One day, soon after the new valet's arrival, Mrs. Wilding received another letter. Amalie took delivery of it from the post-boy who came sweating and filthy to the kitchen door and then she carried it upstairs, thinking its contents might occupy the restless lady while she pinned her down and brushed her hair.
This plan was successful for a little while, until the master of the house came in. Mr. Wilding frequently forgot about his wife's lady's maid, and entered the bedchamber without knocking. Since the couple shared a bed in that room, it was not such a strange idea that he should come and go without warning, perhaps, but Amalie greatly disapproved, as would Lady Bramley, who always maintained that, if it could be afforded, a man and his wife should keep separate bedchambers.
Mr. Wilding's arrival on that morning, carrying a tray of breakfast— something else of which Amalie disapproved, since she should have brought it up herself— immediately distracted his wife and caused her to fidget. It took all Amalie's patience and resolve to continue dressing the lady's hair.
"Aunt Clothilde wants to visit, Adam." The mistress waved her letter. "Apparently she still sulks, because I married without consulting her, but now her curiosity can be restrained no longer. She deigns to put her grudge aside and honor us with her presence."
Her husband fell back into a chair by the unlit fireplace and grumbled, "You're old enough to marry as you please without anybody's say."
"Nevertheless, I suppose it was rather disrespectful of me to charge ahead without consulting her. She has, after all, been my guardian since I was seven, when the admiral died and left me in her hands." Looking at the letter again, she added, "Her companion, Miss Catchpole, has been ill and unable to get out much lately, so Aunt Clothilde has been obliged to stay in. She says nobody has been to visit. She has had no society and no fresh news— in other words, no gossip— to entertain her. It's all Miss Catchpole's fault for being ill." She chuckled. "Aunt Clothilde is not a lady of tender mercies. Her patience for the sick is soon worn out, especially if it spoils her social engagements. Now that the weather and Miss Catchpole's health have improved, she is eager to travel."
"Lucky for us," Mr. Wilding muttered.
"As she says here, it behooves her as my only living female relative to make the effort of traveling to ensure I have not married imprudently. Apparently I might be in need of her advice in," she smiled at her letter, "marital indignities."
"What the devil does that mean?"
"I am all agog to find out." Sarah paused as she read to the end of the letter. "I do believe she has missed me. She closes with warm affection. Goodness, I have never had anything of that sort from her before. Although I do believe she patted my shoulder once in the year 1806, but she might have been in pursuit of a fly that landed there."
Amalie glanced over at Mr. Wilding and saw the bulge in his cheek where he firmly tucked his tongue. The deepening lines of doubt across his brow told what he thought of "Aunt Clothilde" and her "warm affection." Amalie shared his wariness.
Would the lady be so keen to visit now, were it not for the fortune her niece's husband unexpectedly inherited? According to Biddy, when Adam was merely a Wyatt and a blacksmith, the woman Sarah called her aunt had shown little interest. Only once Mrs. Wilding's letters were addressed from Slowly Rising manor house did Clothilde Moreland raise her head and prick up her ears.
"I cannot imagine where we'll put the lady," Mrs. Wilding added, refolding the letter. "The other bedchambers are still mostly in a dire state. I must get to work on them immediately. I suppose there might be some furnishings up in the attic that I can use. Biddy says it’s cluttered full of things, because your grandmother Marguerite never threw anything out, but just collected more and more treasures...like a magpie."
Mr. Wilding hitched forward to the edge of his seat and reached for a fresh-picked strawberry from the breakfast tray. "But you cannot do all that cleaning and decorating yourself, Sarah. You must learn to step back now and be the lady of the house."
"That's precious coming from you, my dear husband. When you set down your own tools and agree to being measured for a gentleman's hat and some new top boots, then I shall put down my mop and dust-rag."
This was a battle often witnessed. Sometimes Amalie wanted to bang their heads together, for each wanted the best for each other and yet neither would be the first to concede that the other was right and admit themselves to be in need of anything.
