Amanda McCabe (4 page)

Chapter Five

On the sudden,

A Roman thought hath struck him.

—
Antony and Cleopatra

Julia turned away to reach for her own teacup, a bit nonplussed.

Before she met the new Lord Ellston (somehow she could not stop thinking of him as the
new
earl), she had thought he was probably a great prig. A dreadful high stickler. What other kind of person would break with his own father just because that father married an actress? And then to stay away for years!

Julia was not accustomed to priggish people. For that reason, she had not really looked forward to meeting him at all.

But then, he had not seemed so priggish when she met him in the lane. She had caused him to be thrown from his horse, to fall in the mud and become absolutely filthy. Any other man in his situation would have been furious. And she rather suspected he
had
been angry at first.

Then he had laughed. He had even flirted with her. He had treated the whole awful scene as a country lark. It had been almost—fun.

Until she realized who he truly was.

She had tried not to show it to Abelard and the others, but she had been quite nervous at the thought of what could happen when Lord Ellston arrived at Rosemount. He had been kind and flirtatious with a strange girl on the road. How would he behave with Anna Barclay’s daughter?

She had always suspected that he would behave as he had four years ago in the library, hurling angry words and accusations. This had been the image she carried with her through those years. Yet he had surprised her again. Once the shock of their introduction waned and they settled down before the fire, he had seemed pensive. Far away from the present moment. Carried off by the enchanted spell Rosemount could sometimes weave, a spell Julia herself knew all too well.

He was obviously startled when she spoke to him, and recalled himself. Recalled the truth of their odd, and rather awkward, situation. His warm blue eyes had turned gray with frost.

He looked a bit like the prig she’d always imagined.

She fought the urge to move closer to the warmth of the fire and instead offered the plate of sandwiches she had been arranging and rearranging. “Would you care for a sandwich, Lord Ellston?” she asked. “I fear supper was over long ago. We keep country hours here. Though, of course, now you must arrange the household schedule to suit your own needs.”

She decided not to mention the fact that supper was generally just an extension of the tea, cakes, and sometimes even champagne that were served in the afternoon, after rehearsals. No need to make him think she was a poor household manager just yet.

“Thank you, Miss Barclay,” he said, accepting one of the thin-cut cucumber sandwiches. “I prefer country hours myself.”

Julia took a rose cream cake. “I suppose you will soon be wanting an accounting of the household.”

He smiled at her, still a bit stiff and uncertain, but kindly. “I am sure it is nothing to worry you. I will simply speak to the housekeeper later in the week.”

She bit her lip in consternation. “I fear, well, that there is no housekeeper at present. But I can answer any questions you may have.” Mrs. Thompson, like her husband, had been rather less than useful. Julia had practically run everything after her mother died.

Marcus paused in lifting his sandwich to his mouth. “No housekeeper at Rosemount?”

“No. You see, Mrs. Thompson had to leave us rather suddenly. But I have all the books and keys, which are, of course, at your disposal.”

He frowned, his dark, silky brows almost meeting over his aquiline nose. She feared he might bellow, as Gerald sometimes had when very vexed. He just nodded. “Perhaps tomorrow we could discuss it, then, Miss Barclay. And later in the week maybe you could show me the household books.”

“Yes. Certainly.” Julia placed her cup carefully back on the table, suddenly very weary. “Now, if you will excuse me, Lord Ellston, I am rather tired.”

“Of course. Do forgive me for keeping you so late.” Marcus rose with her and walked to the drawing room door.

Elly, Julia’s
real
maid, waited there to light her way upstairs.

“If you will ring for Ab—Douglas whenever you are ready,” Julia told him, “he will see you to your chamber.”

“Yes. Douglas,” Marcus answered slowly. “Tell me, Miss Barclay. Exactly how long has Douglas served as butler here?”

“Oh,” she said airily, “simply eons. He is a treasure. Good night, Lord Ellston.”

“Good night, Miss Barclay.”

Julia quickly ascended the staircase, fighting the urge to look back over her shoulder. She could feel his gaze on her until she reached the deep shadows at the top of the stairs.

