Читать книгу The Gamekeeper's Lady - Ann Lethbridge - Страница 10

‘There you are, Miss Frederica.’ The butler, Mr Sniv-ely, emerged from the shadows at the bottom of the staircase. He gave her a small smile. ‘I thought I better warn you, Lord Wynchwood is asking for you. He is in his study.’

Frederica winced. ‘Thank you, S-Snively. What is his current m-mood?’

Snively’s muddy eyes twinkled, but there was sadness in them too. ‘He’s seems a little irritated, miss. Not his normal sunny self.’ He winked.

She almost laughed. ‘It’s probably his g-gout.’

‘Yes, miss.’

‘And the w-weather. And the state of the Funds.’

‘Yes, miss. And I gather he’s lost his glasses.’

She grinned. ‘Again. I’ll go to him the moment I am changed.’

Snively shook his head and the wrinkles in his bulldog face seemed to deepen. ‘No point, miss, he knows you took Pippin.’

Dash it all. One of the grooms must have reported her hasty departure. She sighed. ‘I’ll go right away. Thank you, Snively.’

He looked inclined to speak, then pressed his lips together.

‘Is there s-something else?’

‘His lordship received a letter from a London lawyer yesterday. It seems to have put him in a bit of a fuss. Made him fidgety.’ Snively sounded worried. ‘I wondered if he said anything about it?’

Uncle Mortimer was always fidgety. She stripped off her gloves and bonnet and handed them to him. ‘Perhaps Mr Simon Bracewell is in need of funds again. Or perhaps it is merely excitement over my p-pending nuptials.’

Snively’s dropping jaw was more than satisfying. He looked as horrified as she felt. He recovered quickly, smoothing his face into its customary bland butler’s mask. But his flinty eyes told a different story. ‘Is it appropriate to offer my congratulations?’

‘N-not really.’ All the frustration she’d felt when Uncle Mortimer made the announcement swept over her. ‘I’m to m-marry my cousin S-Simon.’ After years of him indicating he wished she wasn’t part of his family at all.

His eyes widened. His mouth grew grim. ‘Oh, no.’

She took a huge breath. ‘Precisely.’ Unable to bring herself to attempt another word, she headed for the study to see what Great-Uncle Mortimer wanted. Steps dragging, she traversed the brown runner covering a strip of ancient flagstones. This part of Wynchwood Hall always struck a chill on her skin as if damp clung to the walls like slime on a stagnant pond.

A quick breath, a light knock on the study door and she strode in.

Great-Uncle Mortimer sat in a wing chair beside the fire, a shawl around his shoulders, his feet immersed in a white china bowl full of steaming water and a mustard plaster on his chest.

In his old-fashioned wig, his nose pink from a cold and his short-sighted eyes peering over his spectacles at the letter in his hand, he looked more like a mole than usual.

He glanced up and shoved the paper down the side of the chair. Was that the lawyer’s letter to which Sniv-ely referred? Or another letter from Simon begging for funds?

‘Shut the door, girl. Do you want me to perish of the ague?’

She whisked the door shut and winced as the curtains at the windows rippled.

‘The draught,’ he moaned.

‘Sorry, Uncle.’

‘I don’t know what it is about you, girl. Dashing about the countryside, leaving doors open on ailing relatives. You are supposed to make yourself useful, not overset my nerves. Have you learned nothing?’

He put a hand up to forestall her defence. ‘What sort of start sent you racing off this morning? I needed you here.’

Of all her so-called relatives, she liked her uncle the best since he rarely had enough energy to notice her existence.

‘I d-don’t—’

‘Don’t know? You must know.’

She gulped in a deep breath. ‘I don’t want to marry S-S—’

‘Simon. And that’s the reason you dashed off on Pippin?’

She nodded.

‘Ridiculous.’ He leaned his head against the chair back and closed his eyes as if gathering strength. ‘I am old. I need to know that my affairs are in order. Simon has kindly offered to alleviate me of one of my worries. It is the perfect solution. You do not have to get along, you just have to do your duty and give him a son. Surely you would like a house and children of your own, would you not?’

A dream for most normal women, the image sent a chill down her spine. ‘No.’

‘There is no alternative.’

‘I can s-support myself.’

