The Sandalwood Princess

by Loretta Chase

  She looked up. Miss Cavencourt’s method of composing her thoughts, he’d learned, was to discompose her coiffure. Over and over again, while she worked, her nervous fingers would rake back her hair, heedlessly loosening pins and steadily reducing her businesslike chignon to a wanton tangle of coffee-coloured tresses.

  Her butler’s hands itched to make all tidy and efficient again, so that he might view her coolly as a professional problem. At present, unfortunately, she presented another sort of riddle – an old one, which lie was strongly tempted to solve in the time-honoured manner of his gender.

  When he’d first arrived, seduction was the very last thing on his mind. In a matter of weeks, it had relentlessly thrust its way forward again. Occasionally, it did reach first place, whence he found it increasingly difficult to dislodge.

  “I think it’s better this way,” she said. “The fire is too cozy and inviting, and the warmth would probably make me drowsy. I find it hard enough to concentrate as it is.”

  Philip told himself he experienced not the least difficulty concentrating. If she appeared a lonely waif, sadly in want of someone to take her in hand, that was not his problem. He didn’t care if her aristocratic nose turned red and her fingers blue with cold. She could freeze if she liked. It was nothing to him.

  He removed the tray from the small table by the fire and carried it to the large one where she worked. Finding no clear surface space available, Philip simply set the entire tray upon the manuscript page before her.

  “Mr. Brentick, I was working on that!”

  “Yes, miss,” he said. “I discerned no other method of persuading you to stop.”

  Her amber eyes lit with annoyance. “Does this not strike you as a shade overbearing? To drop the entire tray under my nose?”

  “You ate nothing at midday,” he said. “If I bring back another untouched tray, Padji will commence to weeping, and that inevitably throws Mrs. Swanslow into one of her spasms. Then Jane, in sympathy, will go off in one of her fits. We are of tender sensibilities belowstairs. When the mistress neglects her tea, we are inconsolable, and consequently, break out in violence. I realise your work has precedence over such mundane matters as rest and nourishment, miss. Regrettably, the rest of the staff lack my philosophical detachment. What are we two,” he concluded, sadly shaking his head, “against so many?”

  “We two, indeed,” she said with a sniff as she watched him pour. “I can see whose side you are on.”

  He handed her the cup. “As I understand it, a butler’s primary aim in life is the maintenance of domestic order and peace. It wants a firm hand to sustain the battle against chaos,” he said, with a meaningful glance at the disaster representing Miss Cavencourt’s literary masterpiece.

  Ink-spattered pages lay strewn about in gay abandon. Upon table and floor scores of books – most with bits of paper sticking from their pages – stood in forlorn heaps.

  She followed his gaze and flushed. “I am not very organised, I’m afraid,” she said.

  She was not organised at all. Her working methods were as tumbled and disordered as her hair. Ink smudged her fingers. He observed a dark smudge between her fine eyebrows. He wanted to rub it away with his thumb. He wanted to repair her hair. Then she looked up, and the defensive embarrassment in her countenance made him want more than anything else to kiss her.

  “Yours is a creative soul,” he said, manfully ignoring the patchouli scent teasing his nostrils. “Neatness and organisation want a more pedestrian intelligence.”

  “I suppose that is a kind way of telling me I’m addled,” she muttered.

  “No, miss. I was about to provide an unanswerable argument for your acquiring a secretary’s services.”

  “Of course I need a secretary,” she said indignantly. “I’m not that addled, Mr. Brentick. Naturally, the idea occurred to me. But you forget that many of the works I consult are in Sanskrit, and the rani’s notes are all in Hindustani. I should have to scour the entire kingdom for the kind of secretary I need, though it’s far more likely he or she lives in India. Furthermore, by the time I did find this paragon, I might have already finished the book, even in my chaotic manner.”

  He sighed and took up her copy of the Bbagavad-Gita.

  “There never was a time when I was not,” he translated, “nor thou, nor these princes were not; there never will be a time when we shall cease to be.”

  “Oh, dear,” she murmured.

  He looked at her and grinned.