She was thoroughly exhausted by the time she reached her room. It had been a very long, very odd day, and she just wanted to hide beneath her warm bedclothes and forget all about it.

Sleep, however, was apparently not to be in her near future. Mary and Daphne were waiting for her, playing piquet at the little French card table that had been her mother’s, still dressed in their black housemaids’ frocks.

“There you are at last!” Mary cried, her blonde curls positively atremble with enthusiasm.

“We have been waiting for you for an age,” added Daphne. “We want to hear all about it.”

Julia dismissed Elly and went to sit at the table with the girls. She kicked off her slippers and stretched her stockinged toes out toward the grate. “All about what?”

Mary giggled. “Your meeting with his lordship, of course! He is awfully handsome. Just like this Italian opera singer I knew once. Alfredo was his name. . . .”

“What is
really
important,” Daphne interrupted, since Mary tended to go on for a long time about her beaux, “is, does he suspect our little ruse?” Unlike her character, the silly shepherdess Phebe, Daphne was quite practical.

Julia shook her head. “I do not think so. Though he did comment on Douglas’s oddness as a butler. I think Abby would be quite insulted if he knew he was anything less than thoroughly convincing!”

“Quite so.”

“But I think that Lord Ellston rather expected my mother to run an eccentric household and is not surprised. So I’m sure we are safe enough for the present.”

“Just as long as we can stay here until next month,” Daphne said. “Then we will go on our tour, and all will be well.”

“It
would
be nice if we could come back here for Christmas, though,” Mary said wistfully. “I haven’t had a real country Christmas since I was a girl.”

“I doubt even I shall be here for Christmas,” Julia answered.

“Why?” asked Daphne. “Where are you going?”

Julia shrugged. “I have no idea as yet. Perhaps with all of you!”

“Oh, that will be such fun!” Mary enthused. “It’s always so jolly on tour. So many new admirers . . .”

Daphne looked at Julia slyly. “But rather a pity to leave here when the handsome earl is just arrived, eh, Jule?”

“He is handsome,” Julia agreed with a reluctant laugh. “I think, though, that he wants as little to do with me as possible. Especially after our unfortunate first meeting in the lane!”

“First meeting?”

“Oh, do tell us what happened!”

“No, no,” said Julia. “It is far too late, and I am far too tired. And you two will have to be up early to do the dusting!”

Daphne groaned. “How awful! When will we ever have time to rehearse?”

“I’ll tell Lord Ellston that the morning room is being redecorated and he shouldn’t go in there. That should give you some time in the afternoons, when he is out riding, or whatever it is gentlemen do. Now, good night, dears.”

“Good night!” Daphne and Mary chorused. They left the room still whispering and laughing, and shut the door behind them, leaving Julia in quiet at last.

She stood up and went to go look out her window. It was a clear night, with many stars and a nearly full moon bathing the garden in their pale glow.

Julia leaned her forehead against the cool glass. Daphne and Mary were right—Marcus
was
handsome, and when he was near she felt an undeniable sense of odd breathlessness, an almost overwhelming urge to simper and giggle. To run her fingers through his curls and see if they were as soft as they looked.

A more romantical sort might say she was falling in love, or at least in passion, with him.

But Julia was not particularly romantical. That sort of thing was for plays and books, and she could ill afford it in real life. Not at this moment in her life, anyway, when things were so very uncertain. Assuredly not with Marcus Hadley!

“He is not at all the sort of man I admire,” she told herself stoutly. Even on their short acquaintance she could tell that he was conventional and more straitlaced than anyone who had traveled so much had a right to be. He was the sort who would go to those staid routs at the Flemings’ Belvoir Abbey and
like
them. The sort who would be furious if he discovered she had filled his house with “vulgar” actors.

But, oh, he
was
handsome! And he had such an angelic smile, with a little dimple in his chin. . . .

Julia jerked the draperies closed over the window, shutting off the view of the garden. It was obvious that the moonlight was addling her mind.

***

Marcus sat in the silence of the drawing room long after Julia left. He stared into the dying fire, sipping absently at his now-cold tea.

