Mary stood there a full five seconds, wondering what Christopher Bryce knew about Sir George Cavendish, such was his dark forbidding look, then decided it was not her business and best left alone. Not for the first time did she speculate about Mr. Christopher Bryce’s history. The man was an enigma. A farmer and mill owner who had agreed to take two days out of his fortnight to act as steward of his neighbor’s estate, was indeed a mystery. That he remained a bachelor at the age of forty, when his life experiences would have provided him with plenty of opportunity to find a wife, deepened her curiosity.
If not a wife, then why not a mistress? Men were permitted such indulgences in Polite Society. But she knew such behavior would not be tolerated in this provincial pocket of Gloucestershire. If the Squire did have a mistress—and why wouldn’t he? He was, after all, an attractive man—she did not live nearby, but elsewhere, Cheltenham perhaps, or farther afield, in Bath. But as he rarely travelled further south than Stroud, and he shared his house in the next vale with an elderly aunt, this seemed unlikely… As to the many years he had spent on the Continent… Mary was intrigued. The only time she had enquired of Sir Gerald if their neighbor had ever mentioned his Continental wanderings, he had smugly replied that what he knew about Squire Bryce was not for the ears of his wife, or for that matter, any gently-bred female. He was sure her little ears would glow scarlet.
“Is there something else I may help you with, my lady?” Christopher asked tonelessly without lifting his gaze from the Duke of Roxton’s elegant handwriting.
“N-no. Noth—Nothing,” she replied, giving a start and mentally shaking herself out of a daydream of the Squire with a possible mistress in Bath and countless lovers left behind on the Continent. “As you will be staying well into the night, I will inform the housekeeper to set an extra cover for dinner—Teddy will enjoy your company—and to air the steward’s bedchamber.”
He looked up at her then. “Thank-you, my lady. That would be most welcome.”
She nodded and he returned to his reading. Gathering up a handful of her petticoats she turned to leave when the door was flung wide, causing her to stagger back in surprise. It banged up against the wood paneling, the Squire’s frock coat slipping off the peg and crumpling to the floor, as a large white-and-tan wire-haired hound bounded into the room. It had a dead pheasant clamped between its jaws, and left a trail of muddy paw prints in its wake.
Mary knew the dog. He belonged to Christopher, and was his constant companion. Teddy took the lurcher out with her into the fields and the wood at every opportunity. Yet, this knowledge did not stop Mary from retreating behind the chair she’d been sitting on. The prospect of her husband’s ghost haunting his rooms scared her, but an unleashed dog held a deeper terror. And although she knew it was an irrational fear, she could not control or hide it. Everyone in her family loved dogs—that most faithful of animal companions—be they hunting dogs or lap dogs. And while her family tolerated her aversion, her mother did not. She refused to acknowledge any weakness in her children, and this despite knowing that as a small child, Mary had been mauled by one of the Countess’s terriers. It had taken hold of her right hand and not let go. She still carried the scars from that encounter. Since then, instinctively she shied away from all dogs, regardless of their breed or size.
And so it was not something she could control when her breathing became quick and shallow. She scrambled to kneel upon the chair, hands tight about the back rail, as if this would somehow save her from being approached by Lorenzo.
Christopher’s chin had lifted with the bang of the door. He saw his four-legged companion, saw Mary clambering onto the chair, and within a few strides had put himself between the chair and the lurcher before it could proudly offer up his bounty to her.
“I’m s-sorry,” she stammered. “I know he’s a good dog. It’s just I c-can’t—”
“One or two deep breaths and you’ll soon be yourself again,” he stated, glancing over his shoulder. “And you, my fine fellow,” he added in a completely different tone, addressing the lurcher affectionately when it dropped the pheasant at the toe of his jockey boot, “have no manners. But I do appreciate the gift. Sit, Lorenzo! Now where’s your partner in this enterprise, I wonder…”
No sooner had Lorenzo obeyed than into the room rushed a thin-shouldered girl with a heart-shaped face dusted in freckles and a long untidy braid of cherry-red hair. Theodora Charlotte Cavendish—Teddy to everyone except her grandmother, who insisted on calling her Theodora—was ten years old and a tomboy. She had a toothy grin and bright brown eyes. Notwithstanding the remarkable shade of red to her wavy hair, she resembled neither parent. This was a relief to her relatives, given her father was not handsome in any sense, but also a disappointment, because while her mother was not considered a great beauty, Lady Mary did resemble her cousin Antonia enough to be thought a pretty redhead.