Mr. Wilding sighed heavily. "Let me remind you that I purchased a new coat last year and it should survive a good fifteen more years at least. 'Tis warm, sturdy, long-lasting cloth and no particular fashion. That's as far as I go to impress anybody with my appearance."
"Aha! So now that you have completely turned my head with that coat and won my hand, you intend to make no further effort? You are all finished now, is that it?"
"If I don't put my foot down now, woman, you and McKenna will have me in jester's breeches, a girdle and puffed leg-o-mutton sleeves. Before I know it I'll be trussed up like a French dandy."
Amalie hid her smile, for there were few men less capable of looking like a dandy— French or otherwise— than Mr. Adam Wilding, who was more Crafty Taciturn Blacksmith than Fine Society Gentleman and probably always would be.
"I do not like the idea of you going to such trouble for Clothilde Moreland," he added, steering the conversation back to his wife's aunt. "Is it not your hard work that has been the sole means of keeping her out of debtor's prison these past few years and living like a lady of leisure in Bath?" He tossed the berry into his mouth and chewed. "She can hardly be in a position to turn her nose up at any accommodation we offer. She ought to be thankful if we offered Diggory's shed."
All this, of course, was not the sort of thing that ought to be discussed in front of the lady's maid. Although servants were never meant to be noticed, it was still not proper to mention financial matters in their presence. Mr. Wilding was either lacking this information, or else he cared not. He seemed to regard McKenna as a puzzling, but somewhat amusing and unfortunately necessary addition to his burdens. He might not want a young girl about the place, making him feel awkward at times and casting his rag-bag garments disapproving glances, but he put up with her for his wife's sake.
He sat back in his chair, propping one booted foot on the tattered ottoman. "She invited herself here," he said. "She can take us as she finds us."
"You don't know Aunt Clothilde. For a widow of impoverished circumstances, she has very demanding standards."
"'Tis time she came down to earth then."
Amalie saw her mistress smile sadly into the mirror. "She always maintained high expectations for me, despite my sallow complexion, droopy eyes, bad posture and unremarkable presence. Don't look at me like that, McKenna. I freely admit my lack of elegance and beauty. It troubles me not. Such gifts would only have got in my way. But even with all my attempts at disabusing her of the notion, my aunt thought I would marry one day and lift her out of genteel poverty. She always had hope on that score, when I never did." She passed another hairpin to Amalie. "I suppose she was desperate, but her intentions were not unkind. She wanted good for me too."
Reflected in the mirror, both women watched Mr. Wilding lean forward again and fill his mouth with more fruit. "In the meantime, your wages working for Lady Bramley paid her rent."
"For pity's sake, don't speak with your mouth full, Adam, while she visits. It is bad manners."
He scowled. "Perhaps I'd best make myself absent altogether while she's here. Wouldn't want to embarrass anybody."
"Don't be silly. You know how I am." She smiled again, her shoulders lifting in a quick, emphatic shrug that loosened all her hairpins, much to Amalie's frustration. "I can't help bossing folk about," she added apologetically. "I've been doing it for years as a Coping Girl, sent about the country to look after people in their time of need, striving for order among chaos. If I do the same occasionally to my dear husband, I beg him to overlook it and remember that old habits die hard."
When she smiled like that her husband apparently forgot to be annoyed or offended. His shoulders relaxed and his hackles went down, like those of a barking, anxious dog, soothed by the reassuring hand of his mistress. Amalie wished she could smile like that; it might help to manage with a dollop of sweet honey rather than a sharp tongue, but she'd never learned the art. "Keep men at the length of a pointed stick and you'll be far better off," her mother used to say. Of course, her mother had learned that lesson the hard way and too late. Whichever woman was her mother.
Mr. Wilding conceded moodily, "I suppose you're right, Sarah. I ought to mind my manners now that I'm a married man and no longer a solitary bachelor. When the new year comes I'll be a father, eh? Then I must provide a good example to the child. Wouldn't want to raise an uncouth brat, but a boy who is wanted and welcomed at any table, and will never feel himself to be out of place. So I best practice my own manners now, while there is still time for improvement." He wiped his lips on his sleeve and sat up straighter, hands on his knees. "But the first thing you should make clear to Mrs. Moreland, when she comes here, is that you have no familial connection to her at all and she's not your responsibility any longer. You've got enough to manage, putting me in my place— and a babe on the way— without her dragging on your skirts, Sarah."