His bushy eyebrows shot up and he opened his eyes. ‘How? Good God, you can scarcely string two words together.’

Heat rushed up to her hairline. Anger. ‘I d-draw. Art.’ Even as she said the words, she knew her mistake.

His face darkened. He sat up straight. ‘What respectable woman earns money from daubing?’ He made it sound like she had proposed selling her body.

‘I’m not r-respectable.’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘You have been brought up to be respectable. You will not bring shame on this family.’

Like your mother. Like the Wynchwood Whore. He didn’t say it, but she could see he was thinking it by the tight set to his mouth and the jut of his jaw.

Dare she tell him about the drawings she’d already sold? Prove she could manage by herself? The money she earned would give her an independence. Barely. What if he prevented her from completing the last pictures of the series? It would void her contract, a contract she’d signed pretending to be a man. She sealed the words behind her firmly closed lips. Not that he ever let her finish a sentence.

‘And another thing,’ he said. ‘No more excursions on Pippin. There is too much to do around this house.’

She stared at him. ‘W-what things?’

‘Simon is bringing guests for the ball. There will be hunting, entertainments, things like that to arrange. I will need your help.’

Horror rose up like a lump in her throat. ‘G-guests?’

‘Yes. The ball will also serve as your come out.’

A rush of blood to her head made her feel dizzy. ‘A come out?’

Mortimer tugged his shawl closer about his shoulders. ‘Don’t look surprised. Anyone would think this family treated you badly. It is high time you entered society if you are going to be Simon’s wife. We can hope no one remembers your mother any more.’

‘I d-d-d—’

Mortimer thumped the arm of his chair with a clenched fist. ‘Enough,’ he yelled. He lowered his voice. ‘Damn it. Any other girl your age would be in alt at so generous an offer. Make an effort, girl. Why, you are practically on the shelf.’

‘I w-w-w—’

‘Will.’

Breathe in. Breathe out. ‘Won’t. I don’t want a husband.’ A husband would ruin all her hopes for the future.

The red in Mortimer’s face darkened to puce and his ears flushed vermilion. He reminded her of an angry sunset, the kind that heralded a storm. His bushy grey brows drew together over his pitted nose. ‘I am the head of this family and I say you will obey me or face the consequences.’

Did he think she feared a diet of bread and water or isolation in her room? ‘I—’

‘No more arguments, Frederica. It is decided. I have only your best interests in mind. I have clearly allowed you far too much liberty if your head is full of such nonsense. Art, indeed. Where did you ever get such a notion?’

‘I…’ Oh, what was the point? She didn’t really know where the notion came from anyway.

‘What you need to do, girl, is learn to make yourself useful. Find my glasses. I know I had them here earlier.’ He poked around in the folds of his robe.

Frederica stifled a sigh. ‘Uncle.’

He looked up. She pointed to her nose and he put a hand up to his face. ‘Ah. There they are. Now run along and prepare for our guests. Hurry up before you add a headache to my ills.’

Mortimer pressed one gnarled hand against his poultice and closed his eyes. ‘Ask Snively for more hot water on your way out.’

Dismissed, Frederica lowered her gaze and dropped a respectful curtsy. ‘Yes, Uncle.’

She turned and left swiftly, before he found some other task for her to do. It was no good fighting the stubborn man head on. And Snively was right, he was unusually crotchety. And this idea of his to marry her to Simon was strange to say the least. He’d never expressed a jot of interest in her future before. Perhaps age was catching up to him.

As she headed for the butler’s pantry to deliver her message, her mind twisted and turned, seeking an escape. She would not marry a man she despised as much as he scorned her.

Simon was the key, she realised. He would never agree to this scheme.

And to top it all off, she was to attend a ball? With strangers, people who might know of her mother. People who would expect her to make conversation. And dance. Never once had she danced in public. She’d probably fall flat on her face.

For a moment, she wasn’t sure which was worse: the thought of marriage or the thought of a room full of strangers.

A shudder ran down her spine. Of the two, it had to be Simon. Simon didn’t have a soul. He’d crush hers with his inanity.

Robert shouldered his shotgun, the brace of hares dangling from its muzzle. Fresh meat for dinner. His mouth watered.

