Chapter Two

NATURALLY VALERIA HAD NO INTENTION of returning to the kitchen garden; angrily she thought of her watercolor cakes baking out in the August sun. After she left the drawing room she went upstairs to find Craigie. When they had guests, Craigie normally worked down in the servants’ workroom, ironing, sewing, attending to Lady Maledon’s wardrobe. But Valeria had noted that she wasn’t there when she took Mary Louise down, so it was likely that Craigie was in her mother’s sitting room and dressing room, which adjoined Lady Maledon’s bedchamber.

Valeria was relieved to find her there. One of her mother’s evening gowns, a satin of a deep emerald green, was hung on the dress form, and Craigie sat on the floor, sewing. The dress had a short train, and one of the bottom flounces of white lace had loosened. Craigie was a sturdily built, lively woman, a year older than Valeria’s mother, though she didn’t look it. She had bright red hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. She was pretty in an impish sort of way.

Valeria sat down on the floor beside her, ripped off her hat, and sighed dramatically. “Oh, Craigie, I must talk to you.”

“Why? What’s happened? And look at you, flinging yourself about like a dairymaid. If you must sit on the floor, at least sit up straight and tuck your legs in proper,” she said sternly.

“I can’t think that it matters, no one will see me,” Valeria mumbled, but she did straighten her back and primly pull her ankles to the side.

Regina Maledon had a long history with Elspeth Craigie Platt. Craigie was, in fact, much more of a friend and confidante to Regina than she was a servant. Craigie and Regina had faced some hard times together.

When Regina Carew, at sixteen years of age, married Baron Segrave of Ryals, Elspeth Craigie had been a housemaid at Ryalsmere, the family seat. A week after their marriage, Regina took Elspeth on as her lady’s maid, and, as was proper, started calling her “Craigie.” The two young girls grew very close. The next year, when Valeria was born, Craigie was as overjoyed as Regina and Lord Segrave. Craigie loved children, and had confided to Regina that she hoped to marry and have at least six of her own. It was only natural, and was Craigie’s wish, that she serve both as Regina’s lady’s maid and as Valeria’s nurse.

Two years later Craigie fell in love with the baron’s head groom, Ewan Platt, a big, strapping, handsome man with tow-colored hair, blue eyes, and a ready smile. In most great houses, servants weren’t allowed to marry. But Lord Segrave was a kind and understanding man, and he made special allowances for his servants, and allowed Craigie and Ewan to marry, even providing them with a cottage on the estate. Though Craigie’s wish to start having children immediately didn’t come true, she and Ewan were very happy. Ewan and Lord Segrave were on friendly terms, as Segrave was an avid horseman and Ewan Platt was a wizard with horses. Craigie had Regina, and she had Valeria.

Life at Ryalsmere was very good until 1798. On November first of that year, All Saints’ Day, Guy, Lord Segrave, died at thirty-three years old. He and Ewan were out on the wild Northumberland moors, making visits to tenant farmers. It had snowed about two inches the night before, but the day was sunny and much warmer.

Later that night, his face streaming with tears, Ewan told Regina and Craigie, “He was looking back at me, talking of fixing up old Mr. Culver’s cottage. Then, as fast as lightning strikin’, Agrippa rears, screams, crashes down…by the time I got there I saw the adder a-slithering off, the devil! His lordship, he kept his seat, and…he…his head…” Then he had broken off into harsh sobs. As the horse had fallen onto his side, Guy’s head had smashed against the same stone that the adder had been sunning on. He had died instantly.

At twenty-two years of age Regina, Lady Segrave, was a widow; and Valeria, at five years old, was fatherless.

As the years passed, through her own intuition, and from many things that Craigie had told her, Valeria had come to clearly see how important Craigie—and, for that matter, her husband Ewan—were to her mother. If it hadn’t been for them, Regina might have slipped into a precarious decline after Valeria’s father died. Her mother enjoyed fine physical health, but she was emotionally fragile. And, with customary sorrow, Valeria thought of how she had realized that Regina Segrave had loved her first husband utterly, to the very core of her soul.

And now? How had her mother come to marry such a man as Lord Maledon? Why?

