Lady Anne's Lover (The London List)
Page 25
Gareth wiped the soot from his face. There would be no party here tomorrow. The stove stood crooked in its corner, hinges bent, even the stove pipe listing. It looked as if someone had taken it apart and put it back together again blindfolded. He struggled with the windows, opening them wider. A good gust of wind could have stirred up much more mischief indoors. As it was, the walls were streaked black and ashes filtered down through the air like dirty snowflakes.
He was lucky. They were lucky. It could have been worse, he reminded himself. He and Annie were both alive and the house just needed a good scrubbing. But damn. How often was his little housekeeper going to scare the wits out of him?
She stood at the doorway now, green eyes huge in her white face. “What happened?”
“Suppose you tell me.”
“I don’t know what happened! I laid the cloths on the tables in the dining room and then took a little lie-down before the girls came.”
He eyed the stack of china on the kitchen table, seemingly every dish his mother had ever owned. They were coated with black grime and a few had fallen to the slate floor in his haste to put out the fire. A whole village of girls would not be enough to get the Hall ready for a wedding. He gathered up the shards and dropped them into the fireplace.
“I’ll take the wagon back to Llanwyr. We’ll just have to have the wedding reception at the Silver Pony, if Mrs. Chapman agrees to it.”
Annie’s face fell.
“You can’t expect to still have it here. It will take some time for the house to air out, and the stove is useless for warming anything.”
“You—you must be right.”
“Look, I know you worked hard—so hard you must have been distracted.” He picked up a scorched remnant from atop the stove with a toasting fork. A few inches of charred lace were plainly visible. “Where did you say you put the tablecloths?”
“In the dining room, of course! Look and see if you don’t believe me!”
She ran ahead of him down the hallway and threw open the double doors to the dining room. The few chairs he still owned were pushed back against the walls from the long table and the smaller ones they’d found in the attics. The bare tables.
“Oh! But I know I put them down. I was so pleased I got most of the wrinkles out—don’t look at me like that! I know I didn’t drop them on top of a hot stove! I’m not that much of an idiot!”
Annie wasn’t pale anymore. Her cheeks were rosy with embarrassment. Poor thing. Bridal nerves and all that.
“Look, it’s all right. No real harm done.” But he wasn’t going to give her a chance to burn the house down a third time—she just might get it right. Hiring a housekeeper was number one on his list. Until then, they’d take all their meals at the Silver Pony.
“But I didn’t do it!” she insisted, her color mounting.
“I don’t want to stand here arguing with you. Did you find Martin?”
Anne shook her head. “Penny’s gone, too.”
“He said something to me about riding over to Hay to get us a wedding present. I told him it was unnecessary, but he will do what he wants. I’ll probably meet the girls you hired on the road. Do you still want them to come? They can begin the clean-up, although I daresay it won’t be as much fun for them as arranging greenery and ribbons. You probably don’t want to get your hands dirty before the big day either.”
Annie looked around the dining room with a forlorn expression on her face. Glass and china vases stood on the sideboard waiting for filling that would never come. Gareth noted the basket of boughs in a corner—she must have tramped out while he was gone and clipped whatever was decent from the overgrown bushes in the garden. If theirs had been a London wedding, she might have raided her father’s glasshouse. She had some such idea to tack one onto the back of Ripton Hall when the money came in.
If she didn’t destroy the house first.
“Look, I’ve got to go to see if I can sort this all out. Give us a kiss then.”
Gareth thought he was being more than magnanimous. Apart from yelling at her when he was trying to save her life, he hadn’t raised his voice or given her the dressing-down she so deserved.
She stepped toward him, raising herself on tiptoes. “I didn’t do it,” she said, offering a cheek.
And then she plunged back downward. “You’ve been drinking!”
“Just a bowl of punch after we loaded the wagon up. We all did, Jim the ostler and the kitchen girls and Mrs. Chapman. They wished us luck, Annie. And it’s damned cold out there in case you didn’t notice.” She must have—she’d gone out in just the ugly brown dress she was sleeping in to stand in the dooryard wringing her hands as he’d filled buckets with snow and water. He fished a handkerchief out of his pocket. “Hold still. You have a smudge on your nose.”