"But I can hardly cut her adrift without a care after all these years, can I?"
He mumbled under his breath.
"Can I?" she urged, turning her head and disturbing another lock of hair that Amalie had previously pinned in place.
"No," he grumbled reticently. "I suppose not, you being a kindly soul, too generous and selfless by far. But she still ought to know how grateful she must be to you, especially since you have no genuine blood ties. She must be told the truth and made to realize the debt she owes you. In short, she has no call to turn her nose up at any accommodation we give her."
"Yes." Mrs. Wilding sighed heavily. "I suppose, eventually, I must tell Clothilde the truth and that I am not really her niece and the admiral was not my father. But how does one even begin to explain? After all, it was not her fault, was it?"
"Just be straightforward, Sarah. No need to sweeten it with flowery words."
Amalie, attempting the blankly innocent face of one who has no unseemly curiosity in the doings of her employers, pressed the last hair pin into place and stepped back to admire her work. Mrs. Wilding gave her an encouraging smile, although it was clear she still struggled to let anybody make "a fuss" of her.
"Thank you, McKenna. Very nice."
"Can I do anything else for you, madam?"
"If you wouldn't mind—" Her mistress often began sentences this way, uncomfortable with giving a direct order, it seemed. "I have a stain on my very best blue frock. I tried removing it myself, but it seems only to have grown. Perhaps you might tackle it with greater success? I shall need at least one good gown for evenings if I am not to let Aunt Clothilde down completely."
"Yes, madam." She went to the bed, where the blue dress had been laid out for her attention, along with some other garments to be laundered or mended. It must indeed be a bad stain for her mistress to have no luck with it. Amalie had begun to suspect that the young lady made work for her deliberately sometimes, so that she would feel useful.
"Admiral Wetherby is lucky he never had to answer for his crimes," said Mr. Wilding, his voice terse, his gaze flitting briefly toward his wife's arms. Covered that morning by the sleeves of her dress, the scars that marked her flesh were well hidden, but both he and Amalie knew they were there.
Mrs. Wilding had recently told Amalie the story of Admiral Wetherby, the man who had raised her and who died in a fire, set deliberately by his own hand, when she was seven years of age. The flames would have taken her life too, and that of the admiral's baby son, had she not been clear-headed and calm enough to escape through a broken window, carrying the babe to safety in her burned arms.
Whenever her husband looked at, or thought about, those scars, the fury was plain to see in his eyes. Clearly he was considerably less forgiving than his wife, who, despite the tragedy that almost killed her, always spoke of the admiral with compassion in her voice.
Since Admiral Wetherby's madness, fault and guilt were things upon which Mr. Wilding and his wife could never agree, he was wise, perhaps, to skip the thread of that subject and return to another.
He got up. "When does Mrs. Moreland descend upon us then?"
"That depends, dear husband."
"On?" He surveyed his wife warily through narrowed eyes.
"Whenever we can send a coach and horses to Bath to fetch her."
He swayed, almost tipping back into the chair. "She expects us to haul her posterior across the countryside at our own expense?"
"Aunt Clothilde does not care for the public coach."
"Well, she'd bloody well better get fond of it. It ought to be her best friend."
"She thinks we ought to send a private carriage."
"Then she's sore mistook."
Amalie bent her head as she quickly folded the clothes into a neat pile and tried not to hear all this.
"If Mrs. Moreland imagines to come here and act high and mighty," he added, "she'd best think again about that too."
"She is almost sixty, Adam. And the mail coach can be most uncomfortable, crowded and unreliable, not to mention treacherous."
"As you know, because you were obliged to travel in it many times, Sarah. From what I hear she never troubled herself over your comfort and safety."
