"I thought you might come with me this afternoon to visit the Clearys, McKenna," said her mistress. "I have made some of my famous gingerbread biscuits for the children. My husband has gone off to Shrewsbury and will not be back until tomorrow or the day after, so I feel rather at a loose end. It will do me good to stretch my legs with a pleasant walk while the sun shines and while Adam's not here to make a fuss of it. He seems to think I ought to sprawl on a chaise lounge for the next five months and never take any form of exercise."
"I would be happy to come with you, madam." Yes, indeed, she was glad to get out of the house. Coquin had begun moving things about in the kitchen that morning, causing Biddy to stub her toes thrice and drop a heavy pot on her foot when she found a mouse inside it. One of the maids, who had often teased Amalie unkindly, had lost her shoes— only to find them hanging up in the branches of a beech tree— and another had been stuck in the privy for more than half an hour when the door mysteriously jammed shut, trapping her inside.
So the more distance Amalie put between herself and the house today, the better. Folk were starting to look at her as if she might have something to do with the chaos. No matter how innocent she kept her face and how stern and appalled her denials.
As soon as they were outside and walking rapidly toward the village, Mrs. Wilding confessed that she had another reason for visiting the vicar's family that day. "He has hired a new housekeeper, and I am exceeding curious to meet her, but I don't suppose it's very ladylike to admit it. Mrs. Cleary and I became very good friends, while I stayed there. I rather feel it my duty now to make certain Mr. Cleary is well looked after and hires the right woman to tend the children. Iris would be anxious to know that all is well."
The vicar's wife had died that spring, leaving her husband with several small children to manage. Now that their "Coping Girl" was married and would have a family of her own, the remaining Clearys needed somebody to take her place.
Apparently the new housekeeper was a widow and had come from the nearest village of Monk's Cross, which, being slightly larger that Slowly Fell, had its own coaching inn and, so rumor had it, two bulls. The housekeeper had already made a stir in the village because she was— according to Biddy— "no better than she ought to be." A somewhat mystical declaration.
"My husband will say I am being nosy, but my concern is for the Clearys," said Mrs. Wilding. "Mostly."
"It is human nature to be inquisitive about one's neighbors, madam."
"Thank you, McKenna. That makes me feel better!" He mistress gave a wry smile. "You always know the right thing to say."
"I try, madam."
"But not with Jones, I hear."
She faltered. "Madam?"
"He complains that you have no kind words to spare for him. You and he began on the wrong foot."
Amalie exclaimed crossly, "He's not a very good valet. He pokes and pries into other folk's business and meddles with things he shouldn't touch. That's all I know." It felt as if the words came out too quickly and it hardly sounded like her own voice. "Now he complains to you, like a wretched tattle tale."
"I do not think he meant to complain. He seemed almost embarrassed, as if it slipped out. I don't believe he's accustomed to holding things in."
"It would seem not, madam. He has a vast deal to say for himself and seldom is it fit to be heard. Not by decent folk."
Her mistress appeared to have the hiccups, or else she tried to smother a chuckle. " Perhaps you could help him be a better valet."
"If it does not interfere in my own work, madam."
"I understand he is new to the post and not everybody takes to service like a duck to water, McKenna. He could benefit from your advice, I'm sure. Could you not be a little more understanding and generous, by sharing your knowledge?" The lady sighed. "We could certainly make good use of him as an ally in the battle over my husband's wardrobe."
She breathed hard and looked at the lane under her feet. "Yes, madam," she managed finally.
"Here we are. The churchyard." Her mistress opened the gate.
Today the place looked very different to how it had been on that day a few weeks earlier when Amalie met Gideon Jones there. The birds were chattering noisily, and the sun gleamed with a cheeriness that seemed to say there was never anything that could cloud its path. Indeed, the village was in full bloom, bustling with summer activity and glowing with color. As if nothing bad ever happened there, or could happen.
They took flowers first to Mrs. Cleary's grave.
"Everything is so very different now to how it was last winter, the day I arrived here in Slowly Fell," said Mrs. Wilding. "It was Adam who fetched me from the crossroads, where the mail coach dropped me in the snow," she reminisced out loud. "That is how we met, you know. Mr. Cleary asked him to collect me. I thought Adam rather ill-tempered and sullen at first, while he thought me exceedingly odd and shockingly unguarded to be travelling all alone. I was quite a sight, I daresay, in my best hat with the most extravagant pink silk ribbons—given to me by Aunt Clothilde in some attempt to lift my features. First impressions...well, we neither of us made a very good one, I fear...but... somehow, despite our differences, we fell in love."
