It Started with a Scandal (8 page)

Which sounded like a warning. Then again, it wasn’t one she hadn’t heard before.

She mutely lifted the cup of tea and extended it to him.

And then, in resignation, he took it from her, lifted it to his mouth, and paused, peering at her from over the brim of the cup.

“Any last words?” she risked.

The corner of his mouth twitched. He raised the cup to her. “
À votre santé
, Mrs. Fountain.”

He took a sip.

Rolled it around in his mouth thoughtfully, as if sampling a wine, and swallowed, then made a smacking noise. “Presumptuous. Cheeky. Managing. Meddling. With notes of
une je-sais-tout
.”

“You forgot fearless.”

“Ah, yes. An oversight, of course. Thank you. Trust Madame Je-sais-tout to point it out.”

A “je-sais-tout” was a know-all. But the words lacked rancor.

He
was
really rather amusing, in a dry and prickly way that reminded her, strangely, of herself.

She smiled at him, tentatively.

He didn’t return the smile. But she liked that faintly troubled way he looked at her when she smiled perhaps a little too much. As if he was peering at something in the distance with a spyglass and it was slowly coming into focus, and whatever he saw was unexpected and disturbingly pleasant.

“Shall I leave the tea with you, Lord Lavay?”

“You may leave it,” he said abruptly, his usual dismissive hauteur restored, and he turned his back on her. “And you may leave me now.”

A
RGH.
Y
OU M
AY
leave me now.

She didn’t know if she’d ever get accustomed to being dismissed so abruptly. Her ears rang from it, as if suffering through the echo of a slammed door. She surreptitiously dragged her hand across the top of the brown chair on the way out, for luck, and because the velvet was such a pleasure, and she took her pleasures where she could.

On her way down the stairs again she paused, exhaled resignedly, and unfolded the budget and quickly scanned it.

And at first it seemed identical to the original.

And then she saw it:

Flowers
.

One shilling.

And she threw her head back, and grinned and gave a triumphant little hop.

Chapter 8

P
HILIPPE BOLT
ED THE WILLOW
bark tea, which tasted exactly like licking a tree.

He rewarded himself for this with the apple tart, chased it down with coffee, leaned back in his chair, and waited to die.

He didn’t really think his new housekeeper intended to poison him; after all, she’d come recommended by the Redmond family, and he was an excellent judge of character, on the whole.

Then again.

It was just that he’d learned that death could come at any time, in any form: it came for his aunt at the age of ninety, expiring at a crowded family gathering and tipping with a sound like dropped lumber out of the very brown velvet chair Mrs. Fountain seemed to favor; it could come brutally and unjustly, at the guillotine, like it had for his father, brother, cousins, and friends; or violently and suddenly, at the hands of cutthroats in London. Why not, then, at the hands of a housekeeper with eyes as soft and dark and deep as the hearts of pansies—no, perhaps a deep purple orchid—and a smile that made a point of her chin and lit her face and made him want to turn toward her, the way one turned toward a lamp in a dark room or the hearth in a cold one.

It occurred to him that if she were the last person on earth he saw before he met his maker, he wouldn’t complain overmuch to his maker. That thought amused him bleakly.

Thirty minutes later he was still alive.

And he felt significantly better.

Mrs. Fountain was right: the pain got its talons into him and made everything more difficult.

It had taken a good deal of courage to force willow bark tea upon him.

It had been quite the risk, too.

He frowned, wondering how he truly felt about it.

But mostly it had been kind.

Often kindness and courage were tantamount to the same thing.

No. Kindness was softer.

He turned to confront again the stack of correspondence representing his present, past, and possibly future. He would need to write to his grandfather first. The man wasn’t getting any younger. The healing slash across Philippe’s right palm made writing a struggle, and when he tried to write with his left hand, the result looked as though he’d either been staggering drunk, or he’d delegated the task to a three-year-old.

He exhaled, feeling another bit of the tight coil that seemed to have wrapped him since he’d arrived in Pennyroyal Green unwind.

Because he’d just thought of an excellent excuse to ring for Mrs. Fountain.

A
use
for Mrs. Fountain, he revised in his head immediately.

An excellent
use
for Mrs. Fountain.

M
RS.
F
OUNTAIN WAS
in the kitchen, about to settle into a noonday meal with her staff.

She moved toward the table, where Mary had laid out sliced bread and cheese and cold chicken. A fresh pot of tea awaited them, and all the plain, everyday plates and saucers were set out neatly.

Elise pulled out her chair to settle in with a sigh. “James and Ramsey, I should like you to attend to polishing the silver. It will be a few days’ work, that, but—”

A long, juicy flatulent sound erupted from beneath her.

She froze.