And because Teddy was a tomboy, she wore a riding frock coat buttoned up over her bodice and chemise, and under her petticoats a pair of breeches, made especially for her by her doting mother. And these, along with a thick pair of knitted stockings were tucked into jockey boots, to ward off the cold, but mainly so she could climb trees and ride astride unencumbered and with her mother’s pride intact.
Her boots were splashed with mud, her hem soaked, and her hands and face could do with a good scrubbing before dinner. But for all that, her mother and Christopher greeted her with welcoming smiles, not a word said about the state of her appearance. She instantly went up to the lurcher and threw her arms about his neck. For her affection, she received a lick across the chin.
“Clever Lorenzo! Good boy!” She looked up at the Squire. “Do you like the gift he brought you, Uncle Bryce? He was very well-behaved on our walk, until he came across Mr. Owens and his two hounds. They were driving birds out of the hedge at the back of Elwood’s cider mill. There’s a ditch as deep as a pond—Mama!? Here you are!”
She saw her mother when Christopher stepped aside but kept a leg close to his lurcher. She thought it odd she was kneeling upon a chair, but then realized why and scrambled to her feet, adding in a rush, “I’m sorry I let Lorenzo go on ahead. It was to surprise Uncle Bryce. I should’ve had him drop the bird in the kitchen. I didn’t know you were here, Mama. I came in the back way on account of the mud—”
“You were not to know, Teddy,” Mary interrupted with a smile as she got off the chair and brushed down her petticoats, a wary eye on Lorenzo who remained at his master’s side and barely moved his head in response to her movement. She put an arm about her daughter and gently brushed the wisps of frizzy hair out of her eyes. “You’ll just have enough time to wash and put on a change of clothes before dinner. The bodice and petticoats made for Uncle Dair’s wedding—”
“But, Mama, I would much prefer to wear—”
“We have a guest at table tonight, and you could practice your very best table manners in your very best gown in preparation for your stay with Granny.”
“Guest?” Teddy frowned. “But we never have guests.”
“Mr. Bryce is to dine with us.”
Teddy looked up swiftly and the frown between her brows cleared.
“Truly? Are you? Are you truly staying to dinner, Uncle Bryce?” When Christopher nodded, she clapped her hands and then asked her mother, “Is there a special reason, or is Uncle Bryce staying so he can catch the ghost?”
THREE
STARTLED, Mary and Christopher looked at one another. It was left to the steward’s assistant, forgotten in his warm corner of the office, to break the silence.
“A ghost, Miss Teddy? Now who’s been weavin’ such tales to frighten young maidens?”
“I’m not frightened, Mr. Deed,” the girl responded matter-of-factly, but she could hardly contain her excitement, brown eyes growing rounder. “And there is a ghost! It’s haunting the kitchen. So Jane and Jenny say. They won’t go into the pantry. Mrs. Keble says that it will be more than their lives are worth if they don’t stop being silly hens and ge
t about their business. But Jenny says nothing will make her go in there. And Jane says if she does, she’ll faint and be of no use to anyone. So nothing is getting done, and Cook wanted to take off her cap and stamp on it, she was that angry. Mrs. Keble sent Luke into the pantry to bring out the jam jars for Jane and Jenny to count. They counted them twice. It was just as Jane said. Two jars of jam are missing—”
“I hope the ghost was good enough to take the lemon marmalade, and leave the orange,” Christopher commented. “The lemon is far too bitter for my taste. Fruit picked too early is my guess.”
“Lemon marmalade? Yes, it is rather bitter…” Mary said, then frowned up at Christopher. “How can you be concerned about the bitterness—” she began and was cut off by her daughter, who said with a giggle,
“You are a silly head sometimes, Uncle Bryce! Ghosts can’t taste anything, can they?”
When Christopher made a face and tapped the side of his nose as if to say he was thinking the exact same thought, Teddy grinned, but Mary, who was still frowning, asked,
“Then why take the jam at all?”
“Mischief, so says Mrs. Keble,” Teddy answered.
“It would be too much to hope that she also told the servants there is no ghost?” Christopher asked dryly.
