drawn. A tall dresser, lacquered in the black and gold of the Chinese style, stood opposite a mirrored dressing table to match, with a handsome walnut secretary on the left. Bright marigolds clustered in a gold and blue Chinese vase on the mantle. Directly ahead was a great bed, the half canopy and hangings patterned with white lilies on a black background, gold thread picking out the center of each flower.
Pressed up against the headboard, fluffy pillows behind and around her, sat a woman as narrow as her son was broad. Even though it was still day, she wore a nightcap tied with ribbon and edged with lace and a cream-colored jacket embroidered all over with daisies, the dainty design at odds with her tight lips and stern expression.
“Your ladyship,” Marbury intoned, “may I present your new companion, Miss French.”
Yvette dipped a curtsey, rising in time to see the countess wrinkle her long nose.
“French?” she complained in a nasal voice. “What sort of name is that? I warn you, girl, I won’t stand for you putting on airs.”
Well! Yvette glanced at Marbury for any sense as to how she was expected to respond. He tilted his head toward the bed. Yvette moved closer.
The lady had a certain elegance to her, features finely drawn, silver hair tightly curled around her pale face under the cap. She held herself so high she appeared to be supporting the pillows and not the other way around.
“I cannot help what I am called,” Yvette said. “No more than you can help being a countess. But if my last name displeases you, you may call me by my first, Yvette.”
The countess didn’t respond to that offer, turning instead to eye the butler. “Why haven’t you taken her bonnet, Marbury? Do you expect she won’t last long enough to make it worth your time?”
“Certainly not, your ladyship.” Marbury moved closer, holding out his hand, and Yvette untied the bonnet and offered it to him.
“Short hair!” The countess glared at her. “That won’t do at all.”
“I shall do my best to grow it longer by morning,” Yvette said.
The countess blinked, but Marbury turned away before anyone but Yvette saw his smile. He bowed himself out.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” Lady Carrolton said. “Come sit beside me so I don’t have to raise my voice to speak to you. I have a delicate constitution.”
Perhaps, but she certainly had more spirit than most. Yvette moved to where a finely molded black-lacquered harp-backed chair stood waiting beside the bed and sat. Hard and uncomfortable, but what else would it be for a companion?
“I have high expectations,” Lady Carrolton informed her as if she wouldn’t have realized as much. “As my companion, you must be available whenever I need you.”
“From breakfast to bed,” Yvette agreed.
She frowned. “Who told you that nonsense? I have a number of conditions that must be tended morning and night.” As if to prove it, she began coughing. Not genteel little puffs but great racking whoops that bent her at the waist. One clawed hand waved toward the dressing table.
Yvette rose and slapped her on the back.
She jerked upright, eyes wide. “You struck me!”
“A practical technique to remove obstructions from the throat and lungs,” Yvette explained. “You have stopped coughing, I see, so it must have worked. Should you start coughing again, I will administer it anew.”
Lady Carrolton wiggled her shoulders as if trying to determine the extent of her injuries. “There’s no need for you to administer it ever again. I am under the care of a number of very fine physicians. You’ll find all I need in that case on the dressing table.”
Interesting. Yvette went to fetch the thing. Bound in crimson leather with a brass lock and handles, it weighed heavily in her arms as she carried it back to her chair and set it on her lap.
“Open it, open it,” the countess said, as eagerly as a child expecting a present.
Yvette snapped it open. Inside in a neat arrangement were vials and jars and contraptions. She picked up one that resembled long tweezers. A hand-written label on the side proclaimed its purpose.
“Finger stretcher?” she asked.
Lady Carrolton wiggled her fingers. “For cramps.”
Did she play the piano that she overworked her hands? Yvette could think of no other reason for a lady of the aristocracy to tax her fingers.
Yvette returned the device to the box and picked up a vial instead. “Eye drops,” she read.
Lady Carrolton nodded, edging forward on the bed. “I have rheumy vision. And there are nose drops for congestion, pills to block a bilious liver, medication for stomach com
plaints and to hurry or slow the bowel, plaster for bunions, and cream for warts.” She sighed wistfully. “I don’t get warts very often.”
“For which we should be thankful.” Yvette closed the case and set it aside. “So, you wish me to dose you whenever needed.”