"Yes, madam."
"Perhaps," her mistress teased, "the same will happen to you and Jones."
"And perhaps custard tarts will grow on trees, madam."
"Ooh. I could just eat a custard tart."
They stood looking at the grave for a moment.
"It was fated to be, of course. Adam and me."
"Fated, madam?"
"I was born here, you see, stolen away by Admiral Wetherby when I was three. I never knew, until I came back here last year and began to feel as if the place was familiar to me. Memories began to return, odds and ends, pictures of another life."
Now they left Iris Cleary's grave and went to another, one slightly more weathered.
"In truth, Marcus Wyatt, buried here, was my father." Mrs. Wilding crouched to place another handful of flowers on the blacksmith's grave. "I was born Mary Wyatt, the child of his second wife. So Adam— for the first three years of my life— was my half-brother. When I went missing, they all thought I was another victim of that infamous pond, but the Admiral had found me and taken me away with him. He raised me from then on as his own daughter. He was, sadly, not quite right in his head. It was a miracle that I ever came back here and rediscovered my true beginning. I had no idea, of course."
So that was what the master of the house meant when he spoke of the admiral's crimes. The fire he'd started deliberately was only part of it. "How terrible for Mr. Wyatt to never know what happened to you, madam!"
"Yes. He died five years before I came back here. But he had Adam, who he had raised as his own son, so at least he was not alone. I have to think of it that way, or it would simply be too grim."
Amalie felt a light shiver under her sleeves and could not resist looking over her shoulder, almost expecting to see Gideon Jones standing there. Stay beside me.
Nobody liked to be all alone.
"Besides, there is nothing to be done about it now," Mrs. Wilding added firmly. "Maudlin tears and regret won't bring my father back or change anything that has happened. All we can do to help the past now is make a good future. Sometimes we have to let things go, McKenna. A grudge can stick in the breast like a thorn and cause an infection around it."
Once again Amalie wished she could be more like her mistress— patient and quietly persuasive, as opposed to hot-tempered and making everybody think her haughty and humorless. Perhaps the lady was right and she should have been less hasty in her judgment of Gideon Jones, but once she was in one of her moods it was very difficult to get out of it. Forgiveness was hard for her when she had such high standards. She could not even forgive herself, let alone others that had wronged her.
After a while she said softly, "Such a strange place this is, madam. So many people lost here, but found too. Like you and Mr. Wilding— rescued from the pond as a baby."
"Indeed, I had not thought of it, but you are right. The lost and the found. There is a certain magic to Slowly Fell. Yes, good magic. I cannot think of any other word for it. Some folk think it is a sinister place, because of its history and that foolish curse, but I've come to think of it as a charming, beautiful little village. Oh, there are gossips, of course, but such people are everywhere. I really feel rather protective of Slowly Fell."
By now they had arrived at the vicarage, a pretty stone cottage that sat inside a walled garden beside the church. A front door surrounded by climbing roses looked out onto a one-horse lane with the village common beyond it. As Amalie and her mistress approached, they saw a tall, slender, well-dressed lady cutting roses from the trellis beside the door. She heard the gate opening and turned to see them there.
"Good morning," Mrs. Wilding called out cheerfully. "You must be Mrs. Hopper. I do hope you are settling in."
The housekeeper seemed surprised at first, and a little standoffish, until she realized who Mrs. Wilding was and that she had come from Slowly Rising. Then she looked around to see who was watching, exclaimed herself honored by the visit, gave no time for Amalie to be introduced— as if she was too lowly to be noticed— and said, "Please do come in for tea. I was just about to make a cup."
Mrs. Wilding would happily have gone into the kitchen, but the new vicarage housekeeper would not hear of it.
"Since you are the lady of the manor, I cannot entertain you in here," she said, removing her gardening gloves and leaving the cut roses with them on the kitchen table. "It surely wouldn't be fitting, and we can do better than that. I shan't have anybody saying I entertained Mrs. Wilding of Slowly Rising in the kitchen."
Amalie had never seen anybody throw off an apron and put on airs so quickly.
"Do come through to the parlor, won't you? I'll bring in the tea tray."