“And so, are you going to tell me what’s got you all in a to-do?” Craigie asked, interrupting Valeria’s thoughts. “Or are you going to just sit there all sour and pruney-faced? Keep it up, it might get stuck that way, missie.”

Her voice hard and angry, Valeria told Craigie all about the scene in the kitchen garden. As she spoke, Craigie stopped sewing and fixed her eyes on Valeria’s face. Slowly her cheerful countenance grew cold, and her eyes narrowed.

“…and Mamma made me feel awful about Mary Louise. But it wasn’t my fault!” Valeria finished bitterly.

“No, it wasn’t,” Craigie said tightly. Then, her voice softening, she said, “I know the unfairness of it galls you. But you did the right thing, the Christian thing, in protecting that poor little girl. And your mother.”

“But for how long? If they keep on with this brazen behavior, my mother is sure to find out!” Valeria burst out with anguish.

“Aye, that’s likely,” Craigie said sadly. “But there’s naught you nor I nor anyone can do about that.”

Valeria wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees. Normally Craigie fussed when she did this, but now she seemed not to notice. Valeria said in a subdued voice, “That woman, Lady Jex-Blake. She looked wanton, like a cheap prostitute.”

“And how would you be knowing what a cheap prostitute looks like?” Craigie snapped. “For all I have to agree with you. Wearing that low-cut gown during the day, with not a sign of a fichu or chemisette, she’s no better than she ought to be.”

“They’re all of them just awful. Who are these people?” Valeria demanded.

Three days ago a message had been sent from London, from Lord Maledon, saying that he was bringing a party of five to Bellegarde Hall. They would arrive the next afternoon. It had been unforgivably rude for him to arrange such a large party without consulting with his wife; normally it took two or three weeks to make arrangements for five guests. Mrs. Banyard, the kitchen maids, and both footmen had been dispatched to scour the countryside for supplies. Then, to add insult to injury, the party had arrived at nine-thirty at night, when dinner had been ready since eight o’clock; and they were all, to one degree or another, drunk. Valeria had understood, when her stepfather made his careless introductions, that her mother had not been previously acquainted with any of the guests.

Valeria glanced at Craigie, who was mutinously silent. She knew that Craigie often struggled with how much to expose her to the seamier side of the world. “You can’t protect me, Craigie. I have to deal with them, just as my mother does. It’s ridiculous, really, that the servants should know more about our guests than I do.”

“’S’true, we all know of them, mostly from that Thrale,” she finally said with disdain. Robert Thrale was Lord Maledon’s valet, a tall, dark man of twenty-five with a supercilious demeanor. Only the servants knew how insolent he had increasingly become in the last two years.

“Thrale,” Valeria repeated, grimacing. “I’m glad I hardly ever see him.”

“As am I, he’s a bad ’un, no doubt about it,” Craigie asserted, “and he’ll tell anything and everything he hears about anybody, including his lordship. I’m of the mind that if Lord Maledon knew about his viper’s tongue he’d send him packing.”

“What? What does he say about my stepfather?” Valeria demanded.

Craigie frowned. “Personal private things that ought never to be said, and I’m not going to repeat them. That would make me just as bad as him. Why, I think the Lord might strike me down dead if I told private things about your mother!”

“Yes, yes, I see, Craigie,” Valeria said thoughtfully. “You’re right. But you can tell me about our guests, can’t you? Surely you owe no such loyalty to them. It’s just that I’ve never met people such as them; I don’t know how to treat them.”

“You’ll treat them the way all fine ladies treat such people, as your mother does, with courtesy, for that’s the only way you’ll keep your dignity,” Craigie said smartly. “Taking notice of their bad behavior is beneath you.”

Valeria couldn’t help but smile. “It was a little hard not to notice the behavior in the kitchen garden, Craigie.”

Craigie wasn’t amused. “Just so,” she sniffed. “And that’s why I don’t feel the least guilty for telling you about these people.

“Lady Jex-Blake, as she is now, but when she were a housemaid for old doddering Sir Henry Jex-Blake she was plain Mavis Horner. Fool that he was, he married her when he were seventy-seven and she but twenty-five, and he obliged her by keeling over dead last year. No crape nor black bombazine for that one! Word is she were in London a month later, for the Season.”