There was a pause while his wife gave him a look, firm-lipped and determined. Then she got up from the dressing table, walked by Amalie and picked up her latest lady's fashion magazine to flip through it with studied nonchalance. Mr. Wilding now tapped his foot in agitation.
"Oh, look at this, McKenna." Her mistress came over to show her an illustration. "Would those red and pink striped pantaloons not be quite splendid on my husband? He has just the form to suit, don't you think?"
"Yes, madam. Very...jaunty."
Instantly he crossed the room toward them. "No stripes! Jaunty? What do you take me for, a clown? Don't you dare!"
His wife slapped the pages shut, before he could see what they were actually looking at. "What about a carriage, Adam? Just this once and I shan't say another word about stripes."
He sniffed, stilling his anxious fingers by wrapping them around the wide leather belt that held up his baggy, patched, corduroy breeches. "Very well then," he groaned. "I'll send a carriage. I must go to Shrewsbury tomorrow on business with the solicitor, so I'll ask him about hiring one there." He paused, half turned away and then back again. "But she needn't make a habit of it. I'll tell her that myself when she comes."
Sarah dropped her magazine to the bed, threw her arms around his shoulders from behind and kissed him sloppily. "My darling husband! How sweet and understanding you are! The very best husband in the entire world."
"Put me down, woman. No need to overdo it. You embarrass McKenna. Besides, I know how wonderful I am."
"And not in the least arrogant about it, when you could have turned out quite insufferable."
"There's still time."
"Yes, now that you are master of Slowly Rising, I suppose all this power might go to your head."
"The master, am I?" he muttered gruffly. "'Tis good to know, for I'd never have guessed."
When Amalie made for the door with her pile of mending, Mr. Wilding kindly held the door for her.
"I hope you realize that if Mrs. Moreland travels one hundred and twenty odd miles to visit, she'll be in no haste to go away again, Sarah," he exclaimed. "We could be stuck with her until the next spring!"
"Oh, I think she'll much prefer the life of Bath to what little entertainment we can offer her here in Slowly Fell. Aunt Clothilde likes gossip and watching so-called elegant society. She won't find the latter here and the former will only be about folk of whom she knows nothing. Once she sees that, she'll yearn to go home again and it should put her off future visits, for a while at least."
"Just as long as I shan't be expected to entertain the lady while she remains here."
"I can assure you, Adam, nobody will look to you for the entertainment. I didn't marry you for your singing voice or your dancing feet. You may safely sit and glower at her all you please." Then she called Amalie back, belatedly remembering a pair of stockings that required darning. "If you're sure you don't mind? I meant to do them myself, but I haven't had enough time in the day and lately I'm too tired to stay awake much beyond nine."
"Madam, it is the reason I'm here," she softly reminded the lady. "Please don't hesitate to give me the mending. I am very happy to do it, and you have many other duties to tend." It gave her occupation in the evenings when the others gathered in the kitchen to chatter and play cards. She couldn't bear to have no work in her hands, for then she might have to join in the conversation. Or pay attention to that roguish valet. She'd caught herself thinking about him altogether too much of late, with a terribly dangerous feistiness rushing through her veins.
It was Coquin's fault, of course. Jones had let her out.Well, he'd be sorry once he realized exactly what sort of chaos a loose Coquin could do.
While Mrs. Wilding went in search of the stockings, her husband picked up the lady's magazine between thumb and forefinger, gingerly opening the pages to examine the horrors within.
"What the devil—?"
His wife looked around his shoulder. "What a lovely waistcoat! Gold and blue stripes. Very smart and distinguished."
"Stripes again? I can only imagine the looks I'd get on market day."
"Because they would think you very smart and distinguished."
"Smart and distinguished wouldn't stay clean and tidy long around here."
"No." She sighed and shared a glance of sympathetic camaraderie with Amalie. "We know. I have tried to get your valet on my side, but Jones seems reticent to challenge your love of anything scruffy and downtrodden."
"Good for Jones! Whatever Lady Bramley is paying him, I'll double it." He flung the book down again. "Don't go getting too many ideas. Rat-hair brown and sturdy corduroy does for me, Sarah. You know that. What's worn out gets patched and what's too short can always be let down."