  Mr. Brentick assumed the role of secretary in the same quietly efficient manner he’d assumed every other responsibility connected with his employer. The following morning, he accompanied her to the library, where he devised a system for organising her notes. Then he collected the reference works she’d need that day, placed markers in the appropriate pages, and arranged them neatly within easy reach.

  He remained with her until noon, reviewing what she’d written previously, and making notes. He stood by patiently to answer every question, fetch book or papers, mend quills, and clean up ink spills. In that curious way he had, he made himself invisible, for the most part, though he became visible the instant she needed him. Every morning thereafter he spent in the same fashion.

  Mrs. Gales joined them at the outset. Invisibility, she soon found, was not nearly so much to her liking as it was to the butler’s, and the mornings passed slowly indeed, though she had her needlework to keep her busy.

  One morning, after a week of this quiet chaperonage, Mrs. Gales rose from her usual seat by the fire and, quite unnoticed, left the room, rubbing her aching head. She met up with Bella in the hallway, and frowned.

  Bella nodded in quick understanding, and led the widow to the servants’ hall, which at this hour was deserted.

  Over a pot of tea, Mrs. Gales expressed her disquiet.

  “Sometimes,’’ she said, “a body can be too perfect, Bella.”

  “Well, I don’t like ‘em quite so skinny myself,” said Bella, “but I’d say his face is perfect enough.”

  Mrs. Gales raised her eyebrows. “I referred to his behaviour. He has made himself indispensable to an alarming extent.”

  “He do have a way about him, don’t he? Not a one of us but does exactly what Mr. Brentick wants—and he don’t have to say a word, do he? Only has to look at you and, I declare, whatever he’s got in mind, why, it gets right into yours, too – and sticks there pretty tight.”

  “Indeed.” Mrs. Gales refilled her cup. “The question is, what is he putting into her mind?”

  Bella considered. “Just them heathen gods, I expect,” she said. “They don’t talk about nothing else, do they?”

  “No. That wicked Krishna it was today, and his legion of females. Small wonder she can’t keep track of the wives and mistresses. Other men’s wives, no less,” Mrs. Gales added disapprovingly. “Yet they discuss it in so scholarly a fashion, one feels a fool to intrude.”

  “It’s only for the book, ma’am.”

  “Yes. I suppose these so-called gods’ doings are quite tame compared to the Rani Simhi’s biography. Still, he will never hint that Amanda ought know nothing of these matters, let alone write of them. All he ever corrects is her syntax. Really,” the widow added in vexation, “the man is a deal too much an enigma for my tastes. And I am not at all easy about the way he looks at her.” She rubbed her head again. “Bella, I do fear... yet he is so very attentive…” she said helplessly. “So kind, so considerate. He makes her laugh. He makes her—”

  “Happy,” Bella finished for her. “There’s the nub of it, ma’am. Maybe there’s more in it and maybe not, and maybe it ain’t the properest sort of doings. But all I can think is how things was before. She had to grow up too fast – and Lord knows nobody ever laughed much here.”

  Mrs. Gales sighed. “Yes, I imagine it must have been so. Her mother was ill many years, was she not?”

  “She weren’t never right, ma’am. Not since Miss Amanda was a babe. Leastways, that’s what my ma told me. I was
hardly more than a babe myself then, so I never knew her ladyship when she wasn’t... sick.”

  The hesitation in the maid’s tones made Mrs. Gales look at her sharply. “What ailed her, Bella? Amanda seldom mentions her mama, and I never met the lady.”

  “I weren’t no lady’s maid then, ma’am, and folks wasn’t like to tell me everything, now, was they?” came the evasive answer.

  Loyalty Mrs. Gales respected. If Bella disliked to gossip about the family’s past, the widow possessed sufficient loyalty herself to refrain from pressing.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The library was still, but for the scratching of Miss Cavencourt’s pen and the hiss of coals in the grate. Philip stood at the window, his white-gloved hands clasped behind him, his attention fixed upon the wooded slope that rose at the garden’s edge. Yesterday’s dark blanket of sky had lightened this morning to pearl grey. Here and there faint rays of light struggled through to drop fitful sparkles upon the pond. Trees and shrubs trembled in the wind, and dry leaves danced feebly upon water and ground.

