Читать книгу The Courting Campaign - Regina Scott - Страница 14

Chapter Five

“He wouldn’t even take tea with her,” Emma lamented to Mrs. Jennings a short while later. “You’ve seen Alice’s face when she wants something. How can anyone refuse?”

Mrs. Jennings tsked in sympathy. She and Emma had snatched a few moments’ reprieve in the servants’ hall behind the kitchen. Under Ivy’s watchful eye, Alice was taking her afternoon nap upstairs, though the little girl generally protested.

Now Mrs. Jennings sat on a high-backed chair at the table that ran down the center of the hall, flanked by benches. Ivy had confided it was the only place Mrs. Dunworthy hadn’t supplanted the cook when Sir Nicholas’s sister-in-law had come to manage things. Seeing Mrs. Jennings sitting in the chair, one competent hand thumbing through her recipe book by the light from the fire and the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the peaks, Emma thought the cook still looked like the queen of this castle.

“You say no to Miss Alice when it’s not in her best interests,” Mrs. Jennings pointed out, eyeing a recipe with a frown as if doubting it was good enough for her master.

Emma began casting the next row of stitches on the sock she was knitting for Alice. “How could spending time with her father not be in Alice’s best interests?”

Mrs. Jennings flipped the page in her recipe book. “Poor man. Sometimes I think she reminds him too much of Lady Rotherford, God rest her soul.”

Sir Nicholas being a knight, there could be only one person the cook referred to: his late wife. Emma sobered. “I never thought of that. I was told she died when Alice was a baby.”

“Three years ago now, it was,” Mrs. Jennings confirmed, gaze going out the window as if she saw that day again. “She was such a pretty little thing, like Alice, though more fragile, mind you.”

Sometimes she thought Alice was fragile enough! The sock Emma was knitting for her would almost have fit Lady Chamomile’s porcelain feet.

“How did Lady Rotherford die?” Emma asked.

“Consumption.” The cook shivered as if the memory chilled her and refocused on her recipe book. “Started with an occasional cough. None of us paid it any mind. But then Millie noticed blood on her ladyship’s handkerchief when doing the laundry, and it seemed her ladyship just got weaker and weaker until there was nothing left of her.”

Now Emma felt the chill and wished the wool she was using had already been fashioned into a shawl. “Thank the Lord, Alice was spared.”

Mrs. Jennings nodded, tagging down a corner of one page in her book. “We were all thankful. But Sir Nicholas, oh, it broke his heart. They had been promised since they were children, you see. Everyone said it was a love match.”

A love match. Emma nearly sighed aloud at the thought of it. The books she’d borrowed from her foster sisters were full of stories about love denied and ultimately triumphant. She wanted to believe men and women could come together out of love, that someday she’d meet a man willing to overlook her lack of family and fortune and appreciate her for herself. That sort of love seemed entirely too rare.

But if Alice Rotherford had been conceived in love, how could Sir Nicholas thrust her away now? If Emma had had a smidgeon of such love, she would have treasured it.

“And Alice?” she asked. “Did he have the same degree of affection for her?”

Mrs. Jennings shut her recipe book before answering. “You have to understand,” she murmured, gaze on Emma’s. “Lady Rotherford was never strong. Birthing Alice took a great deal out of her. I think that’s why the consumption carried her off so quickly. I don’t believe Sir Nicholas blamed Alice, mind you. He simply had his hands too full with her ladyship to pay the child much mind.”

Emma hooked her needles into the sock to keep it from unraveling and gathered up her things. “You said her ladyship has been dead for three years. From what I can see, it’s his work that’s keeping him busy, not family concerns.”

“You mustn’t be so hard on him, miss,” Mrs. Jennings protested. “I know he cares for Alice. He’s always made sure she had someone to look out for her, proper food and sustenance.”

“Food and sustenance aren’t the same as love,” Emma replied, rising.

Mrs. Jennings chuckled as she too rose to return to her work. “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure. More than one of the Rotherfords have found their way to my kitchen over the years when they wanted something to comfort them.”

Emma smiled at her. “I suspect it was your presence rather than the food that brought them comfort, Mrs. Jennings.”

The cook returned her smile as they headed for the kitchen together. “Thank you for that, my dear. I try to make my kitchen a place of welcome, as the good Lord intended. But I know that food can bring comfort as well, something warm, perhaps, to take the chill from life, something a little sweet to cover up the bitter.”

On her way to the servants’ stair, Emma paused to eye the cook. “Was Sir Nicholas ever one of the Rotherfords who came seeking comfort?”

Mrs. Jennings face saddened. “All too often, the poor mite. It wasn’t easy growing up alone in this house.”

“Then I think we have an opportunity before us,” Emma said, mind clicking through options.

Mrs. Jennings cocked her head. “What are you thinking?”

