Anne Barbour (8 page)

She finished her talk with Jonah and, with a nod to each of the men, walked away toward the house. He watched the delicate sway of her hips as she moved, and his throat tightened. Well, perhaps not all that virginal.

Back in the house, Claudia went about her duties somewhat absentmindedly. Mid-morning found her seated in the linen room with Aunt Augusta, carrying out an inventory, but such was her preoccupation that she came to herself with a start when Miss Melksham let out a small squeak.

“One hundred and thirty-seven pillow slips? In need of repair?” asked the distracted lady?

“What?” responded Claudia blankly. “Oh—no, that should be thirty-seven pillow slips, and six in need of repair.” Flushing, she placed the offending items in the to-be-mended pile, and plucked the list from her aunt’s nerveless ringers. “I’m sorry,” she said, hurriedly scratching in a correction.

“Child, what’s got into you today?” Miss Melksham peered severely at her over the tops of her spectacles. “First you nearly threw out three dozen of our finest candles, and now you have got the linen inventory all higgeldy-piggeldy.”

Claudia raised a hand to her head, which was beginning to ache again. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I just can’t seem to concentrate.”

“It’s Thomas and Rose, isn’t it?”

“Oh, no—that is, yes,” Claudia replied, prevaricating. “I do want everything to be just so for them.”

“Why, for heaven’s sake? You’re expecting your sister and her husband, not the Prince Regent.”

Claudia essayed a small, not entirely successful smile. “Yes, but I don’t think the Regent is quite as demanding as Thomas.”

Miss Melksham sniffed. “I certainly hope you aren’t going to accede to his constant need for attention. Rose is bad enough with her megrims and her collywobbles.” She cast a penetrating glance at her niece. “At least,” she continued meaningfully, “while they are here you won’t be outside mucking out the stables.”

Claudia flushed, but felt herself to be on firmer ground here. “I don’t do that anymore. January has taken over that task.”

“Our butler?” queried the older woman in bewilderment.

“Yes, well—” Claudia went on in rather a rush. “He was originally hired as a stable hand—did I not tell you?” Without giving her aunt a chance to answer, she continued hastily. “It was only when he assured me that he was eminently qualified—which, I’m sure he is, don’t you—at any rate, since his duties are so light here in the house, he will be spending his mornings in the stable with Jonah and Lucas.”

Thrusting the remainder of the pillow slips on a shelf, she rose and made as though to leave the room. Her aunt, however, stayed her with a minatory glance and a hand on her arm.

“What do you mean, my dear, about his duties being so light? We’ve been without a butler for too long, and there are many things he should be attending to. Since we have so few other men about the place, he must take over chores that we have let slide for too long. The chandelier lusters are in desperate need of cleaning, and—what
is
his name again—January—must see to lowering them for the maids. Since we have no housekeeper, I always depended on Morgan to help oversee the maids in their duties—have you looked at the upstairs parlors lately? An absolute disgrace! Dust you can write your name in, and—and the silver is in a deplorable condition. Morgan took it upon himself to polish it, you know. Oh, there are a hundred things that need doing.”

“There, there, Aunt,” replied Claudia soothingly. “When Thomas and Rose come—and that is in just a few days, now— January will spend all his time in the house.”

Miss Melksham threw up her hands. “Most unsatisfactory, but if it keeps you out of the stables, I suppose we can manage. Gracious, the sight of you in those dreadful clothes, with a pitchfork in your hand is enough to send me into a purple megrim.”

Laughing, Claudia escorted her aunt from the room. Once in the corridor, the two ladies parted. Miss Melksham to see to activities in the kitchen, and Claudia, beeswax and polishing rag in hand, toward the great hall.

En route, she passed the library, and on impulse, stepped inside. During her tour yesterday with January, she had noticed how the dust was beginning to accumulate in this room. Appreciatively, she breathed in the scent of vellum and leather and old wood. Odd, she felt more in tune with the spirit of the old house in this room. It had cost her a great deal to sell off so many of the books, but there were still many left. Enough, certainly, to provide her with pleasurable reading during the brief periods when she had time for such an activity. She walked no more than a few steps into the room, when she halted. There, on one of the tables, were several volumes, and next to them, a candlestick containing a burned-down stub. She frowned. Surely, when she had been here yesterday, all the books had been shelved.