And then scorching heat rushed into her face.

Surely
she
wasn’t actually
capable
of making such a sound? Then again, nerves could play havoc with all manner of things. This much she’d learned from her father the doctor.

She looked across the table at James and Ramsey, whose eyes were red, bulging, and brimming with water from the effort not to laugh.

The maids were looking down, but their shoulders were shaking like leaves in a high wind. Stifled hilarity, no doubt.

Elise sighed and reached beneath her to retrieve a sheep’s bladder that had been inflated and thrust beneath the chair cushion.

She gingerly placed the thing on the table. “My son will enjoy this, thank you. It’s his very favorite sound. You may laugh now, James, before your eyes pop from your head.”

James spluttered out his held breath, with a sound rather like a deflating sheep’s bladder itself.

“I’d like to clarify something, which will save all of us a good deal of time,” she said gently. “I am not alarmed by flatulence, or by mice, or by chestnuts. Challenge only makes me more cheerful. Insubordination makes me very angry, indeed. And good, hard work earns my appreciation and flexibility. If you object to doing the jobs you are paid to do, you may tender your notice now. But you will leave without references. I. Am. Going. Nowhere.”

One of her students had once said, “You give me the shudders, you do, Mrs. Fountain, when you stare so and don’t blink.” She possessed the gift of channeling the considerable force of her personality into a stare, and she aimed it at each of the servants in turn, an attempt to persuade them that she could see deep into their guilty, yearning, dark little hearts.

Her heart was, in fact, hammering. If her entire staff walked away right now—and servants were capricious that way—they could easily have her over a barrel. She simply could not imagine telling Lavay that the entire staff had defected virtually the moment she’d arrived. Not even any of the failed housekeepers had managed to drive the servants from the house like some domestic pied piper.

“Mrs. Fountain,” Dolly began as she leaned toward Elise and reached out to lay a large hand on her arm. Elise stared at it until Dolly slowly, gingerly retracted it, folding it into her other hand instead. “ ‘is lordship will be here another month or so. Ye can double yer wages in five-card loo in a week or two and not lift a finger, or only just. Why ruin yer pretty figure and hands wi’ lye and labor?” This was all delivered in a sort of confiding wheedle. “ ’Tis a fine life we’ve got ‘ere, and we dinna care to change it. We’re good company, ain’t we?”

Much nodding all around. This much, at least, they seemed able to agree upon.

“Why don’t ye be a good lass and join us, like? I bet ye’re a bit of a larf when ye want to be. It’s been a fine arrangement.”

The unspoken words being
until you came along
.

“Dolly’s very good at five-card loo, too,” James admitted. “Wins and wins. Except when she loses. But ye wouldn’t want to see her when she hasn’t had her cheroot.”

“I likes me pleasures,” Dolly said piously. “And some of me pleasures come dear.”

“Do you all feel this way?” Elise said this somberly, but her heart was racing, and she was thinking furiously.

Apparently nobody wanted to commit to so much as a nod.

“Because,” Elise mused, “it would be a pity to lose all of you now, especially since I spoke to Lord Lavay about outfitting James and Ramsey in livery.”

James’s hand froze in the midst of buttering bread.

“Livery?” he breathed. He and Ramsey exchanged meaningful, hopeful looks.

“Oh, yes. For there will be a grand party soon, with many elegant guests, and he agreed the two of you would look ever so impressive in livery. We also decided midnight blue would suit best.” Elise crossed her fingers in her lap.

“I always fancied meself in blue,” Ramsey mused. He rotated the coffeepot to admire his reflection, turning his head this way and that.

“And his lordship may very well require the services of a valet, and perhaps even a messenger to take correspondence all the way to London or to friends nearby. Provided either of you know enough about the care of a gentleman’s wardrobe, or how to sit a horse.”

She was extemporizing wildly, but the footmen had caught the whiff of glamour, and they liked it. They were both already sitting straighter.

“I can do both,” they said, almost simultaneously.

“If this is true, then you will share those kinds of duties. And”—she turned to Mary and Kitty—“when Lord Lavay holds a ball, many of the ladies there will need assistance in the withdrawing room, and one never knows when a fine lady may require a new lady’s maid or housekeeper. Imagine the beautiful gowns that may be handed down to you, the traveling . . . possibly even to France! . . . The higher wages, the pensions, the handsome young men you’re bound to meet. Why, the position you’re in now at
this very moment
is actually bursting with potential for the ambitious or clever woman. Life is best played as a long game.
Not
as five-card loo.”

This sounded very sage, but she wasn’t certain she believed it. She herself had taken more than one risk. But she was used to holding entire rooms rapt with persuasion and lectures. Albeit rooms full of girls age eight through twelve, but certain aspects of human behavior and need never really changed. Everyone wanted to belong. Everyone wanted to have value. Everyone wanted to know where they stood.