"Some of your shirts are more patch than they are shirt," she murmured, returning to her search for the stockings.
"That's the way I like 'em, woman," he replied, stubborn, thumbs now hooked into the pockets of his plain flannel waistcoat. "Lived-in and more use than decoration. That's this man's style."
She laughed. "Now I know why you like me so much."
"That's not the only reason."
"Oh?"
"You're not fussy, you're a hard worker and you cost little to feed."
"How romantic. Aha! Here is one. Now where is the other?" Mrs. Wilding waved a stocking and then got down on her knees to search under the bed.
Amalie had never known a lady so careless with her garments, but then her husband exclaimed, "I remember where I put it last night." And he plucked the missing stocking from his own waistcoat pocket where it had somehow become wrapped around his fob watch. And a corset lace.
How it came to be there, Amalie decided she did not need to know or imagine.
The reunited stockings added to her pile, she hurried out, eyes down, hoping her blush was not too bright and obvious.
As she left the room she heard the master and mistress laughing, still teasing each another in that funny way. She'd never known a couple so at ease and casual together. Apparently they did not know that they ought to be formal and reserved in her presence. Or perhaps they simply found the effort too hard. They were a tactile pair, loving and warm, so that sometimes they seemed to forget that other folk were even present. It was very strange and rather embarrassing— Lady Bramley would be appalled— but Amalie supposed she must get accustomed to it eventually. It was not so bad that it made her want to bring her breakfast up.
She eyed the crumpled stockings with a cautious eye, certain she could see Mr. Wildings' dirty fingerprints all over them.
No doubt these were the marital indignities to which "Aunt Clothilde" referred in her letter. Mrs. Wilding did not seem too perturbed by those indignities, however. She was forever appearing with her hair undone, a few buttons out of their holes and occasionally some stitches loose, even in the middle of the day, and after Amalie had put everything carefully in its place for her that morning. Still, it meant that there was always plenty of mending to be done.
Oops, now she'd dropped the stockings, followed by the rest of the pile. Cursing under her breath, she bent to retrieve the garments. She was all fingers and thumbs this morning. No doubt, the escaped menace, Coquin, had something to do with that too.
"You shouldn't shock McKenna," she heard her mistress exclaim in a rushed whisper. "She believes, as does Lady Bramley, that a man and wife should have separate rooms in which to sleep. Unless I'm at death's door and thereby soon to be beyond sin, you shouldn't even clap eyes upon me in the morning until I'm bathed, scrubbed, brushed, scented and dressed. It's the civilized and proper way."
"Good thing we ain't civilized then. Or proper."
They did not know, of course, that she was still close enough to hear, thanks to her fumbling and daydreaming.
"I suppose rooms apart are meant to keep a little mystery in the relationship," her mistress ventured.
"I don't reckon we need any more of that," he replied gruffly.
Amalie supposed the master had a point. Mr. Adam Wilding had endured enough shocks in the past six months, and he would probably be quite content if the remainder of his life was utterly predictable and quite devoid of further mysterious happenings.
But, of course, nobody could guarantee that.
And since Coquin was released into the wild any chance of a peaceful life had flown out of the window. A great many things had recently been misplaced around the house, suddenly broken, or found where they should not be. The spirits of Slowly Rising rattled like the cicadas— or "cigales"— the comtesse used to describe when she reminisced about her youthful summers in a grand house in Provence. The revenants were building strength, preparing for something.
"What are you up to, McKenna? Eavesdropping? Again? I'm surprised at you!"
It was Jones, lurking in the corridor, coming up behind her. She did not answer his impertinent question, but busied herself retrieving the scattered garments.
Without invitation, he hunkered down to help. "I seek the master. Is he up here?"
She jerked her head toward the bedchamber, but the door had just closed and the sound of a bolt being drawn across suggested nobody would be welcomed to knock upon it just now.
"Ah." He lowered his voice to a husky whisper. "Looks like I must be patient." He winked. "They're at it again."
