A Return of Devotion

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  The food was perfection. Surprising considering the light staff and the outdated kitchens. He didn’t know a great deal about kitchens, but he knew that what he’d seen downstairs would have had most London chefs quitting on sight.

  After savoring the last bite, he set his fork on his plate and leaned back in the chair with a sigh.

  “How does your head feel?”

  William jerked in his chair, barely avoiding connecting his knee with an obnoxious gargoyle again. He blinked up at Mrs. Brightmoor, standing by the table once more. Had she been watching him eat? How else could she possibly have known the instant he’d finished his food? “Ah . . . better. Thank you.” He pushed the chair back and stood, careful to keep as much distance between them as possible. “I will probably spend the day outside. I’ve found the best thing for recovery is fresh air and light exercise. If I sit too much, the pain returns more often.”

  “Oh!” Her shoulders relaxed and the tension eased from around her smile, leaving a blinding curve of happiness behind. “You should take a tour!”

  “I thought we did that yesterday.”

  “We’ve a lot of grounds here and most of them are overgrown. If you wander outside without a guide you might get lost.”

  There were so many issues with her statement, starting with the we that claimed some sort of joint ownership and ending with the implication that he was a naïve child who couldn’t walk in the woods without getting lost. William wasn’t entirely sure where to begin. Perhaps it was best to simply cut off her concerns. “I’ll be sure to keep the house in sight.”

  Her smile drooped into a frown as she gathered dishes onto her tray. “But then you won’t see much. There are a great deal of trees about and they are all fully covered in leaves right now. You won’t be able to see enough of your new home. A home isn’t only made of brick and wood, after all. Everything and everyone is a part of it.”

  William rubbed his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger. His own mother hadn’t badgered him like this. Of course, by the time he’d been old enough to be lectured about this sort of thing, she’d been too weak to do so. Those last years had been difficult for him, being away and out of reach while she suffered alone. He’d gone back to visit whenever he could but it wasn’t enough. It could never have been enough.

  Had she felt alone rattling about in that house every day without companionship?

  All of a sudden he didn’t want to be in the house anymore. He wanted people, connections, a reminder that even though he was by himself he wasn’t actually alone.

  “Perhaps I’ll ride into town. Then I won’t have to worry about getting lost on the footpaths.”

  “You can do both if you walk. There’s a path toward Marlborough that cuts through much of the grounds.” She frowned at the window. “We should leave soon, though, if your head feels up to it. Rain tends to come with no warning in the afternoon.”

  He coughed. “We?”

  “Yes, we. I’ve assigned myself the duty of seeing that you settle in properly. If this place and town are to be your home, you should know every bit of it. I won’t leave your side until you’ve discovered everything you need to know.”

  That was what William was afraid of.

  “The barn, or I suppose it’s the stable now, with the renovations you had done to it over the past two months, is over there. The animals as well.” Mrs. Brightmoor gestured with one hand toward a path that led to a wooden building that was a strange mix of old and new. He’d sent instructions that a proper functioning stable be built, and it appeared he’d gotten just that. A functioning stable. If he wanted it to match the house one day, he’d have to build a completely new one.

  He turned his attention from the stable to find Mrs. Brightmoor was already five steps away from the path leading to the stable. She gestured in the opposite direction to where a wide expanse of lawn ran down from the house toward the lake and a small rise across the way blocked the view of whatever outbuildings were on the opposite side of the house. “We hang the laundry just over that dip in the hill.”

  She kept moving forward. “And the lake is this way.”

  William ambled along after her, keeping his pace slow, both to actually see what they were passing and to prevent overexertion from affecting his head. She never complained about his speed, never even huffed an impatient sigh, simply slowed her stride or even stopped occasionally until he was within a step or two and then she’d be off again.

  For someone who had been so very insistent that he be shown the estate he’d elected to call home, she was moving awfully fast. They’d traveled in a fairly straight line since departing the house.

  It made him more curious about her than the buildings around him. Curiosity over a servant was a new experience for him, but something about her, about the house, about the entire situation, didn’t seem to make sense.

  William liked when things made sense.

  Perhaps it was simply that terrified sort of curiosity that kept people watching horrific situations just to see what was going to happen next. Not that he thought she was going to do anything terribly horrific. She was a fairly small person, so unless there was a band of ruffians waiting in the woods they were fast approaching, he didn’t have reason to worry for his safety.

  His sanity, however, might be in imminent danger. This woman, who shouldn’t have drawn a second thought from his mind, had inspired more questions than any gently bred woman of his acquaintance.

  The way her pace quickened the slightest bit as she circled the lake and entered a path cutting into the woods gave him pause and made him reconsider the idea of ruffians. William paused at the tree line.

  It took her about seven paces to realize he wasn’t close behind her. She paused and turned to wait for him but frowned when she saw he’d stopped completely. “Are you well? Is it your head? This walk could be a bit much after spending the evening with an aching head. Perhaps you’d be more comfortable spending the day in your room? Or the library? I could make you more willow bark tea.”

