Etiquette With The Devil (17 page)

“Have some respect,” Bly growled to his aunt, shedding his carefully veiled appearance of calm. His hands clenched and unclenched into fists, as they had been when they were in the village. This time, she could not come to his rescue.

Bly removed Grace from his shoulders, who protested and began to cry as he handed her off to Clara.

“She must be outfitted as a governess then. There is no need for ratty shawls or a dress that was in fashion some thirty years ago. It’s a poor reflection on the family.”

Clara bit her tongue.

“The girls have red hair,” Lady Margaret said, shifting her attention to Minnie. “It should be covered for the sin that it is. Blythe, this is unacceptable.”

Minnie’s eyes welled with tears, and her lips quivered. Bly reached for Minnie’s hand and gave it a quick squeeze before nudging her over to Clara. She wrapped an arm around Minnie as the child sobbed into her side and Grace’s warm tears slid down her neck.

“And why are they not in mourning?” Lady Margaret continued.

“We can discuss that later.” His eyes narrowed at his aunt as she walked over to James. “This is Walter’s boy, James.”

“He must be addressed by his full title or else he will never feel a sense of responsibility, Blythe. Look here, boy,” she snarled, lifting his face between a pair of pinching fingers. “I hope you do not take after your father. He was an egotistical man who was too busy with his studies to pay attention to his responsibilities here in England.”

James opened his mouth to say something, but shut it as Bly shot him a warning glare.

“I assume you have enrolled him in Eton,” she said, turning back to Bly. “Now that I have met him, he can be sent there without delay. I have no patience for boys and the trouble they cause. As you know.”

Clara extended her arm for James as he too began to cry.

“We can continue discussing matters in my office, but stop your damn inquisition of the children.”

“A savage, as I first claimed. Watch your vulgar tongue when you are around me, nephew.”

She strode toward Mr. Barnes, her silk mauve skirts gliding over the drive as if she floated. Lady Margaret was an image from a Paris fashion plate. “And who are you?”

“The footman,” he answered in that suave, lazy way. Clara could not fight back the small laugh that erupted from her throat.

“Imprudent woman. I should dismiss—” the aunt hissed.

“—I am the traveling companion of your nephew, ma’am,” Barnes interrupted.

“Allow me to introduce the Duke of Ashbornham,” Bly said.

“A duke? At Burton Hall? While the house is nothing more than a ruin?” She turned and gave Bly a sound whack with her fan.

That was news to Clara, as well.

“I must apologize for the ill manners of my nephew, Your Grace. Ravensdale men were never groomed for polite society. They should be kept from their betters in a refuge for beasts.”

“I think that since we have met our visitor, we should continue our game in the back garden, children,” Barnes said. “Will you join us, Miss Dawson? I sense Mr. Ravensdale would like to speak with Lady Margaret alone.”

*

It had been a bloody wreck of a day.

Bly had little choice in writing his aunt. He needed someone to help establish the house and act as guardian for the children once he left. She was the only surviving blood relation, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to stay and take on the responsibility himself. He wouldn’t know where to start in being a competent guardian.

What he did not expect was the arrival of her entire apartment from London or the addition of her new staff. As she surveyed the condition of the house, Margaret scolded him like a child for not having her room prepared or suitable apartments for her servants, who were to be the new working staff at Burton Hall. He insisted that she arrived earlier than agreed upon. Her answer was a dismissive wave.

If his aunt were an uncle, he would throttle her.

After insulting Bly head to toe on all his failings and the horrible management of Burton Hall, she started on the upbringing of the children. That continued until dinner was served.

Clara came to join them at the table, as she always had since her arrival, but his aunt immediately dismissed her, insisting Clara was to have dinner in her room for the remainder of her employ, as every other governess in England.

The sight of Clara’s dismissal unfurled disgust within him. Watching her curtsey and be sent away without a fuss, watching Clara creep back into the shadows she so loved to dwell in, felt like a momentous failure after weeks of luring her out.

After dinner, his aunt was appalled to learn Clara did not have quarters of her own, but slept in the nursery with the children in a small side room. So Clara was ordered to a room in the attic like the rest of the household servants. She said nothing at the request, only curtseyed again and packed her things. He hated the sight of it.

He hated himself for allowing it without protest.

As Bly led his aunt to her rooms, after hearing of how terrible and unsuitable they were, she harped on his uncharacteristic relationship with everyone under the roof; how there was to be a divide between the family and the servants.

“There are rules, and one doesn’t have dinner with servants or work alongside them. Order must be kept, and for that to happen, the line of master and servant must be drawn.” She spoke all of this with her thin wrist flicking through the air, her head held high as if she were the queen herself. “I expect you to adhere to that, or you may leave immediately. You’ll only further damage the family’s name if rumors were to get out.”

Rumors of what, he wasn’t certain. “Don’t fret, Aunt,” he said, backing out of her new parlor, “I won’t blemish the halls of Burton Hall much longer.”

Isaac had retired for the evening, refusing Lady Margaret’s request that he have a valet assist him in packing. Bly did not blame Isaac for leaving. He wanted to leave more than anything before the carriages arrived that morning. Then he knew it was time to leave and the strangest thing happened—he no longer wished for it. Not yet.

But he would. It would be for the best. It was the plan, he told himself as he paced in the hallway outside the nursery, listening to Clara and the children.

“Excellent job, James,” Clara said.

Bly pressed against the doorway, watching as she rose and took a book out of the boy’s hand. “You will be fluent in Greek in no time,” she teased, waving the book in his direction. To Bly’s delight, the boy smiled at her praise. “Now, off to bed. Tomorrow is another day and we will all make an effort to be nice and to learn something new.”