She glared. "However vulgar your thoughts, I would thank you to keep a polite and civil tongue in your head, Jones. Not every closed door has some salacious intent."
"I don't know what that means, but there's naught amiss with a young couple enjoying a healthy bout o' basket-makin' whenever the mood betakes 'em."
"Who said that... that is what they are doing?"
"Well what do you think they're doing, McKenna? Playing chess?"
"It is not proper to speak this way. It is not for us to speculate."
"'Tis hard not to."
"There is no reason for it, since Mrs. Wilding is already...in an interesting condition."
He looked bemused. "You think that's the only reason people indulge in the practice?"
She looked down. "Of course. Why else?"
"Crikey. You really are naive. I thought the other maids were makin' it up."
No, she was not that naive, but she was not about to discuss the act of congress with the valet. She was already over-heated, and his hands had thrice brushed hers in the process of gathering fallen clothes. His nearness had a very strange effect upon her, and she didn't know what to make of it. There was too much of him and all of it very solid. Hunkered down before her it was more disturbing than ever. Almost intimate.
"Here," he said suddenly, on his knees and reaching into his pocket. "You can share my sausage roll if you like."
"I beg your pardon?" she exclaimed, breathless.
He withdrew a bundled handkerchief. "It's still warm. I were goin' to share it with Mr. Wilding, but looks like he don't need it now. He'll be sated in other ways, I daresay."
Untying the handkerchief, he showed her a golden brown crust of pastry. The aroma made her mouth water. "Where did you get that? I didn't know Biddy had baked anything but her tasteless bread today."
"She ain't. Some woman down in the village made 'em in the bakehouse," he replied jauntily.
"And she gave you one?"
"Why not? I were passin'. She took a likin' to me." He ripped the pastry in half and stuffed one side in his brazen mouth.
"She took a liking to you? Just like that?"
"Don't look so shocked, McKenna! Some folk do, you know. Not everybody hates me on sight. O' course, I don't go around telling folk what they're doing wrong all the time like you do, so that helps."
"Then you're still hovering about the village, looking for women to charm?"
He looked quizzical. "Still?"
It was on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back. No, she would not give him the satisfaction of making her say it. In all probability he was waiting for her to explode one of these days and mention their meeting in the graveyard. While he pretended not to remember the moment when time stopped.
"Have you not enough daft women in this house acting foolishly around you?" she exclaimed.
"What women?"
"The other maids. I've seen how you distract them."
"Can't 'elp that," he replied with a crooked grin. "They're like moths to a flame."
"Or dogs to a rabbit turd."
He laughed as if he might burst with it. "I'm surprised you don't cut yourself with that tongue, McKenna. You see, if you curbed that weapon once in a while and had something nice to say, folk might share their sausage rolls with you."
Apparently nothing she said could cloud his ever-merry mood. But she had something that would give him pause. "Have you told your admirers all about the rattle in your chest? The one like a penny stuck in an old iron pipe?"
Yes, that cooled his laughter. "'Ow the deuce do you know about that?"
"You told me."
"When?"
"You know very well."
"So we have met before." A slow, wary smile returned.
"I believe you must be concussed, Jones. It would explain much about your faltering memory. You ought to see the physician."
But he merely stared for a moment and then he held out the other half of his pastry. "Go on. Taste it. You look hungry. Ain't poisoned."
"Thank you, but no."
"Why not?"
"Your hands are dirty."
"No, they ain't. I washed 'em special." He grinned, proud as a little boy who had just learned to write his own name. Was she supposed to be impressed?
"You and I clearly have different standards of cleanliness, Jones. The very fact that you need a special occasion to wash your hands assures me of the fact." Yes, good. I will get you back in your pot, Coquin! You will not distract me.
He groaned. "One of these days, McKenna, you'll come down off your high throne and have a nibble o' what I'm offerin'. When you realize what you're missin' and that a little dirt won't harm you. A smile won't cost you neither." He threw the other half of sausage roll into his mouth and walked off. Whistling again with merry unconcern, so very, very full of himself.
