Chapter
One
‘Hurry up, or
the milk will have curdled!’
A titter of
laughter rippled through the company. The tall figure of Gabriel Claremont,
Duke of Amersham, Earl of Rycroft, Baron Everard, draped itself negligently
against the warm stone of the building. His hands were thrust deep into his
pockets as he surveyed the motley band of companions who had walked with him to
the dairy. A pair of intensely blue eyes tempered an otherwise saturnine
expression.
Elinor felt a
poke in her ribs, then Martha handed her a tray laden with glasses of frothing
milk. Scrambling up the steps of the creamery, she almost cannoned into the
duke.
‘Less
haste, girl, or there will be no milk left to drink.’
There
was another titter. Half a dozen men and women had arranged themselves at
intervals around the little ironwork tables scattered along the terrace. This
was the latest ton fad, Martha had
told her, to drink milk straight from the cow.
‘Your
Grace.’ Elinor curtsied briefly and handed him a glass.
For a moment he towered over her, one of the
few men she’d encountered tall enough to do so. Dressed in riding-breeches and
top boots with a Belcher handkerchief loosely knotted about his neck, he was
unlikely to pose a challenge to Brummell, but though he was perfunctorily
dressed, his broad chest exuded an uncomfortable male strength.
She snatched a quick
glance at his face and a lead weight nudged a path to her heart. It couldn’t be
him. He was too young. Far too young to have known her mother. He seemed
strangely familiar, though, and she looked again. Yes… she was certain he was
the man who last evening had sent her headlong into a ditch. His air of casual
disdain spoke an imperviousness to dairymaids and travellers alike. She had
been forced to gather her skirts and leap for her life, catching only a flash
of an upright figure, dark hair flying, before the racing curricle with its
gilded crest was gone in a haze of dust.
‘So what happened to Letty?’ A man a few paces
away sneered, his face weary with dissipation.
She met his look. His thin lips appeared to
have been reddened, and was that rouge he wore on his cheeks? ‘I don’t know,
sir,’ she forced herself to say.
‘Don’t try to gammon me, girl! Servants know
everything.’
He was a truly horrible man and she would have
liked to throw the milk in his face. How on earth had she come to be in this
situation? When she’d made her dawn escape from Bath, she’d realised that she
was burning her boats. But this!
‘Don’t you talk?’ It was another of His
Grace’s friends, a wispy young man wearing the tightest coat Elinor had ever
seen. ‘Pretty high and mighty for a dairymaid, eh, Gabe?’
The duke had said nothing seeming not hear his
companions, but she had felt him studying her intently. Now he turned to her.
‘What is your name?’
‘Nell Milford, Your Grace.’
‘Nell. Short for Helen or Elinor or perhaps
Margaret?’
‘Elinor, sir.’
She had hoped no one would ask that question
since she’d deliberately chosen Nell as a far more likely servant’s name. When
yesterday she had rounded that final bend in the road and seen the formidable
gates of Amersham guarded by soldiers, she’d been suffused with panic. This
couldn’t be Amersham Hall - she must have taken the wrong road out of Steyning.
She had walked through a quiet and green landscape, the hedgerows filled with
the sweet scent of late May, but now with dusk falling she found herself
stranded - outside a strange mansion in a strange locality, a lone woman,
shabby and unkempt from two days’ travelling. She would have been laughed out
of sight if she were to ask for charity and a bed for the night. The older
guard’s question had been a lifebelt saving her from drowning. Was she the new
dairymaid? Just pretend, she’d told herself, just pretend. ‘Yes,’ she’d said,
and her voice had rung steady. ‘I’m the new dairymaid, Elinor… Nell Milford.’
‘Elinor,’ the duke was musing now, ‘an elegant
name.’
‘Elegant figure too,’ guffawed a
high-complexioned man sitting nearby.
‘I prefer Letty’s, don’t you know.’ It was the
tight coat. ‘A body you could get hold of.’
‘And did, Hayward, as I recall - frequently.’
This from the florid man. ‘Too frequently by all accounts. It’s no wonder she
had to leave.’
‘Don’t be sad, Nell,’ the man addressed as
Hayward coaxed. ‘You may not be such a plump pigeon, but I’m sure you have
other attributes. She’s mighty pretty, ain’t she, Gabe?’
The duke ignored him and
continued to lounge against the dairy wall, an expression of distaste on his
face. His gaze wandered from her to the glass of milk he held and back again,
and she watched his hesitation with inner amusement.
He put the glass down after only one sip and
roused himself to say, ‘Take no notice of my friends, Nell. They have yet to
learn their manners.’
‘I don’t, Your Grace.’ She thought of the
locket secreted in her dress and her resolve stiffened. ‘Courtesy does not come
naturally to all.’
‘Listen to that - and from a servant.’ The
rouged man had risen from his chair as though he would come towards her. She
had to quell an overpowering urge to flee.
‘Off with her head, eh, Weatherby?’ someone
quipped.
