Carla Kelly (8 page)

Liria did not seem surprised, which relieved him of any embarrassment. “Excellent, sir! My suggestion to you now is to find a way to encourage your sister to return to London, so you can court in peace.”

He rose to go as Liria turned down the lamp. “We are obviously of one mind on that, Miss Valencia. A man hardly needs his older sister breathing down his neck when he attempts to convince a lady that he is a virtuous bargain. I welcome suggestions.”

“Just tell her to leave. You’re the duke,” she said.

He laughed and went to the door. “Such plain speaking, Liria,” he teased. “One would think you had practiced the matter yourself!”

She only smiled, dropped a graceful curtsy, and went into Mrs. Burlew’s room, leaving him to wonder, and then shake his head.

Chapter Six

Liria didn’t sleep well that night, lying in a dead woman’s bed and wondering why she had ever allowed herself to take a position of such responsibility in a duke’s household. She could not toss and turn because Juan lay beside her in peaceful repose.

It wasn’t an uncomfortable bed, just a strange one. And maybe not so strange. Juan edged against her until his back pressed against her stomach, a familiar pose that made her smile and put her arm around him. She had held him close all the nights of his life from the first one—a raw January midnight—when a company laundress delivered him, wrapped him in one of Sergeant Carr’s old shirts, then gentled him down to root around for her nipple, latch on, and make satisfying little mews that bound him to her forever.

She knew that Juan was the only reason she had agreed to stay at Knare. The realization came after the duke had left the mansion to walk across his park to Ash Grove. She had listened to the servants’ worries until her head was aching, then excused herself to find Juan, who had disappeared from her side. His trail had been easy to follow. After two days of rain, the late afternoon was warm. She smiled to see his ragged jacket—one she had cut down from one of the sergeant’s uniforms after his death—and then his broken-down shoes, as he discarded them.

The grounds sloped away from the house, and she knew she would find him at the spot with the best view. He was lying on his back with his hands behind his head, wriggling his bare toes in the spring grass, and staring across the slope to the avenue of elms, the ornate gate, and the river beyond. She slipped off her own shoes. I think we have walked enough on dusty roads, my son, she thought as she sat down beside him. She remembered the clouds of dust that she had walked through with the Nineteen, a cloth over her mouth and nose, and Juan pressed into her breasts to shield him from the choking dust. “Do you like it here, Juan?” she asked.

“I could stay here,” he said after a long silence. He said it hesitantly, as though afraid that the saying would somehow uproot them again. “Mama, have we stayed with all of the sergeant’s relatives?”

“I believe we have, son.”

“You don’t think the senor would mind that I have my shoes off on his grass?”

She thought to herself that even as little as she knew about the senor, he might be inclined to do the same thing himself. “I think he would not mind.”

“We should stay here,” he told her, and resumed his contemplation of the river and low hills beyond. “I could work, too.”

“You are only five,” she reminded him, touched by his willingness to help.

“The senor likes my drawings,” he told her seriously. “I could sell him one.”

Liria kissed the top of his head. “You probably could! I will ask the senor if there is something you can do to help around his estate.”

Juan nodded, still serious. With a sigh, he moved closer. “I carried water for the surgeons,” he reminded her suddenly. “I didn’t like doing that.”

“I know you didn’t,
hijo,
but we needed your help.”

“Do you miss him, Mama?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I do, too.”

She sat up in her bed now, careful not to disturb Juan, who only cuddled in closer to her hip for warmth. The senor promised me a school for you in the fall, she thought. I have merely to manage his household. That she could do it, she had no doubt. After her sister’s marriage and her mother’s death, she put aside her own pleasure in riding with her brothers, picked up Mama’s keys, and stepped into the role she had been raised for. Then her brothers went to war, and Papa retreated into his study to dream, and nothing was the same again. She contrived food where there was none, and kept order in a household until the servants gradually slipped away, some to the army, and some to safer havens than that of a Spaniard who loved the hated French.

But I will not think about it now, she told herself. She got up quietly, stood still for a long moment until Juan returned to sleep, and then dressed herself. She had learned in the course of those hurried interviews yesterday that the senor employed a seamstress at Knare. With a tape around her neck and paper in hand, the woman had measured her for two dresses last night. “One will be gray and one will be black, miss,” the seamstress had told her. “I imagine that Mrs. Burlew, God rest her, has caps in one of these drawers, and surely a petticoat or two that you can take in and hem.”