The room seemed a great deal more vast, and quieter, without Julia Barclay in it. She was not a loud person, not vulgar and pushing, as he had imagined theater folk might be. But she still seemed to fill the room with her presence, with a certain warmth, and even a sparkle that was gone as soon as she left.

Very peculiar, indeed.

Marcus sighed and sat back wearily in his chair. It was the fatigue causing such fanciful thoughts. Or perhaps that old wag Shakespeare popping up so often in one day, when Marcus hadn’t so much as thought about a play or sonnet since Oxford. Yes, it was just the Bard calling up such thoughts of fairies and enchantments, when there was absolutely no room for such things in his life.

Ever since he was a small child, Marcus had a plan for his life. These plans were born and nourished on his mother’s tales of how he was the product of two great, ancient families. She exhorted him from the cradle to do fine things to honor that legacy, and so he always had. He excelled in his studies, was enthusiastic at cricket and the hunt, and was well liked by his peers. He had seen his life as following that path forever after—a respectable wife, a nursery full of sons and heirs, perhaps even a career in politics. His mother was proud of him, and, so he assumed, was his father.

And if something elusive was missing in his life, in his heart, well—this was the existence he was born to have, and he could only make the best of it.

So he did. After all, he always did what was expected of him.

Then his mother had died. His approving audience vanished forever, and his father did what was assuredly
not
expected of him.

He married an actress.

Marcus ran his hand through his close-cropped curls, still shaken by the memory of all those emotions that had pummeled him then, even all these years later. His father’s actions had seemed a stark betrayal of all Marcus’s mother had stood for, all he had thought their entire family stood for.

All that Marcus himself tried so hard to uphold, for them.

The knowledge that his father valued other things above family history and honor had shown Marcus that perhaps he had never known his father at all. Not really.

His whole life, up until then so secure and unshaken, had crumbled into confusion. He had no longer been sure of himself at all. So he, being young and heedless, fled rather than face his troubles.

Marcus reached for the brandy the butler had left on the table and tipped the last of it into his empty teacup. Facing demons was thirsty work.

Well, he had learned a great deal in his wanderings. One of them was that regrets over the past were utterly useless. Yes, he had hoped to make things up to his father. It was too late for him to tell his father how sorry he was, but there was one thing he could do. He could look after the daughter of his father’s wife. Not the way he had vaguely thought to look after a child, with governesses and schools. But with a Season, and with finding her a respectable match with a worthy young man.

He felt a rather sour pang at the thought of marching the pretty young woman down the aisle to some respectable baron or younger son. But he quickly shrugged that off.

He would do his duty. Even if her hazel eyes did linger in his mind.

“My lord,” the butler said, for once not booming.

Marcus looked up, startled. He had been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he had not even heard the man come into the room. “Yes?”

“Shall I clear away the tray now?”

“What? Oh, yes. I was just preparing to retire.” Marcus watched as the butler stacked the tea things onto a tray and prepared to heft it like a caber. “You said you are a Scot, Douglas?”

Douglas set the tray back down, obviously surprised that Marcus would ask him a question about himself. “Aye, that I am. My lord,” he added hastily. “From Aberdeen.”

“Were you a butler in Aberdeen?”

Douglas frowned. “I’ve not been back to Aberdeen in many a year. Not since I was a lad. My lord.”

“Miss Barclay tells me that you have been a butler here for a long while.”

“Did she, now?” There was a hint of sparkle in Douglas’s eyes. “It must be so, then. My lord.” Before Marcus could even begin to question him about that odd statement, he continued. “Shall I clear away the table after I see you upstairs, my lord?”

Marcus shook his head. He was far too weary to puzzle out the oddity Rosemount’s household had become in his absence. “I assume I will be in my father’s old rooms. I remember the way. You can finish in here. I am sorry to keep you so late.”

Douglas grinned. “’Tis no trouble at all, my lord. No trouble at all.”

Chapter Six

And then to breakfast with

What appetite you have.

—
Henry VIII

“Come along, Julia! Just try it. It’s quite fun.”

“Yes, we just finished polishing it. It is as smooth as satin.”

Julia looked down the gleaming length of the banister of the grand staircase. Then she looked up at the eager, exhilarated faces of Mary and Daphne. “I do not know . . .”