She brushed her fingers through the recently disturbed dust on the table. Two books had been set aside, and she glanced absently at their tides. Cobbett’s
Rural Rides—
she was familiar with that one, having read Mr. Cobbett’s curmudgeonly comments on the state of the nation some years ago—and another volume with which she was unfamiliar—
Observations on a Rural Scene.

Uneasily, she reshelved the books, dusting them as she did so. Perhaps Aunt Gussie had come down to the library for something to read before retiring for the night. She herself had removed several books to her room for this purpose. However, Claudia thought it highly unlikely that her aunt would do so, since Aunt Gussie was not a reader, and relied on a tisane if she needed something to make her drowsy. After a moment’s thought, she moved lightly from the room, pausing only when she reached the butler’s quarters.

Feeling inexplicably guilty, she pushed the door open and slipped inside. There, on a small table lay a leather-bound volume. So, it had indeed been he who had been helping himself to her books.

Not that she minded, of course. She had told all the servants they were welcome to select volumes of their choice at any time. Not that any of them had ever taken her up on her offer. Still, it made her uneasy to think of the man prowling about the house in the dead of night. Idly, she picked up the book and glanced at the title. A
History of the Standish Family!
She let the book drop from her trembling fingers and rushed headlong from the room.

Back in the hall, she mechanically applied beeswax to the balustrade of the great staircase. How was she to go about discovering what January was up to? Emanuel had employed an attorney of sorts, but she was unwilling to confide in him. She had not trusted Cornelius Welker when Emanuel was alive, and she trusted him even less now. She recalled the ill-concealed eagerness he had displayed at her husband’s obsequies.

“If you’ll just put everything in my hands, my dear young lady,” he had pronounced in tones so oily that she could almost see the words sliding down his chin, “I shall be happy to assume the duties of running the estate, a burden that no person of your youth and inexperience should have to shoulder.”

My dear young lady, indeed! She had sent the man off with a flea in his ear, and had gone to his office a few days later to retrieve all Emanuel’s important documents from his unwilling hands. She had not heard from him since, and she could scarcely go to him now and ask for his help in ridding her of a possible threat to her ownership of Ravencroft.

She supposed she could go to Thomas. She almost smiled as she pictured Thomas’s reaction to the merest hint that her possession was in jeopardy. Unfortunately, his method of dealing with the problem would most likely only make things worse, Thomas being in favor of the confrontational approach to matters.

No, she was all alone in this. She gave an involuntary shiver at the thought of going against the unknown Standish by herself. He was not precisely sinister, yet she had received the definite impression that crossing swords with him would be dangerous and would irrevocably alter the course of her life.

She turned to her polishing, when a faint noise from outside made her lift her head. In a moment, the sound became identifiable as hoofbeats and the harness jingle of a carriage. Curious, she moved to the great front door, pausing to peer through one of the mullioned windows that overlooked the drive. Gasping, she dropped rag and polish and ran toward the kitchens, calling “Aunt! Aunt Gussie!”

Chapter Six

Responding to the frantic note in her niece’s voice, Augusta Melksham burst into the great hall before Claudia had taken very many steps. She, too, paused as she heard the gathering commotion outside. The crunch of gravel could be heard, as well as upraised voices calling for attention. Miss Melksham paled.

“Never tell me—!” she began.

“Yes, it’s Thomas,” cried Claudia. “They’re here!”

“But...”

“I know. None the less—they’re early, but they’re here.” Claudia grasped her aunt by the shoulders and turned her about in the direction from which she had just come. “Go find January.” The words tumbled from her. “Then send someone to the village to get the Sounder sisters. And Thelma Goodall if she’ll come. In the meantime, hustle every available housemaid upstairs to see that the guest rooms are at least habitable. Tell Cook she’ll need four chickens for dinner—Clem, the boots and knives boy, can wring their necks.” She drew a deep breath. “I’ll greet our guests.”

Aunt Augusta took off at a run, almost tripping on her bombazine skirts in her haste. Claudia affixed a determinedly bright smile to her lips and strode to the massive door. Pausing a moment to bring an instinctive hand to her hair, she flung it open.