“Yes, that would be too much,” Teddy confirmed. “And Cook agreed with Mrs. Keble and said that she’d stake her life on it there be no thieves at Abbeywood—”
“There are no thieves,” corrected her mother.
“My lady, I think Teddy was quoting Cook in her vernacular, were you not?”
The girl nodded her agreement with the Squire, then proceeded to mimic the cook’s Cotswold speech. “Cook said a body won’t abide the notion there be thieves ’ere at Abbeywood, so thou be a ghost as what bin thieving them there jams, all to disturb yon peace.” She shrugged and grinned. “So you see, there must be a ghost!”
“Your Uncle Dair would be impressed, but your grandmother appalled,” Mary commented.
“Uncle Dair isn’t afraid of anything,” Teddy replied, and turned to Christopher saying proudly, “A war hero wouldn’t be afraid of a ghost, would he?”
“No. He would not. But what I think your mother means is that your Uncle Dair, being a mimic himself, would enjoy your mimicry,” Christopher explained, “but that your grandmother would not be pleased with you speaking in the tongue of your—um—inferiors.”
“Inferiors?” Teddy didn’t understand, and when neither Christopher nor Mary elaborated, she shrugged and stated without malice about her grandmother, the Countess of Strathsay, “Granny is appalled by everything and everyone.”
“That is very true,” Mary said on a sigh, more to herself than to those in the room, adding “I don’t know why he—why a ghost would want to upset Cook.”
She was unsettled by the thought of Sir Gerald’s ghost not being confined to his dressing room. Which, when she thought about it, was a silly notion. Ghosts could go where they pleased. So it made her doubly relieved that the Squire was staying the night. With a wary eye on Lorenzo, whose gaze was following Teddy as she skipped and twirled about, and had sat up but then settled again at his master’s feet, Mary put out a hand to her daughter.
That Teddy was incapable of remaining still reminded Mary of her eldest brother Alisdair. For his restlessness, and for staring out the window and not applying himself to his studies, he had been beaten by his tutors more times than she cared to count. Dair had always been happiest out-of-doors, and still was, and so was Teddy.
“We have disrupted Mr. Bryce’s afternoon long enough with talk of a jam-stealing ghost. Perhaps while you’re readying for dinner you can find a more suitable topic for dinner conversation—something Granny would approve. It will make for good practice for your visit with her at Cheltenham, which is only a few weeks away,” she gently reminded her. “Don’t you agree, Mr. Bryce?”
With this last sentence she directed a significant stare at Christopher, and was pleased when he was quick to agree. She was not pleased, however, when later, at the dining table after grace was said and with the parsnip soup and bread placed before them, he took up his soup spoon and asked Teddy casually,
“What else did Cook say about a ghost as what bin thieving them jams?”
Teddy eagerly gulped down the mouthful of soup and looked to her mother seated at the foot of the table for direction. Scrubbed clean until her chin and forehead gleamed, the girl’s long, wavy red hair had been brushed free of tangles and held off her face by a blue satin hair band which matched the color of her silk petticoats and embroidered bodice. She wore new satin slippers and white stockings, and did her best to sit up straight, though the boning and the center busk of her bodice made slouching an impossibility.
As Lady Mary continued to eat her soup and made no comment, Teddy took this as a sign she was free to respond to the Squire’s enquiry. She looked at Christopher, who sat across from her, and said earnestly,
“It likes pickles, too.”
“Pickles? Does it? What type of pickles?”
“Type?” Teddy thought a moment. “Walnut. It’s the walnut pickle that’s missing.”
“Walnut pickle? An excellent choice. Though I prefer Cook’s pickled cucumbers. I’m glad it took the walnut and left the cucumber pickles.”
Teddy giggled.
“It’s a very thoughtful ghost then, isn’t it, Uncle Bryce?”
“Very thoughtful—to me. But not to Cook, or Mrs. Keble, or Jane and Jenny. By the by, what sort of jam did it steal?”
“Strawberry jam. And a jar of marmalade.”
“Do you think this ghost eats the walnut pickles with or without the strawberry jam, or perhaps with the marmalade?”
“Walnut pickles and strawberry jam eaten together?” Teddy pulled a face of revulsion. “Faugh! That would taste awful.”
“Yes. But you said so yourself that ghosts can’t taste, so how would it know?”