Not everyone wanted to work.

Dolly Farmer had crossed her arms over her breasts, and she was regarding Elise with cynical amusement, as if she knew precisely what
Elise’s
game was.

The bell jangled and Elise gave a start and put a hand over her heart.

For the love of God, one day that was going to be second nature.

She didn’t know whether to look forward to that day with enthusiasm or bleakness.

She was honest enough with herself to admit that there was a pinpoint prick of delicious excitement in the pit of her stomach. She smoothed her hands down over her skirts as she leaped to her feet.

“By the evening meal, I will require you to tell me what your plans are so that I may tell Lord Lavay. I should note that I anticipate that applicants for your position will line up outside the door, given Lord Lavay’s stature and . . . and . . . legend. I can think of three even now I’d be quite willing to hire.”

And with that, she dashed up the stairs and came to an abrupt halt to review the condition of her hair (smooth, ruthlessly pinned) in a mirrored sconce.

And then, on impulse, she all but tiptoed the rest of the way to Lavay’s study.

She paused in the hallway and peered in. Because she wanted to pretend as if this was the first time she’d ever seen him. To catch him unguarded, perhaps, to ascertain for herself whether his unusual glamour had been simply due to her own newness and nerves, and whether she would get used to him bit by bit.

His back was turned to her.

Damnation.

She could write an entire song about the way his vast shoulders filled his coat and then magically narrowed to a taut waist. And so many things rhymed with “Lavay.”
I could walk up to him and slide my arms around his waist, and my face would fit just so, in that space between his shoulder blades
, she thought.
I wonder what he smells like. I bet it’s a bit like pressing your face against a granite wall. A delicious, dangerous, man-scented granite wall.

And these were the kinds of thoughts that no doubt showed on her face when he surprised her by turning precisely the way a normal person would turn, rather swiftly.

She schooled her features to stillness a beat too late.

There was a funny little moment of silence.

As if he’d needed to adjust to her presence, too.

“Mrs. Fountain. I wondered if you might be willing to do something for me that falls somewhat outside the scope of your usual housekeeping duties.”

Oh . . . no. Could he really mean . . .

She swallowed.

“Outside the scope of . . .” she repeated faintly, her imagination rifling through a dozen possibilities, all of them, thanks to her recent feverish imaginings, staggeringly improper.

“I’m wondering whether to interpret your expression as hope or trepidation, Mrs. Fountain.”

His voice was a hush. If he’d been any other person, she might have described his tone as suppressed hilarity.

“You may interpret it as patient acquiescence,” she said serenely. Or she tried. Her voice was pitched about an octave higher than usual.

“And yet patient acquiescence is so seldom accompanied by a blush,” he pointed out.

Please don’t let him be charming on top of it all. I couldn’t bear it.

“And if I were asked to describe you,” he relentlessly expounded, “I doubt ‘patient’ and ‘acquiescent’ would be among the first adjectives I’d choose.”

She didn’t know whether to worry or to feel flattered that he’d actually formed an opinion of her and didn’t view her as purely functional as, for instance, the clock on the mantel or a barouche.
Which words
would
you use
? The old, glib, saucy, less careful Elise, the one not employed on a trial basis for a fortnight by a surly aristocrat, might have said them, because she wanted to know. And it was like seizing someone’s arm as part of a reel. It could be an exhilarating dance, a flirtation.

It could also be quite the trap.

The memory of that sobered her quickly.

“If you find me pinker than usual, my lord, it may well be because I lit the stoves in the kitchen in preparation for baking, so it’s a trifle warm. And I took the stairs at a run, as I should dislike for you to need to ring twice.”

“Ah. I see. Apple tarts and acquiescence. I compliment you again on your priorities, Mrs. Fountain.”

“Your priorities are my priorities, sir.”

“Indeed.”

There passed a strange little silence filled with nothing more than mutual, inappropriate, palpable enjoyment of the moment and each other.

“Are you perchance feeling a bit better, Lord Lavay?” she ventured softly.

“I am, Mrs. Fountain. Why? Are you concerned I will now turn into one of those frisky, bum-pinching sort of lords?” He asked this very gravely.

“I was unaware that lords came in that variety,” she said even more gravely. “But my reflexes are excellent, and as you’ll recall, I’m fearless. So no. I’m not concerned.”

So much for not flirting. Because she most certainly was. In a reel, if someone extended an arm, one took it. It was the polite thing to do.

“Ah, yes, of course. Fearless. Thank you for reminding me, Madame Je-sais-tout.”

You’re the only thing that still frightens me. In so many ways.