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For the longest moment, no one answered, then came a clatter of denials: Hicks, the three kitchen maids, the spitboy. Their denials were so strong that she didn’t think it wise to mention her encounter last night.
The chef and the all-work man stayed quiet, the latter because he worked at his pipe.
Jessa sat silent, watching with big eyes. She shared a nod with Elizabeth.
Diderot squirmed for a bit then hurried into the kitchen. He returned as the denials ebbed. “The dinners for today and through the weekend, they must be set forward, n’c’est-ce pas? Certain supplies that the village does not provide, it is that those supplies are running low. I will provide you a list, Mademoiselle Fortescue. Perhaps it is that these supplies can be fetched from Thirsk early next week.”
Jackman looked up at that last bit. “Need anything today from the village?”
“I will write that list immediatement, mon ami.”
Elizabeth looked from the meticulous chef to the rough handyman, but the latter was back to puffing on his pipe and the former had retreated to his pantry.
“We’ve the day before us,” Mr. Hicks said. He stood. “Miss Fortescue, I got a message from his lordship last evening, before he retired. He wants to delay your conference til this afternoon. Teatime, he said. You’ll join him then.”
The change surprised her. She wondered the cause. Another coincidence?
Had the baron been the ghost?
“If you please, Mr. Hicks.” She waited until his dark eyes under those bushy brows met hers. “We have certainly delayed a tour of the unused rooms. Since my conference with his lordship is moved, now would seem an excellent time for that investigation.”
“I’ve got m’duties.”
“Will you not delay them a little? I dislike prowling about, nosing into rooms that are best left closed. The Grange must have several rooms that are opened only when our rare guests arrive.”
“His lordship don’t entertain.”
The servants’ combined gazes switched to Elizabeth, like spectators at a tennis match watching a volley.
“He did tell me that in our original interview. However, rare occasions do not mean never, and I would certainly wish to be prepared should guests appear on our doorstep. The unused public rooms, choices for private chambers, a few other rooms that must be maintained even if they are not in constant use. Those are the ones that I wish to see, and this morning seems an excellent time for that investigation.”
He scowled. “I’ll do it this morn. Might as well.”
The butler had given in before she expected him to do so. Another coincidence? Could he be involved?
“Mr. Jackman, I will write a list of a few supplies for the house that are running low. I believe it best if we restock before our supply is exhausted. Candles and the like. Will you be riding or take a cart?”
“With Diderot’s kind of list, I’ll be in the cart.”
“I will provide the list momentarily. Thank you for this errand.” Elizabeth drew Jessa to her as they left the room. “After you turn out his lordship’s room, Jessa, will you see to my room as well? I had an eventful night, one could say.”
“Storm kept you awake?”
“No, I was awake before then. My own fault. I was thinking of the past.”
Hicks waited at the door to her office while she dashed off a quick list for Jackman. Since the writing supplies in the office desk were lacking, she added foolscap, quill, and ink to her list. He sighed heavily when she entered her bedchamber. She shut the door and stood beside the wardrobe, out of view of the shared hearth, as she reached for the purse tied under her skirts for safekeeping. A handful of coins would pay for her list.
Jackman waited in the entrance hall. She gave him her list and poured coins into his large hand. He touched his slouch hat then walked out without a word.
“Now, Mr. Hicks, I am ready. Should we start here? Is there a withdrawing room or a receiving room? Lord Harcourt may not use those rooms, yet they should be kept prepared. Is there another public room, a morning room perhaps, with which I should be familiar?”
He led her to the back hall and a room that accessed the terrace that overlooked the garden. “Best you decide what you want done first and last.”
She didn’t respond. The old man had his way of doing things. He and all the servants should expect her to implement new routines. None, however, would interfere with his duties. In her two weeks here, Elizabeth had noticed that many daily tasks often slid for three days or more before they were dealt with. She reckoned the lack came more from overwork than any sloth.
“You been eying the changes that you will make when you bring your own people in?”
That was a deliberate question rather than a simple comment to ignore. Many old retainers worried when a new housekeeper took the reins. “I have noticed a few tasks that are not consistently done,” she said calmly. She peeked into a cold disused room then stepped away so Hicks could close the door. “Such as the hearth in Lord Harcourt’s study is not daily cleaned.”
“What of it?”
“Just that I would prefer that the ash be emptied daily. Jessa, however, is only one person. She cannot do everything. We should have a small boy to see to such matters as well as keeping the coal hods filled. Who usually does such things?”