“Oh, just try it!”

“You’ll like it.”

Julia looked at the banister again. She had not slid down it since she had first arrived at Rosemount, four years ago. But she remembered it as being absolutely delightful, like flying. “What if Lord Ellston should see?”

“He won’t. He’s in the library with some attorney or bailiff, someone terribly official looking.”

“We worked so hard at polishing it, Julia!” cried Mary. “It would go to such waste if just Daph and I enjoy it. Well, and Ned; he tried it, too.”

Julia laughed. “It will hardly ‘go to waste’ if I don’t slide down it! It is meant to look good, and so it does.” But she glanced back over her shoulder at the empty corridor she had just come through on her way to breakfast. Then she peeked down at the foyer; also empty.

She gave in to temptation. Still smiling, she hopped up onto the banister, balancing herself carefully on its smooth surface.

“All right,” she said. “Give me a push!”

Daphne gently shoved on her shoulders, and she was off. It
was
like flying, just as she remembered! The air whooshed past her, pulling her hair from its carefully placed pins and sending her skirts fluttering above her ankles.

Daphne and Mary applauded and shouted encouragement. Julia whooped in delight.

Then she landed. Right on top of Lord Ellston, who had chosen just that instant to open the library door and step out into the foyer.

He fell back onto the red-and-blue carpet with a great exhalation of air, Julia sprawled atop him.

Momentarily dazed, she pushed herself up on her elbows and looked down, horrified, into his wide blue eyes.

“My dear Miss Barclay,” he gasped. “We must stop meeting this way.”

Julia scrambled up off him. “Oh, Lord Ellston! I am so very sorry! Are you injured? Are you—oh, should I send for the doctor?”

“I hardly think that will be necessary.” Marcus sat up slowly. “I do believe all my limbs and wits are intact, such as they are.”

“I should still send for the doctor,” Julia fretted. She glanced up the stairs to see Mary and Daphne staring down at them, pale and startled. She made a small shooing motion with her hand, and they fled into the upstairs corridor. “I might have done you a great injury, Lord Ellston.”

With the aid of one of the stout chairs, he managed to pull himself to his feet and stand before her, apparently hale and hearty, if rather disarranged. “I am quite well, I do assure you, Miss Barclay. But under the circumstances, it seems quite ridiculous for us to go on calling each other Lord Ellston and Miss Barclay. Shall we be Marcus and Julia from now on?”

She nodded, and even managed to smile a bit in relief that she had not, for the second time, killed him. “Yes. Of course.”

“Well, I am glad we have settled that. I was just on my way to breakfast. Would you join me—Julia?”

“I was just going there, myself—Marcus.”

He held out his arm to her politely, as if everything was completely civilized and she had not just flown down the banister to land atop him.

“Thank you,” Julia murmured, and slipped her hand into the warm crook of his elbow.

***

Marcus had awakened early to spend a very long hour with the attorney, going over such dull things as wills, bequests, and entailments. Then he had spent an hour with the bailiff, discussing oats and plowing and tenants. He finally emerged from the library, eagerly in search of his breakfast, only to be knocked flat on his back by a hurtling object.

A hurtling, lavender-scented, blue muslin–clad object.

Somehow, even as he lay breathless on the carpet, he had not been surprised. He had realized the night before that his life had turned tip-over-tail and was not likely to be righted again anytime soon. It seemed all too appropriate that he would start off that new life by being knocked down by a woman sliding down the banister.

As he offered his arm to escort Julia into breakfast, he couldn’t help but look back at the staircase gleaming with beeswax in the morning sun. He had only slid down that banister once, when he was seven years old. On that memorable occasion, he had been caught by his nanny and roundly scolded by his mother. Before that scolding, though, he remembered the experience as being rather glorious.

But he had been a little child. Julia Barclay was a grown woman. Supposedly.

He looked down at her as he seated her at the end of the small table in the breakfast room. She looked serene now, her eyes downcast, a polite half smile on her lips. Her hair, though, fell down her back in its profusion of curls, some strands of it still anchored by their pins and combs.

