Gabriel sucked the last of the meat from the chop and tossed the bone to the table, missing his plate entirely. “Am I to surmise that you find my table manners lacking?”
“I just never realized that blindness precluded the use of napkins and cutlery. You might do just as well eating with your feet.”
Gabriel went very still. The taut skin around his scar blanched, making the devil’s mark look even more forbidding. In that moment, Samantha was rather glad he didn’t have a knife.
Draping one long arm over the back of the chair next to him, he angled his entire body toward the sound of her voice. Although she knew he couldn’t see her, his focus was so intent Samantha still had to fight the urge to squirm. “I must confess that you intrigue me, Miss Wickersham. Your tones are cultured, but I can’t quite identify your accent. Were you raised in the city?”
“Chelsea,” she offered, doubting he’d had much occasion to frequent the modest borough on the north side of London. She took an overly generous gulp of the tea, burning her tongue.
“I’m quite curious to know how a woman of your, um… character came to seek such a post. What was it that drove you to answer such a calling? Was it Christian charity? An overwhelming desire to help your fellow man? Or perhaps your tender compassion for the infirm?”
Carving a spoonful of egg out of its china cup, Samantha said crisply, “I provided Mr. Beckwith with several letters of reference. I’m sure you’ll find them in order.”
“In case you haven’t noticed,” Gabriel replied, his voice gently mocking, “I wasn’t able to read those. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to their contents.”
She laid aside her spoon. “As I informed Mr. Beckwith, I served as governess for Lord and Lady Carstairs for nearly two years.”
“I know of the family.”
Samantha tensed. He might know of them, but did he know them? “After the hostilities with the French resumed, I read in The Times how so many of our noble soldiers and sailors were suffering from lack of care. So I decided to offer my services to a local hospital.”
“I still don’t understand why you’d trade spooning pabulum into the mouths of babes for dressing bloody wounds and holding the hands of men half out of their minds with pain.”
Samantha struggled to purge the passion from her voice. “Those men were willing to sacrifice everything for king and country. How could I not offer a small sacrifice of my own?”
He snorted. “The only thing they sacrificed was their good judgment and common sense. They sold them to the Royal Navy for a starched bolt of blue broadcloth and a shiny bit of gold braid on their shoulders.”
She frowned, appalled by his cynicism. “How can you say such a cruel thing? Why, the king himself lauded you for your own valor!”
“That shouldn’t surprise you. The Crown has a long history of rewarding dreamers and fools.”
Forgetting that he couldn’t see her, Samantha rose halfway out of her chair. “Not fools! Heroes! Heroes like your very own commander— Admiral Lord Nelson himself!”
“Nelson is dead,” he said flatly. “I can’t say if that makes him any more of a hero or less of a fool.”
Defeated for the moment, she sank back into her chair.
Gabriel rose, using the backs of the chairs to feel his way around the table. As his powerful hands closed around the carved finials of her own chair, it was all Samantha could do not to bolt. Instead, she stared straight ahead, each shallow breath audible to her own ears as well as his.
He leaned down so far his lips came dangerously close to brushing the top of her head. “I’m sure your devotion to your calling is sincere, Miss Wickersham. But as far as I’m concerned, until you come to your senses and resign your post here, you have only one duty.” He spoke softly, each word more damning than a shout. “To stay the bloody hell out of my way.”
He left her with that warning, brushing past the footman who scrambled forward to offer his arm. Although she supposed it shouldn’t surprise her that he would choose to blunder his way through the dark rather than accept a helping hand, she still flinched when a loud crash resounded from somewhere in the house.
Samantha was left with nothing to do with her morning but wander the darkened chambers of Fairchild Park. The hush was nearly as oppressive as the gloom. There was none of the efficient bustle one might expect from a thriving Buckinghamshire country house. There were no chambermaids briskly running feather dusters over the banisters and wainscoting, no red-faced laundry maids trudging up the stairs with baskets of fresh linen, no footmen bearing armloads of firewood to stoke the fireplaces. Every hearth she passed was cold and dark, its embers crumbled to ash. Carved cherubs gazed at her dole fully from ornate marble chimneypieces, their plump cheeks smudged with soot.