Amalie was actually quite sorry about the sausage roll then and wished he'd pressed her a little harder, because it did smell delicious and certainly would have been an improvement on Biddy's cooking, which often involved pastry like shoe leather or a mouthful of blanket. It was nice of him to offer half of it to her, particularly as she had not been very friendly.
He looked better in his livery. Almost handsome. Almost.
She had seen him winning over the other maids. Despite his rough edges they were attracted to him. He'd saved one of the girls from a splinter in her finger and it was talked about for two days. He'd rescued the kitchen cat when it went up into a tree, chasing a crow, and then became "stuck" there.
"Surely you know the cat could have made its own way down once it was hungry," Amalie had muttered as he enjoyed his victory parade around the kitchen, purring cat held aloft for the applause and fussing of the kitchen maids.
"But if you were stuck in a tree I wouldn't leave you to get hungry," he said.
When Biddy laughed so hard she choked on a chicken bone, he calmly got it out of her throat while everybody else ran about in a panic.
Whenever he entered the kitchen, the air thickened and buzzed with excitement. Anyone would think he was The Duke of Wellington at least.
With each passing day she began to see more of what they did when they looked at the cheeky rogue.
He was patient. Always. Even put up with Biddy's grumbles.
He was generous, helping out anybody who needed it without being asked. Amalie found him at her side in an instant, reaching a high shelf in the pantry for her or holding a ladder that wobbled. His physical reactions were astonishingly fast, and he could catch a falling glass before she even knew it had left her fingers.
He was lively, without pushing himself forward.
He was clever, without being boastful and arrogant.She turned and, in a low voice, snapped over her shoulder, "Shut up, Coquin! Tais toi. I do not need your interference. Just because you found a way out through him, do not think I won't get you back in at the earliest opportunity. Of course, you like him now."
In any case, what was Jones up to, wandering around the village so early in the day, charming women out of their sausage rolls? And out of more besides, no doubt. How many other women's hands had he kissed when they were not expecting it and then left them wondering, turned inside out, their mischief escaped into the outside world?
She was also curious to know how he came by that book he kept inside his coat pocket. It looked very like one she owned. Lady Bramley had given it to her on her last birthday, and she'd been wondering what became of it. His copy looked much older and much more tatty, however.
Strange that he should like to read too. None of the other servants cared much, but she'd seen him struggling over the newspaper when it came for Mr. Wilding and sometimes, as he read along with his finger marking the printed words, he paused to refer to a dictionary, which he had apparently brought with him inside his parcel, wrapped up with that elegant valet's livery. His only possessions apart from the clothing in which he'd arrived there and, of course, Gulliver's Travels.
Amalie heard a low chuckle from inside the bedchamber and quickly got back to work.
When Jones heard her steps rapidly following, he stopped in surprise. "What 'ave I done now?"
"Nothing, apparently. But if you actually want to be of any use, you'll advise your master to buy his wife seven yards of silk satin and another two of silk net and blonde lace. He goes to Shrewsbury tomorrow so it will be a good opportunity. I doubt he'll think of it himself. Men generally need to be told and the mistress will never ask, but it’s time she had a new evening gown."
"Oh, aye?" He stuck out his jaw. "And why should I do anything for you, McKenna?"
She reached up and swept a flake of golden pastry from his chin. "It's not for me. It's for the master and my mistress."
His pupils expanded when her fingertips briefly made contact. "So we are to work together then? I was right. You were wrong."
"It is one request, Jones. Not the surrender of the Spanish Armada." Her fingers trembled a little, felt tempted to find some other excuse to touch him. Best not.
"Then you'll owe me one request in return." His eyes glittered, as he clearly struggled to keep his lips from turning upward. To keep a business-like countenance for once. "'Tis only fair. Only proper. The way you like things to be."
With a heavy sigh she agreed. "I do not suppose you can remember the quantities and the—"
"Seven yards of silk satin and another two of silk net and blonde lace for a new evening gown."
Surprised, she could only nod.
"Leave it to me, treacle-lips. 'Tis as good as done." He broke into a grin. Apparently it could not be suppressed for long.
Oh, what had she done?