So they went through to the sunny, comfortable parlor, where the new housekeeper seemed quite at home already, passing a tea cup across to her important guest and sitting in what was clearly the best chair. A chair fit for a hostess. People, in Amalie's experience, were particular about their chairs and the precedence for sitting in them. In Hanover Square, for instance, whether it was in the drawing room or dining room, Lady Bramley always sat in the same chairs and nobody would ever dare claim them before she could. In a house without a mistress, it must be different of course. But surely, when the lady of the house was in her grave less than six months, out of respect for her memory, her old chair should stand empty. At least until the cushions had forgotten her imprint and the fabric lost her scent.
Mrs. Hopper, however, sat in that prime place without a thought and handled the tea things like a woman comfortable taking over. Despite this, or perhaps seeing something in Mrs. Wilding's expression, she soon professed to feelings that were quite at odds to her appearance.
"I have not quite yet found my feet," she said with a heaving, yet unconvincing sigh. "The people here do not think much of strangers, and I suspect more than one lady hereabouts had hopes of moving in to look after Mr. Cleary herself. I am regarded as quite the outsider."
Mrs. Wilding chuckled. "In my opinion, the vicar was very clever to look further afield. As his wife once said to me, we need more new people here in Slowly Fell to shake things up a little. So I, for one, am very glad you came. Somebody different to talk to is always welcome. Folk here tend to have very narrow minds, little experience of the world beyond and scant conversation to offer as a consequence."
At this mention of the vicar's wife, Mrs. Hopper's eyes had glazed over and now she gave a pained smile, hands gathered in her lap. She sat very tall and straight, a woman in command of her surroundings. No tea was offered to Amalie, not even a cup put out for her on the tray. Mrs. Wilding, clearly embarrassed by the other woman's oversight, made another attempt to introduce her lady's maid and this time their hostess looked faintly surprised and appalled, as if she would never have expected the indignity of being introduced to, and then asked to pour tea for, a common lady's maid. Finally another cup was brought out of the cupboard, but it was not part of the matching pattern, it was chipped at the rim, and never had Amalie seen tea poured so reluctantly. She was surprised the tea kettle spout did not freeze up entirely under that chilly regard.
"I came here to nurse Iris Cleary in her last months," Mrs. Wilding explained, struggling to keep the conversation moving forward. "She was a dear lady, and I became very fond."
"Yes," said the housekeeper, her lips barely moving to let the word out. "I have heard how you came along as a maid-of-all-work and made such an advantageous marriage, managing the conquest in only a matter of weeks. An astonishing achievement. An inspiration to us all."
Amalie looked at her mistress and saw her surprise. "I married a blacksmith and general handyman, Mrs. Hopper, because I fell in love." Sarah smiled hesitantly, one hand pressed to her pink cheek. "You almost make it sound as if there was some deliberate scheme involved. I never sought to make a conquest, as you call it."
"Oh, but your husband came into a fortune, did he not?"
"He did, but I would have been just as happy to marry him if he had not."
Mrs. Hopper smiled thinly. "A happy coincidence then."
There was another uncomfortable pause, until Sarah said brightly, "And how are the children? Not causing too much mischief, I hope?"
"The children?" As if she'd forgotten that any lived in the house. "I never stand for mischief, Mrs. Wilding. I do not find it amusing in children the way some folk do. The sooner a young person learns what is expected of them– what is proper, acceptable behavior—the sooner they can be productive, useful members of society. Too much indulgence does more harm than good."
"Ah. Yes, of course. But children will be children and surely life passes so quickly as it is, they ought to enjoy their youth while they can. I had so little opportunity to be a child myself, I often think—"
"Childhood, Mrs. Wilding, is a time for learning. Every moment should be put to good use, not wasted on frivolity and aimless pursuits."
"Well, of course, that's not quite what I—"
"Children who make a nuisance of themselves are only in the way. The sooner they learn to be adults the better. They should not be pandered to."
Mrs. Wilding had come upon a brick wall, so she diverted her course. "How do you cope with the range in the kitchen, Mrs. Hopper? I always found it rather temperamental, but during my time here I did learn a few tricks on how to manage the beast. If you need any—"
"I do not allow inanimate objects to get the better of me, and I do not waste my time imagining that they have personalities and eccentricities."
"Oh."
Mrs. Hopper kept that dreadful, self-satisfied and yet mirthless smile on her lips, while her eyes remained cool, even slightly contemptuous. "I've recommended that Martin— Mr. Cleary," she lowered her gaze, lashes fanning her cheeks, "put in a new stove, something more modern and efficient. A man came to the door just the other day and left a pamphlet so I put it on his desk for his contemplation of the benefits."
