Barbara Metzger (17 page)

“Patches. I like that. Will that do for a name, do you think?”

Juneclaire laughed. “That cat is lucky to have a home. A name is icing on the cake.”

“Lucky, then. No, what do the Irish call those patches of lucky clover? Shamrocks! You did say he had green eyes?”

“Well . . .”

 

The dowager countess listened while Juneclaire played a few ragged carols. “I’m sorry, my lady. I never had many lessons; my aunt thought them a waste for a female with no prospects. I have no excuses for my poor voice, so I shan’t subject you to that. Would you rather I read to you?”

“Perhaps tomorrow. This has already been a most pleasant evening, Miss Beaumont. I don’t want to use all my treats in one day, like a child who cries when Christmas is past.”

“But there are twelve days of Christmas, my lady,” Juneclaire said with a smile in her voice. “What would you like to do now? Do you retire early?”

“What I would
like
to do is play cards.” Lady St. Cloud reached for her cane to punctuate her vexation. She remembered the kitten asleep in her lap just in time.

Juneclaire thought a minute, and then her face cleared. “I’ll be right back,” she told the dowager, then ran off to find Nutley and shout until she had what she wanted. Out of breath but smiling, she came back with her prize, a sewing needle.

“What is it, girl? What are you giggling about?”

“Something else my scapegrace cousins taught me. Here, feel this.” She held out a card. “The corner.”

“Why, why, you’re marking the cards! That’s cheating!”

“Not if we both know the marks, it’s not. I don’t think we’ll get so proficient that the dealer will have such an advantage, do you?”

“Miss Beaumont, I think I am going to learn to love you like a daughter. Or a granddaughter.”

T
he dowager was having a nightmare. “Don’t lie to me, Death. I know who you are and I’m not ready yet, I tell you. I have to make sure St. Cloud is settled before he’s ruined for good and all. You’ll see, the girl will be the making of the rogue.”

Juneclaire heard the old lady’s strident voice in the room next door. She had to recall which side held the bed stand before she fumbled for candle and flint in the unfamiliar room.

“You can’t take me yet,” the dowager was shouting. “He’s already made mice feet of the thing. No, I don’t want to hear any more of your wicked falsehoods about my sons. Go.”

Trust Lady St. Cloud to tell the Devil to go to Hell, Juneclaire thought as she tied a wrapper Nutley had laid out for her over her own flannel nightdress. She hurried to the dowager’s room and scratched on the door. When she got no answer, Juneclaire turned the knob and pushed the door open, shielding her candle. The dowager was fast asleep in a large bed. She was snoring gently, and she wore a satisfied smile on her face, having bested the Angel of Death for one more night.

Resisting the urge to peer in the corners or look under the bed, Juneclaire checked to make sure the silver bell was within the dowager’s reach in case she needed to call for her companion during the night. Then Juneclaire went back toward her own room. Before she got to the doorway, though, she felt a prickle of sensation at the bottom of her spine. Someone was watching her. She whipped around, almost putting her candle out, but the steady sleep noises were still coming from the dowager’s slightly open mouth.

It’s just all the talk of death, Juneclaire chided herself, that and Sally Munch’s chatter about the Priory ghosts stirring again. The slain monks were walking the ancient halls, Sally had declared as she slid the warming pan between Juneclaire’s sheets . . . or something worse.

The young maid’s imagination was as overheated as the rest of the little flirt, Juneclaire firmly told herself, blowing out the candle and getting between the long-cold sheets.

Then she heard a tapping noise, like the dowager’s cane but not quite. She had that same feeling of being observed. “There are no such things as ghosts,” she declared out loud. Then she shouted, “Begone,” figuring that if it worked for the dowager, it was worth a try, just in case. She thought she heard a chuckle, but she could not be sure, not with the covers pulled over her head.

 

The dowager never rose before eleven, but Juneclaire was up with the birds, so she looked around for other occupations to keep her busy. She helped Penny make bread and hid whatever bottles of wine she could find. She fetched the silver tea service, epergne, and sconces for Pennington, where he was polishing at the kitchen table, his leg propped on a stool. And she dragged Sally Munch and the footman out of an unused bedroom where they were checking the bedsprings, to help her gather greens.