He strode down Gallows Hill, mud heavy on his boots, the countryside unfolding in mist-draped valleys and leafless tree-crested hills. The late-afternoon air chilled the back of his throat and reached frigid fingers smelling of decayed vegetation into his lungs.

On the hill behind him, the rooks were settling back among the treetops with harsh cries. He whistled blithely, unusually content at the prospect of stew instead of bread and cheese, or the rations of salt beef provided by his employer.

Perhaps he’d request a recipe for dumplings from Wynchwood’s cook next time he arrived in her kitchen with a plump pheasant for his lordship’s dinner. A wry smile twisted his lips. How the mighty were fallen.

A sudden sense of loss made his stomach fall away.

The whistle died on his lips. Damn it. He would not sink into self-pity. Live for the moment and plan for the future must be his motto or he would go mad.

He slogged on down the hill, unable to recapture his lighter mood. At the bottom, he took the overgrown track alongside the river, pushing aside brambles and scuffing through damp leaves. Without vegetables his stew would be a sorry affair. Perhaps instead of going up to the house in the morning for a list of the cook’s requirements from the local village, he’d go now. She might have some vegetables to spare.

The trees thinned at the edge of the clearing. Stew. He could almost smell it.

Robert stopped short at the sight of a hunched figure perched on an old stump a little way from his cottage, her brown bonnet and brown wool cloak blending into the carpet of withered beech leaves. He knew her at once, even though she had her back to him and her head bowed over something on her lap. Miss Bracewell.

Hades. It seemed she’d taken him up on his invitation to return whenever she liked.

He inhaled a slow breath. This time he would not scare her. This time he would be polite. Polite and, damn it, suitably humble, since no word had come back to him about yesterday’s disastrous encounter.

He’d not had the courage to ask Weatherby about her either. If something had been said, he didn’t want to remind the old curmudgeon.

He circled around, thinking to come at her head on. A twig cracked under his boot. He cursed under his breath.

She leaped to her feet and whirled around. Sheets of paper fluttered around her, landing like snowflakes amid the dry leaves.

Large and grey-green, her eyes mirrored shock. Another emotion flickered away before he could guess its import. Strange when he rarely had trouble reading a woman’s thoughts. It left him feeling on edge. Out of his element.

He touched his hat. ‘Good day, Miss Bracewell.’

An expression of revulsion crossed her face.

It took him aback. Women usually looked at him with favour. Had he upset her so much? And if so, why was she back?

The focus of her horrified gaze remained fixed above his right shoulder. On his dinner, not on him. Not that he wasn’t the stuff of nightmares, with his worn jacket and fustian trousers mired with the blood of his catch. He’d gutted them up on the hill, preferring leaving the offal for scavengers rather than bury it near his hut. He put the gun and its grisly pennant on the ground at his feet with an apologetic shrug.

Her breast rose and fell in a deep breath. ‘Mr Deveril.’

Recalling his mistakes of the day before, he snatched his cap off his head and lowered his gaze. ‘Yes, miss. I am sorry if I disturbed you.’ One of her fallen papers had landed near his foot. He retrieved it. His jaw slackened at a glimpse of a drawing of his own likeness, jacketless, shabby, unkempt, disreputable.

Shock held him transfixed.

She leaped forwards and snatched it from his hand. At a crouching run, she scuttled about picking up the rest of the sheets. Each time he reached for one, she plucked it from beneath his hand, allowing only fractured glimpses of squirrels in their natural setting.

All the sheets picked up, she stood with the untidy bundle of papers clutched against her chest as if fearing he might make a grab for them, staring at him as if he had two heads and four eyes. Obviously she found his presence disturbing.

Her wariness gnawed at his gut like a rat feeding on bone. He quelled the urge to deny meaning her harm. She should be afraid out here alone in the woods without a chaperon.

Glancing down for his rifle, he saw scattered charcoal and the upturned wooden box beside the stump. He crouched, righted the box and scooped up the charcoals. He dropped them into the box. A glint caught his eye—a fine gold chain snaking amongst the leaves. He picked it up, dangled it from his fingers.

‘It’s mine,’ she said in her strangled breathy voice.

Without looking at her, he felt heat rise from his neck to the roots of his hair. Did she think he would steal it? He let it fall into the box amongst the dusty broken black sticks.

‘I b-broke it,’ she said in the same forced rush of words.