"Goodness, that would be an expensive undertaking."
"Sometimes it is necessary to spend in order to save, don't you find? A range that works efficiently will save coin by burning less coal and spoiling fewer ingredients." Mrs. Hopper gave a rigid smile that popped into place and back out again as if on a very tight spring. "I never stand for false economy. But I do not suppose you worry about such matters now."
The cost of a new range, therefore, was dismissed as airily as Mrs. Wilding's offer of advice for dealing with the existing equipment.
Amalie, not required for her contribution to this conversation and definitely a third-class citizen in Mrs. Hopper's view, took the opportunity to look around the parlor and imagine what it must have been like for Miss Sarah Wetherby— as her mistress was then called— to arrive here in the winter and manage all those naughty children, a frantic man, and his dying wife. They had been a family at sea, their journey interrupted by a terrible storm. At such a time, Mrs. Wilding's gentle, steady, no-nonsense nature must have been greatly appreciated to keep their ship on an even keel.
Death was never easy for the folk it left behind. Amalie knew she would rather have the warm comfort of Mrs. Wilding's company at such a time than the cold, curt efficiency of a Mrs. Hopper.
The fireplace, of course, was the center of any home and one's eyes were drawn to it naturally. This one was unused at present, the chimney cold, for they needed no fire in summer. An embroidered screen stood before the hearth and above it, on the mantle, there were several framed silhouettes cut out of black paper. In the middle, a larger oval clearly portrayed the deceased lady of the house. Her husband's profile stood beside hers, their children on either side. It was a sweet family gathering by the fire, as the people themselves must have clustered many a time, before Mrs. Cleary's death.
Amalie recalled her own childhood evenings by the fire at home with Archie McKenna snoring loudly and her mother, fading into her chair, struggling to sew by the weak light of cheap tallow candles. Her mother had taken a long time to die. Sometimes it seemed as if she'd been dying for as long as Amalie could remember. The life had slowly and steadily seeped out of her, leaving a grey shell over thin bones.
She remembered the last time she saw her mother alive, on one of her visits home— a day off in December one year. That was when her mother gave her the silver chocolate pot. It was the one treasure she had left from the comtesse, and she'd kept it hidden from Archie for obvious reasons.
"Take care of it," she'd whispered. "This is all the comtesse and I have to leave to you, Amalie. But surely you will find good use for it. You have grown into a sensible girl and will use it wisely. Sell it if you need coin, but make certain to find a reputable dealer and do not let yourself be cheated."
Three days later, a note was brought to Hanover Square, informing Amalie that her mother was dead. Lady Bramley sent her home at once to mourn, but also to manage the burial arrangements, knowing, probably, that Mr. McKenna would require assistance to blow his own nose and button his waistcoat.
She remembered looking down at Archie as he sat in his usual chair and she stood before the fire, straightening the candleholders on the mantle, wondering who would bother to tidy the place now. How small and shrunken he had looked that day. He'd brought snow and slush in on his boots and it sat in sloppy, careless clumps across the floor her mother had once kept so clean. There was no need to pity the man; he already did that for himself, his mood aided in its progress by the bottle of brandy that rested precariously on his knee, his trembling fist clasped around the neck of it.
"How could she leave me?" he growled. "How could she leave me all alone? Ain't that typical of a woman? Never 'ere when you need one. Always naggin' in your ear when you don't."
It was the last thing she could remember him saying about his wife, as Amalie stood by the mantle. How angry his complaining had made her. Until she felt like a dragon that could breathe fire.
Funny, she had thought, how little attention he'd paid to his wife while she still lived. He had gone off for years when Amalie was a child— took up with another woman for a while. By the time he came back, nobody cared to have him about the place, but they had no choice. The law said he was still the master of the house, however little he contributed to it.
Then he cursed his wife for having the audacity to leave him.
He barely saw Amalie standing there. He had not remembered it was her birthday. Yes, the day her mother died fell upon the anniversary of her birth.
She had tried to show her father the book Lady Bramley gave her as a gift, but he was not interested. He thought it was a mistake for her to read or have any education. But when she sought his attention in this way it reminded him that she was there and that she would soon be gone again; he ought to make use of her before she left.
"Put more coals on the fire before it dies out," he'd barked at her. "'Tis damnable cold."