“You are treating me like a child, Gareth! And—and drinking when I asked you not to.”
“It was just a little punch to celebrate the wedding,” he said, exasperated. “One round.” She didn’t need to know he’d had three, and endured the good-natured teasing of the Silver Pony’s staff. It had all been rather jolly. If he’d had friends, surely he’d have had some sort of bachelor dinner before his wedding. He’d attended many riotous nights when he was in the army before some poor sod got leg-shackled. Somehow he couldn’t picture raising a glass with Ian and Parry Lewys.
Damn it. This was his last day of freedom. And how was he spending it? Putting out fires and acting as a pack mule with a wagon full of wedding food. Which he was somehow going to have to manage to turn around in the narrow lane and bring all the way back to the village. Damn Job was not going to be a bit of help. “Don’t be so sniffy, Annie. Tomorrow you’ll promise to love, honor, and obey me, but I have a feeling I’ll be the one doing the obeying.”
“I haven’t asked you to do anything that’s not good for you.” Annie gave him the look. He’d seen it only fleetingly, and he didn’t want to burst her bubble to tell her she’d have to work on it before she truly frightened him. He was not going to spend the rest of his life being bossed around by a redheaded dwarf, even if she did control the purse strings.
All talk of his money and her money had evaporated. He’d made sure she didn’t want to leave him, had wrapped her tight in his arms—well, his arm, he thought with an inner chuckle—and fucked her senseless night and day. If there was a God, she’d already be breeding. She’d make a marvelous mother, full of energy and fun—she could boss around all his babies with no complaint from him. But she was not going to tell him what to do the day before his wedding, especially after she’d almost ruined it.
He raised a superior eyebrow. “No kisses, then?”
“You smell.”
“I daresay I do,” he said, tamping down anger. He was still awash with sweat from his exertions putting out the fire. And underlying that was the stench of the fear he’d felt when he wondered if his bride would be around on his wedding day. “All right, I’ll leave you to your mess.”
“I didn’t do it!” she shrieked. “I put those tablecloths on these tables and lay down for a nap!”
“I suppose they bundled themselves up, rolled into the kitchen, and climbed aboard the stovetop.”
“I don’t know what happened.” She spoke slowly as if he were a child. A not-very-bright one. “Maybe Martin put them there.”
“Martin! Come now, Lady Anne, don’t blame the loyal servant. It’s unworthy of you.”
“He doesn’t like me.” Her arms were now crossed over her ample bosom. She vibrated righteous indignation and irritation with him. With the world. She put up a good front, but at some point would have to admit her careless mistake.
“Oh, Martin doesn’t like women. It’s nothing personal. I’ve told you that before. Look, I’ve really got to go. If Mrs. Chapman can’t get the inn ready on such short notice, we’ll be sunk. Do you want those girls to come here to clean, or shall I send them to the Silver Pony?”
“I don’t care where they go.”
He heard the vases shatter before he opened the front door.
The next few minutes proved he should have stayed and let Annie hit him on the head with a flying object. In his haste to get into the house, Gareth had abandoned Job. Instead of wandering into the stable like a good horse, he was nowhere to be found. Gareth whistled. Gareth shouted. Gareth cursed himself and the animal for good measure. Job was a prime bit of horseflesh—though temperamental, true—and he didn’t want to see him injured. He grabbed a saddle and bridle from the tack room in hopes of encountering the animal on the lane, but found nothing but the laden cart blocking the road.
Blast. He tossed the riding gear on top of a barrel of cider and inured himself to the walk down to Llanwyr. It was a beautiful crisp day, but it might as well have been sleeting for all the joy Gareth felt at the moment.