Emma grinned. “I propose we conduct an experiment, Mrs. Jennings. I’ve heard it said that the shortest way to a man’s heart is down his throat. Let’s test that theory.”

* * *

Nick noticed that something had changed the moment he bit into dinner that night. The difference did not appear to be in the eating arrangements. The table had always seemed too long to him, a waste of space. He and Charlotte took up less than one tenth of the length, by his rough estimation. He should probably have simply requested a tray in his study each night, but he somehow thought Charlotte deserved not to eat alone. And after a fruitless day like today, even Charlotte’s judgmental company was to be preferred to the silence of failure.

So if it was not the arrangements or the company that differed, it must be the food. Another bite of the new potatoes confirmed it.

“Is Mrs. Jennings well?” he asked Charlotte, trying not to grimace. Charlotte never responded well to anything she considered criticism of her household.

“I’ve heard no complaints from below stairs,” Charlotte said, lifting a small portion of the trout. “Why do you ask?”

He sniffed the next forkful before tasting it. Yes, something was definitely missing—parsley perhaps? Either way, the food was not to his liking. He pushed back his plate. “It all seems rather bland tonight.”

“I taste nothing unusual,” Charlotte countered, with the supreme confidence of one who knows about such things.

“Perhaps it’s the company then,” Nick said, and immediately regretted it as she stiffened. “Forgive me, Charlotte. I meant no disrespect. I was simply thinking that dinner was more interesting when Alice was here.”

Charlotte’s body settled into her seat. “She is a dear. Perhaps I can advise Miss Pyrmont to have her ready on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.”

Odd logic. “Why only those days?” Nick queried.

Charlotte smiled at him. “I think she is a bit young to join us for dinner every night.”

Was she? He hadn’t been invited to the adult table until he’d returned from Eton at fourteen, but he thought that was his mother and father’s decision, not a general rule of Society. He’d visited the homes of friends where the children of the family were allowed at table as young as six.

“We had no difficulty with Alice last night,” he reasoned. “If she causes trouble in future, we can reconsider the matter. Until such time, I see no reason why she can’t eat with us.”

“How very kind of you.” Charlotte’s praise held an edge, as if she gave it begrudgingly. He felt as if his chair was growing harder. He purposely reached for his glass and took a deep draught.

He could not understand Charlotte. Why was she so annoyed by his request to include Alice? He had never been opposed to the idea. Alice had simply been too young until recently to make the matter practical.

Knowing he needed sustenance for the next few hours, he pulled his plate closer and decided to attempt the trout.

“I suppose you’ll need to do something about Miss Pyrmont’s wardrobe,” he said, remembering the conversation from the previous day. “I’ve never paid much attention to the staff’s attire, but if that brown dress is the best we can do I obviously need to increase your household budget.”

He had taken another sip from his glass and set it back down before he noticed that something else was missing. This time it was the sound of Charlotte’s voice. Indeed, he wasn’t even sure she was breathing. Glancing her way, he saw that she had drawn herself up and was regarding him fixedly. Odd. He hadn’t been aware of a change in his anatomy or clothing.

“Why, precisely,” she said, “do you wish to improve Miss Pyrmont’s wardrobe?”

He hadn’t realized that the hearth was deficient either, yet he was certain the temperature in the dining room had plummeted by at least twenty degrees. “You said she was mortified to take dinner with us last night because of her attire. If we intend to have her to dinner every night with Alice, her mortification must multiply by seven, by my estimation. Surely that is unacceptable.”

“I see.” She lay down her fork with such care Nick could only wonder whether she’d considered another use for it, and one that would result in his injury. “So what you really want is to have dinner with your daughter’s nanny.”

Nick kept his own fork in his hand with a distinct feeling of self-protection. “I am not opposed to dining with Miss Pyrmont. She makes intelligent, some might even say witty, conversation. She is pleasant to look upon. However, my thought was that Alice would need someone to attend her.”

Charlotte’s chin seemed to have shortened. Tightening of the muscles, perhaps? “Then you find me incompetent to assist your daughter in social settings,” she said.

He never had understood why his words were so easily misconstrued. He thought he had a rather good grasp of the English language. Certainly his tutors had never complained. But when it came to Charlotte and even Ann, what he meant never seemed to be what they heard.

“My opinion of your competence should be evident by the fact that I leave all matters in this household to your attention,” he told Charlotte. “As I already trespass on your generous nature by having you manage the staff, I thought perhaps you’d prefer to eat your dinner in peace and allow someone who is paid to see to Alice’s needs assist her through dinner until she is experienced enough to do so herself.”

He must have succeeded in communicating at last, for she dropped her gaze. “I see. Forgive me, Nicholas. I know I am not here because of my generous nature but yours. If you wish Miss Pyrmont to join us for dinner in the future, I will make the arrangements. It may take a day or two to work out the menus with Mrs. Jennings.”