“And so my stepfather met her there, and I’m assuming the rest of them too. How nice for him to make such fine new acquaintances during the Season,” Valeria said acidly. “If this is the crowd he’s running with now, I’m glad that my mother and I weren’t there!”

“And don’t I just wish he’d left them there,” Craigie muttered. “I see what Lady Jex-Blake is all about, and I’m thinking I know about the others too. Mrs. Purefoy and her sister Miss Shadwell, you know, are daughters of a gentleman, a respectable squire with a fair estate over in Surrey. Mrs. Purefoy married a Dr. Purefoy from there, and it’s my understanding that she nags him all the day long to move to London and open a practice there for the Quality, like she would know what that were if it bit her on the nose. But there you are, her and her sister both are hangers-on, trying to climb up by hook or claw. I’m thinking their friends are going to get that tired of hearing about the Earl of Maledon.”

“I thought that about them too. Their fawning manners embarrass me. Miss Shadwell actually asked me to call her ‘Kit,’ did you know?” Valeria said with delicate distaste. In a falsetto mocking voice she went on, “Oooh, my name is Katherine, but I do so dislike ‘Kathy’ or ‘Kate,’ but I simply adore ‘Kit,’ all my friends call me ‘Kit,’ and we are going to be good friends, aren’t we, Miss Segrave?”

Craigie’s bright smile showed itself again. “And what did you answer, may I ask?”

“I said, ‘I find that it takes me many years before I consider a person a “good friend.”’ That put paid to that nonsense quickly. As I said, it’s a shame that she goes on and on, so coy and sickening-sweet, all of it such a pretense. If she would just be herself I might like her.”

“I doubt it,” Craigie said dryly. “She’s a-carryin’ on with that Mr. Mayhew, you know.”

Valeria’s eyes widened. “What? Here?”

“’S’far as I know, no one’s seen them in what you might call a compromising position here.”

“‘The Honourable’ Henry Mayhew,’” Valeria said. “Mamma did tell me that he’s the son of a viscount. That would be quite a catch for Miss Shadwell, even though he’s a younger son. I thought she was very flirtatious to him, but with her it’s so hard to tell, she makes love to everyone.”

“How has he been with you, missie?” Craigie asked shrewdly.

“With me? He’s treated me with the same bored disdain that he treats everyone, it seems, the silly fop. The only time I’ve seen him show any sign of life was at the card table, and he won a hand or two, I believe. His bleary eyes were quite sharp when they were gambling.”

“Ah, but he lost too, didn’t he? I heard that Lady Jex-Blake took all of the gentlemen last night.”

Valeria was bemused; again the servants knew more about the family’s activities than she did. Valeria, her mother, Mrs. Purefoy, and Miss Shadwell had been playing a sedate game of whist while Lady Jex-Blake had played all fours with the gentlemen. Valeria herself didn’t know who had won and who had lost at the next table. “Did she? They were so loud and boisterous I finally just made myself ignore them.”

“Oh, yes, your stepfather lost nineteen pound—nineteen pound! Though he laughed about it. Mr. Mayhew lost eight pound, and he can ill afford to lose it, for he’s far overspent on his allowance and deep in debt, I hear. He’s the fifth son, you know, and Lord Erdeswick’s loath to keep bailing him out. Miss Shadwell might as well forget the likes of him, he’ll be finding himself some stupid young girl, daughter of a merchant, I would imagine, with a hefty portion. And Colonel Bayliss is little better off, he’s running his farm into the ground to finance his horses and carriages and town house and all his airs.”

Valeria felt a deep shudder of revulsion at the mention of Colonel Bayliss’s name. He was about the same age as her stepfather, in his early fifties, she supposed, a big bluff man with a barrel chest and thinning dark hair and small dark eyes. As he spoke to her, his gaze constantly crawled from her face down to her breasts in the most disagreeable manner imaginable. That had been bad enough, but then she had seen him do the same to her mother, and it had sickened Valeria so much that she could hardly eat.

“What is wrong with my stepfather?” she asked gutturally. “How can he subject my mother to this?”

Craigie’s mouth tightened. “I think he’s sick.”