  The scratching stopped, and a muttered oath broke the quiet.

  Philip turned. “That is your fifth ‘damnation’ this morning,” he said. “I’m not surprised. You might spend your next five lifetimes explaining the shakta cults.”

  She looked up. “If I talk about Kali, I ought to explain that she’s just one of the manifestations of Shiva’s wife. Everyone thinks the worst of Kali, yet she’s simply one element—like one personality trait among many. Personalities are not always consistent.”

  “You want to defend her because you are partial to bloodthirsty females, miss.”

  “She is the most important goddess for Calcutta,” Miss Cavencourt returned. “You know perfectly well the city’s original name was Kalikata. I can hardly ignore her. Besides, if I speak only of agreeable matters, the book will be boring.”

  He shot her a smile. “Certainly it will – to those with a penchant for severed heads and ghastly vengeances.”

  He moved to the worktable, which, in less than an hour, his employer had reduced to mind-numbing disorder. “You work too hard and take no rest. Once, I recollect, you sternly recommended exercise to me, miss. I think you ought heed your own advice.” He gestured towards the windows. “The wind is not nearly so sharp today. A walk will do you good.”

  He listened patiently while she fussed that she could not afford to give up time now, when she very nearly had the thing in hand, and that, furthermore, she was quite well and didn’t need exercise – not to mention it was freezing out there.

  Philip let her sputter on. When she had done explaining the error of his ways, and taken up her pen once more, he left the room.

  A quarter of an hour later he returned, carrying a woolen cloak and scarf, a thick bonnet, gloves, and sturdy shoes. He had donned a dashing black, many-caped coat.

  Miss Cavencourt looked at his coat and the heap of clothing in his arms and sighed. “I collect you mean to haul me out of doors, whether I will or no. I might have known, when I got not a whisper of argument. You are very managing.”

  “And you are cross from spending too much time in one overheated room, with your nose stuck in a heap of papers,” he said disrespectfully.

  “My nose, for your information –”

  “Has a spot of ink upon it.” He produced a large, brilliantly white handkerchief.

  Her butler having expressed a desire to tramp upon the moors, Amanda led him up a familiar though barely discernible path through the wood to the top of the slope. Away from the valley’s shelter, the wind blew fiercely, but the slow climb up the hill stirred her sluggish blood, and she found the cold exhilarating.

  Amanda inhaled gratefully as they paused at the top to survey the surrounding scene. Occasional scatterings of stunted trees dotted a landscape composed mostly of furze and jagged rock. The land rose and fell roughly, divided by stone walls into large, irregular rectangles.

  “Is it all yours?” he asked.

  “It was. If it hadn’t been for Roderick, we’d have lost everything. Yet the acres we managed to keep are productive enough,” she said. “I could get by on the income, but Roderick wouldn’t hear of that. If he could, he’d have me living permanently in London in idle luxury.”

  Mr. Brentick threw her a curious glance, then looked away again. “Still, you’ll want to spend time in town eventually, at least after you finish your book. I realise Society would be too distracting now.

  “I’m not going to London.”

  “Not even for the Season?”

  “No,” she said firmly. “I want no more Seasons.”

  “That’s a pity,” he said. “I rather fancy the challenge of managing a host of lazy, untrustworthy, city-bred domestics. These Yorkshire labourers are so very conscientious,” he complained.

  “That is your fault, Mr. Brentick. I left all the hiring to you. There was no one to prevent your employing a pack of idlers and thieves if you liked. If you are bored, or lonely for company...”

  “I am not bored, miss. I am learning that solitude and loneliness are not the same thing.”

  It was disconcerting to discover that he seemed to recall every syllable she’d ever uttered to him. Equally disconcerting was his mention of London. He had a knack for coaxing people to do precisely as he wished. He changed others’ minds as easily as he changed the wine goblets at dinner. But not in this, Amanda hastily reassured herself. She would never again, for as long as she lived, spend another Season in London.