“Day or night,” Lady Carrolton insisted.
Yvette glanced around. “Night is difficult. Where would I sleep?”
She waved toward a door beside the wardrobe. “In my dressing room.”
Frowning, Yvette rose once more and went to look.
The countess’ dressing room was nearly the size of her spacious bedchamber, with pale blue walls and a polished wood floor. Another dressing table and a Pier glass mirror sat along one wall, with wardrobes and trunks lining the others. Shoved between two was a low cot, perhaps four feet long.
All at once she was back in France, a child still shaking from watching her family guillotined. Claude, hand on her shoulder, pushed her up the stairs, past the floor where he and his wife slept, past even the servants’ quarters, to the attic of the house. In the light from the door loomed old furniture and discarded paintings, all of them unwanted, just like her.
“This is where you will sleep,” he had informed her. “If you work hard, you may earn yourself a blanket, but I wouldn’t expect it soon.”
She shuddered at the memory, then turned and marched back to the bedchamber. “Non.”
Lady Carrolton stared at her. “No? What do you mean, no?”
“No, I will not sleep on the floor like your dog.”
The countess raised her head. “It’s a perfectly fine cot. My previous companion slept on it.”
“And left you,” Yvette reminded her. She started for the door, her thoughts chasing her.
“Where are you going?” Lady Carrolton demanded. “You can’t leave!”
She couldn’t, but the despot on the bed must never know that. “I merely wish to look,” Yvette told her, peering out the door. There were entrances to any number of rooms along the corridor, but most were too far away for her to hear the countess’ call. But what about that door directly opposite?
“What is that?” she asked, pointing.
Lady Carrolton tilted her head to see around her. “A guest bedchamber, rarely used. Marbury generally puts our guests in the south wing.”
“Bon. I will take it.”
“But you’ll never hear me from there,” Lady Carrolton protested.
“Certainement,” Yvette told her, turning. “We will find you a bell.”
For the first time since Yvette had entered the room, the lady smiled. “A bell?”
“Oui. A hand bell. When you need me at night, you must ring it, and I will come.”
“Do you promise?”
Once more the woman sounded wistful, almost fearful, like a child begging for comfort after a bad dream. She knew the feeling, the need to know someone who cared was close, would be there no matter what happened. Thanks to the Revolution, she had lost anyone who might have filled that need. What had brought this daughter of the English aristocracy to such a state? Yvette might never know, but she could not ignore the need now.
She returned to her new employer’s side and lay her hand on the countess’. “I promise. So long as I am your companion, you need not worry. Now, where is your maid? We must get you dressed. We have much to do.”
~~~
He ought to stay out of it. Yvette de Maupassant—better get used to calling her Miss French—had lived through the Terror. Surely she could handle his mother. Yet as Gregory attempted to review the reports his steward had provided about their various holdings, his thoughts kept going to what must be happening upstairs. Had Miss French agreed to all his mother’s demands? He knew they were many. Miss Ramsey had intimated as much before she’d summarily quit to take a position helping Augusta Orwell, aunt of his friend Harry. His sister Lilith was nearly as demanding as his mother. Of course, his father had had high expectations as well, but Gregory had always been able to satisfy them.
Perhaps he should just check.
He left his study to climb to the upstairs corridor of the north wing, where he, his mother, and his sister had apartments. Hands in his coat pockets, he strode down the thick carpet, quiet all around him. Lilith had gone riding that afternoon, one of her few pleasures, but surely his mother had not decided to nap with a new companion starting work. Yet as he approached his mother’s rooms, he detected a surprising amount of activity. Maids darted from the servants’ stair carrying linens. Footmen balanced furniture. Marbury stood along one wall, arms crossed over his chest, supervising.
“Is there a problem?” Gregory asked as he approached the man.
The butler drew himself up, missing Gregory’s height by a scant two inches. “No, my lord. Just preparing a room for Miss French.”
Gregory frowned. “Is there a reason she cannot use Miss Ramsey’s room?”
Marbury’s face remained impassive, but he thought he heard remonstrance under the tone. “Miss Ramsey had no room, my lord. She slept on a cot in the countess’ dressing room.”
She had? Small wonder the woman had left.