“Even to that dreadful woman who says my hair is a sin?” Minnie asked, as Clara shepherded her to bed. “What is a sin, Miss Clara?”

“She is your elder,” Clara replied. “You must mind your manners and treat her with respect. I happen to be very envious of your beautiful hair. I believe Lady Margaret is, as well.”

“You are?”

Clara played with the girl’s strawberry locks, brushing them into a quick braid before dropping a kiss onto Minnie’s forehead. “Completely. Now close your eyes and go to bed, loves.”

“And you, you little heathen, come here.” Clara picked up a fidgeting Grace from her crib. “You had a very exciting day. You saw horses and carriages and you met lots of new people.”

“Pretty horses,” Grace agreed, nodding up and down.

“Yes they were, love,” Clara whispered, drawing Grace’s head to her shoulder. She swayed back and forth, her hips softly moving underneath her skirts. When she began humming, Bly was lost.

Watching her sing Grace to sleep stirred something inside he could not explain. Something primitive and raw. It served as a blatant reminder that Clara was a woman, not just a governess, and most certainly not just a friend. A woman he wanted.

Bly entered the nursery and motioned for his niece, diverting his eyes from Clara. He could not bring himself to look at her just then. The warmth of Grace’s steady breath tickled his neck as the weight of her sleepy body rested against his chest. He brushed his hand over her crimson curls as he walked with her to the window.

It was another cool autumn night, a season he had longed for secretly during his years of living in sweltering exotic locales. The weather never cooled in any of the lands he traversed—not the deserts of Africa, nor the deepest jungles of India, or the beaches of the South Pacific. The feeling struck him as odd, since he was certain he hated England.

He inhaled the sweet smell of Grace’s hair—honey and cream—and watched as twilight washed over the park of Burton Hall. He saw the ghosts of himself and Walter running barefoot in the grass, filthy, and driving their nurses to the brink of insanity.

He remembered his mother’s smile when he was younger, just a brief memory that darted through his mind from time to time.

He couldn’t remember much else, nor did he wish to. The happier memories, strong enough to push away the darker ones—the ones of death and crying and madness—were few. The sound of his mother’s weeping, the image of her body floating in the pond—that, he remembered most now.

He would leave, he decided, as Clara stood beside him. The tangled desire that had wrapped its away around his heart for her like the roots of a Banyan tree would fade with time. If not, there were cures for such ailments.

Clara brushed her hand over Grace’s hair, smiling as the girl wiggled her tiny button nose.

“Her father did that while he slept, too.” He placed Grace in her crib, and motioned for Clara to join him in the hall. “Are you the drinking type?” he asked, knowing that she was not. He wished to erase that familiar moment between them. He was not the image of a domestic man. He knew nothing of family.

Clara closed the door softly behind her. “No.”

“It works remarkably well when one wants to forget a trying day.”

“Have you had a trying day, friend?”

Bly laughed out of sheer exhaustion, that uncomfortable clawing sensation poisoning his body and demanding its surrender. He swallowed, pushing past his discomfort to say,
“We’ve
had a trying day.”

She nodded, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth in thought. “What are you fishing at, Mr. Ravensdale?”

“Bly.”

She shrugged.

“I’m asking if you’ll escort me to the kitchen where we can have a proper meal without my damn aunt ranting. I lost my appetite when she opened her mouth over the dinner table and I know you weren’t given the opportunity to eat. Maybe we can enjoy a glass of claret together.”

She raised an eyebrow at his request.

“As friends,” he stressed.

“I should retire for the evening.”

“That would be wise,” he agreed, rocking back onto his heels.

Clara’s hand remained on the doorknob, grounding her to her precious manners. Bly should not be asking and she should not agree, but he found himself asking nonetheless, and wishing she would.

T
he offer surprised Clara, but it was the sight of Bly in the nursery with Grace that tripped her curiosity enough to accept. He may have guessed correctly that she had fled to Burton Hall, but the same could be said of Bly as well. He was a haunted soul, always chasing something out of reach, though she did not know what. It lingered in his eyes and hid in the corners of his jaded smile.

As she linked her arm through his, agreeing to his forward invitation, Clara was beginning to feel more than admiration for him. She could not name the emotion, only that it was insistent and somehow both pleasant and painful.

Lady Margaret’s servants wasted no time in making their mark on the house. The makeshift camp kitchen of her arrival was a distant memory. Everything was shined and polished, organized and shelved in precise measure. The pantry was fully stocked. The sooty hearth behind the stove was scrubbed clean and the brass on the stove was polished to a brilliant shine. The second story butler’s pantry above the kitchen had organized serving ware and the brightness, she discovered, was moonlight streaming through a repaired solar window. Burton Hall had a proper kitchen once more.

“They made quick work of turning the kitchen around,” he said.

She sensed he was not fond of the army his aunt brought along. “It is in proper order now.” She rested against the table top, her ankle still throbbing from her fall earlier that morning.

“I can’t find a damn thing.” He scoured the shelves, pulling pots down in an angry chaos of metallic thunder. He stoked the fire in the stove, slamming the door with his foot and removing a knife from the butcher’s block in a blur.

He was fascinating to watch.

Bly was a body set in constant motion, a force that knew no barrier, and he inevitably left the world changed in his wake. Even when he sat, he tapped his foot, scratched at his face, or puffed on a cigar like a locomotive. He paced insistently and ruffled his fingers through his hair habitually.

Then there were the laugh lines around the outer corners of his eyes and lips, caused by years of jest, not necessarily from happiness. Bly always seemed to be making a mockery of the world and its subsequent opinion of his person. He dared everything in his path to challenge him. That was how he lived his life—charging after it with an undying fierceness as if the flame within him would never extinguish. He stormed through the kitchen now, approaching the task of preparing dinner in the same way.