by Jane Ashford
“He said it was quite a difficult position to fill. He had to advertise.”
“You don’t say he paid somebody to act the hermit?” Tom asked.
The older man smiled. “How to separate the acting from reality in this case? The fellow was required to lurk in a stone grotto in ragged clothes and keep a long beard. I suppose the acting came in when he was exhibited to visitors.”
“Did he have to rave at them?” Tom asked. “That’d be a hard sort of job.”
“Do you think so?” answered Lord Macklin, looking both interested and amused.
Tom nodded. “What would you say, raving? What sort of…topics, like? The feller couldn’t just go on about the weather and such, could he? Likely this duke would expect somethin’ more entertaining.”
“A good point.” Lord Macklin shook his head. “I wish I knew the details of his…role, but I don’t.”
Geoffrey opened his mouth to speak.
“No, he did not die,” said Lord Macklin. “At least not so far as I am aware. Eventually, of course—” He let this sentence trail off.
Jean rose. “Goody Two-Shoes goes back to the library.”
Lord Furness rose with her. When Lord Macklin stood, he went over to examine the wooden blocks and asked about the counting game the lads had been playing. They came to show him its intricacies. Jean waited a moment, but the older man showed no signs of departing. She was left to her host’s company once again.
“Well, that did not go well,” said Jean as she passed through the nursery door. She would talk about the book until she could escape him.
Benjamin walked beside her. He’d never been so acutely conscious of another person. The tiniest tilt of her head called out to him. He was entranced by the soft swish of her skirts. The feel of her was branded on his body. “Geoffrey seemed to enjoy himself,” he said.
“Do you call it that? I should have looked for a book about the plague,” she added acerbically. “But how was I to know that? How could anyone?”
He laughed.
Miss Saunders frowned. “You’re not worried that Geoffrey keeps talking about death?”
“Not really. He seems more curious than uneasy about it.”
“You don’t…” She hesitated, then said, “What if he’s thinking of his mother?”
It was like one of those moments in the boxing ring when a smashing blow slips past your ear, Benjamin thought. The pain—so crushing, so often felt—brushed by him this time, leaving just a whisper of an echo in its wake. “I don’t think he is,” he answered.
“Why?”
“Because he speaks with such gusto.”
She stopped on the stairs and looked at him. Benjamin took the full force of her challenging gaze. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to be able to kiss her whenever he liked, and to follow the kisses with much more. After last night, what man wouldn’t? A dry inner voice countered that question with others. A man who didn’t care for high drama? One who had enough on his plate already?
“He does,” she said slowly. “And he seems to enjoy shocking us, too. But can he really? He’s so young.”
“I know very little about children in general,” Benjamin replied. Miss Saunders shrugged in wry agreement. “I have to judge Geoffrey by his own yardstick. And I see nothing mournful in his words or manner.”
She considered this, biting her lower lip in a way that made Benjamin long to pull her close. “I agree.” She started moving again. “Very observant of you.”
He fell into step beside her. “You sound surprised.”
“After the state of things when I arrived? Of course I am.” She walked faster. “I’m not going to read him grisly accounts of epidemics. Reading at all was a bad idea, I suppose.”
She sounded dejected, and Benjamin found he wanted to cheer her up. “What about something like Waverley?”
“Scott is far too old for him.”
“But we’ve agreed that Geoffrey is one of a kind. I expect he’d like the battles.”
“But shouldn’t we be trying to discourage such impulses? Do you want him flying at visitors with a lance instead of a tomahawk? Mounted on Fergus, no doubt, and armored cap-a-pie.”
“At least he’d be clothed,” said Benjamin.
Miss Saunders stared at him for a blank moment, and then she began to laugh. The sound was musical, infectious. He joined her. She laughed more heartily. Their eyes met, shining with humor. His spirits rose. He tried to remember when joy had last rung through his hallways. Too long ago.
Then they reached the library door. And stopped—walking and laughing. The wooden panels loomed. Miss Saunders seemed to share his feeling that another world lay beyond that portal.
She held out the book. “There’s no need for both of us. You can put it back.”
“I don’t know where it goes,” he said, opening the door and not quite chivying her through.
She strode to the shelves, slipping the copy of Goody Two-Shoes between two narrow volumes. “There. Done.” It was as if their laughter had never been. In another moment she would go.
“We should speak about last night,” he said.
“No, we should simply erase it from our minds.”
“Memory can’t be so easily expunged.”
“Yes it can!” she said, her expression fierce.
Benjamin felt a pang of regret. “And this is what you want? That we should pretend you never kissed me? That I never held you?”
“What else?” She stood like a soldier on inspection, the antithesis of the pliant, ardent woman he’d embraced in this room.
It was a good question. Benjamin wasn’t prepared at this moment to give the conventional answer—an offer of marriage. And he had no others ready. Yet this…void she proposed was deeply unsatisfying. “I don’t want you to be uneasy,” he began.
“I’m perfectly well,” she said. “There is no need to worry about me.”
And with that, she slipped past him and away, leaving Benjamin to wonder at her emphasis. Who or what was he supposed to worry about? Geoffrey, he supposed. Or himself?