The footman cut the holly and pine branches Juneclaire indicated, while she fashioned a wreath out of some vines. Sally, naturally, knew just where they could find some mistletoe. As they worked, Juneclaire tried not to listen to the servants’ gossip about the doings at the Priory, some possibly scandalous goings-on between the master, a recognized rake, and his latest flirt. Bets were on in the servants’ hall, it seemed, that a betrothal was all a hum, St. Cloud was never going to give up his profligate ways. The stable had it that the master was dead-set on the female, whoever and wherever she was. Juneclaire did not feel she could reprimand the maid for her chatter, but she found the whole conversation distasteful.

“It’s worse than that, miss. What did he do yesterday but hare off in the middle of the tenants’ visits? Cast-away, they say he was. Left in a great rush without saying when he’d be back or nothing. Then what happens but stablemen start walking in the halls at night, with pistols. By hisself’s orders, they say. Why, mistress was near swooning, they say. Then comes this morning. Molly, who comes to clean at the Dower House, says a whole herd of workmen arrived at dawn, on Lord St. Cloud’s instructions, they say, to check for loose boards and such, banging on the walls. If that weren’t bad enough to set the house on its ears, an army of sweeps comes looking for owls and squirrels and bats in the chimneys. So there can’t be no fires!”

“And there are guests? I can see where that would upset even the most serene household.”

“Which that one’s not. Why, that cousin—”

Juneclaire did not wish to hear any more details of life at the Priory. She quickly asked the footman to carry a message to the sweeps to come check the Dower House flues if they got a chance. “I thought there must be woodpeckers, myself.”

“Oh, no, miss. That be the ghost.”

 

Juneclaire read the newspapers to the dowager before luncheon and answered some letters from her dictation. She thought about writing to her relatives. Later.

After luncheon the dowager announced it was time for her nap. “And I want you to go outside and get some exercise. Can’t be healthy for a young thing like you to be cooped up inside with a parcel of old biddies, working so hard.”

“What work?” Juneclaire laughed. “This has been the easiest day of my life.”

“Doesn’t say much for the rest of your life, but I’ll hold my tongue on that. Can you ride?” Lady St. Cloud asked abruptly.

“Yes, but I did not bring my habit.” Juneclaire knew the dowager was well aware of the fact. Nutley must have enumerated Juneclaire’s scant wardrobe to her mistress the first day, thus the night robe. Juneclaire had two day dresses, the blue one she had on and the heavier gray one she’d worn on the road. She had the almost fashionable rose muslin castoff from Aunt Marta that she wore to dinner last night and, of course, her unworn white velvet gown. At least the dowager did not have to look at her companion in the same gowns day after day. She wasn’t going to get as weary of them as Juneclaire was going to. Juneclaire supposed she could ask her uncle to send on her clothes when she wrote to him, but the gowns she had left behind were all faded and threadbare, and her habit was so thin in the saddle, one more gallop might have her petticoat showing. Perhaps when she got paid, Juneclaire would purchase a dress length or two. But wages had not been discussed, nor a possible day off for her to do any shopping. Since her employer was being almost pleasant, Juneclaire hated to bring up such awkward topics. Instead, she added, “I do like to walk.”

“Humph. Walking’s for peasants, girl, unless you’re on the strut in Hyde Park or such. Nutley can alter one of my old habits for you. Certes, I don’t need them anymore.”

“If you wanted to ride, we could—”

“No, I’m not going to trot in a circle at the end of a lead line, by Jupiter. It used to be neck-or-nothing with me, and I ain’t going to change now.”

“Oh, then you weren’t always . . . ?”

“Blind. No, I used to see fine, just saw too much, the specialists said. Too many birthdays, mostly. Now I’m too stiff to get on a horse and too old to chance breaking a bone anyway. So those habits are just taking space in the clothespress.”

“But I couldn’t—”

“Have to. There’s no one else who can exercise my mare for me. Flame never held anything but a sidesaddle, don’t you know. Prettiest little filly in the whole county, she was. Now go on, get. I need my rest if I’m to learn this knitting of yours tonight. Oh, and don’t ride toward the Priory. No reason for you to face those spiteful cats up there without me. My daughter-in-law’s relations, they are, and a worse pack of dirty dishes you’ll never find.”