“I do, when I get to it.”
“These are not the duties of a butler or a factotum. Lord Harcourt informed me that was your service here at the Grange.”
Her words gave him pause, then he said, “The hearths used to be least maid’s job. Jessa can’t do it, got too much already, which is the reason I took it on. We don’t need a lot of staff. His lordship puts his money to the land.”
“Where have I heard that before?” she mused.
Hicks flung up his arms. “Hiyah, cat!”
The greymalkin sprang from a window sill and vanished down the hall with a flick of her tail.
“The cat is not welcome in the house?”
“Lordship likes her. The rest of us tolerate her. This be the receiving room. Shut up most of the time, even when we do have the rare guest.” His dark eyes rolled her way, and she nodded and smiled, acknowledging his use of her words. He allowed Elizabeth a long look at the room before he shut the door and continued to the entrance hall.
The whole tour followed the same procedure: an announcement of the room’s purpose, an allowed survey that never lasted long enough, then the butler hastened to the next room.
Elizabeth had tried to form opinions about all of the Grange’s household servants, yet Mr. Hicks continued to elude her. In her first days, she would have said he was a crotchety man old before his time. He still had tendencies toward curmudgeonly, but he also appeared to have reasons for that personality. He never gave any commentary or insight, about the house, about the other servants, about the village, about anything. About his lordship he was certainly close-mouthed.
The breakfast room was chilled, its curtains closed tightly. She thrust one panel back to see shutters covering the windows. “This is the east side of the house. The sunshine should be pouring in, warming this room. When was it last used?”
“Before Lady Harcourt died.”
Elizabeth perked up.
He cleared his throat. “The current lord’s grandmother. His mother never came to the house. Stayed in London all the time.”
Hicks varied his comments on the first floor by naming the bedchambers by color or “the Duke’s room, from when Buckingham came to stay”, the red room or blue or yellow. When he indicated the baron’s room, he said, “the Shield Room,” which surprised her, Farther down the hall he opened the door to a furnished sitting room with doors on either side. “This is the Lord’s and Lady’s Rooms.”
She wondered that Lord Harcourt did not use the suite. They ascended next to the second floor with its countless unoccupied rooms. Ye then they swept past a recess with an open door. “What is this room, Mr. Hicks?”
“You don’t need to look in there.”
She raised her eyebrows and waited.
Hicks clasped his hands behind him. “His lordship don’t like his things out of order.”
“Lord Harcourt? Why would he be up here? He has the Shield Room, doesn’t he?” Which was another strangeness. Why was he not in the Lord’s Room? “Or he can read in his study. Why would he come to the second floor?”
He didn’t answer. Elizabeth stepped to the threshold and peered in.
The plain little room had no curtain and little furniture, yet it didn’t look cold or stale, as the Lord’s and Lady’s Rooms had. An oil lamp rested on a small table beside a chair with a cushion. On the floor beside the chair was an empty goblet and an opened wine bottle. She could smell the cabernet from the door. A book also lay on the floor, open and face-down, holding the page.
Then she saw the bells on the wall and knew the room was where servants waited until rung for.
She pushed the door wide and entered.
No, the room didn’t change on a closer inspection. Why would Lord Harcourt come to this little room to drink wine and read rather than doing so in his chamber or in his study or that receiving room that overlooked the terrace? There were several comfortable chairs there. Here the chair was straight-backed and hard, eased only with a yellow cushion. She placed a hand on the chair then bent and picked up the goblet, the wine, and the book.
Wine sloshed. He hadn’t finished the bottle.
She set the goblet and wine on the little table. She turned the book over to read the page.
“Now, Miss Fortescue, he won’t like it.”
“I did ask that all be tidied, Mr. Hicks. Things on the floor when a table is at hand, that is not tidy. You can inform him that I was here, and he can rail at me this afternoon.”
The book was John Donne’s poetry. The page opened to “The Dreame.”
Therefore, thou wakd’st me wisely; yet
My Dreame thou brok’st not, but continued’st it,
Thou art so truth, that thoughts of thee suffice,
To make dreames truths; and fables histories;
Enter these armes, for since thou thoughtst it best,
Not to dreame all my dreame, let’s act the rest.
“Your lordship!” Hicks exclaimed.
Elizabeth turned, curtsied.