  William took a deep breath, letting the clean fresh air fill his lungs and clear his head. No, he did not wish to go back in the house, but did his housekeeper truly not understand how strange her behavior had been since his arrival? Maybe he’d learn something if he stopped evading her and actually engaged in the strange conversations she kept attempting.

  He cleared his throat and leaned one shoulder against a tree, crossing one booted foot over the other. “I’m simply wondering where you are trying to take me.”

  “To the town, of course.”

  “To the . . .” His voice trailed off, unable to completely repeat the sentence. “You were serious about that? Walking through the woods to the town?”

  She glanced at her toes. “It would let you walk in the fresh air but not be in the direct sun. Too much sun occasionally inspires a bit of a pounding in my own head.” She pried a stick out of the ground with her toe and then her head popped back up with a beaming smile. “Besides, a house takes its character from its surroundings. If you don’t know the town, how will you be able to know the house?”

  William cleared his throat and glanced over his shoulder to the house up on the hill. He could see the figures of the workmen unloading something from a wagon and taking it into the house to continue their work on the back parlor. “You do know the house isn’t alive, don’t you? The rafters aren’t likely to come join me for tea, berating me for not understanding them. Besides, wouldn’t I learn more about the house by staying within its walls than wandering about outside?”

  “Walls are simply barriers.” Her smile became tight as she looked up at the house as well. “And you don’t really think a house is nothing but brick and mortar.”

  The house? Yes, actually. Add a bit of timber and that was all it was. She probably meant the life lived within it should be more, but he wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of agreeing with her. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

  “I k
now you are Lord Chemsford”—she held up one finger—“and your favorite color is blue.” She held up a second finger, smiling in triumph. “That’s the first and second thing.”

  He blinked at her. “How do you know my favorite color is blue?”

  She shrugged. “It’s your first day in a new home so you’d likely choose to surround yourself with what you know and care for. You’re wearing a blue jacket.”

  William glanced at his sleeve, which was, indeed, a deep blue. “That’s . . . rather amazing of you.”

  And more than a touch frightening.

  “It could also have something to do with Mr. Morris yelling at all of us not to spill anything on your favorite coat while he brushed it out this morning.”

  A grin busted through William’s growing concern before he could stop it. “Don’t let Morris know, but my other blue coat is actually my favorite one.”

  They stood, her in a subservient silence that didn’t seem quite right and him with a sense of peace he hadn’t experienced in a very long time. He didn’t really care about going back to the town today, but unraveling the mystery of his housekeeper was more appealing than anything else he could think to do.

  Besides, he still had to decide whether or not to dismiss her once he’d found a suitable replacement or see if having a full staff to manage would make her somewhat normal. “Very well,” he said with a nod at the path beyond her. “We’ll go to town.”

  They walked in silence for the most part, with her marching past grand trees, jumping over thin streams of water so small they couldn’t even be called brooks, and occasionally lifting a hand to let her fingers glide against a bit of hanging moss or a tall clump of flowers. Every so often she would hum, a little fragment of a tune that wasn’t there long enough for him to catch what song it was.

  William followed behind, cataloguing the path in his head so he could return home again, but also so he could take this same path on his own at a later date. The beauty of the woods was something he wouldn’t mind taking in at a slower pace someday, perhaps on horseback so he didn’t have to be quite so concerned with where his boots landed.

  They broke out of the trees and joined a rutted country lane. Just ahead of them was a stone bridge arching over a narrow river.

  He remembered the bridge from yesterday, which gave him a better idea of where the path cut through and how the house stood in relation to their current position. Coming through the woods trimmed at least half an hour off the trip, perhaps more.

  “You’re a quiet tour guide,” he observed. Silently touring the countryside with her wasn’t going to tell him anything other than how much stamina she had when it came to walking.

  She paused and glanced around. “Um, well, this is the bridge into town.”

  “And that is the path back to the house?” He pointed to the break in the trees they’d recently exited.

  “Well, yes.”

  “I see.” He considered her for a moment. When he’d been a child he’d learned early on how to read his father’s mood. The man had never been violent, at least not with his fists, but it was easy to tell when he’d had a bad day or gotten into yet another disagreement with William’s mother because his shoulders would pull in and every movement would show a tension, as if his arms and legs were being pulled back by some invisible harness.

  Mrs. Brightmoor had looked like that yesterday. And this morning. But last night and ever since they’d started walking in the woods, she’d seemed peaceful and at ease. What would the town bring? Was it solitude that eased her? If so, she wasn’t going to be able to manage well when he hired more servants.

  Answers required they continue their journey, so he waved a hand at the bridge. “Shall we be on our way?”

  Chapter nine

  Daphne considered kicking herself as the buildings around them became more substantial and closer together.