“Thomas!” she cried to the large gentleman making his way ponderously down from the carriage. “Rose!” she added a moment later, as the gentleman assisted a lady to disembark. She was small and fluttery, and held a large, lacy handkerchief pressed to her nose. Behind her tumbled two children. Master George, nine, and Horatia, a few years younger. They were engaged in a pitched battle, apparently over who was going to carry the small dog presently clutched in a death grip under George’s arm.

The smile fell abruptly from Claudia’s lips as a second man, tall and reedy, disentangled himself with some difficulty from the coach’s leather stirrups as he lurched from the carriage to the ground. “Oh, no!” she quavered. How
could
Thomas have done this to her? “Mr. Botsford,” she finished weakly. “How very nice to see you.”

Fletcher Botsford nodded distractedly, but by now Claudia had turned her attention back to her sister and brother-in-law.

“What a surprise,” she cried weakly. “We were not expecting you for another two days.”

“Two days?” replied Thomas Reddinger, his florid face round with umbrage. “Nonsense. Told you we’d be here Tuesday—day after the Tentrum races.”

“Oh, but dearest,” interjected his wife, handkerchief held aloft in trembling supplication. “I
told
you we were to come on Thursday.”

“Nonsense,” Thomas repeated with finality. “You there!” he bawled. “Crumshaw! Get those valises out—step lively!”

“But, where is your butler, my dear?” asked Rose in faint, but scandalized tones. “Surely you do not answer your own door now?”

“Oh,” replied Claudia distractedly. “The—ah—January will be here momentarily. He is occupied elsewhere at present, and since I was—oh, dear!” This as the puppy relieved himself on Master George’s coat

Rose uttered a muted scream. “Grample! Nanny Gr—where are—oh. Do take the children upstairs—and take that wretched animal with you.”

A plump woman, wearing a long-suffering expression, labored to extricate herself from the large coach just lumbering to a stop behind the vehicle that had disgorged her mistress. Silently, she gathered up her charges and, to Claudia’s great relief, herded them into the house.

In a moment, the area before the entrance door became virtually impassable, as the hapless valet, Crumshaw, and Rose’s maid, Binter, collided with the servants sent out by Miss Melksham. That lady herself appeared the next moment, and with apparent delight, embraced Mr. Reddinger and his distracted wife. Turning to Fletcher Botsford, she smiled distantly and offered two fingers of her mittened hand.

It was some minutes before the guests were assisted out of wraps, hats, canes, bonnets, and gloves, and the entire party shepherded into the emerald saloon.

‘Tea will be here momentarily,” said Claudia rather breathlessly, shooting her aunt an agonized glance of inquiry. She breathed a small sigh of relief at Aunt Gussie’s nod, and settled the newcomers in chairs and settees.

“Did you have a good journey?” she asked brightly.

“Oh, tol lol,” replied Thomas.

“Simply dreadful,” said his wife at the same time.

“For God’s sake, Rosie, don’t be such a ninnyhammer,” bellowed Thomas jovially. “Rose suffers from headaches, you know,” he confided loudly to Miss Melksham. “Always quacks herself into a megrim with her everlasting nostrums and potions.”

Claudia surprised a flash of resentment in Rose’s eyes, but it was quickly veiled behind her pale lids. She bowed her head and after a moment, sat back in her chair and looked around the room.

“My, you never did get rid of that stain on the Egyptian sofa, did you?” she remarked in a high, sweet voice. “How fortunate that I brought something for it. My housekeeper makes it up, you know. Wonderful stuff. Perhaps it might help bring back some of the color in the hangings, too.”

Claudia clenched her teeth. Rose had perhaps forgotten that the stain was a result of Master George’s accident some months previous with a cherry tart that he had been expressly forbidden to bring into the room. It was a perfectly hideous sofa, anyway, one of Emanuel’s acquisitions, purchased when he had moved into Ravencroft.

“But, my dear,” continued Rose. “You are not wearing your blacks.”

“No,” replied Claudia shortly. “Had I known you were arriving today, I should have put on something more suitable, but I decided to put off my blacks long ago. I never did wear them except for company, or when out visiting. At any rate, Emanuel has been dead for almost a year.”