Harcourt filled the narrow doorway. His dark riding coat and buckskins had not yet faced the rain outdoors. His dark hair was clubbed at his neck. One hand held his gloves; the other rested on the door jamb. “Hicks informed you that we will meet this afternoon.”
“He did, my lord.”
“New broom?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Are you going to sweep us clean, Miss Fortescue?”
She folded her hands at her waist. “Not quite in the manner that you suggest, my lord, yet sweeping clean is a wise choice for any new housekeeper.”
“You’ve not lost my place?” He indicated the book in her hand.
“Indeed not.” She showed him her inserted finger. “Should I deliver this book to the Shield Room, my lord, or return it to your study?”
His look turned quizzical. “Is this room not appropriate for my use?”
She glanced around at the barren room, its sole chair, the little table with the oil lamp. “I can hardly order your choices, my lord.”
Hicks huffed.
She bent to place the volume face-down, as she had found it but on the cushion, when Harcourt cleared his throat. He strode to the chair and reached to slide something from between the cushion and chair arm. A flash of metal, then he slipped it into his jacket pocket. “I forgot this.” When he straightened, they stood side by side. Their eyes met and clung. In the chilled room, his body heat was a palpable aura. Then he cleared his throat. “Take the book to my bedchamber.”
She and Hicks followed the lord. His strides quickly took him down the corridor to the stairs, and they heard him clattering down.
When Elizabeth would have continued their grand tour, Hicks huffed again and pointed to the book. “His lordship told you what to do with that.”
“Yes, he did,” and she led the way back to the Shield Room.
All the while she questioned the baron’s choice to sit vigil in a barren room. Clearly something had disturbed his sleep.
She did not think it wise to lay the cause of his vigil to a desire to read John Donne’s poetry.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
Teatime found her in the study, a crackling fire casting off the room’s chill. Once more she stood before Lord Harcourt’s desk, waiting for his appearance. Greymalkin purred in a chair angled to the hearth. Wind and rain beat against the windows, but the study itself gave welcome warmth.
Elizabeth reached another thousand and started again. Harcourt himself had set this time for their interview. Mindful of creating a better impression than her travel-soaked self at their first meeting, she had shed her redingote and donned a prettily embroidered bodice over her spring green gown. The baron would be used to her uniform, but this was tea, very different to a morning interview to discuss work. She wasn’t certain the reason behind the change. Hicks had given no hint. She doubted the old man had even considered it. He had only said that he would send the tea tray as soon as his lordship returned.
The door opened. Her skin tingled awareness. Then Baron Harcourt strode across the room. She turned slightly to greet him.
He had stopped at the chairs angled before the hearth. He scratched behind the cat’s ears. “Join me, Miss Fortescue.”
She dipped a quick curtsey, but he had scooped up the cat. He settled it on a knee as she took the other chair.
A rattle of china announced the tea’s arrival. Hicks carried in the tray, with Jessa behind him. She hastened past to set a sturdy table at Elizabeth’s right hand. Then they bustled out, Hicks closing the study door behind him.
Elizabeth glanced at that firmly-shut door then lifted the teapot. Steam wafted from the spout. “Cream, my lord? Sugar?”
“A spot of cream. Has Cook given us cake?”
Perhaps she had too heavily considered this change to a barely-started routine. Hicks had enjoined her to a proper deference. The baron’s manner had always countered that. She poured easily, added his spot of cream, then handed over his cup. “A spice cake, savouries, biscuits.” She passed him a plate then poured her own tea and lifted the cup, letting the steam waft over her chilled skin.
Harcourt filled his plate with a variety. After a sip of tea, he bit into the wedge of cake. “That’s good. I must say that I have looked forward to this tea since the rain began this morning. Did you receive your grand tour?”
When he glanced at her, expectant, Elizabeth swallowed quickly. “I did, my lord.”
“Miss Fortescue.” He stopped to considered his words. The cat lifted up, turned about, then re-settled as she’d been. “I think for our teatime, Miss Fortescue—.”
“Yes, my lord?”
A frown wrinkled between his dark brows. “We should be ourselves, Miss Fortescue. The minatory eyes of others no longer watch us.”
What does that mean? “As you wish, my lord.”
His frown deepened. “Will you not indulge in Cook’s fine pastries?”
A clear censure. Elizabeth set aside her cup then took up her own plate. She selected a savoury pastry, two biscuits, and a small wedge of cake. As she nibbled a biscuit, she wondered how best to mention the concerns that she had had no difficulty broaching when she stood before his desk, servant reporting to employer.