So she had placed Gulliver's Travels on the mantle while she moved the fire guard and reached for the coal scuttle.
That was the last time she ever went home, the last time she ever saw Archie McKenna or heard his voice.
Later, she had taken out the chocolate pot to look at it more closely. That was when she found Coquin living inside and discovered the full extent of her inheritance. If only her mother had left instructions, but the existence of that naughty spirit had never even been hinted at.
In this vicarage parlor, the deceased Mrs. Iris Cleary's chair might have been supplanted by the stern backside of Mrs. Hopper, but she still took pride of place above the mantle, inside her oval frame. It made Amalie sad to think there was no such memorial of her own mother above the fireplace at home. Was her father still sitting there, bemoaning the sad state of his life and blaming everybody else for it?
Why should she care where he was now? He certainly never wondered what became of her after that last day, did he?
"She's in the walls," exclaimed a soft voice. "She's still there. She's not gone."
Amalie stared harder at the silhouette of Mrs. Iris Cleary and saw the lips move.
"There's something amiss in the walls. And tell them to dust my picture."
"I think I heard the back door and felt a draft," said Mrs. Hopper, smiling, raising a hand to her hair. "It must be Mr. Cleary. He'll be wanting his tea." Now she was fidgety, giddy as a young girl.
"Of course," said Mrs. Wilding, preparing to get up. "we won't keep you. I merely wanted to make certain you were—"
"I hear you live in a haunted house," their hostess exclaimed suddenly, her eyes narrowed.
"Oh, it is not—"
"I have considerable experience of the supernatural. Some people have said I have a talent."
This time Mrs. Wilding said nothing. Perhaps she had given up trying to finish a sentence.
"Ever since I was young, I have been able to communicate with lost souls." The lady looked smug. "So should you need a medium, I am available."
"Is that so?"
Her head very grandly inclined half an inch. "Indeed. I speak every day with poor Mr. Hopper."
A thick silence followed this remark and so finally, Mrs. Wilding uttered their goodbyes and stood.
Before they left the parlor, Amalie sidled over to the mantle and gave Mrs. Cleary's silhouette a quick polish on her sleeve. It was indeed dusty, as were the other ornaments set there. Mrs. Hopper was apparently not so fastidious in her duties as she ought to be. Perhaps she was too busy talking to her dead husband.
The housekeeper glanced over as Amalie was setting the oval frame back in place. Her smile became even more strained, her gaze hardened. "Do come again."
Which was not her place to say, since it was not her house.
After a few more polite inquiries about the Cleary children and the presentation of the gingerbread biscuits, they left the vicarage.
"What do you make of Mrs. Hopper then?" her mistress ventured, as they strode slowly around the common.
"I'm sure she's a pleasant enough person, madam."
"Lukewarm praise indeed, McKenna!"
"She's not much acquainted with a feather duster, madam. For a housekeeper."
Her mistress was amused. "I did not notice. I thought her most...capable and in charge." She paused. "Her dress was very smart and fashionable."
"A housekeeper," Amalie pointed out crisply, "should be neat and clean, rather than elegant and stylish, madam."
"I suppose you are right. I certainly felt quite dowdy beside her."
Amalie had seen the way Mrs. Hopper looked her mistress up and down. "You ought to let me put your hair up in a new style, madam." Aha, she could use this, perhaps, to make Mrs. Wilding sit still longer in the mornings and pay more attention to the efforts of her long-suffering lady's maid.
"I do not compete with other ladies, McKenna. I have always been... just me. Just the way I am. And if other people don't like it...well, that's for them to fret over, not me. I am happy in my own skin. I never cared about the way I looked. It is utterly unimportant. Oh...now I sound like my husband!"
"Yes, you do, madam."
"It is merely that—" She groaned softly, swinging her empty basket. "I suppose I so often feel like a child still. Not a woman. When I meet somebody like Mrs. Hopper, who is so confident, proud and ...and...well, elegant, it makes me feel even younger and sillier. Did you see the little frills upon her sleeves?"
"I did indeed make note of their abundance, madam."
"When she called me the lady of the manor, I wanted to laugh and tell her she was mistaken. It is still so hard for me to comprehend. I was always the girl in the apron and I coped, McKenna, for that was all I knew. I was the girl in the background. The one who stayed strong and never cried or complained. My Aunt Clothilde called me a strange child because of it. But I think I missed out on something that other women have. Something that comes naturally to them. Femininity, perhaps?" She stopped walking then. "What if I am not a good mother? What if I am as terrible at motherhood as Marguerite Wilding once was?"