He glanced at her.

She tucked the messy pile of paper between two board covers and tied the string. ‘I caught it on a branch on my way here.’ She offered him a conciliatory smile.

He blinked, startled by the sudden change in her expression. She looked witchy, oddly alluring, almost beautiful in a vulnerable way. He pulled himself together. ‘What are you doing here?’ He sounded sullen, ungracious, when he’d meant to sound jocular. He half-expected her to take to her heels in terror.

This woman had him all at sea.

But she didn’t run, she merely tilted her head to one side as if thinking about what to say.

‘L-looking for squirrels.’ She tapped her portfolio.

And she’d picked this clearing when hundreds of other places would do. What was she up to? He gestured to the stump. ‘Don’t let me disturb you.’

‘N-no. I was finished. The light is fading. Too many shadows.’

A true artist would care about the quality of the light. And the drawings he’d seen were excellent. Most ladies liked to draw, but her pictures seemed different. The squirrels had life.

Perhaps her artistic bent was what made her seem different. Awkward, with her utterance of short, sharp and direct sentences, yet likeable. A reason not to encourage her to return.

‘May I help you mount your horse?’ He glanced around for the gelding.

She bit her lip. A faint, rosy hue tinted her pale, high cheekbones. ‘I w-walked.’

Robert frowned. Riding in the woods was risky enough, but a young female walking alone in the forest with the sun going down he could not like.

‘I’ll drop my dinner off inside and walk you back to Wynchwood.’

‘P-please, don’t trouble. I know the way.’

‘It’s no trouble, miss. It’s my duty to my employer to see you home safe.’

In his past life, he would have insisted on his honour and charmed the girl. His mouth twisted. As far as his new world knew, he had neither honour nor charm.

A protest formed on her lips, but he continued as if he hadn’t noticed. ‘I have to go up to the house before supper to collect an order from Mrs Doncaster.’

Her glance flicked to the pile of fur. A shudder shook her delicate frame. It reminded him of shudders of pleasure. Heated his blood. Stirred his body.

Unwanted responses.

Furious at himself, he glowered at her. ‘Do you not eat meat, Miss Wynchwood?’ Damn, that was hardly conciliatory. Hardly servile. He wanted to curse. Instead, he bent, picked up his haul and strode for his front door.

‘Y-yes,’ she said.

He swung around. ‘What?’

‘I eat m-m-m—’ she closed her eyes, a sweep of long brown lashes on fine cheekbones for a second ‘—eat meat—’ her serious gaze rested on his face ‘—but I prefer it cooked.’ She smiled. A curve of rosy lips and flash of small white teeth.

Devastatingly lovely.

What the deuce? Was he so pathetically lonely that a smile from a slip of a girl brought a ray of light to his dreary day? And she wasn’t as young as he’d thought the first time he saw her. She was one of those females who retained an aura of youth, like Caro Lamb. It was something in the way they observed the world with a child-like joy, he’d always thought, as if everything was new and wonderful.

It made them seem terribly young. And vulnerable.

Another reason for her to stay away from a man jaded by life.

He glanced up at the pink-streaked sky between the black branches overhead. ‘I’ll be but a moment and we’ll be on our way.’ Shielding her view of the carcasses with his body, he dived inside his hut. He hung the hares from a nail by the hearth and stowed his shotgun under his cot out of sight. Swiftly, he stripped off his boots and soiled clothing, grabbing for his cleanest shirt and trousers. He had the sense that if he lingered a moment too long she’d be off like a startled fawn. Then he’d be forced to follow her home. She might not take kindly to being stalked.

To his relief when he got outside, she was still standing where he left her, staring into the distance as if lost in some distant world, the battered portfolio still clutched to her chest.

He picked up the box of charcoal from the stump. ‘Are you ready?’

She jumped.

Damn it. What made her so nervous?

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘After you, miss.’

Then suddenly she turned and walked in front of him. The hem of her brown cloak rustled the dry brown leaves alongside the track. For the niece of a nobleman, her clothes were sadly lacking. Perhaps she chose them to blend with her surroundings when drawing from nature.

She spun around to face him, walking backwards with cheeks pink and eyes bright. ‘There was something I wanted to ask you.’