He held his cup for more tea. “A fortnight should be time enough for a decision. Have you taken to your position? Will you stay or leave us?”
For some reason she remembered the second ghost and shuddered. The cup clattered. She quickly set down the teapot. And her conversation with Jessa came to mind.
He misunderstood her reaction. “Do you intend to leave me—us? May I convince you to remain at least another fortnight?”
Her blue eye flashed to his dark ones. “My lord, I do not intend to leave.”
“I thought—. Never mind. I am pleased you are to stay. Except—you will not flee when you meet our ghost?”
Before last night, she would have laughed and lightly claimed that no ghost would scare her away. Challenges often backfired. “No, I will not flee.”
“Perhaps you will be a lucky one and never meet our Silent Lady.”
Why did Lord Harcourt not mention the other ghost?
“Then tell me what you have learned in your first fortnight with us?”
“We need more staff,” she said bluntly. “To delay only adds to the difficulty. It does not lessen it.”
His smile fell away. “You persist in this? For what reason? I have explained that I do not entertain. `Tis rare that anyone wishes to visit this location.”
“Are you so reclusive when you are in London?”
He lifted a hand to his brow. It was an old gesture, she realized, one that he had not used since her arrival, a gesture that hid the scar on his cheek. “I no longer visit London.” Words spoken, he seemed to recognize that masking gesture. He dropped his hand, and his gaze shifted to the fire, avoiding hers.
Harcourt had managed in his months here to forget about shielding his scar from others. Hicks had helped, Elizabeth realized, with his orders to the others not to look at the baron. His people had adapted their ways to accommodate Hicks’ orders, and gradually the need to hide had disappeared, as the scar itself lost the ugly inflamed redness of its early healing. Now it was no more than uneven skin that twisted his facial shape a little.
Yet her mere mention of London had reawakened that old habit. Before the injury, Harcourt would have been eagerly welcomed in the haut ton’s best salons and ballrooms. When he was not scowling or stressed, he looked only a few years older than she. After the injury—.
Had something else added to his retreat from social life? Harcourt had met her too easily for Elizabeth to believe he was naturally a hermit. The Grange’s location enforced much of his solitude here. The interactions that she’d observed with the locals were not tainted by any odd shrinking.
“But in London,” she persisted, “did you not entertain close friends? Or visit them? What else did you do there? Academy lectures? Theatre? Museums? I should think the usual manly pursuits, riding along Rotton Row, visting Gentleman Jim’s.”
His scowl had deepened, but he swung his gaze back to her, no longer hiding or avoiding. “What do housekeepers know of manly pursuits? Never say that Miss Fortescue encouraged her employers to visit such places?”
She smiled, pleased to have yanked him out of any doldrums. “You mistake me. I envy your freedom to ride in Hyde Park or visit the museums and galleries or to attend the theatre. At the few parties that occurred in my employers’ houses I was busy belowstairs, only dreaming of the dancing abovestairs.”
“Had I encountered your charming self, Miss Fortescue, I would have pressed you into a dance, housekeeper or no.”
She grinned impishly. “And I would have accepted, Lord Harcourt.”
He laughed and stood, disrupting Greymalkin in mid-purr. He bowed then swept out a hand. His eyes sparkled. “Shall we?”
Good sense dictated that Elizabeth sidestep that dare. She placed her hand in his and let him draw her to her feet. “We shall scandalize Mr. Hicks with any dancing,” she warned.
“I depend on you for music,” and he swept her into the first turn of a circular branle dance.
She tra-la’ed through a popular song as Lord Harcourt guided her through the steps. The confines of the study with its chairs before the hearth and large desk kept their movements controlled and small. Elizabeth struggled not to giggle and lose the song. His hands were warm, his grip sure, his arm bracing her back was steady and firm. They were one couple when the dance required, but they crossed hands and twirled about, parted and spun, rejoined and moved as one from one side of the room to the other and back.
Returned to her hearth chair, she fell apart from him and sank into her chair, laughing with good humor. “You cannot tell me, my lord, that you were not a much-anticipated partner at the balls.”
“I can believe, Miss Fortescue, that you never left the dance floor.”
“I never reached the dance floor,” she mused glumly. “Such are not the delights for a housekeeper. Now, we’ve had our spot of madness. I blame M’sieur Diderot’s biscuits.” She bit into the shortbread. “We have not scandalized Mr. Hicks. May we return to our original subject? We need more staff. Do not give me the excuse that you are a recluse. That is nonsense, and it is not the reason to avoid hiring more maids.”