“You mean his dyspepsia? For two years now that’s all he’s complained about! Indigestion is no excuse for his horrible behavior!”

“That’s not what I mean. I think something is really wrong with him, and it’s affected his mind, like.”

Alertly Valeria asked, “Has my mother said something to that effect?”

“No. But she wouldn’t, even if that’s what she thinks, not even to me.”

Valeria grew quiet. She remembered when her mother had first married Lord Maledon. She was eleven, and all she could think of him was that he was so very old. She had come to understand that he wasn’t, really; he had been forty-four when he married Regina. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a fine physique, thick salt-and-pepper hair, and a well-formed, strong face. In the last two years, however, he had aged much, and not well. He had developed a big belly while his legs and arms had grown thinner. His face was always red, and a tracery of crimson vein-lines had developed on his nose. Valeria thought this wasn’t surprising, for he had begun to drink great quantities of port wine.

“I think he drinks too much,” she said angrily, “and that’s an even more pitiful excuse than dyspepsia. And he looks awful. How can my mother love him? Does she? Does my mother really love him, Craigie?”

Craigie’s eyes softened to a velvety blue, and she reached out and patted Valeria’s hand. “The things that I most admire about your mother are her code of honor, her loyalty, and her sense of duty. In those three things she’s the strongest person I’ve ever had the blessing to know. Yes, she loves him. You and I may not be able to understand it, dear, but Lady Maledon loves her husband.”

*  *  *

As Valeria walked the half mile across the park to the orchards later that day, she thought long and hard about what Craigie had said about her mother’s loving Lord Maledon. She often thought about, wondered about, and dreamed about Love. She had a passionate nature, and she longed to fall in love with a handsome, strong, intelligent, witty man who, of course, adored her. This man was rather vague in her imaginings. Valeria had never conceived a crush on anyone, and so her dream lover was more of a thought than a vision. The few young men she had met had been, she thought, singularly unimpressive. Like the Honourable Henry Mayhew, with his affected heavy-lidded bored expression and dreary conversation.

And what about her mother and Lord Maledon? How could her mother love him? Or, more to the point, was her mother in love with him?

Is there a difference? she wondered. Or is “falling in love” some sort of illusion? Valeria honestly didn’t know. The only thing she did know was that she couldn’t possibly marry a man whom she merely esteemed and respected, if that was what her mother felt for Maledon, or at least had when she married him. Valeria knew she would have to love a man breathlessly, passionately, hopelessly before she could contemplate spending her life with him.

As if I should worry about it, she thought moodily. My stepfather is never going to let me go to London, and the chances of meeting a man here are very slim. I’ll probably end up a lonely spinster.

Valeria was supposed to come out, and be presented at court, in the previous London Season, when she had turned seventeen. But her stepfather had told her mother and her that, due to King George’s illness, no Drawing Rooms were being held by Queen Charlotte and it would do no good for them to go to London. He himself had gone because the beginning of the Season coincided with the opening of Parliament, and of course the Earl of Maledon sat in the House of Lords.

This year he hadn’t even attempted to make any excuses, and Valeria hadn’t asked him about her presentation at court, or going to London. By then she’d been loath to ask him for anything.

Valeria’s bleak mood lightened when she reached the orchards. They covered several acres, with the walnut, plum, and cherry trees planted in neat long rows. The walnuts would not be ready for harvest until next month, but the plums and cherries were in season. Almost every tree had a ladder against it, with the regular gardeners, their children, and many of the children and young people from surrounding farms picking the ripe golden plums and the bunches of crimson cherries. Every man and boy doffed his cap as she passed, and the young girls made shaky little bobs on their ladders.

Valeria saw Tollar picking plums and whistling, and with a little chill of dread she wondered if he had still been in the arbor when Lord Maledon and Lady Jex-Blake had come blithely running by. Of course he must have been, Valeria had passed him and Skelley only a few moments before. But as Tollar looked up, then doffed his cap to her, she saw no sign on his homely honest face, which made her feel a little better. “Have you seen my brother and Niall, by any chance, Tollar?” she called up to him.