"Madam, you are accustomed to looking after other people's children. I daresay you have done so admirably." She had seen the Cleary children's fondness for her mistress. "It will not be any different with your own. And you will love them. That is all any child needs to thrive."
"Apart from the practical considerations of food, shelter and good health."
"Well, yes. That too. I do hope you will not let Mrs. Hopper and her sleeves upset you or the master will be cross with me."
"Why would Adam be cross with you?"
"For not making you stay at home and put your feet up. For the baby's sake, madam. I agreed upon a walk to the village with you and now look what happened."
"Good gracious! I shall have calmed down by the time he returns from Shrewsbury. I hope." She looked back across the common toward the vicarage and frowned. "Do you think, McKenna, that I ask too much of my husband by wanting new clothes for him? I did marry a blacksmith, after all, as I said to Mrs. Hopper. It never occurred to me that people, like her, might think I married him because of the Wilding fortune. Do I push too hard? Perhaps I should be content to leave him as he is, with those dreadful old breeches and patched shirts. But I do not want to hold him back. I would hate for him to feel stifled and kept down, now that he is a wealthy man. He should have every chance—"
"Madam, deep down inside you and he will always be the same and clothes won't change that, other than to give you more confidence perhaps. Life is different now, for both of you. You will go to new places, experience new things. It can do no harm to dress for the part so that you do not feel out of place. Inside, you will always be the same good, honest people you were before. Clothes will not alter that. They can only enhance what you are."
"You are very wise for one so young, McKenna."
"I do not feel young, madam."
"No. I know what you mean."
They resumed their walk, but her mistress remained glum.
"I am never generally like this," she continued, studying the scattered clouds that floated across the blue sky. "Thank goodness my husband does not see me moping like a wet rag, or he would think me ill and send for the doctor. I do not know what puts me in this mawkish, doubting mood, McKenna."
"A new husband, a very old house and impending motherhood, madam. And the sneering appraisal of Mrs. Hopper. For once I must agree with Biddy and say that lady is no better than she should be. What you need is a nice scented bath and a foot rub."
"That does sound nice." She sighed. "I was perfectly alright until Mrs. Hopper called me lady of the manor in that way, while looking at my muddy hem and dowdy sleeves. Then subtly suggesting I'm a mercenary hussy."
"It would do no harm, madam," Amalie ventured, trying not to laugh, "to bring out your full potential rather than let it go to waste. Why should you feel dowdy beside anybody? A woman should feel beautiful every day."
"Even if she is only getting dressed to clean an old house and walk through sawdust?"
Amalie smiled. "Especially then, madam. You could put Mrs. Hopper in the shade and no mistake."
"But I'm exhausted just thinking of the effort it would take to make myself pretty."
"That's why you have me, madam. That's my job."
They passed the blacksmith's forge, where Mrs. Wilding paused to have a word with her husband's apprentice and ask after his mother, and then they continued on their path toward the woods.
"I was always so practical, McKenna. I was the one who made do. But I had no coin at my disposal then. Or a house of my own to decorate. Or a husband. It's all rather intimidating."
"Well, I daresay it must be so for Mr. Wilding too, madam. He never had a wife before, did he? Or a fortune to manage."
The lady thought about this for a moment and then nodded. "You are right, McKenna. I must make a better effort myself if I am to make him interested in new clothes too. I would never want people to look down upon him, the way Mrs. Hopper just looked at me." She suddenly seized Amalie's arm and hooked her own around it. "I shall let you be a proper lady's maid to me, as long as you help Jones become a better valet. There, we shall make a pledge to behave ourselves."
They had not gone much farther when the valet, Jones, appeared before them, walking with a brisk stride and a frown on his face.
"There you both are," he exclaimed crossly. "I wish people would tell me when they're going out."
"I beg your pardon?" said Mrs. Wilding.
Now he looked confused, coming to a halt and scratching his head. "I meant, madam, that you should inform me if you are leaving the house." He stared directly at Amalie. "Nobody knew where you'd gone."
"And is there some matter for which you needed me, Jones?" asked Mrs. Wilding.
"Well, I—we were concerned, madam. You never know what dangers might be about."
