Page 32
Author: Anne Stuart
“You’re being quite ridiculous, Nanny Maude,” Elinor said in a voice thick with tears. “Lollygagging in bed when we need you. You must decide to get better this instant or I shall be very cross with you indeed. ”
Nanny Maude smiled, squeezing her hand gently. “There’s no need for me to stay any longer, Miss Nell. I’m tired, and more than ready. You’re safe now, lass…Your mama can’t hurt any of you again. ” She closed her eyes for a moment, restless. “But I have to tell you something,” she said. “I can’t remember what it was, but it’s important. There’s something I remembered. ”
“You can tell us in the morning, Nanny,” she said soothingly.
“Won’t be a morning for me, child,” Nanny said, a trace of her usual asperity in her faint voice. “It’s danger, that’s what it is. ” She began coughing again, her small body shaking. “He’s not who you think he is,” she said after a moment.
“Who isn’t, Nanny?” she said.
But her eyes closed, and she fell back, her grip on Lydia’s hands loosening, as she sank into an endless sleep.
Hours later Etienne poked his head in one last time, coming no closer. It was already too late to help Nanny, and she had to trust that there was nothing he could have done if he’d returned sooner. “Your sister’s asleep. I had the housekeeper give her laudanum—she’ll sleep till midday. ”
“Thank you, Etienne,” she said. Lydia wouldn’t be as grateful. She would have wanted to be there with them, with Nanny as she slipped away.
And that was what she did, as the beginning of dawn light began to climb over the window, a gray, murky light. Her breathing slowed, with longer pauses between each one, and then finally there were no more.
Jacobs let out a harsh, choking sob, and she went to put her arms around his hulking shoulders, to comfort him. “To lose them both in one night, miss,” he said, tears streaming down his face. “It’s too much. ”
“Yes,” she said with unnatural calm. “It is. ”
After a moment he lifted his head. “I’m going to go get drunk,” he announced. “I’m going to get so drunk that you won’t find me for days, and then maybe I’ll get drunk again. ”
Elinor was too weary to smile, though she was tempted. “That sounds like an excellent idea, Jacobs. Just be certain you remember to find us when you’re done with such a noble activity. ”
He didn’t recognize her irony. And indeed, getting roaring drunk was a fitting tribute to her mother, even though Nanny Maude would have abhorred it.
He strode wearily out of the room and was gone, and she was alone. For the first time since she could remember, she was alone. The number of people in her care had suddenly been cut in half, and yet there was no relief, only guilt.
She looked about her. The house was still and silent—a few candles were burning, enough to light her way into the broad hallway. It didn’t look familiar to her, but then, this house was huge, and she’d only seen a small portion of it. It stood to reason they’d brought Nanny to the servants’ quarters, though the room had been large and comfortable. And this certainly wasn’t a servants’ hallway, with its rich carpets and paintings on the damask-covered walls.
She needed to find someone, to tell them Nanny Maude had died. She would need to be washed and laid out properly, a decent burial seen to. But she had no money. Nanny would end in a pauper’s grave. Unless she asked Rohan to pay for a decent funeral.
Which she would. She would have thought she’d never ask him for anything, but she knew right now she was wrong.
At least she didn’t have to make arrangements for her mother, she thought, half in a daze. She really should try to find some help, but right then her mind couldn’t concentrate. There were stairs to the servants’ quarters somewhere, but she couldn’t remember where they were. If she could just find where Lydia slept she could crawl into bed beside her, filthy, soot-stained clothes and all, and sleep. She’d need none of Etienne’s laudanum to help her. She just needed to find the right place to go.
She moved down the shadowed hallways, her nightgown flowing about her. She was becoming alarmingly light-headed. She ought to sit down before she fell down, but her feet had begun to hurt again, her legs felt weak, and she was afraid that if she sat she would never rise again. And she was…for a moment she couldn’t remember where she was, which was truly absurd, and she ought to laugh, but she wasn’t supposed to laugh, was she? All she could do was keep moving, through the long, endless hallways of this mysterious place.
A door opened, and a young girl backed into the hallway, a tray in her arms. She turned, took one look at Elinor and screamed loud enough to wake the devil, loud enough for reality to come crashing back as she remembered exactly who and where she was.
“It’s a ghost!” the girl babbled in French. “God protect me, it’s a ghost!”