She had made an outline of Liria’s foot, and promised shoes in a week from the cobbler in Knare that the estate employed on occasion. “It’s all sensible and plain, miss, but maybe better than what you’ve seen lately,” the seamstress said, in her rough, blunt way. Liria held her breath and waited for the judgment or censure that usually fell her way, but there was none this time. Maybe this is because I have been listening to the servants, she told herself in surprise. Perhaps it is even because the senor is better thought of among his servants than he realizes, and they trust this sudden decision of his. I wonder, is he always so impulsive?

She found her rosary then, and fingered it as she sat in the chair by the window and watched her son. The Ave Maria meant nothing. God had ceased to have any particular interest in her after the storming of Badajoz, but she knew that the act of smoothing each ebony bead would calm her, and focus her mind on the task ahead. If the servants’ regard for the senor is great enough, they will overlook my strangeness and my son, she thought. To make it last, I must show them that I can do my job.

She had no squeamish notions about looking in a dead woman’s bureau drawer, she who had searched dead soldiers’ haversacks for food. She found a lace cap and settled it on her neat coil of hair, then left the room, closing the door quietly. I will only remember what I already know of household management, and add to it what I learned from Sergeant Carr about managing people. She leaned against the door for a moment, almost overwhelmed by the great debt she owed Richard Carr. She knew that the time for sorrow was past. If she would honor him in future, it would be by using what he taught her, every day of her life.

The house was so still. The sun streamed in the fascinating many-paned little windows, but the halls and corridors were cool as she glided through them. She paused for a long moment in the grand gallery, thinking of the El Greco over the altar in the estate chapel near Bailen, and the Velasquez that hung in her family’s gallery. She wondered if they were still there.

Great houses are great houses, she thought as she walked the next floor with its bedchambers. True, there was no pleasant courtyard with a soothing fountain in an interior square to look down upon, and no tile anywhere, but the row of doors was familiar. She watched as the small ’tween stairs maid—was her name Eliza or Emma?—walked with deliberate, slow steps toward one of the doors, her hands occupied with a copper can. She nodded to the child, who nodded back, her face serious.

Liria noticed that she was smiling when she came out. Liria waited for her by the stairs, and touched her cheek when she came close enough. “Good morning, Emma.”

“It’s Eliza, miss,” the maid said. “Emma is the scullery maid.”

“Eliza. Eliza. I will do better next time. Is the duke awake?”

The maid smiled. “As quiet as I am, he is always awake when I come into his room! He tells me good morning, and he asks about my mother.”

“Your mother?” Liria asked, mystified.

“She used to work here, but she is sick now.” Eliza leaned closer. “He didn’t take away our cottage, even though she cannot work, and he found me this job.” Her face darkened. “Mrs. Burlew said he was wasting money, but he didn’t listen to her.” She sighed. “He told me just to make sure that he had hot water every morning and that the hearth was swept, and not to worry about anything else.” She looked at Liria, unable to disguise her anxiety. “Is that all right still? I do my best.”

Liria touched her cheek again. “It is exactly what I want, too. Luster says that you help in the scullery. Is that what you want to do?”

Eliza hesitated. “Yes, Eliza?” Liria asked. “Go ahead.”

“Someday I want to be a pastry maker like Betty Gilbert.” She looked at Liria quickly, as if expecting her to laugh.

“Perhaps you could work with Betty, instead.”

“After I take hot water to His Grace and sweep the hearth?” Eliza asked.

“Most certainly. That will remain your principal duty. I will ask Betty if she can use some help,” Liria promised. One task done, she told herself as Eliza dropped a delighted curtsy and hurried down the steps. She looked thoughtfully at the duke’s door. Your servants are not afraid of you, and you have a kind heart, even if you would have left me in the rain. She laughed softly to herself and continued on her rounds. She was halfway down the grand staircase before she realized she had not laughed aloud since Quatre Bras.

***

Ordinarily, Nez would have gotten out of bed directly after Eliza left the room, but he was content this morning to lie there, perched on his elbow, and look out the window by his bed. Eliza’s other task was to draw back the draperies, and she always did it with a flourish, as though pleased to present him with something as pleasant as Yorkshire. I wonder how her mother is doing, he thought, admiring the view. I wonder if Liria could invent some work for her. Eliza tells me that she is sitting up still, and chafing at her inactivity. I will ask.