The handful of servants she encountered seemed to be creeping about with no particular task in mind. Upon spotting her, they would melt back into the shadows, their voices never raised above a whisper. None of them seemed to be in any rush to fetch a broom to sweep up the splintered furniture and broken shards of porcelain that littered the floors.
Samantha swept open a pair of double doors at the end of a shadow-draped gallery. Marble stairs spilled down into a vast ballroom. She had allowed herself little enough time for whimsy during the dark winter months, but for just a heartbeat she couldn’t resist closing her eyes. She imagined the room awash in a swirl of colors and music and merry chatter, imagined herself being swept around the gleaming floor in a man’s strong arms. She could see him smiling down at her, see herself laughing up at him as she reached to tweak the gold braid adorning his broad shoulders.
Samantha’s eyes flew open. Shaking her head at her folly, she slammed the ballroom doors. This was the earl’s fault. If he would allow her to perform her duties as she was hired to do, she might be able to keep her treacherous imagination in check.
She was marching through a spacious drawing room, paying no more heed to her surroundings than Gabriel would have, when her foot slammed into an overturned pier table. Letting out an infuriated yelp, she hopped up and down on one foot, massaging her throbbing toes through the scuffed leather of her boots. If she had been wearing kid slippers, the blow probably would have broken them.
Eyeing the slivers of sunlight fighting to penetrate the smothering weight of the velvet drapes, Samantha rested her hands on her hips. Gabriel might choose to entomb himself in this mausoleum, but she most certainly did not.
Catching a flash of white out of the corner of her eye, she whirled around to discover a mobcapped maid tiptoeing past the door.
Samantha called after her, “Girl! You there!”
The maid stopped and slowly turned, her reluctance palpable. “Yes, miss?”
“Come here, please. I need your help to get these drapes open.” Grunting with effort, Samantha shoved a fat brocaded ottoman toward the window.
Instead of rushing to assist her, the maid began to back away, wringing her pale, freckled hands and shaking her head in dismay. “I don’t dare, miss. What would the master say?”
“He might say you were doing your job,” Samantha ventured, clambering up on top of the ottoman.
Growing impatient with the maid’s dallying, she reached up, grabbed two fistfuls of curtain, and yanked with all of her might. Instead of gliding open, the drapes tore right out of their moorings. They billowed down in a choking cloud of velvet and dust, making Samantha sneeze.
Sunlight came streaming through the floor-to-ceiling French windows, weaving the dust motes into sparkling fairy glamour.
“Oh, miss, you shouldn’t have!” the maid cried, blinking like some forest creature that had been living underground for a very long time. “I’m going to fetch Mrs. Philpot right away!”
Swiping her hands on her skirt, Samantha hopped off the ottoman and surveyed her handiwork with satisfaction. “Why don’t you do just that? I’d like nothing better than to have a little chat with the dear woman.”
With one last inarticulate c
ry, the wild-eyed girl went dashing from the room.
When Mrs. Philpot came sailing into the drawing room a short while later, it was to find the earl’s new nurse balanced precariously on the seat of a delicate Louis XIV chair. The housekeeper could only look on in horror as Samantha gave the drapes she was holding a fierce tug. They collapsed on her head, burying her in a cloud of emerald green velvet.
“Miss Wickersham!” Mrs. Philpot exclaimed, lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the blinding sunshine that came streaming through the French windows. “What is the meaning of this?”
Climbing down from her perch, Samantha batted away the heavy folds of fabric. Following the housekeeper’s scandalized gaze, she gave the pile of drapes heaped in the center of the floor an apologetic nod. “I was only going to open them, but after I saw all the dust, I realized they could use a good airing out as well.”