“Yes, miss, they’m in the cherry orchard. I’m of a mind that there’s a bit of a race on to see who can pick the mostest cherries,” he answered cheerfully.

In truth, the servants weren’t supposed to speak unless spoken to, and when asked a question, they weren’t supposed to say a single word except to answer it. But in spite of the fact that Valeria barely knew the house servants, she knew all the gardeners because of her constant roaming about the grounds, gardens, and park, and because since she had arrived at Bellegarde Hall she had, over the course of the years, probably asked every one of them at least ten thousand questions. They were more at ease with her than were the house servants.

“Oh dear, poor Mr. Chalmers,” she sighed. “He does have such a time keeping those two little rogues out of trouble.”

“Don’t we all, miss?” Tollar grinned.

Niall was Craigie’s and Ewan Platt’s son, not quite a year older than St. John. Like his mother and father, Niall held a special place in the family—at least with Regina and Valeria and St. John, if not with St. John’s father the earl.

Craigie had finally gotten pregnant in 1804, after she and Ewan had been married for nine years. Regina had been rapturously happy for her. When she had gone into labor, Regina insisted that she be moved into one of the guest bedchambers and be attended by her own midwife and physician. It was fortunate that Craigie had such expert attendants, because the delivery had been a nightmare. After twenty long excruciating hours of labor, it was seen that the baby was in a breech presentation. At first the physician had thought that he might have to call in a surgeon to perform a cesarean section—an almost certain sentence of death for Craigie. Sepsis nearly always followed any abdominal surgery.

But the midwife, an old woman who had attended over three hundred births, had been able to shift the baby, and Niall was born a strong, strapping, healthy child. Unfortunately Craigie had been damaged internally, and would conceive no more. In the midst of her joy, Craigie mourned, and Regina mourned with her as deeply as any sister ever could have.

A year later, when St. John was born, it was inevitable that Craigie would be his nurse; indeed Valeria thought wryly that it would have been impossible for anyone to stop her. Certainly her stepfather hadn’t been able to. He objected strenuously to the son of a coachman and lady’s maid being brought up in the same nursery as his own son, but somehow—Valeria wasn’t sure how—her mother had been able to persuade him. And again, when St. John turned five, Lord Maledon had engaged a tutor for him, a distant cousin named Gordon Chalmers, and there was Niall, in the schoolroom. Valeria smiled as she thought of how her stepfather had grumbled; yet he allowed it.

Ahead she heard the piping voice of her brother, six-year-old St. John. “I’m picking faster than you, Nee-All! My side of the tree will be finished before your side of the tree!”

“Oh, no you don’t, Sayeent Jawn! I’m taller, I can pick higher!” Niall taunted back.

Valeria giggled as she heard them teasing each other about their names. The name St. John was pronounced Sinjin, and Niall was pronounced Neel. They had called each other by the correct pronunciations since they both were able to talk, but when they had learned the spellings, they had been greatly amused, and had teased each other ever since. Niall had much more ammunition than the son of the Earl of Maledon, for St. John’s full name was St. John Charles George Bellegarde, his courtesy title was Viscount Stamborne, and he was supposed to be addressed as Lord Stamborne. Niall carefully called him “my lord” and referred to him as “Lord Stamborne” in front of adults, particularly Lord Maledon; but when they were at leisure he made up creative nicknames. Sadly for St. John, there was not much he could do with plain “Niall Platt,” but he still managed some puns about nails and flats and knees.

Valeria found the tree they had attacked, for on either side a ladder reached up into the thick foliage with hardly a sign of the boys buried in it, and their tutor, Mr. Chalmers, stood at the foot of one ladder, glowering. “My lord, get back down on that third step or I shall climb up there and haul you down bodily!” he shouted.

A vague “Yes, sir,” was heard; branches shook and foliage rustled. Then St. John fell.

With a quickness and agility that Valeria could hardly credit to Mr. Chalmers, he stepped over and neatly caught St. John in his arms. But Mr. Chalmers was neither sturdy nor strong, and he crashed straight down onto his back, with St. John ending up sitting on his stomach.

Valeria rushed to her brother and slid to her knees. “St. John, are you hurt?” she cried.

He blinked. “Hullo, Veri. No, I’m not hurt.”