Suddenly the hallway was filled with a great many more people than she could have wished. All she’d wanted was one sensible person to help her find her sister and suddenly there were servants in various stages of dress and undress, holding candelabra, and what must be the housekeeper coming in one direction, and the evil Cavalle coming from the other, a murderous expression on his face, and she suddenly thought she’d better run, and she tried to spin around, but her feet tripped her up, and she felt herself falling toward the heavy carpet, when strong hands caught her. And even without looking up she knew whose strong hands they were. Just as she’d known in the smoke and the darkness who would have snatched her up, no matter how little sense it made.
“I have always had a dislike of screaming servants,” Rohan said in a mild voice that held a note of steel. “Would someone please smother that girl?”
The maid was still screeching about a ghost, and the housekeeper made quick work of her with a harsh slap and an even harsher reprimand.
“Thank you, Madame Bonnard. And could you please tell me why my guest is wandering around the house in rags when I had assumed she’d been properly seen to? Is this the way I wish to have my guests treated? And where is her sister, scrubbing floors in the kitchen?” To a stranger his voice might sound almost genial, but the servants looked uniformly terrified.
He was behind her, still holding her up, and since her feet weren’t working she couldn’t turn and look at him. “It’s not their fault,” she said, and she almost didn’t recognize her own voice. It was raw from the fire, raw from tears, both shed and unshed. “Someone needs to see to Nanny Maude. She’s dead. ” The words were so short, so harsh that she couldn’t stand it anymore. She needed to disappear into the darkness, to pull the shadows around her. “I need to sleep…”
And then the blessed darkness folded down around her, and she opened her arms and embraced it.
He caught her as she fell, and when several footmen rushed to assist him he snapped at them like a caged tiger. The thought would have amused him if he weren’t in such a cold, towering rage. He had a tendency to keep his temper and to view things with a distant amusement. But at the moment he would have happily seen all his incompetent servants whipped and turned out into the streets.
This was the third time tonight he’d had to scoop her up in his arms, and the thought of how much she would have hated it brought a smile to his lips. As far as he was concerned she could swoon all she wanted—he was more than happy for an excuse to put his hands on her.
Madame Bonnard had the temerity to approach him. “I will send two of the maids to see to her woman. I am sorry, monseigneur, I had no idea she hadn’t been properly seen to. I promise you, I will dismiss those responsible. ”
“And will you dismiss yourself, madame?” He said in a silky voice. “I’m taking her to the green bedroom. I will require hot water, enough for a bath, some clean clothes and some French brandy. ”
“Sir, should she be having brandy when she’s fainted?” Madame Bonnard was foolish enough to ask.
“The brandy is for me, you idiot,” he said in his most amiable voice. The one he used before he destroyed someone.
The servants immediately scattered in every direction. His way was lit to the green room, and lights were placed all around the elegant bedchamber. The first pails of hot water appeared almost before he’d set her down on the high bed, and a moment later Madame Bonnard read his mind and presented him with a basin and a cloth. Perhaps he might let her live after all.
He took the wet cloth and began to clean the soot from Elinor’s face. There were salt trails of tears there, which oddly surprised him. She was such an Amazon, he didn’t expect her to ever cry or show weakness, even at the loss of her mother. That old bitch was well and truly gone, and he could only view that circumstance with relief. The glowering nurse/housekeeper he could have dealt with—after all, he’d managed to fend off Mrs. Clarke’s efforts to reform him for all these many years—and for Elinor’s sake he was sorry she was dead. It was too much a burden for one night.
He was gentle with the cloth. The filth was on her clothes, down her neck, and he unfastened her chemise as he absently ordered the footmen from the room. “My lord,” Mrs. Bonnard began, scandalized. “Let me do that. ”
He looked up at her. “How long have you served me, Madame Bonnard?”
She flushed. “Seven years, my lord. ”
“And did anything ever give you the impression that I wasn’t entirely capable of undressing young ladies on my own?”
“No, Monsieur le Comte,” she said. “It wasn’t your capability I was questioning. It was the young lady’s feelings on the matter. ”
His housekeeper was treading dangerously close to disaster. “Ah, Bonnard,” he said in a silken voice. “You remind me of my better self. Unfortunately, I have no interest in listening to that part of me, and I’m much more interested in taking care of my own best interests than the young lady in question. If you’re so worried about her, go see to her dead nursemaid. When Miss Harriman wakes she’ll be distraught if her friend hasn’t been seen to. ”