Resting her hand on the ring of keys at her waist as if it were the pommel of a sword, Mrs. Philpot drew herself up. “I am the head housekeeper at Fairchild Park. You are the master’s nurse. Airing things out is hardly within the jurisdiction of your duties.”
Eyeing the woman warily, Samantha unlatched the window and shoved it open. A gentle breeze, scented with lilac, wafted into the room. “Perhaps not. But the well-being of my patient is. Light might be lost to your master, but there’s no reason fresh air should be. Clearing out his lungs might just improve his condition…and his disposition.”
For a moment, Mrs. Philpot looked almost intrigued.
Encouraged by her hesitation, Samantha began to circle the room, enthusiastically pantomiming her plans. “First, I thought we’d have the maids sweep up all the glass while the footmen cart away the broken furniture. Then, after we’ve stored away the breakables, we could shove the heavy furniture against the walls, clearing a path through each room for the earl to traverse.”
“The earl spends the majority of his time in his bedchamber.”
“Can you blame him?” Samantha asked, blinking incredulously. “How would you feel if every time you stepped outside your own bed-chamber, you risked barking your shins or cracking open your skull?”
“The master was the one who ordered that the drapes be kept drawn. He was the one who insisted that everything be left as it was before… before…” The housekeeper swallowed, unable to finish. “I’m sorry, but I can’t be a party to defying his wishes. Nor can I order my staff to do so.”
“So you won’t help me?”
Mrs. Philpot shook her head, genuine regret darkening her gray eyes. “I cannot.”
“Very well.” Samantha nodded. “I respect your loyalty to your employer and your devotion to your job.”
With those words, she turned on her heel, marched to the next window, and began to tug at the heavy drapes.
“What are you doing?” Mrs. Philpot cried as the curtains came cascading down.
Samantha tossed the armful of velvet on top of the heap, then wrenched open the window to invite in a flood of sunshine and fresh air. She turned to face Mrs. Philpot, briskly dusting off her hands. “My job.”
“Is she still at it?” whispered one of the scullery maids to a rosy-cheeked footman as he entered the expansive basement kitchens of Fairchild Park.
“ ’Fraid so,” he whispered back, stealing a steaming sausage from her tray and popping it into his mouth. “Can’t you hear?”
Although darkness had fallen nearly an hour ago, mysterious noises continued to echo through the first floor of the house. The bumping, jingling, grunting, and the occasional scrape of a heavy piece of furniture being dragged across a parquet floor had been going on since morning.
The servants had spent that day as they’d spent most of their days since Gabriel’s return from the war—huddled around the old oak table in front of the kitchen fire in the servants’ hall, remembering better times. On this chilly spring evening, Beckwith and Mrs. Philpot sat directly across from each other, drinking one cup of tea after another, neither one speaking or daring to meet the others’ eyes.
After a particularly jarring thump that made them all flinch, one of the upstairs chambermaids whispered, “Don’t you think we should—”
Mrs. Philpot turned a basilisk glare on her, paralyzing the poor child where she stood. “I think we should tend to our own affairs.”
One of the young footmen stepped forward, daring to ask the one question they’d all been dreading. “What if the master hears?”
Drawing off his spectacles to polish them on his sleeve, Beckwith shook his head sadly. “It’s been a long time since the master has paid any heed to what goes on around here. There’s no reason to believe tonight will be any different.”
His words cast a cloud of dejection over them all. They had once prided themselves on their devotion to the great house entrusted to their care. But with no one to see how the woodwork gleamed beneath their loving attentions, no one to praise their efficiency in keeping the floors swept or the fireplaces laid with fresh kindling, there was little reason to bestir themselves from their moping.
They barely noticed when one of the youngest housemaids came creeping into the kitchens. Going straight to Mrs. Philpot, she bobbed one curtsy, then another, plainly too timid to ask for permission to speak.
“Don’t just stand there bobbing up and down like a cork on the water, Elsie,” Mrs. Philpot snapped. “What is it?”
Wringing her apron in her hands, the girl curtsied again. “I think you’d best come, ma’am, and see for yourself.”