She noticed him noticing, and her cheeks turned bright pink. She reached up and began self-consciously tucking her hair back up.

Marcus smiled and went to take his own seat. He looked about for the breakfast, but the long sideboard was bare of any warming dishes.

Julia, her hair made almost tidy, rang a small bell that sat on her end of the table. “Usually there is a selection laid out for breakfast, Lord—er, Marcus. But I did not know what your preferences are, so I asked the cook to just prepare some eggs, sausage, and toast this morning.” She prudently decided not to say that usually breakfast was held late, around ten o’clock, when a pack of ravenous actors fell on the kippers and eggs and ran lines while they ate.

Now they were all hiding in the “being redecorated” morning room, waiting for his lordship to leave so they could rehearse.

All of them except John and Ned. They entered the breakfast room at the sound of the bell, bearing platters of eggs, sausages, and toast before them as if they were carrying the crown jewels. They wore liveries of their own devising—scarlet velvet doublets and hose, complete with tasseled codpieces. Ned even wore a green satin cap with a long red plume affixed to it, which nodded into the eggs with every step he took.

Julia groaned and closed her eyes. She longed to run away, to crawl beneath the table and hide! This scheme of hers had been absolute lunacy. They would surely be found out in no time, and then all of them would be tossed out in the lane clutching their caps and codpieces. Julia included.

But there was no outcry, no shout from Marcus, no crash of crockery. Only the soft sounds of china being laid on the tablecloth, of chocolate and coffee being poured out.

Julia dared to open her eyes and look about cautiously.

John was arranging a fluffy pile of scrambled eggs into artistic little hillocks, while Ned placed a plate of toast and a small crystal jar next to Marcus.

“Excellent. Marmalade. You know, I always missed this when I was traveling in Egypt. They simply have no concept of good marmalade there,” Marcus said. Then he smiled at Julia.

She would almost have preferred him to shout at her. Especially when Ned blew her a kiss behind his lordship’s back.

Julia groaned again.

“Julia,” Marcus said, as he dolloped a spoonful of marmalade onto his toast, “you must be quite familiar with the grounds and gardens of Rosemount.”

Julia frowned, puzzled. The gardens? Whatever did that have to do with marmalade? “Well, yes. I go walking every day.”

“Perhaps you would be so good as to walk with me this afternoon? I am sure things must have changed greatly at Rosemount since I have been away. In many ways.”

“Of course. Shall we say, after luncheon?”

“Most satisfactory. Oh, and one other thing.”

Julia longed to close her eyes again. So here it was. He wanted to know why the housemaids were incompetent, why the footmen looked like they were on their way to Hampton Court to meet Queen Elizabeth, and what the odd noises from the morning room were.

She swallowed. “Yes, Marcus?”

“You may want to speak with the cook. The toast is burned, the coffee is cold, and I could vow that I just bit down on an eggshell.”

Julia looked down at her own plate to see that the toast was charred so black that no amount of marmalade could ever hide it.

***

“What were you doing parading in there as if you were presenting roast peacock to Henry VIII?” Julia leaned back against the closed door of the morning room-cum-theater and eyed Ned and John sternly. “You will have us all found out. I am sure he thought something was most odd.”

Ned smiled at her cajolingly. “Ah, Julia. No, he didn’t. Not that one. He was too concerned with his burned toast, and with ogling you, to worry about the footmen.”

He was ogling her? Julia was intrigued, but she refused to be distracted. “Nevertheless—”

“Besides, Julia,” John interrupted, “you told us to use some costumes, since there’s no livery for us.”

“True,” Julia sighed. “I did hope, though, that you could find something more appropriate than the Capulets.”

“It was either these or our
As You Like It
forest garb,” Ned protested. “Agnes is still mending our things from
Twelfth Night
.”

“Those would not have worked, anyway,” said John. “It’s just more hose and doublets.”

Mary and Daphne, who had been silently watching the conversation, nodded in agreement.

“Perhaps you could wear cloaks?” suggested Mary. “Or some powdered wigs.”

“Yes!” said Ned. “Footmen do wear powdered wigs, don’t they?”