He was having his first fight with Annie on the eve of their wedding. He supposed it had to happen sometime—they had been floating on a blissful cloud of lust for weeks now. Yes, the cloud had quivered with news of her father’s search and Parry Lewys’s return, but they’d exchanged no cross words since she’d handed him his head the night he fell down the stairs.
It wasn’t natural to get along too well, was it? His parents had had their ups and downs. Anyway, he’d given her no reason to be vexed with him lately. Hell, he’d saved her life, or come close, three times. She’d fallen down the cellar stairs, and twice she’d set accidental fires. Once they were married, he’d have to wrap her in cotton wool to keep her safe. Keep himself safe, too. He had no interest in leaping into a frying pan.
To pass the time as he walked through the hedgerows, he pictured Annie tethered to his bed by stout silken ropes, where she couldn’t get into any mischief other than the sexual kind. She would be completely at his disposal, although he expected he’d have to find a silk scarf as well to cover her mouth to prevent his ears being blistered. Which meant no scorching kisses, at least on her lovely, rose-tinted lips. He’d find other places to kiss her, which would be no hardship at all.
Gareth was whistling quite cheerfully by the time he got to the Silver Pony, imagining all the delightful things he might do to Annie, starting tonight. He entered by way of the kitchen door and found a flurry of activity. Mrs. Chapman and her serving girls had boxed up dozens of rolls, and the kitchen smelled like a yeasty heaven. A large iced cake sat at one end of the table, where the innkeeper was affixing dried sugared fruit in a circular pattern.
“Back already? I didn’t hear the cart. What do you think of my cake? It’s not fancy, but I think it will do, aye?”
Gareth dropped into a chair. He felt a touch weary if he were forced to admit it. “Well, there’s a problem. Several, actually. I don’t suppose one of you could fetch me some ale? I’m parched.”
“Sally, you go. Gareth, what is it? Wedding jitters?” Mrs. Chapman wiped her sugary hands on her apron and sat down. “One for me too, Sal,” she called. “I’ve earned it.”
“If only it were so simple. We’ve had a slight disaster in the kitchen at Ripton Hall. There was a fire—” He caught sight of Mrs. Chapman’s expression and hurried on. “Don’t worry, it was nothing too serious. Anne is fine but the kitchen’s a mess. Smoke and soot and water everywhere. The stove has virtually fallen apart and we won’t be able to cook anything until we get a new one.”
“Oh, dear. I’m doing all the roasting here but we’ll need a stove for tea. Some of the ladies will not drink spirits, you know.”
Sally set down two stone mugs of ale. Gareth downed his in one go, and Sally slipped the mug from the table to fetch more from the taproom. “The thing is, we can’t have the reception at home. It would take every pair of hands in the village to clean the place up in time. Can we have it here, upstairs in the assembly room?”
“Good lord, Gareth, I haven’t had that room open since the Harvest Dance.”
Gareth had not attended. His presence as a suspected murderer would have made the occasion even less celebratory—the harvest had been disappointing for others beside himself. “We won’t mind a little dust. And it will be easier to sweep that to scrub the walls clean at Ripton Hall. I’ll even help.”
“You? Go on with you.”
“You’d be surprised at how domestic I’ve become since I fell in love with my housekeeper. She’s a little dragon. Do you know I wash my own shirts?” He winked as Sally deposited another ale in front of him.
“You said there were several problems,” Mrs. Chapman prompted.
“I seem to have lost my horse, and the loaded cart I left with an hour ago is on my drive. I hope gypsies and crows haven’t discovered it.”
“I’ll get Jim and one of his boys to fetch it and bring it back.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“Oh, aye. For your bride, not for you, you scamp. Poor girl. She must be beside herself, all the work she’s done on the old place to get it ready. What about Delores and Kitty? Does she still want them at the house this afternoon?”
Annie had told him she didn’t care, so he made a decision. “Have them stay here and help get the room upstairs ready. We can clean the kitchen on our honeymoon.”
Mrs. Chapman shook her head. “If that is how you mean to go on with married life, you have a great deal to learn. I thought you were going to London for your wedding trip.”