Of course there was. No female would arrive at his door without an ulterior motive. In the past it usually involved hot nights and cool sheets. But not this one. She was far too innocent for such games. He waited for her to speak.

‘Do you hunt a great d-d—’ Her colour deepened. ‘A lot?’ she finished.

She stumbled over a root. He reached out to catch her arm. She righted herself, flinching from his touch with a noise in her throat that sounded like a cross between a sob and a laugh. Her eyes weren’t laughing. Unless he mistook her reaction, she looked thoroughly mortified.

He resisted the urge to offer comfort.

Damn it. Why did he even care? She was one of his employer’s family members. Even walking with her could be misconstrued. But he didn’t want her to trip again. He didn’t want her hurt.

God help him.

He caught her up, and she turned to walk forwards at his side.

‘Do you?’ She peered at him from beneath the brim of her plain brown bonnet with the expression of a mischievous elf. His hackles went up. Instincts honed by years of pleasing women. She definitely wanted something. He felt it in his gut. Curiosity rose in his breast. He forced himself to tamp it down. ‘It is all according to Mr Weatherby’s orders and what Cook requests for his lordship’s table. Most of my work relates to keeping down vermin.’

‘You hunt foxes?’

‘Gentlemen hunt foxes.’ He couldn’t prevent the bitter edge to his tone. ‘I trap them and keep track of their dens so the hunt can have a good day of sport.’ There, that last sounded more pragmatic.

‘Is there a den nearby?’

They left the woods and followed the river bank, the same path he’d walked earlier. ‘There are a couple. One up on Gallows Hill. Another in the five-acre field down yonder.’ He pointed toward the village of Swanlea.

Her eyes glistened with excitement. An overwhelming urge to ask why stuck in his throat. He had no right questioning his betters.

‘Badgers?’

Great God, this girl was a strange one. ‘Stay away from them, miss. They’re dangerous and mean. We hunt them with dogs.’

The light went out of her face a moment before she dropped her gaze. He felt as if he’d crushed a delicate plant beneath his boot heel. Good thing, too, if it kept her away from the sett not far from his dwelling.

‘I’ve never seen one,’ she murmured.

‘They come out only in the evening. Usually after dark.’

Once more he had the sense he had disappointed her, but why the strange urge to make amends? If she disliked him, so much the better. He held his tongue.

The path joined the rutted lane that led to the village in one direction, and over the bridge to the back entrance of Wynchwood Place in the other. The way to the mansion used by such as he. The lower orders.

He scowled at the encroaching thought.

Off in the distance, on a natural rise in the land, the solid shape of the mansion looked over green lawns and formal gardens. A house of plain red brick with a red-tile roof adorned by tall chimneypots. Nothing like the grandeur of the ducal estates, but a pleasant enough English gentleman’s country house.

Their footsteps clattered with hollow echoes on the slats of the wooden bridge. At the midpoint she halted and looked over the handrail into the murky depths of the River Wynch. ‘When I was young, my cousin, Mr Bracewell, told me a troll lived under this bridge. I was terrified.’

She glanced over her shoulder at him, a tentative smile on her lips. A vision of his sister Lizzie, her eyes full of teasing, her dark curls clustered around her heart-shaped face, flowed into his mind. A river of memories, each one etched in the acid of bitterness. Mother. The children. And Charlie before he got too serious to make good company. The acid burned up from his gut and into his throat. He clenched his jaw against the wave of longing. He bunched his fists to hold it at bay.

Slowly he became aware of her shocked stare, of the fear lurking in the depths of strange turquoise eyes. ‘L-listen to me ch-chattering. You want to get h-home to your d-d—meal.’

Fear of him had turned her speech into a nightmare of difficulty. He saw it in her face and in the tremble of her overlarge mouth. He was such a dolt.

Before he could utter a word, she snatched the box from his hand and fled like a rabbit seeking the safety of a burrow.

Hades. The past had a tendency to intrude at the most inopportune moments. He thought he had it under control and then the floodgates of regret for his dissolute past released a torrent emotion. Silently he cursed. Now he’d spend more hours wondering whether she’d report him to her uncle or Weatherby. The girl was a menace. Whatever else he did, he needed to avoid her as if she had a case of the measles.

