Barbara Metzger (9 page)

St. Cloud was pacing the length of the barn, the piglet trundling after. He was talking more to himself than to Ned, who was filling buckets for the horses. “But if they don’t talk to me, I’ll never find out where she went. And if I don’t give some answers, they’ll make them up. I know village life. It’s the same as London gossip. No, I’ll have to hope no one recognizes me.”

“What about your uncle Hebert, the magistrate? He has to know you.”

“Prosy old puff-guts always hated me, too. He’s not even a real relation, just by marriage, his sister to my uncle. The dastard’s bound to ask a lot of questions.”

“Like what happened to your face.”

“I haven’t even seen how bad it looks.” The boy’s grimace told him. “A carriage accident.”

“And where did you sleep?”

“Under a hedge.”

“And what were you doing Bramley way, when everyone knows the Priory is clear west and north?”

St. Cloud started leading out the chestnuts, and Ned ran to help. “I was meeting Miss Beaumont to escort her to my home. And if anyone asks where is my groom or her maid and how did I mislay a female in my care, I’ll tell them it’s none of their deuced business. Especially not Hebert Cantwell’s.”

Ned whistled, impressed in spite of himself. “Guess it’s no wonder they call you Satan St. Cloud, telling all those bouncers, and on the Lord’s birthday, too! But they’re going to wonder all the same, a top-of-the-trees gentleman like yourself all mussed up and Charlie Parrett laid out dead. What’ll you say if anyone asks if you killed him?”

“The truth, brat, that he was such a bungler, he shot himself with his own pistol.”

J
uneclaire was on her way out of Bramley before St. Cloud was aware she was gone.

How silly he was, she had thought on the short walk toward the village earlier that morning, as soon as the cock crowed in predawn light. How silly and how sweet, to think about saving her from gossip. But ruination was only for ladies of the ton, not poor females. Indigent misses could not afford to worry overmuch about their good names, not when they had to consider their next meal. As for Juneclaire, she had no name to speak of, so how could she lose it? Her aunt already considered her no better than she should be because of her parents’ marriage. She made it plain no respectable man would have Juneclaire to wive without good reason.

Merry, Lord Jordan, though, with all his talk of heirs and London, was Quality. He was of the ton, and he respected Juneclaire enough to offer marriage when he need not at all. He thought she was good enough to bear his own name, bear his children. No one else’s opinion mattered.

He said she was beautiful and brave. The thought kept her warm on the way to Bramley. She was not feeling very courageous, once wagons and carriages started passing her, local people on their way to church dressed in all their finery, staring at the outsider. She was truly alone now, without even Pansy to talk to, to watch out for. Her own solitary state seemed much magnified without the little animal, now that she was coming among strangers. Merry would look after Pansy, she assured herself, before she fell into a fit of the dismals with missing her companion. The pig, not the man, she tried to convince herself. He was a real gentleman—the man, not the pig—so Pansy would be safe. Juneclaire did not think he’d bring that formidable temper of his to bear versus an innocent creature. Not that his ill humors were a sham, she admitted, but they seemed more an ingrained habit than from genuine meanness. He was kind. He had been mostly gentle with her and more than fair with Ned. He was concerned about his groom and worried that his people were fretting at his late arrival. He was a good man. He wasn’t appreciated by his relatives either, which was just about the only thing he and Juneclaire had in common, besides a night in the barn. Her mind had come full circle. That was enough to dream about, not enough to marry on.

“Do you need a lift into town, miss? Bells are starting to toll.” An old couple in an antique tilbury had pulled up alongside her while she was woolgathering. “I be Sam Grey,” the man said, “and this be my Alice.”

Alice took in the odd condition of Juneclaire’s cloak, as well as the quality of its cut and fabric. Juneclaire felt those old eyes missed nothing, not her tapestry bag, the muddied half boots, or the mismatched mittens. Juneclaire bobbed a curtsy, lest these good people think her manners as ramshackle as her appearance, and smiled. “A happy day to you, sir, ma’am. I am Juneclaire Beaumont, and I would be delighted to accept your kind offer.”

Alice smiled back at Juneclaire’s pretty behavior and moved over on the seat. Her black dress crinkled as she moved, so starched it was. She had a new green bow on her black ruched bonnet, and Sam wore a sprig of holly in his lapel. “Can’t think what folks is about,” he groused now, clucking the equally ancient horse into motion, such as it was, “passing a little gel like you up on the way to church, and this being a holy day and all.”