“Oh, Uncle Bryce, it doesn’t need the sense of taste to steal—”
“Teddy. Young ladies and gentlemen do not use the word faugh at any time, and most certainly not at table,” Mary lectured quietly. “Next time, please find a more polite word to express your disgust. And a more suitable topic for the dinner table, hopefully one that won’t upset your grandmother. Now eat your soup before it is cold.”
“Yes, Mama. Sorry, Mama,” Teddy murmured, suitably chastened, and dropped her chin, but not before she caught Christopher’s wink and they exchanged a smile.
The three diners finished their soup in silence. The only sounds were the tick of the clock on the mantel, the chink of silver spoons in porcelain bowls, and the heels of Teddy’s satin slippers scuffing against the chair rail as she swung her stockinged legs back and forth. Her new petticoats and tidy hair might give her the semblance of the young miss, but the tomboy could not be suppressed, nor it seemed could the Squire’s interest in discussing the ghost.
He, too, had made an effort with his appearance. Mary noticed this immediately when he came through to the hall via the servant’s door, just before dinner was announced. His jockey boots were free of mud and were polished. His stock had been re-tied to fit snugly about his neck, and his tussle of curls scraped back and tied off with a neat satin bow. He wore his frock coat unbuttoned over his shirt and waistcoat. Cut to curve away from the torso to highlight the waistcoat beneath, on younger men, who wore fashionable embroidered waistcoats, the effect was most pleasing.
On middle-aged men such as her husband, such a cut drew unwanted attention to their expanding waistlines, and rarely did the silver or horn buttons of their waistcoats sit flat, often they did not do up at all. Sir Gerald, like many middle-aged men of means, carried a paunch, a trophy of a lifetime of good food, plenty of home-brewed cider and ale, and a sedentary lifestyle brought on by the success of their various ventures, whether mercantile, commercial, industrial, or agrarian.
Mr. Christopher Bryce, however, did not conform to type. Despite b
eing middle-aged, he did not sport the quintessential paunch. In truth, he had the figure and bearing of a younger man. If not for the creases that came with age at the corners of his eyes and either side of his straight nose, he could easily have passed for a man many years his junior. A grave younger man to be sure, one who was austere with her, and with those he employed, and who kept very much to himself in social situations, but who was rarely, if ever, solemn when in the company of her daughter.
Mary caught his wink and the smile exchanged with Teddy and chose to be blind to it. Far from causing her concern that he was undermining her parental authority, she found the bond between them charming. Sir Gerald had been bitterly disappointed at having a daughter and not the longed-for son, and treated Teddy as an annoyance. Christopher Bryce, however, had never been dismissive or given the impression that because she was a girl, Teddy’s life was worth less than had she been born male.
And so in this, too, the Squire was not archetypal. While the first families of the vale had expressed their condolences on Sir Gerald’s lack of a son, and even offered Mary their heartfelt prayers she would deliver an heir with her next pregnancy, Christopher Bryce had never singled out Teddy’s gender for comment. He treated her as he found her. She was simply Teddy. For this alone, Mary was prepared to tolerate his blunt, dictatorial dealings and his stubborn refusal to allow Teddy to visit her Roxton cousins.
As for Teddy spending time in his company, and he dining at their table, this too she welcomed, though her mother would’ve been horrified at such a social solecism. How very different had been her upbringing! The ingrained social dictates of her childhood had made her instinctively docile in the presence of her mother and her social superiors, and even at the age of thirty continued to influence her choices. Never a word had she spoken out of turn at the dinner table or in company when her mother was present, for fear of being ridiculed.
She was determined her daughter would have none of those fears and prejudices that had been instilled in her. Teddy’s life would be different. So she was happy to let the Squire and her daughter banter back and forth like two tavern habitués, she consigned to interested spectator and societal referee. She was listening while they chatted between mouthfuls of baked trout and roasted meats with seasonal vegetables, a light in her violet eyes and a smile hovering just below her polite demeanor as hostess. Both had abided by her request and Christopher was listening to Teddy chatter about the escape and recapture of Will Bisley’s prize sheep, which had given Cook, who was Will’s cousin, a month’s mind of worry. And then he returned the conversation to the ghost and the missing condiments. Mary wondered why. There had to be a good reason for him to do so. Christopher Bryce was not given to whimsy.
Proud Mary Page 4