For all his misgivings, he followed her discreetly, making sure she arrived at the door safely. As any right-thinking man would, he told himself. Especially with so fragile a creature wandering around as if no one cared what she did or where she went.

While she didn’t look back, he knew she was aware of his presence from the way she maintained her awkward half-run, half-trot. Her ugly brown skirts caught at her ankles and her bonnet ribbons fluttered. A little brown sparrow with broken wings.

The thought hurt.

Perhaps she now thought him a rabid dog? A good thing, surely. Hopefully she thought him terrifying enough to keep away from his cottage. He ought to be glad instead of wanting to apologise. Again.

At the entrance to the courtyard, she cut across the lawn. He frowned. What the devil was she up to now? Instead of entering through the front door, she was creeping through the shrubbery toward a side door. Well, well, Miss Bracewell was apparently playing truant. The little minx was nothing but trouble.

She slipped inside the house and he continued around the back of the house to the kitchen door, passing through the neat rows of root vegetables and assorted herbs in the kitchen garden. Mrs Doncaster knew her stuff and Robert had been doing his best to pick her brains, with the idea of planting his own garden in the spring.

The scullery door stood open and, removing his cap, Robert entered and made his way down the narrow stone passage into the old-fashioned winter kitchen.

Mrs Doncaster, her face red beneath her mobcap and her black skirts as wide as she was high, looked up from the hearth at the sound of his footfall. A leg of mutton hung over the glowing embers, the juices collecting in a pan beneath and the scent of fresh bread filled the warm air. Robert’s stomach growled.

‘Young Rob,’ she said with a frown. “Tis too busy I am to be feeding you tonight.’

Robert smiled. ‘No, indeed, mistress. Mr Weatherby is sending me to town tomorrow—is there anything you need?’

‘Wait a bit and I’ll make you up a list.’

Wincing inwardly, he forced himself to ask his question. ‘I’m also in dire need of some carrots if you’ve any to spare, and a few herbs for my stew.’

‘Oh, aye. Caught yerself some game, did you?’ She tucked a damp grey strand of hair under her cap. ‘Maisie.’ Her shriek echoed off the rafters. Robert stifled the urge to cover his ears.

The plump Maisie, a girl of about sixteen with knowing black eyes, emerged from the scullery. ‘Yes, mum?’ When she spied Robert, her round freckled face beamed. ‘Good day to you, Mr Deveril.’

‘Fetch Robert some sage and rosemary and put up a basket of carrots and parsnips, there’s a good girl,’ the cook said.

Maisie brushed against him on the way to the pantry. They both knew what her sideways smile offered, had been offering since the day he arrived. She wasn’t his sort. Far too young and far too witless. And the warning from Weatherby that his lordship would insist on his servants marrying if there was a hint of goin’s-on, as the old countryman put it, had ensured Robert wouldn’t stray. He edged into a corner out of Cook’s way.

‘Saucy hussy, that one,’ Mrs Doncaster said, swiping at her hot brow.

‘Do you need more coal?’ Robert asked, pointing at the empty scuttle beside the blackened hearth.

‘You’re a good lad, to be sure,’ she said with a nod. ‘You thinks about what’s needed. You got a good head on your shoulders. I can see why Weatherby thinks so highly of you already. Take a candle.’

Praise from the cook? And Weatherby? His efforts seemed to be paying off. More reason to make sure he didn’t put a foot wrong. Hefting the black iron bucket, Robert made his way through a low door and down the stairs. The coal cellar sat on one side of the narrow passage, the wine cellar on the other.

Helping the cook had paid off in spades, or rather in vegetables and the odd loaf of fresh bread, but he wanted far more than that. He needed the respect and trust of his new peers if he was going to get ahead.

He tied a neckerchief over the lower part of his face. Dust rose in choking clouds, settling on his shoulders and in his hair as he shovelled the coal up from the mountain beneath the trapdoor through which the coalman deposited the contents of his sacks. Removing the kerchief, Robert ducked out of the cellar and heaved the scuttle back up the wooden flight.

‘Set it by the hearth,’ the cook instructed. ‘Wash up in the bowl by the door.’

Robert washed his hands and face in the chilly water and dried them off on a grubby towel hung nearby. He’d wash properly at home.

‘Drat that girl,’ Mrs. Dorset said. ‘I need her to turn the spit while I finish this pastry.’