  She’d have never considered the idea on her own, but as soon as he’d mentioned leaving the house and going for a walk it had seemed the perfect distraction. With Lord Chemsford away from the house, he wouldn’t see Benedict or Mr. Leighton while they were working.

  Of course, since she was with him she wasn’t able to use this perfect time to come up with any sort of long-term plan, but still, bringing him into Marlborough had seemed brilliant.

  Except for one thing.

  There were people in Marlborough. Lots of people. Most of whom she’d gone out of her way to have little to no dealings with. She’d seen the local people, of course. One couldn’t live anywhere for more than a decade and never see anyone, but her wallflower tendencies from London had flourished in the need for secrecy. Unless she was amongst the handful of people she knew, she did her best to disappear.

  Benedict was different. He liked talking to people. How many of these people did he know now that he was living in town with Mr. Leighton and attending church services every Sunday instead of simply once every few months? How many people had seen him occasionally visiting Mrs. Lancaster’s shop?

  Despite the fact that the children were meant to be secret, Kit and Daphne had risked bringing them to town on occasion. After all, people tended not to see what they weren’t looking for. None of them were blind, though. Well, except for Agatha, who sat on the side of the road near St. Mary’s selling flowers.

  The question became, then, were people gaping and gawking at them because they realized Lord Chemsford looked like Benedict or because an aristocratic nobleman with a fussy valet and a very talented tailor walked alongside a woman who resembled the local milkmaid? Daphne had a large patch near the hem of her cloak, and her dress was simple, grey, and fashioned so a woman could dress without aid of a maid to help her fasten everything together.

  Nothing said upper-class lady quite like a set of tapes between the shoulder blades.

  Daphne wedged the sides of her lips up into a smile as yet another person slowed down to stare at her walking into town with a man at her side. There was no turning back now. She was simply going to have to muddle through and pray for the best. A miracle would be very welcome right about now.

  She cleared her throat and gestured to her left. “There’s St. Mary’s. We’ve two parishes in Marlborough. St. Peter’s sits at the other end of High Street.”

  The marquis nodded. “And the household? Which do they attend?”

  How to answer that? Until a few months ago, Daphne hadn’t ventured into town for Sunday services more than once a month, and even then she’d alternated between the two churches so as not to allow anyone to see her too much or become overly curious about why she had two different children with her every time.

  “Mrs. Brightmoor?”

  “Oh, yes, church.” Daphne cleared her throat. “We aren’t really part of either parish, so we let the household attend whichever church they wish.” That sounded good, didn’t it? It even kept her from lying while not admitting that more often than not they had their own private service at the house.

  She mentally begged him not to remember that the household had, until yesterday, consisted of two women and three children. As far as he knew, it had consisted of her alone for much of the time before that.

  It would have been nice to know exactly what had been conveyed to him about the current care and upkeep of the house. Nash had tried to communicate as little as possible over the years so as to keep anyone from giving too much thought to the property. He’d had to tell them something, though, especially when the place had changed hands from father to son.

  They crossed onto High Street and walked through the middle of the town in the bright light of morning as people bustled about.

  This had been a foolish decision. Daphne took deep breaths in through her nose, trying to calm her racing heart as her gaze darted from one person to the next. What would she do if someone asked after Benedict? If someone mentioned the resemblance? Her middle squeezed in on itself and she pressed a hand to her stomach. What she wouldn’t give to be back at Haven Manor, quietly setting h
er home to rights.

  Only it wasn’t her home anymore. It was Lord Chemsford’s.

  “This is one of our inns,” she said, waving an arm toward the building that was fairly quiet at the moment but would become a riotous center of activity when a stage arrived. “We have a lot of inns. People of all stations like to pass through Marlborough, so we’ve some very nice ones.”

  That was the perfect solution. She cleared her throat. “You may find those accommodations more to your liking while the house is being worked on. It tends to get rather noisy and will surely be inconvenient as the workers move from room to room.”

  Yes, she would still have to worry about a local person saying something, but if she could convince Lord Chemsford to stay at an inn, she’d persuade Benedict to stay at the cottage, and everything would be good.

  “No more inconvenient than spending weeks on end in a room not truly your own,” the marquis said, dashing Daphne’s hopes. “I may have to change rooms from time to time as the work shifts, but I would much rather deal with the inconveniences of my own home than reside at an inn.”

  “Oh.”

  Daphne stopped and stared down the wide, cobblestoned street. Tile and brick buildings lined the road with porticoed storefronts ready to become part of the weekly market. That would be another day she could get him out and away from the house. Anyone living near Marlborough should experience the market.

  Also, there were places a tourist would like to see: the white chalk horse carved into the hill, the stone circles in nearby Avebury. It wasn’t as if he’d like to go to all of those places with her. In fact, she would prefer he departed the house while she stayed in it.

  But even if he did everything she could think of, that only took up a matter of days. The inn had been her first and so far only long-term solution, and he’d crushed it before she’d even had a chance to imagine how it could work.