“You know what it is, Sam. What with highway robberies and shootings, folks think they can’t trust anyone. Little Bramley has never seen the like. Our Johnny brought the news this morning, Miss Beaumont. Such goings-on.”

Juneclaire only had to nod and exclaim “How terrible” a few times while Sam and Alice speculated on the unmourned demise of Charlie Parrett. Sam spit over the side of the carriage. “Should end any of this bobbery about a gang of footpads in the neighborhood. Charlie Parrett was ringleader, mark me, and you’ll see no more lawbreaking roundabouts, and a sight more rabbits and grouse on Lord Cantwell’s estate, to boot.” He laughed and coughed and spit again.

Alice patted his hand, then turned to Juneclaire. “A nice young lady like yourself hadn’t ought to be alone on the roads during such uncertain times.”

There was no censure in Alice’s remark, just a great deal of curiosity. Juneclaire knew her face would turn red if she tried to lie to this shrewd little woman, and her tongue would twist itself in knots. It always did, so she told the truth. “I have no choice, for I had to help a friend in need, and my own situation was intolerable, so I am going to London to seek a position. I have coach fare and a bit extra.”

Sam spit again but Alice
tsk
ed. She didn’t know about any friend, but she could imagine what kind of trouble bedeviled such a pretty gal. “Well, you won’t find the men are any different in London, Miss Beaumont. I can tell you, for Sam and I were in service at one of the great houses for years, we were, till the master pensioned us off and we came here. I suppose you have references and appointments and friends to stay with till you are settled?”

Juneclaire stared at her mittens, wishing the right one could grow an inch up the cuff. “No, ma’am, just the address of our old housekeeper. I was hoping she might—”

“Without references? You must have come down with the last rain, Miss Beaumont. And if Bramley sounds bad, with talk of highwaymen and poachers and murderers, you should see London. There’s cut-purses on every corner, and that’s not the worst of it. Why, a pretty girl like you would get swallowed up the second your foot touched pavement. There are folks there who meet the coaches looking for just such ones as yourself. They offer the little country girls jobs and rooms and rides—and do you know where the girls end up?”

Juneclaire didn’t, but she could guess. Aunt Marta had preached about the fleshpots of the city often enough. Feeling slightly ill, Juneclaire thanked Mrs. Grey for her warning. “Now I shall know better how to go on.”

“You’ve never been in service, have you, dearie?” Alice guessed, shaking her head.

“Not that I ever got paid for, no. But I cannot go back. Pansy—”

While Juneclaire was realizing that she no longer had to worry about Pansy’s future, Mrs. Grey was bemoaning a world where gently bred females—and she did not hesitate to declare Miss Beaumont a lady—had to leave home and hearth to see their virtue intact. Alice didn’t doubt this Pansy had been seduced and abandoned by some rakish lordling or other, and Miss Beaumont was next.

“Don’t fret, missy. I’ll talk to Mrs. Vicar Broome right after service. She knows everything that’s going on in the parish, so she’ll find you a ride toward Springdale. That’s the next closer coaching stop to London, and folks in Bramley have lots of relatives there. Someone’s bound to be going off for Christmas dinner. And we’ll fix you up with some kind of letter of introduction. I still have lots of friends in London, though I wish there was another way.”

During Reverend Broome’s reading of the Nativity, Juneclaire thought about another way. Would she rather be a servant in someone else’s household or a drudge in her aunt’s? Servants got paid pittances, barely enough to repay Merry’s loan, and that was assuming she found a position at all. Back with the Stantons, though, she did have a room of her own, the use of Uncle’s library, all the food she wanted to eat—and no strangers whispering about her in church.

She knew she was an object of speculation, but she would have been horrified to hear her tale so embroidered. By the time Mrs. Broome had pressed a hot roll and a shilling into her hand, Juneclaire was escaping a ravening monster and ravishment. Pity the man who pursued Miss Beaumont to the hitherto peaceful little village.