The mistress almost laughed. "In Slowly Fell? This is not London, Jones. You need not be anxious." Then she paused and looked thoughtful. "Or is there something you have to tell me? Some danger of which I am unaware?"
"No, madam." He avoided Amalie's gaze and looked away at the trees. "I just wish I might be informed when folk are leaving the grounds."
"As my husband's valet, it is hardly your concern where I go."
Again he scratched his head. "When the master left for Shrewsbury, he put the responsibility for your safety in my hands, madam."
"Very well, Jones. But you needn't be quite so stern about it."
He moved aside, and the two women walked on, arm in arm, leaving him to follow.
Her mistress leaned closer to whisper, "I believe Jones has his eye on you."
"Madam?"
"He came to look for you, of course."
"I think not, madam." She hoped not. "Why would he do that?"
"Have you not seen the way he looks at you, McKenna?"
"It makes no odds to me, madam. I have work to do, even if he doesn't."
Every part of her body was now terribly aware of his presence, his footsteps following them along the path, even his breath. Had he come out to look for her?
"I've done naught to encourage him," she added anxiously.
"Some men do not need encouragement, and he is the bold sort."
So why did he pretend not to remember holding her hand in the churchyard and begging her to "Stay beside me"?
Was there some reason to hide the truth about how he spent those lost days between his appearance among the gravestones in the rain and his eventual arrival at the front door of Slowly Rising?
He confused her, for in many ways he acted like a typical male, but in others...there was something adrift. Stay beside me.
Amalie had little time for neediness and whining; she'd had enough of that from her father. But this was different, it was heartfelt. At least, it had fooled her into believing him for those few startled breaths under the lych-gate. Had he made a fool of her then?
"My husband says Jones was raised in an orphanage and then a workhouse," said Mrs. Wilding. "It must have been a terrible childhood. Very few survive such a life."
"Yes. He has spoken of it."
"But he has risen up since then and made something of his life. That is admirable, is it not?"
"Yes, madam. I suppose so." She thought of him bent over the table, studying the newspaper, his dictionary at the ready beside it.
"You do not like him, McKenna?"
"I do not know what I think of him, madam." She was afraid to think anything of him, in fact.
"I understand he has a fond eye for pink stockings. Perhaps that's the trouble."
Amalie felt a quick blush warm her cheeks. Pink stockings and other similar frilly things were her great weakness. She had always envied the comtesse her many pretty, lacy and extravagant under-things, so as soon as she made any coin herself, she had bought some. Really she did not know what came over her, but it was a vice she could not give up. Now, it seemed, this feminine flaw had brought her to the attention of Gideon Jones
He must have done well for himself to have earned Lady Bramley's admiration," her mistress added.
"Although he is not what I would expect her ladyship to send here as a valet, madam."
"True. But my husband likes him. I suppose she must have known that he would suit. Her ladyship has an eye for these things. After all, she chose you for me, McKenna, and I could not have asked for a better lady's maid to boost my confidence in the forbidding face of the Mrs. Hoppers of this world."
She tried to smile, but found it wiped from her lips before it had properly formed. For ahead of them, sitting in the branches of a tree, sat those three black crows, staring down through the leaves, their beady eyes unblinking.
The valet, Jones, was still behind them, whistling Frere Jacques.
Damn him. He must have heard Coquin singing that tune when he crept into her room uninvited. It would be far too great a coincidence for that man to know the tune and have it stuck in his head otherwise. He must be curious about the silver chocolate pot, but he did not mention that to her either, just like their meeting in the churchyard.
"It is not proper, madam, for a valet to whistle," she said to her mistress, "and I wager he has his hands in his pockets."
Mrs. Wilding laughed. "I daresay you are right, McKenna, but we shall not turn and look and then I won't have to reprimand him."
Amalie shook her head. If her mistress refused to correct the man's behavior, how would he learn?
"Do not be so hard on Jones," her mistress whispered. "We need him on our side."
She remembered how Mrs. Wilding was able to smile and guide her husband with sweetness and honey rather than a sharp tongue. Perhaps she ought to try it for a change.
Had she been too hard on the valet?
"Do you think Mrs. Hopper really talks to her dead husband?" her mistress asked suddenly.
She answered carefully, "Some folk believe in that sort of thing, madam."
"Poor Mr. Hopper," the lady replied with a soft chuckle. "Even in death he cannot get away from his wife."
"Or finish a sentence, no doubt," Amalie added.
They both laughed at that.