“We’d planned to.” Maybe they should put it off a few days until the house got squared away. Gareth sat back with his ale as Mrs. Chapman mustered her troops and sent messages to every able-bodied person she could think of to help her. He wondered if Annie would feel left out of the activity, but she’d worked hard enough these past weeks. All for naught, now. Let her relax this afternoon. He’d bring her home a basket of hot meat pies and some of the apple cobbler he’d spied on a traveler’s plate in the taproom earlier.
Gareth would help here, then help Annie get into her wedding clothes tomorrow morning. And have an even better time getting her out of them after the reception. He grinned and raised his mug to Sal.
CHAPTER 27
Anne had done the best she could in the kitchen, sweeping and scrubbing. She’d have to wear her gloves all through the ceremony and reception to keep her blackened nails hidden. She’d pulled out the rusty crane in the old fireplace and was heating some washing water in an iron kettle, it being far from the bath she needed.
She and the water were both steaming. The longer she thought about the fire and Gareth’s reaction to it, the angrier she became. How could he think she’d stuff tablecloths into the stove and on top of it? She’d found a pan of charred meat inside the oven, too. Someone had played a trick on her—a vicious, vile trick. Someone had deliberately tried to ruin her wedding day.
Maybe even kill her.
Anne didn’t think she was being too fanciful. She’d been so exhausted from all the preparations, she could easily have slept through a conflagration, and had until Gareth shook her awake. Most people died of smoke inhalation, did they not? They couldn’t be roused, and their lungs filled with poison. Just because the kitchen wing had not gone up in flames didn’t mean that there had been no danger.
The worst part about all of this, though, is that Gareth believed she was responsible. Anne knew she’d been cow-handed when she’d come to Wales, but her housekeeping skills had improved by leaps and bounds. She’d read Mrs. Smith’s Compleat Housewife book from cover to cover now, had dog-eared pages and even knew now how to prepare lemon puffs—if she could ever get her hands on some lemons. She was not so henwitted she’d stuff three tablecloths that she’d spent hours ironing within an inch of perfection into and on top of the damned stove.
She glared at the thing with malevolence. She’d cooked scrambled eggs on it just this morning. There was something distinctly not right about the stove now. The burners were tipsy and the door h
ung loose. The stove pipe gapped along a seam. She remembered the smoke billowing out of it as she’d fled to hunt for Martin.
Who had come into the kitchen while she was asleep? She’d made no enemies here, had worked hard to ingratiate herself with everyone. Mrs. Chapman and her serving maids had befriended her, and she had hopes of getting to know Gareth’s neighbors much better once they were wed. She’d even have dinner with Parry Lewys—and like it—if Gareth wanted to.
She’d been cool to Lord Lewys the other day, but surely had not offended him so much that he came to Ripton Hall to set it on fire and teach her a lesson in civility.
Perhaps she wasn’t the target of the unknown arsonist. Gareth had plenty of people concerned about him. Likely there were any number of people who didn’t think he should marry and be happy. Though Ian Morgan wouldn’t try to burn down the house he was practically raised in, would he? He and Gareth were on much better terms now, anyway.
Anne rubbed her forehead, pushing away the tumbling thoughts. She ladled water from the kettle into a basin to let it cool, then put some in the teapot. She wasn’t hungry, couldn’t even contemplate dinner—and it would be a cold one, anyway—but a cup of tea was always welcome.
Where was Gareth? The sky had darkened and the wind had picked up. The windows still stood wide open to air out the room, and she shivered. The walls would have to be whitewashed and a new stove purchased, all easily accomplished once she had access to her funds. She supposed she was foolish to sit in the dirty kitchen, but the fire was roaring along nicely in the enormous hearth and she’d pulled a blanket off her rumpled bed and wrapped herself in it. From her vantage point in the rocking chair, the world was not such a terrible place save for the vexing man who lived here in this house with her. She’d have a talk with him tonight. Tomorrow, everything would fall into place for her future.