Eleven
“I think we’ll be moving on from here soon,” Arthur said to his valet the following morning.
“Indeed, my lord.” Clayton helped the earl into his coat.
“I have a feeling matters will be resolved satisfactorily.” He couldn’t suppress a trace of smugness. He’d wanted to rouse his nephew from his grief, and he’d done so with a vengeance. Or, rather, Miss Saunders had. Arthur gave credit where it was due. That young lady had turned out to be a much larger personality than he’d realized when he met her in a London drawing room. There’d been moments when he felt like a man whose cat had grown into a tiger. Arthur smiled into the mirror as he adjusted his neckcloth. A most inappropriate comparison. Miss Saunders’s eyes would snap at him if she heard it. He’d keep it to himself. “There are several other visits I’m eager to make,” he added.
“Because of the letters you received, my lord?”
“Yes. There’ve been some interesting developments.” Arthur went over to the small writing desk and unfolded a recent missive to look at it again. “What would you do, Clayton, if you found that a total stranger had received a large legacy in your parents’ will?” His valet would know, of course, that Arthur wasn’t referring to the elder Claytons, who’d kept a tiny village shop and had little to leave anyone. He would instead consider a hypothetical situation. Over the years, Arthur had discovered a sharp mind and a deep well of common sense in his servitor. Clayton had become a valuable sounding board when he was working out a course of action. Arthur reasoned better by talking aloud than through introspection.
“Perhaps this would be a distant relative, my lord?”
“No. No familial connection whatsoever apparently. A complete stranger.”
“I would wonder,” Clayton said.
“As who would not?”
“I would inquire, investigate why this came about, and who this person was.”
Arthur nodded.
“The clerk who wrote the will might have information.”
The earl flicked the letter with one finger. “Instructed to reveal nothing. Part of the terms of the will. Viscount Whitfield is…perplexed.”
Clayton considered this piece of news. “The viscount was at the dinner you held at White’s.” He didn’t specify which dinner. There was only one they referred to in this tone.
“He was.” Arthur folded up the letter and tucked it away. “How would you feel about this mysterious heir, Clayton, if it was your parents’ will?”
“Suspicious,” replied the valet at once. “Resentful, I imagine, depending on the details.”
“Precisely.” The earl ran his fingers over other letters lined up in a cubbyhole of the desk. “How far are we to blame for others’ actions, do you think?”
Clayton took a moment to digest the change of subject. “Not far,” he said then. “In most circumstances.”
“If your sister—assuming you had a sister, Clayton—behaved very foolishly and suffered for it, would you feel responsible?”
“I don’t think I would, my lord. Unless I had told her to do the foolish thing. Or made her do it somehow.”
Arthur shook his head. “Not the case here. And yet people do blame themselves.”
“Claiming responsibility,” Clayton said slowly. “If a thing is your fault, that would mean you are, or might have been, in control.”
“Rather than the victim of a malign fate. A telling point, Clayton. You are as incisive as ever.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“You ought to have been a barrister or a member of parliament. You know my offer to help you into another profession still stands.”
“I’m very happy where I am, my lord.”
“Are you?” The earl examined his valet’s round face.
Clayton’s nod gave him the air of an equal rather than a servant.
Arthur accepted it in a similar spirit. “All the better for me. I’d be lost without you.” He picked up two letters he’d written and moved away from the desk. “What do you think of young Tom?” he added.
“Intelligent,” answered the valet at once. He appeared to be prepared for this question. “Enterprising. Never impudent even though he’s always…outspoken. And—what one notices most, I think—remarkably cheerful despite a hard life.”
“Well put. I agree.” Arthur considered the lad. “He talks of resuming his travels soon. Apparently he doesn’t wish to stay at Furness Hall, though I think he’d be welcome. I’ve thought of offering him a position.”
“What sort of position, my lord?”
“That’s the question. I don’t know. It just seems wasteful to allow him to wander off. Well, we shall see.” Arthur handed the letters to Clayton. “Send those off, would you?”
“Certainly, my lord.” Clayton took them and left the room. In the corridor, he encountered Sarah Dennison. She was carrying a small canvas bag, held well away from her skirts. The smell suggested that it held the contents of a feline sandbox. “Are you cleaning up after the cat? That’s not your job.” He felt offended on her behalf.
“No.” She looked rueful. “But who’s to do it? There’s no bootboy or footman. The housemaid is run off her feet as it is. And I—and my mistress—have to be in the room where the cat is.”
Clayton nodded his understanding. “The staff’s not what I’m used to on a country house visit.”
“Well meaning, but overwhelmed,” agreed the lady’s maid.
They exchanged a commiserating glance. “Still carrying those scissors, I see,” said Miss Dennison.
He couldn’t restrain a sigh. “I do hate to see a nobleman—closely related to his lordship, too—so ill-kempt. But Lord Furness absolutely refuses my services.”
Sarah Dennison shook her head. “Even though he can see—as we all do in Lord Macklin’s turn-out—that you’re a master.”