“Hicks says that we need no other maid. He agreed to you only because the Grange has always had a housekeeper.”
“I find it impossible to give my gratitude to tradition for my position here. Is it tradition that the kitchen has three maids and a spit boy? No, I did not believe so. The house should have an equivalent number. We only have one, Jessa. The poor girl is run off her feet on days when Mrs. Beatty demands her help in the laundry. I have given help where I can, but we cannot complete even the barest chores. That is not good household management. I will let Mr. Hicks determine the number of footmen that he should have, but I scarce see how he intends to manage should visitors come.”
He was back to scowling; their humor of bare minutes before vanished. “Visitors don’t come—.”
“Yes, yes, I’ve heard that, my lord. Visitors don’t come to the Grange.”
“Jealous of Diderot’s help?”
She sniffed. In rounded accents, she intoned, “My lord, a well-managed house is like a well-managed kitchen. Many hands allow a separation of duties so that two alone are not overwhelmed.”
“Which of your employers said that?”
“The last. Lady Millingrove.”
“You’ve barely arrived, and already you want to add staff.”
“I waited a fortnight, my lord. A least maid, who can help the laundress when necessary. And a boots boy, who would also tend the fires and light the candles and run errands.”
Lord Harcourt studied her.
Something brushed her leg. The grey cat, twining around. He snapped his fingers, but the grey cat leaped and landed on Elizabeth’s knees.
He chuckled. “Scritcher decides. Shall we hire a dozen new servants?”
“We do not need a dozen, only enough that we do not drive away Jessa because she’s overworked.”
He watched her rub the bridge between the cat’s eyes. “I will warn you, Miss Fortescue. You’ll find none in the village who will return here to work.”
“Then we must hire further afield. In Thirsk. We can couple the hiring with the supplies M’sieur Diderot says that he needs.”
“We, Miss Fortescue. You and I?”
His voice had that dare again, the one that asked her to dance. His eyes were again sparkling.
“I spoke generally, my lord.”
“Did you? You have appointed a task that I dare not undertake alone. You must come with me, Miss Fortescue. Shall we consider Tuesday?”
“Tuesday?” she echoed faintly. How had this simple conference at teatime transitioned from drinking tea to dancing a branle and now to hiring maids in Thirsk together? “So soon?”
“Do not look so appalled. Next Tuesday, not this one. Our supplier in Thirsk must have time to gather the supplies we need, and I have a man-of-business there who will arrange several interviews. You can conduct those on Wednesday. We’ll return on Thursday.”
His sudden seizure of plans surprised her. “My lord, two nights away—.”
“Do the gossips worry you, Miss Fortescue?”
That thought stiffened her spine. “No, my lord. I will be performing the duties of your housekeeper.”
His nod was abrupt, reminiscent of her father when he was deciding his orders. “We will stay with friends. All propriety shall be met, I promise.”
“Of course, it will, my lord.” She never doubted that. “No matter what the gossip may be, an open wagon of supplies is hardly conducive to a tryst.”
He laughed outright at that brazen statement. His humor too quicky died. “You may think otherwise, Miss Fortescue, after several hours of vetting servants. There’s a reason the villagers won’t work here, and that reason will have reached the town.”
Her interest perked up. “Our resident ghost, my lord?”
“My past ancestress, yes. One of the few who inhabited the ruined manor as well as the Grange. Our Silent Lady.”
“I thought the others were trying to trick me.”
“Have you seen her, then? All tatters and wet hair. Some stories claim she died in the entrance hall, but my grandfather speculated that she drowned in the lake.”
Her fingers had paused, and Greymalkin bumped his head against them. Here was information that she could use. “The lake?”
“You need a tour of Harcourt land, Miss Fortescue. The lake. The bogs. The moor. The ruins. We have more ghosts at the ruins, they tell me. I’ve never seen them.”
“But you’ve seen the lady? Wouldn’t—aren’t ghosts supposed to haunt where they died?”
The cat abandoned her and leaped down, circling twice before curling on the hearth rug.
“I don’t make the haunting rules.”
“Does she moan and cry?”
“My father claimed to have heard her weeping, but she’s a silent ghost. Just drifts along the passageways.”
Did Lord Harcourt not know anything of the other ghost that Elizabeth had encountered?