He was halfway through shaving his face when he heard a familiar knock. “Luster, that had better not be you,” he admonished, “but do come in.”

Looking thin through his neck, but bearing with some dignity the scars of chicken pox, his butler came into the room. “Your Grace, is there anything you wish from me this morning, beyond my usual duties?”

Nez wiped the foam from his neck. “I wish that you would return to your bed Luster. Does Liria—Miss Valencia—know you are about?”

“She does, Your Grace. I do not know why it is that women, even Spanish women, get that pinched look when they are irritated. I am well enough.”

“Which means that you are still three parts wasted, Luster, and hardly able to do me any good at all. I insist that you return to your bed.”

To his total amazement, his butler agreed. “I will, Your Grace, since you insist.” He coughed politely. “I did want to advise you that your sister has returned from Ash Grove and is waiting in the breakfast room.”

Waiting to pounce, more like, Nez thought. “Very well, Luster. Haverly can perform your duties in the breakfast room, and you can return to your bed. On this I am firm.”

“As you wish, Your Grace.” Luster paused at the door. “Do you know that Miss Valencia has been up for hours, walking around and observing your staff?”

He winced. “I suppose they are not enjoying that sort of scrutiny, Luster.”

“On the contrary, Your Grace! The upstairs maid informs me that Miss Valencia helped her change Lady Sophia’s sheets, the downstairs maid is already mixing up a furniture polish that our Spanish lady recommended—she adds vinegar to the linseed oil and muriatic antimony.” He smiled. “When I passed the library, she was on a rather tall ladder, handing down books to be dusted.” The smile left his face. “I will have to speak to Haverly. He left the library to inform me that Miss Valencia has neat ankles.”

With a straight face, Nez nodded to his butler. He waited to laugh into his towel until Luster’s steps receded down the corridor. “Miss Valencia, this is a curious style of management,” he said as he gazed into his mirror and decided to take a little more time with his clothing than usual.

He dreaded the thought of breakfast with Augusta, and delayed it by a visit with Sophie, who informed him that Miss Valencia had already been there with the physician she had summoned. “He says we are—I am—to spend one more day in bed, Uncle,” she told him. “I am ill-used.”

He sat on her bed and tickled her toes. “No, what you are is spoiled and accustomed to having your own way, like your uncle and mother. You will do precisely what you are told, and then tomorrow we will release you to roam the park like a Barbary ape.” Sophie grinned at him, and he left her looking slightly less mutinous.

There was no avoiding the breakfast room. The door loomed before him like a siege engine. He put a smile on his face and opened it. “Augusta, how well you look!”

He knew he had never told a bigger lie. What a sour woman, he thought as he regarded his sister stalking up and down the room, oblivious to early summer right outside the window. “Glorious morning, isn’t it?”

She stopped. “It is impossible to get hot tea or a proper baked egg in your ramshackle household. I scold and scold, but things never improve!”

I could be rude in return, he thought, but it occurred to him that such a course of action would offend Libby, and Liria, too. “Well, my dear, let us send back what offends you and try again,” he said calmly.

“Benedict, you are such a simpleton!” she snapped. “I have already done that! Reduced that lazy maid to tears, I might add.”

It also occurred to him that Augusta had to go. He looked at his sister with what he hoped was serenity. “My dear, you know how it distresses me to see you so upset.”

She stared at him, but sat down. “Benedict, I know nothing of the sort.”

I am about to prevaricate, he thought, but any military man knows the value of diversion. It will be a whopper. “Augusta, you see before you a man in love.” His sister’s eyes opened wide. “Last night I told Sir Michael that it was high time I courted his daughter.” He held up his hand. “Now, now, it is far too early to congratulate me, Gussie, but I have a hard time worrying about baked eggs when I am on fire with love.” My, my, that was spectacular, he told himself. He studied the pattern on the cutlery before him, not daring to look at Augusta.

“With . . . with Audrey?” she managed at last. “You told me once that her father should enter her at New market, with a long jaw like that!”

“I was so rude, wasn’t I?” he replied. “I trust you will overlook it.”

He was spared a reply when Liria came into the room carrying a tray. Her face inscrutable, she placed the tray on the sideboard, then turned around to curtsy in her magnificent way, and stand there, her hands folded gracefully in front of her. He held his breath, hoping that Augusta would not turn her attack on Liria.