“You haven’t met the Root and the Newt.”

“But they’re just boys, you said. Fanny’s niece is a spoiled hoyden, and that other one is no better than she should be. The nevvy is a basket scrambler. You watch out for him, girl.”

Juneclaire laughed. “I thank you, ma’am, but I’m not likely to tempt a man of that ilk. I don’t have a fortune and I’m no dasher, as my cousins say.”

The dowager had Nutley’s opinion that miss would be a real diamond, with some careful dressing and a new hairstyle, should brunets come back in style. She also had the fact that one of England’s premier bachelors had offered for the chit. “You be careful, that’s all. When my grandson gets back is soon enough for you to meet the rest of the jackals. Now go.”

“Yes, my lady.” She curtsied, even though the dowager couldn’t see.

 

“Why, that old—” She bit her lip, even if Nutley couldn’t hear. A brown velvet habit was already altered, likely from measurements of her other day dress. The dowager had meant to have her way, no matter Juneclaire’s feelings. “Thank you, Nutley,” she shouted, giving the abigail a quick hug as she flew down the stairs in her eagerness for her ride. They were used to sending to the Priory for the rare times the dowager went out, Pennington explained while she filled her pockets with apples and sugar cubes (and hid another bottle of cooking sherry that was not destined for dinner). A carriage arrived every Sunday to carry the dowager to chapel at the Priory, he said, and a boy came every day to attend the small stable that served the Dower House.

He wasn’t there now, so Juneclaire took down a gleaming ladies’ saddle herself and went to lead the mare out of her stall. She did not have the heart to put the saddle on Flame’s back. If ever the mare had a flame at all, it had sputtered and gone out before Juneclaire was born. Flame had barely enough teeth to crunch the apple, after Juneclaire found a knife to slice it, and barely enough energy to put one foot in front of the other.

“Still, you cannot be happy in this dark barn all day, and the dowager said we were both to get some exercise, so come along.”

So Juneclaire, with the skirts of the most elegant riding habit she had ever worn trailing in the mud and the dust, ambled alongside the geriatric equine on the path where she’d been gathering holly that morning.

When Lady St. Cloud sent Juneclaire out for an airing, she hadn’t been thinking of the chaos at the Priory. Lady Fanny was busy having spasms, Lord Wilmott was growing more bilious with each hammer blow, as if the search for defects were a personal affront to his care of the earl’s property, and Florrie was in the attics, in the workmen’s way, finding pig-size baby clothes. Things were in such a state there that even a ride to the Dower House appealed to the younger members of the house party, since it promised the diversion of investigating the new companion. On being informed by Pennington—after a wait that had Lady Sydelle rapping her crop against her leather boots—that the dowager countess was resting and miss was riding through the holly path, they decided to ride after her. Niles wanted to wager the unfortunate creature wouldn’t last a week; neither his sister nor Lady Pomeroy took the bet.

“I bet she is a perfect antidote,” Elsbeth declared, “for even the poorest female can find a male to support her if she has any looks and is not fussy. I’d rather be married to a coal heaver than be Lady St. Cloud’s galley slave.”

“You mightn’t have either choice, with that wasp tongue,” the widow Pomeroy snapped at the younger girl, having married a dirty old man whose dirty fortune came from coal mines, although that fact was not well known among the ton.

Leaping to his intended’s—his intentions, not hers—aid before Elsbeth could unleash even more venom, Niles taunted, “I don’t notice you making any grand match, sister, now that your plans for St. Cloud are scotched.”

“Unlike others I could mention, I am waiting for a love match. Not all females sell themselves for security, you know.”

“And not all females are so totty-headed. I bet even the cipherous companion would jump at an offer to escape the drudgery.”

“An honorable offer, of course,” the widow agreed. “But are you willing to back your wager on another kind of offer? Companions are notoriously virtuous. I’ll bet my diamond pendant against—do you have anything worth wagering, Niles?—that this Miss Beaumont will accept something less.”

“Do you mean you’re betting that Niles can seduce the dowager’s companion? Why . . . why, that’s evil.”

“And so entertaining. We have to do something to enliven the days till the New Year’s ball, don’t we? Niles, do you take me up?”