Juneclaire was bustled toward Mr. Josiah Coglin, who was waiting with his wife and daughters for their coach to be brought round from the inn. The owner of the mercantile and his family were bound for Springdale, where Mr. Coglin’s brother ran a similar enterprise. Mr. Coglin was all sympathy to Juneclaire’s plight, quickly whispered into his ear by the efficient Mrs. Broome. Of course, the vicar’s wife would never be indelicately explicit, but Mr. Coglin got the idea. So did Mrs. Mavis Coglin, who thought the drab little chit with heavy eyebrows must have invited any insults, since her looks had nothing to recommend her. Mrs. Coglin saw no reason to chance such a questionable miss with her own blond-haired, blue-eyed angels, or her husband. Miss Beaumont could ride on the seat with the driver and footman, she declared, lest the ladies’ skirts get crushed. Further, if the chit wished to go into service, she’d better learn her place.

Juneclaire clutched her carpetbag in one hand—no one offered to take it for her—and waved goodbye to the Greys and Mrs. Broome with the other. Once the Coglin ladies were settled inside, the grinning footman took his seat, nearer to Juneclaire than she could like. She was already pressed against the coachman on her other side, and that man’s watery eyes were more on her than the horses.

Could Stanton Hall be worse than this?

 

They stopped at an inn about an hour later when the younger Miss Coglin complained of queasiness. The footman, whose name Juneclaire had learned was Scully, hopped down smartly to lower the steps. All the while he was handing out the ladies and Mr. Coglin, he kept his leer on Juneclaire, hoping to catch a glimpse of ankle when she clambered down from the box without assistance. Mrs. Coglin turned her back on Juneclaire with a flick of her ermine tippet and demanded a private parlor, instantly. Mr. Josiah Coglin looked back at Juneclaire with a shrug of regret, either for his wife’s manners or for missing a pretty sight.

Juneclaire brought her satchel, thinking she might take the opportunity to freshen up, but the innkeeper’s harried wife was quick to direct her toward the kitchens, where the help ate.

“I am not a servant,” Juneclaire stated. “Not yet, at any rate.” And she vowed never to accept employment with such jumped-up mushrooms. She took a seat at a window table in the common room so she could see when the carriage was ready to leave. Mrs. Coglin might just forget her guest the same way she forgot to invite her to share the early nuncheon her strident voice was demanding.

When Juneclaire managed to get the attention of the serving girl, she asked for tea and a quick snack. The maid, who looked none too clean and none too happy to be waiting on a solitary female who looked as if she hadn’t a feather to fly with, took her not-so-sweet time before plunking down a tepid pot of tea, a watery egg, dry toast, and a rasher of bacon. Bacon! To keep the tears from her eyes, Juneclaire looked about the room at the other travelers. To her right was a large, noisy family whose children never stayed in their seats long enough to count. One small girl toddled over to Juneclaire, so she gave her the bacon, receiving back a runny-nosed, gummy grin. To her left snored two sheepherders, judging from their smell, with their heads on the table. Across the way was a party of loud young men still on the go from last night’s wassail or this morning’s ale.

One of the men was looking at her the same way Scully had looked at her, and she felt dirty again. She left a coin on the table and went to find a place to wash.

The innkeeper’s wife met her in the hall and thrust a tray into her hands. “Here, you may as well be useful. Bring this in to your mistress.” She jerked her head toward an oak-paneled door and bustled back toward the kitchen before Juneclaire could repeat, “But I am not a servant.”

The tray had a steaming pot of tea, lovely biscuits, and golden currant buns. Juneclaire sighed. She tapped lightly on the door, balancing the heavy tray in one unaccustomed hand, and went in.

“Put it there,” Mrs. Coglin directed, again not offering to share the room or the food with Miss Beaumont. She didn’t say “Thank you” either. Even Aunt Marta, the worst snob Juneclaire had ever known prior to this, always said “Thank you.” She might pay her staff nipfarthing wages and treat them as interchangeable mannequins, but she always said “Please” and “Thank you.”

Juneclaire demonstrated her own manners and breeding in inquiring as to the health of the younger Miss Coglin. That beribboned miss did not answer, too busy cramming biscuits into her rosebud mouth as fast as her dimpled fingers could snatch them away from her sister. Juneclaire turned to go, declining to curtsy.

“You can take this with you,” Mrs. Coglin instructed, indicating yet another tray. This one held a single glass and a bottle of some reddish restorative cordial. Juneclaire thought of refusing, of giving her oft-repeated line like a bad drama, but then she thought of the miles to Springdale. She took up the tray.