“That narrow thing we installed for the maid when my mother had influenza four years ago?” Gregory asked. “It was meant as a temporary arrangement and only for naps.”
“I remember,” Marbury informed him. “The countess had other ideas.”
And still had, apparently.
“No, no!” His mother’s voice was particularly strident as it echoed out of the unused room across from hers. “I said yellow. That is nearly mustard. Must I do everything myself?”
Gregory ventured into the room. He’d worked with his interior designer to make each of the one hundred rooms in Carrolton Park unique. This one had been inspired by spring, with sunny yellow walls, bed hangings patterned in jonquils and tulips, with matching fabric on the curved back chairs. The cornice of the bed and above each doorway was crowned with a gilded sun, its rays beaming out.
Against all that cheer, his mother, dressed in one of the black, lace-encrusted gowns she favored, looked a bit like a raven. Beside her tall, elegant frame, Yvette de Maupassant resembled a china doll.
And that hair! Cut as short as that of the infamous Caro Lamb, it curled about her piquant face in wild abandon. He could imagine running his fingers through the locks, silk springing beneath his touch.
He shook away the thought. Harry’s note, which had accompanied Lord Hastings’, indicated Gregory’s friend had rescued her from a prison house after her espionage had been discovered. For all Gregory knew, her captors had cut her hair to shame her. He should not find the look so appealing.
“Gregory!” His mother smiled at him, wrinkles crinkling around her pale eyes as she raised her ebony-headed cane. “You came to see me!”
She made it sound a rarity for all he tried to check on her at least once a day besides dinner when he was in residence.
“Mother,” he said, going to kiss her cheek. “You look busy.”
“Very,” she assured him, waving away the cream-colored linens a maid offered. “The blue, I said. I was very specific. Why do you all fail to listen?”
“They are doing splendidly,” Yvette corrected her. “See how nicely the blue complements the gold? And cream lace on the pillow cases—so inspired!”
The maid bobbed a curtsey, blushing at the praise.
He left his mother directing another servant in the making of the bed and drew Yvette aside.
“I must apologize,” he murmured, feeling like a hulking brute beside her. “I didn’t know Mother had subjected her previous companion to sleeping on a cot.”
She waved her hand. “It was easily remedied.”
The bustling about him did not look easy. And he could not like the way the room’s layout was being changed before his eyes. That black walnut trunk with the battered sides threw off the entire scheme. He looked to Marbury, who immediately came to him.
“My lord?” he asked.
“There’s a maple wardrobe in the north wing,” Gregory told him. “Have two of the footmen bring it here and remove that walnut monstrosity.”
He inclined his head. “At once, my lord.”
Yvette chuckled, the sound tickling him. “Monstrosity, he says. I am fortunate to even possess that.”
Gregory kept his chin up. “And while you are here I am determined that you will be surrounded by beauty, Miss…French.”
She laughed again. “You must practice, my lord. I am a poor companion, the lowly Miss French.” She fluttered her lashes in his direction.
“Perhaps you should practice,” he said with a smile. “You look and act nothing like a lowly companion.”
She made a moue. “But I am doing my best.”
“French!”
At his mother’s demand, Yvette hurried away from him. The sunny room seemed to dim. Once more he shook himself. What, had he been flirting? He was surprised he even knew how. She made every thought, every act, seem natural.
His mother may have taken the lead in redecorating, but he was fairly sure there was only one leader in the room, and that was clearly Yvette. Somehow, he thought Carrolton Park would never be the same.
Chapter Three
Meredith Thorn exited her room, Fortune in her arms. She would have been willing to leave her pet with a kind maid rather than to carry her down to dinner, but no maid, kind or otherwise, had appeared. Indeed, the south wing, in which she was housed, seemed to be empty of human habitation as she headed for the stairs. She had just reached the landing when a voice stopped her.
“You there. You must be the new companion.”
Meredith turned to the woman approaching from the north wing. Her hair, pulled back from her sculpted face, was dark brown, sleek as hot chocolate, but her eyes were so pale a blue as to resemble glass. She was tall for a woman, certainly taller than Meredith, and her physique in the austere, brown matte satin dress could only be called Amazonian.
“Lady Lilith, I presume,” Meredith said, inclining her head.