“Thank you. Miss Saunders’s coiffure is immaculate since you arrived.”
They took a moment to bask in mutual approbation.
“I might have an idea,” said the lady’s maid then.
“Really?” Clayton didn’t see what she could do.
“You might try telling Lord Furness that my young lady is very particular about hair, considering the trials she has with her own. And that she appreciates a neat appearance.”
“You think that might change his opinion?”
“I think there’s a good chance of it.”
Clayton absorbed the implications of her suggestion. “Is that the way things are trending then?”
Miss Dennison shrugged. “It’s not my place to say anything about that.”
He thought some more. “You like Somerset?”
“I don’t mind it.”
“Furness Hall offers a good bit of…scope, considering the state of the household.”
“I expect it might.” She sounded just a bit complacent.
“And the earl’s…family would most likely spend some time in London each year as well.”
“The nobility is fond of the season.”
Clayton didn’t smile, but his expression showed appreciation. Here was a sharp wit who could carry on an oblique conversation. He’d missed that at Furness Hall. “Thank you for your advice.”
“Happy to be of service, Mr. Clayton. I must get on now and be rid of this.” She held the odiferous bag well away from her person.
Clayton watched her go. If her idea proved useful, he’d owe her a favor, in the intangible currency of belowstairs. He didn’t mind. Indeed, he was pleased to add her to his long roster of connections in the households of Lord Macklin’s far-flung family.
• • •
Geoffrey’s first expedition on Fergus was allowed that day, due to his incessant requests and because he’d taken to riding as if horseback was his natural element. The boy, wildly excited, had argued for going back to the gorge, but his father had ordered a much shorter circuit around the neighborhood.
The party set off at midmorning to make a turn about the nearby lanes. Geoffrey took the lead with Tom at his side on Molly; the others followed, keeping to the pace of his pony.
“That boy might be half centaur,” said Lord Macklin as they watched Geoffrey chatter to Tom as he rode.
“He seems bound to be a fine rider,” their host agreed.
Jean, silent in her crimson riding habit, tried to keep her mind off kisses. Despite the turmoil this man’s touch had roused, the thrill of them came back to her all too often, as they were doing right now when she and Lord Furness rode side by side. She gave him a sidelong glance. She wanted more, even as she shied away from the tumultuous results. And so she was frozen, suspended between desire and apprehension. “When will you hire a new nanny for Geoffrey?” she asked. The question dropped into the conversation like a stone tossed into a still pond. “Lily is a sweet girl, but he doesn’t listen to her.”
“Would he to anyone?”
“He would if it was my old nurse,” said Lord Macklin. “She was born to be a master sergeant, I think. She had a certain tone of voice that made any child within range spring to attention and obey. Even if they’d never met her before.”
“I don’t suppose she’s available,” joked his nephew.
The older man smiled. “Long gone, I’m afraid.”
“There are agencies in London, I believe,” said Jean. Again, she sounded stilted. She tried to soften her tone. “Perhaps in Bristol as well?”
“I could write to my daughter,” said the earl. “She might know of someone.”
Lord Furness accepted both ideas with a nod. “We need just the right sort of person. Someone
Geoffrey can like and respect.”
How his tone had changed since she arrived, Jean thought. That was good. She’d accomplished that much.
“He couldn’t go to school in his present state,” their host added. “He needs a bit of…polish first. Fortunately, there’s time.”
“Polish,” echoed Lord Macklin, his smile widening. “A curious way of putting it. A touch of town bronze for the nursery set?”
“Smoothing a few rough edges,” his nephew answered.
Geoffrey shouted “Heigh-ho!” and kicked Fergus’s sides. The amiable animal responded with a quick trot and then, with more urging, a gallop. The others hastened to catch up, their larger mounts well able to close the gap. Geoffrey leaned over his pony’s neck, eyes shining, whooping with delight, perfectly in control even at speed. They pounded over the turf like the field at Newmarket in the heat of a race, the adults holding back so that Geoffrey could lead.
Like a wave of marauders, they rounded a small copse and came face-to-face with another riding party traveling at a far more sedate pace.
Disaster loomed. Collision seemed inevitable. With an eye on her companions, Jean managed to swerve to the left. Tom came with her. The two men went right, and they flowed around the new group in two surging streams. Geoffrey, on the other hand, pulled Fergus to a halt right under the new horses’ noses. One of them shied; another tossed his head and sidled. The strangers struggled to maintain control.
It took a few minutes for everyone to get sorted out. They backed and milled and finally gathered in one larger group next to the copse.
They’d nearly run down two gentlemen and a young lady, Jean saw. She judged that they were neighboring gentry, a father and his offspring, most likely. All three had pale hair and slender frames, with blue eyes and the easy seats of people at home on horseback. The woman wore a habit far more fashionable than Jean’s.
“Furness?” said the older man. He seemed surprised.
“Hello, Wandrell. How are you?”
“Very well. Good to see you out in company.”
Lord Furness hunched a shoulder. “Allow me to introduce my uncle Macklin and Miss Jean Saunders, who are visiting, as well as my son, Geoffrey, of course.”