‘I’ll do it.’ Robert made his way around the wooden table and grasped the iron handle. It took some effort to turn. How poor Maisie managed he couldn’t imagine.

The aroma of the meat sent moisture flooding in his mouth. God. He hadn’t tasted a roast for months.

‘Slower, young Rob,’ the cook said, her rolling pin flying over the floured pastry.

He grinned and complied. ‘I met Miss Bracewell in the garden on my way in,’ he said casually, hoping to glean a little more insight into the troublesome lass. ‘Is she the only relative to the master?’

The cook’s cheerful mouth pursed as if she’d eaten a quince. ‘The devil’s spawn, that one. You want to stay well clear of her.’

The venom in her voice rendered Robert speechless and…angry. He kept his tone non-committal. ‘She seemed like a pleasant enough young lady. Not that she said much more than good day.’

‘I likes her,’ Maisie said, returning with basket in hand. ‘She opened the door when I had me hands full once.’

‘Goes to show she’s not a proper lady,’ the cook said and sent Robert a sharp stare. ‘A blot on the good name of Bracewell, she is. Her and her mother. My poor Lord Wynchwood is a saint for taking her in. Mark my words, it’ll do him no good.’

‘What—?’ Robert started to ask.

‘Mrs Doncaster.’ The butler’s stern tones boomed through the kitchen.

Robert jumped guiltily. Old Snively was a tartar and no mistake. All the servants feared the gimlet-eyed old vulture. A smile never touched his lips and his sharp eyes missed not the smallest fault according to the house servants.

Snively’s cold gaze rested on Robert’s face. ‘Gossiping with the outside staff, Mrs Doncaster?’

Robert felt heat scald his cheeks. Arrogant bugger. Who did the butler think he was? Robert gritted his teeth, held his body rigid and kept turning the spit, lowering his gaze from the piercing stare. This man had the power to have him dismissed on a word, and from the gleam in his eye the stiff-rumped bastard wasn’t done.

‘If you’ve no work to keep you occupied, Deveril,’ Snively said, ‘perhaps Mr Weatherby can do without an assistant after all.’

‘I’m here to fetch a list for tomorrow, Mr Snively,’ Robert said.

‘Now see here, Snively,’ Mrs Doncaster put in, clearly ruffled, ‘if you kept that good-for-nothing footman William at his duty, I wouldn’t need Rob’s help, would I? Fetched the coal up, he did. Without it, his lordship would be waiting for his dinner.’

Snively fixed her with a haughty stare. ‘Planning, Mrs Doncaster. The key to good organisation. If you had William bring up enough coal for the entire day, you wouldn’t need to call him from his other duties.’

‘Ho,’ Mrs Doncaster said, elbows akimbo. ‘Planning, is it? Am I to turn my kitchen into a coal yard?’

It was like watching a boxing match threatening to spill over into the crowd, but Robert had no wish to become embroiled. It was more than his job was worth. It didn’t help that the old bugger was right, he had no business coming here this evening.

Across the room, Maisie had her lips folded inside her teeth as if to stop any unruly words escaping. Robert knew just how she felt. The portly, stiff-necked Snively was terrifying. Mrs Doncaster’s bravery left him in awe.

‘Planning,’ Snively repeated and swept out of the kitchen.

‘Hmmph,’ Cook grumbled. ‘Johnny-come-lately. Thinks just because he worked in London, he can lord it over the rest of us who’s been here all our lives. Hmmph. His back’s up because he heard what we was saying. Always jumps to defend her, he does.’

The butler rose a notch in Robert’s estimation. ‘I’ll be on my way now Maisie’s back.’

‘Yes. Go.’ Mrs Doncaster, still in high dudgeon, waved him away.

Holding out the basket, Maisie lifted a corner of the cloth covering its contents. ‘I’ve put a nice bit of ham in there for your breakfast,’ she whispered with a wink, then trundled off to her spit.

A cold chill seemed to clutch his very soul with icy fingers. They were all at it. Handing him food, putting him under an obligation. One day, by God, he would repay their charity. Somehow he’d find the means.

More debts to pay.

He pulled his cap on and made his way out into the growing dusk. ‘Spawn of Satan’ ? What the hell had Mrs Doncaster meant? And why the hell had he bristled?