Nick wasn’t sure why menus would be so complicated, but he thanked his sister-in-law for the effort. A glance at the trout and the new potatoes beside it confirmed he had no interest in either. Conversation held as little appeal. He rose, and Charlotte glanced up, eyes widening.

As she appeared to require him to state the obvious, he did. “I’m finished with dinner this evening. If you will excuse me, I have work to do.”

Charlotte nodded, but he hadn’t really expected otherwise. Theirs had never been a congenial relationship, and Ann’s death had only made matters worse. At least in his work he had some hope of untangling difficulties, unlike Charlotte’s unpredictable responses.

Yet his work continued to thwart him that night. He sat in his study, reviewing his calculations, considering alternative theories that had been proposed by his peers the last few months. Why couldn’t he find the solution? Certainly there had to be at least one, and he had considered the possibility that there was more. Was he truly as deficient as his colleagues in the Royal Society had intimated when they’d cast him from their number?

He pushed such thoughts aside. He had evidence that he had some pretentions toward knowledge—scores at Eton and Oxford, his work on the properties of common materials for industrial use that had earned him his knighthood. Until Ann’s death, there had been no hint that his faculties could fail him. He wanted to think of that as the aberration rather than the rule.

He worked for much of the night, as was his wont, then woke early and took a turn about the darkened grounds to clear his head. He had noticed that movement seemed to stimulate thought, but in this instance no revelation presented itself.

By the time he returned for breakfast, he was in no mood for further arguments. Perhaps that was why he took one look at the breakfast tray the footman brought him—the lumpy gray porridge; the cold charred toast—threw down his napkin and marched to the kitchen.

“Mrs. Jennings,” he began as soon as he stepped over the threshold. He had the momentary satisfaction of watching all movement in the room jerk to a stop. Miss Pyrmont, who had been preparing a tray on the worktable in the center of the room, stared at him, mouth pursed as if she offered a kiss.

Why did he persist in thinking about kisses? He shook his head to cast out the image and glanced around at the others. Mrs. Jennings stood by the fire, ladle raised above a pot and dripping so that the liquid sizzled on the hearth. The young maid by the sink dropped the cup she’d been holding with the unmistakable crack of breaking china.

That woke his cook. She thrust the ladle back into the pot, hurried forward and bobbed a curtsey. “Sir Nicholas, what’s happened to bring you to my kitchen again?”

So she remembered the days he’d sought solace at her worktable. The kitchen had always been the warmest room in this house, not only in temperature but in the welcome he’d felt. That seemed to have changed. The maid was trembling as she picked up the chards from the basin. Miss Pyrmont seemed to be trembling as well, but the light in her eyes and the way she had compressed her lips suggested she was holding back laughter.

“Sir Nicholas?” Mrs. Jennings asked, head cocked.

Nick straightened. “I thought I should ask after your health.”

His cook’s snowy brows shot up. “My health? Whatever for?”

They were all staring at him as if the very idea was preposterous. Only Miss Pyrmont looked remotely sympathetic. She offered him a smile as she gripped the tray she’d prepared. He considered offering his help to lift it from the table. Indeed something positively urged him to rush forward and take it from her. What nonsense was that? She seemed confident and capable of carrying the thing, and it was clearly her duty.

So he turned his attention to Mrs. Jennings and his reason for visiting the kitchen again after all these years.

“Dinner last night and breakfast this morning did not seem up to your usual standards,” he told the cook. “I was wondering what might have changed. If you are well, have you perhaps taken on an assistant?”

He glanced at the maid, who promptly dropped all the pieces of the cup into the sink again. Perhaps Charlotte had had reason to stare so fixedly at him last night. It seemed somewhere along the way he’d become ferocious.

“No assistant,” Mrs. Jennings assured him. “A shame your dinner and breakfast were not to your liking.”

She didn’t look the least bit abashed. People who were embarrassed by lapses in good judgment or behavior generally hung their heads, shuffled their feet, made excuses. Mrs. Jennings was regarding him with a smile he had always considered kind.

“Then can you assure me that future meals will return to their usual quality?” he asked.

Miss Pyrmont was definitely biting her lower lip now. He could tell even though she’d bowed her head and clamped her arms to her sides.

“Oh, I cannot say, sir,” Mrs. Jennings replied. “I best speak to Mrs. Dunworthy about the matter. I’ve been so busy lately I don’t have time for the little extra things.”

He felt the same way. “Quite understandable,” he assured her. “For now, might I trouble you for some of those cinnamon biscuits you generally put on my breakfast tray?”

Mrs. Jennings set her finger against her lips. “Goodness me! I remember how you used to dote on those. But I’m afraid I sent the entire batch upstairs for Miss Alice. If you’d like some this morning, you’ll have to have breakfast with her.”