Exchanging an exasperated glance with Beckwith, Mrs. Philpot rose. Beckwith shoved himself away from the table to follow. As they left the kitchens, they were both too preoccupied to notice when the rest of the servants fell in behind them.
At the top of the basement stairs, Mrs. Philpot suddenly stopped, nearly creating a disastrous chain reaction. “Shhhhh! Listen!” she commanded.
They all held their breath, but heard only one thing.
Silence.
As their hushed parade passed through room after room, their shoes no longer crunched over shattered and splintered debris. Moonlight streamed through the unveiled windows, revealing that the floors had been swept clean and the broken furniture separated into two tidy piles— one with the pieces considered salvageable and the other useful for nothing but kindling. Although some of the heaviest pieces remained, a path had been cleared through most of the rooms, with all of the fragile objects banished to the highest perches of mantel and bookshelf. Any rug whose braided hem or fringe might catch an unsuspecting foot had also been rolled up and shoved against the wall.
It was in a pale puddle of moonlight in the library that they found their master’s new nurse curled up on an ottoman, sound asleep. The servants gathered around her, openly gawking.
The earl’s previous nurses had been content to occupy that rather murky social strata usually reserved for governesses or tutors. They certainly weren’t considered equal to their employer, but nor did they deign to lower themselves by associating with the other servants. They took their meals in their rooms and would have gasped with horror at the prospect of turning their soft white hands to such menial tasks as sweeping floors or dragging heavy curtains out into the yard for an airing.
Miss Wickersham’s hands were no longer soft or white. The pale ovals of her fingernails were broken and rimmed with dirt. A bloody blister had formed on her right hand, between thumb and forefinger. Her spectacles sat askew on her nose and as they watched, a gentle snore sent the limp tendril of hair that had fallen over her nose floating up, then back down again.
“Should I wake her?” Elsie whispered.
“I doubt that you could,” Beckwith said softly. “The poor child is plainly exhausted.” He crooked a finger at one of the larger footmen. “Why don’t you carry Miss Wickersham up to her room, George? Take one of the maids with you.”
“I’ll go,” Elsie said eagerly, forgetting her shyness.
As the footman gathered Miss Wickersham in
to his burly arms, one of the scullery maids reached up to gently correct the angle of her spectacles.
After they were gone, Mrs. Philpot continued to stare down at the ottoman, her expression unreadable.
Sidling closer to her, Beckwith awkwardly cleared his throat. “Shall I dismiss the rest of the servants for the night?”
The housekeeper slowly lifted her head. Her gray eyes had gone steely with determination. “I should say not. There’s much work yet to be done and I won’t have them loafing about any longer, leaving their duties to their betters.” She snapped her fingers at the two remaining footmen. “Peter, you and Phillip take that chaise longue and shove it against the wall.” Exchanging a grin, the twins hastened to take up each end of the heavy couch. “Careful, now!” she chided. “If you nick the rosewood, I’ll take the cost of repairs out of your wages and your hides.”
Rounding on the startled maids, she clapped her hands, the sound echoing through the library like a gunshot. “Betsy, Jane, fetch us a pair of mops, some rags, and a bucket of hot water. My mum always said that there’s no point in sweeping if you’re not going to mop. And now that we’ve got the curtains down, the windows will be that much easier to wash.” When the maids just stood gaping at her, she began to shoo them toward the door with her apron. “Don’t just stand there with your mouths hanging open like a pair of beached trout. Go. Go!”
Mrs. Philpot marched to one of the casement windows and threw it open. “Ah!” she exclaimed, her chest expanding as she drew in an intoxicating breath of the lilac-scented night air. “Perhaps by morning this house won’t smell like an open grave any longer.”
Beckwith trotted after her. “Have you lost your wits, Lavinia? What are we going to tell the master?”
“Oh, we’re not going to tell him anything.” Mrs. Philpot nodded toward the doorway where Miss Wickersham had disappeared, a sly smile curving her lips. “She is.”
Chapter Three