“No! Not with doublets,” cried Julia, suddenly weary. “Do not wear cloaks or powdered wigs. That would only call more attention to you. I suppose you must go on wearing your doublets.” She looked around the room at the actors gathered about on the stage and seated on the chairs and settees. Everyone was there, except . . . “Where are Abelard and Charlie?”

“I think Abby was polishing some silver,” Daphne said. “He really seems to enjoy that little butler’s pantry.”

“And Charlie was down in the kitchen, helping prepare luncheon,” added Mary.

“I’ll speak with them later, then. I need to talk to the cook, anyway, about the dreadful breakfast.” Julia climbed onto the stage and sat down on the edge of it, dangling her legs until her feet almost touched the floor. “Tell me, have you had any difficulties with the staff?”

“None at all!” answered Mary. “They all seem to think it great fun, as long as his lordship doesn’t find out. Makes a change from dusting and polishing.”

“Just as dusting and polishing makes a change from rehearsing!” Daphne said with a laugh. “This has been a wonderful experience, Julia, for the next time I play the role of a maid. You were so clever to think of such a ruse!”

“I do not feel clever,” Julia murmured. “I feel as if we are on the verge of discovery—and disaster.”

Mary sat down beside her, suddenly serious. “Why, Julia? Has his lordship implied that he knows what we are about?”

“Not yet,” Julia answered. “But I know he knows something odd is afoot. He wants me to take a walk with him after luncheon.”

“Perhaps he’s going to say he’s about to take himself off to London,” Ned suggested hopefully. “Then we will all be free to go about as we did before!”

Julia expected to feel only relief at the thought of Marcus leaving. Instead, she felt an odd, rather disappointed pang. “Perhaps. Well, I suppose I will find out after luncheon. Shall we meet again this evening?”

“Yes, after his lordship has gone off to bed!” said John. “Then you can tell us the plans for tomorrow.”

“Yes. Tomorrow.” Julia leaped down from the stage. “Now I must go speak with the cook about this morning’s so-called breakfast. I don’t know what could have happened. Her cooking is usually so excellent.”

***

Julia did not even have to summon the cook to her little book room. The buxom Mrs. Gilbert arrived there on her own, her broad face deep crimson with anger, and poor Charlie Englehardt, her temporary “assistant,” held firmly by the ear.

“Mrs. Gilbert!” Julia cried, deeply shocked. The household accounts she had been perusing fell back down onto her desk, unheeded. “Whatever is the matter?”

“
This
is the matter, Miss Barclay!”

Mrs. Gilbert shook Charlie firmly, causing him to shout out, “Ow, ow, ow!”

“I have been cook here for over six years,” Mrs. Gilbert continued. She finally released Charlie, who fell into a pitifully moaning heap at her feet. “I have prepared supper parties for one hundred guests. I have made lobster patties and mushroom tarts for balls at only a day’s notice. I even baked your own mother’s wedding cake, miss! And I never thought to be subjected to such indignities in my own kitchen! Not at Rosemount.” Tears sprang to her eyes and were wiped hastily away with the hem of her apron. “Do you want my notice, miss?”

“Oh, no!” Julia leaped up in near panic. “No, Mrs. Gilbert, never. Why, you are the finest cook in the county. Everyone says so. Haven’t the Hallsbys tried to steal you away numerous times? We would never want to lose you. Please, sit down and tell me what the trouble is. I promise I will do my very best to solve it.”

Somewhat mollified, Mrs. Gilbert lowered her girth onto a satin armchair. She treated Charlie, still moaning on the floor, to a disdainful sniff. “I understood when you explained the need for your . . . friends to assist with the household duties for a few days, miss. God knows I am a Christian soul and would never want people to be tossed out to starve. And your mother, God rest her soul, was so good to us, with such high wages and an extra half day off every month, that I can only hope to repay her in some small way.”

“That is very good of you, Mrs. Gilbert,” Julia said.

“
But
, no one ever said I had to let that . . . that jackanapes into my kitchen!” Mrs. Gilbert’s voice swiftly rose again in volume. “I thought he would just sit quietly in the corner, maybe help Betty with peeling some potatoes.”

Julia was rather confused. “Is that not what he did?”