  “You understand, then, how and where I acquired my taste for solitude,” she responded calmly. She made a sweeping movement with her hand.

  “Yes, the place broods and yearns before us, dark and mute. It does not distract us with pretty, idle chatter. Yet in its own unassuming way, it is treacherous.” He glanced round and smiled at her. “For instance, if we remain much longer, mesmerised by the romantically moody landscape, you will freeze into a solid block.”

  He took her hand to help her down the steep, rough incline, only to release it as soon as the way became easier. Another mile’s walk brought them into a corner of the dale sheltered from the winds’ force by rocks and a stand of scarred trees.

  After investigating the rough boulders, Mr. Brentick selected a suitable resting place. He withdrew from his pockets two flasks and two linen-wrapped bundles. Then he removed his coat and, quite deaf to Amanda’s protests, spread it out for her to sit upon. The flasks, she discovered, contained cider. In the bundles nestled neat slices of cheese and thick hunks of freshly baked bread.

  “You think of everything,” she said.

  “I was concerned you might faint of hunger on the way back. While you are fashionably slender, miss, I could not view with equanimity the prospect of carrying you home over nearly four miles of rough terrain.”

  Amanda hastily averted her gaze, and the warmth blossoming in her face subsided.

  They dawdled over their meal with the easy camaraderie they’d enjoyed aboard ship, and had only recently revived during the weeks of working together in the library. Not until she’d consumed the last crumbs of bread and cheese did Amanda realise how probing his questions had become. She glanced up warily when he asked where she’d played as a child.

  “Not here,” she said quickly. “I seldom ventured so far from the house, except when Roderick was home. He and I rode here often. While he was at school, though, I had to keep within the garden bounds.”

  “That was wise. If you fell and hurt yourself, you might not be found for hours. I only wondered who your playmates were. You must have had to travel a good distance to visit one another.”

  She snapped the cap of her flask back into place. “Roderick was here,” she said tightly. “He spent every holiday at home.”

  Mentally she braced herself to deflect the inevitable questions, but none came. Mr. Brentick merely nodded, and neatly gathered up the remnants of their picnic. As they turned homeward, the conversation turned as well, she found with rel
ief. They spoke of Kali.

  One day in late November, Philip accompanied his employer and Mrs. Gales to York. Miss Cavencourt had business at the bank, she said. He fully understood she meant to visit her statue, though she’d never once uttered a word about the Laughing Princess.

  While entertaining small hope she’d actually take it home with her, Philip was prepared, in the event she did, to relieve her of it. As usual, he’d devised a foolproof plan for doing so without arousing suspicion.

  The plan dropped into his mental ashbin when, after half an hour, his employer left the bank empty-handed.

  Nevertheless, not a glimmer of frustration ruffled his polite demeanour as, like a lowly footman, he followed her down the street and on to the bookseller’s. There he awaited the summons to carry her parcels. Miss Cavencourt spent as much on books as other ladies did on bonnets.

  Philip stood by the door, his hands clasped at his back, his countenance blank and incurious as he gazed upon the passing scene. Miss Cavencourt’s general factotum did not wear livery. This doubtless explained why more than one passing lady required more than a fleeting glance to ascertain that the fellow by the bookshop door was a mere servant. Some continued gazing, even after settling this matter to their satisfaction. The butler, however, very properly reserved his acknowledging nods for females of the lower orders, who rewarded him with blushes and an occasional giggle.

  He’d been amusing himself in this fashion for twenty minutes when a gentleman stopped nearby to glance into the shop window. He was as tall as Philip, his build a degree broader, yet trim and athletic. The hair beneath the elegant beaver was black, and the visage dark and rugged. Philip guessed the man’s age at near forty, though the dissolute eyes and mouth may have added a few years.

  Though Philip kept his eyes fixed, ostensibly, upon the street, he was aware of the stranger’s scrutiny moving to him. At that moment, a signal flashed to Philip’s brain, eliciting a response common among the lower species when a rival male trespasses territorial boundaries. His heartbeat quickened and his muscles tensed for battle.