“Are you sure?”

He stood up and stared down at his tutor. “Quite sure, thank you. Mr. Chalmers caught me.”

Valeria looked down. Mr. Chalmers seemed to be in great distress. His blue eyes were stretched wide, and his mouth was gaping open. Valeria snatched off her hat and began fanning him with it. “Oh, Mr. Chalmers, please, do you—are you—” She was very frightened that he might be having apoplexy, or perhaps heart failure.

“I think I squashed the breath out of him,” St. John observed. “It happened to me once, when Niall hit me in the stomach with a cricket ball. I couldn’t catch my breath for it seemed like forever.”

Niall had hopped down and was standing over Mr. Chalmers. He muttered, “I didn’t mean to.”

Valeria had never been in the position of having the breath knocked out of her, and she thought Mr. Chalmers looked near death. The expression on his face was one of utter horror. Finally he gasped, and gulped in a deep breath. “Miss Segrave! I do beg your pardon!” he grunted painfully.

“What?” she said blankly.

He struggled, flopping a little and still gasping. Two gardeners who had come running up took his hands and helped him to rise. They started brushing him off, and he murmured in confusion, “No, really…thank you…no, that’s fine…where is my hat?”

Valeria retrieved his straw hat and handed it to him. He put it on, then snatched it back off and made a shaky bow. “Miss Segrave, I do beg your pardon,” he said again.

“Why should you beg my pardon, sir?” she rasped.

It’s the way with adults who’ve witnessed a child doing a stupid, dangerous thing to get angry when they see the child is really all right. Valeria rounded on her brother. “St. John! Whatever were you thinking? You frightened me half to death, never mind squashing out poor Mr. Chalmers’s air!”

“Sorry,” he murmured. He bent his head, the crisp brown curls shining in the sun, and scuffed the grass with one toe. “I only wanted to pick some cherries that were up high.” He looked back up at her, and Valeria could see real repentance in his unusual tawny brown eyes.

Sternly she said, “You must apologize to Mr. Chalmers.”

St. John went to stand in front of his tutor and looked up at him appealingly. “I’m sorry I climbed too high, and fell down and squashed you, sir.”

“That’s all very well,” he said kindly. “But next time, you will do as I say, and not climb up to the very top rung.”

“So there will be a next time, sir?” St. John asked brightly.

“Yes, but not today. Getting squashed once a day is quite enough for me.” He turned back to Valeria and made another bow, this time with elegance. “Miss Segrave, now that I have regained a semblance of my senses, I will say good afternoon in a more civilized manner.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Chalmers,” she said, smiling. “Please don’t worry, your manners are always without fault, even when you are—um—breathless. I came out, thinking I might do some cherry-picking myself, but I agree with you, I think we’ve had quite enough of that today. Why don’t we return to the house, and have a cup of tea? I feel I need the fortification, and I’m certain that you must.”

“But Veri, my bag is still up in the tree, and I’m sure I picked more than Niall,” St. John said in a small voice.

“Before you toppled out of the tree like a dead crow?” Niall snickered.

“That’s enough,” Mr. Chalmers said sternly. “Miss Segrave has expressed a wish to return to the house and have a cup of tea. Gentlemen always accede to a lady’s wishes.”

Valeria came close to him and looked up expectantly. His fair smooth cheeks colored slightly, and he offered her his arm. He never made this gesture unless Valeria initiated it, she had found.

Valeria always made an effort to put him at ease, and she often wondered why it was necessary. Mr. Chalmers was masterful and authoritative with the boys, and was deferential but not unduly so to Lord and Lady Maledon. At first Valeria had thought that he was shy of her because she was the daughter of a peer, but since he had such an easy attitude with her mother and stepfather she knew that his diffidence with her couldn’t be attributed to the awe that many commoners had for the nobility. Valeria really didn’t know why she seemed to make him nervous, but she liked the tutor, so she did her best to overcome his reticence.

“May we run?” St. John asked, his eyes again bright.

“You may,” Mr. Chalmers said, and both boys took off.

Valeria called, “St. John, tell Trueman we’ll have tea in the glade by the weeping ash tree.” Her brother turned and gave a cheerful wave.