The duke seemed to have
disappeared into his own thoughts once more, oblivious of his companions’
pleasantries. They deserved each other, she decided. He might be good looking
in a careless fashion, and no doubt he was extremely wealthy, but he was as
haughty and ill-mannered as they. Her leap into the ditch yesterday had been a
foretaste of what was to come. She should have kept walking past those gates.
Or should she? She had
nowhere else she could go, that was the stark truth. She had not made a mistake.
There was no other Amersham Hall in the district and this grand house was
indeed the one she sought. For now at least she had employment, a roof over her
head, and food in her stomach. But the notion that there could be any possible
connection between her, this enormous property, and the heedless pleasure
seeker standing so close, was nonsensical. As she had always suspected, Grainne
had been delirious, her words provoked by fever.
‘Good morning, Gabriel.’
A new voice had entered
the fray. A neatly attired gentleman, no older than the duke himself and with a
passing resemblance to him, was strolling towards the creamery from the
opposite direction. His demeanour was one of a modest man and he had a pleasant
but unremarkable face. The duke did not seem particularly pleased to see the
new arrival and made no attempt to greet him beyond a brief nod in his
direction.
The man ignored the rest
of the group and instead turned to Elinor. ‘I am the duke’s cousin, Roland
Frant. I live close by at the Dower House. You must be the new dairymaid.’
She nodded her agreement.
‘And this is your first morning?’
‘It is, sir.’
He looked closely at her face. ‘I hope that
you will happy here.’
‘I’m sure I will, Mr Frant.’ Her voice did not
hold conviction.
‘Might I ask for a glass of milk, too?’ He
gestured to the table where half-empty tumblers were scattered in disarray.
‘I will fetch it, sir.’
Escape at last. She
wondered if Roland Frant had seen her agitation and deliberately allowed her to
disappear.
‘Spoiling the fun, Frant?’ the thin-faced man
jeered. Roland merely smiled complacently.
‘Show’s over, folks.’ Hayward jumped to his
feet, seeming keen to be gone now that the entertainment was at an end.
‘Why do you have such a killjoy for a cousin,
Gabe?’ the thin-faced man asked.
Gabriel Claremont did not
answer. Instead he said, ‘I need to check on the stables. Emperor looked as
though he was throwing a fever last night and I want him ready for the races on
Friday.’
****
Gabriel could not be sure
which warranted his greatest contempt, Roland’s ingratiating airs or the boorishness
of his friends. The word ‘friends’ was a misnomer; he had no friends, just
people who gravitated towards his power and wealth and helped him fill the
endless hours. When he’d first returned to England, he had welcomed any
company. Jonathan was dead and he was distraught. He must take his brother’s
rightful place, play the imposter, or so it felt. No wonder he had surrounded
himself with a wall of mindless chatter and pointless action. It had insulated
him from reality since he could not face the world undisguised. Life became one
long dream through which he blundered, never quite hearing the voices or
feeling the handshakes, never quite present. Day after day, month after month, time
had blurred and been filled with an indeterminate noise that kept the void at
bay. The ramshackle crowd he entertained had been that noise, but they were not
his friends. They never would be. Jonathan had been his only friend and he was
dead.
Something about the girl
had reminded him of his brother, not that he needed any reminder, for the
memory never left him. He wasn’t certain what it was about her. Not her colouring
for sure; that pale skin and those green eyes were striking in the extreme.
Maybe it was the shape of her face or her tall, slender figure or just her expression
- resolute and undaunted. It was an absurd connection to make, but he’d been so
caught up in the fantasy that he’d hardly registered what his companions were
about. He should have realised what was happening and stepped in to protect
her. Instead it had been left to Roland to stop the spiteful bantering. Roland,
the tell-tale of their childhood, the sly manipulator of their adult
years.
The truth was that he
lived too much in the past. But this morning, as he’d watched her and noticed
her every movement, past and present had fused together. She was certainly an
unusual dairymaid. Her face was too refined and her voice too cultivated, but
cultivated or not she must be Letty’s replacement. She was as slim as Letty had
been an armful. Slim and fashioned grey. Only the white close-buttoned bodice
relieved the Quaker hues and that had been starched into subjection.
She had waited while he
drank the wretched milk, eyes downcast and hands clasped demurely in front of
her. He’d been silently cursing this latest craze of ton society and grimacing in distaste when the girl’s hands had
most definitely twitched. Curiously he’d allowed his glance to travel upwards.
She was looking directly at him, her eyes the shade of misty lake water, but
seemingly lit by an inner delight. She had been laughing at him! Her wide
mouth, far too wide, had trembled slightly as though in danger of breaking into
irrepressible laughter at any moment. And though he’d stared back haughtily
enough, he’d been fascinated. Seeing his look she had lowered her eyes once
more and stilled the vagrant hands. An unusual dairymaid indeed! For the first
time in years, he felt curiosity stir.
Canada: http://amzn.to/2jAwUYD
No comments:
Post a Comment