Listen to the Moon (18 page)

Thea rolled her eyes. “I’m a growing girl. I need my rest.”

“I don’t know, Thea, you’ve been sleeping dunnamuch.”

John noticed that this had successfully turned the conversation from her own behavior at the ball. He tried to meet Sukey’s eyes, but she was staring at her plate.

“You’d ought to find better friends, Molly,” Mrs. Khaleel said. “They all look like watering pots to me.”

“They’re having trouble,” Molly flared up. “They need me.”

“Yes, but do you need them?” the cook asked.

Molly pressed her mouth into a tight line. “Of course I do. They’re my friends.”

“A friend is a joy, not a burden.”

“Everybody’s a burden sometimes,” Molly snapped.

Sukey sighed heavily.
I hate how much I want you to take care of me,
she’d said.

John set down his own toast and marmalade, unable to take another bite.
He didn’t see her as a burden. He needed her as well. He did. If she knew how much—if she knew how false his appearance of calm, competent certitude could be—

His stomach turned over. She wasn’t much older than Molly, really. They both should be enjoying themselves, not worrying about anyone else.

After breakfast, he caught her as she was leaving the kitchen. “Mrs. Toogood?”

She squared her shoulders, clasped her hands behind her back and fixed her eyes firmly on the middle distance. “Yes, Mr. Toogood?”

He blinked. “Might I see you in the butler’s pantry for a moment?”

It was also their bedroom, though the pallet was rolled up in the corner now and the room was his place of business. Last night had been the first night since their wedding they hadn’t coupled on that pallet.

He didn’t mention that. “I wish to apologize for my sharpness last night. It was unfair to reproach you for not taking more responsibility here at the vicarage.”

Her mouth twisted like she’d bitten a lemon—but then it smoothed out. She still didn’t look at him. “No matter, Mr. Toogood.”

“I’ve been thinking about when I was your age. I was fourth footman at Tassell Hall.” He’d been ambitious, his eye on valeting and escape, but quietly so. “My days were long and my work demanding, but it was not a position of responsibility. I worked under more experienced men and gave orders to no one. It was a pleasant time in my life, if rather devoid of sleep.”

She didn’t look at him. He could feel the point he was trying to make slipping away. If she would only smile! “Young people sharing living quarters—well, I can tell you that the amount of wine I consumed on an average evening would probably kill me now.”

Her lips didn’t so much as twitch.

“My point is that it is Mrs. Khaleel’s task to manage the female staff. I should not have reproached you for not doing what is not yours to do. I want you to be happy, not give yourself gray hairs.” He rubbed at his chin. He had no gray hairs on his head yet, thank goodness, but his beard was slowly but surely frosting over.

Her mouth compressed. “Yes, Mr. Toogood.”

“Sukey, what are you doing?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Toogood.”

He felt like a mouse talking to a brick wall. “Is there something you would like to say to me?”

“No, Mr. Toogood.”

“Stop saying my name,” he said in exasperation. “What have I done to offend you?”

“Nothing, Mr. Toogood.”

He threw up his hands and went to the silver chest to begin his midmorning work.

“May I go, sir?” she said behind him.

He glanced at her in surprise. “Of course.”

She bobbed a curtsey, actually bobbed a curtsey at him, and enlightenment dawned. She wasn’t just standing stiffly and refusing to look at him. She was mocking him by pretending to be the sort of highly trained, impassive servant she imagined he wanted her to be.

“Is this about Maria?” he said, relieved to think that her anger was only jealousy, after all. “I assure you, I would
not
rather be married to her.”

Now she did look at him, a contemptuous, pitying look. “I don’t think you listen when I talk,” she said, and walked out.

John stared after her, a frightened, sorrowful, empty place in the center of his chest. But anger quickly rushed in and filled it. She punished him for not
guessing
what she wanted? She parodied him to his face? Was that how she thought he spoke? He knew that anger towards her served no purpose, but the more he tried to crush it, the harder and denser and hotter it became, a stone inside his ribcage.

By dinnertime his jaw ached, he had compiled a list of approximately four hundred counterarguments and he was quite incapable of being civil to her across the table. He kept his eyes on his bowl as he filled it. “I’ll take my dinner in the cellar, thank you, Mrs. Khaleel.”

* * *

Sukey had been fuming all morning. The gall of him, the pigheaded blindness, to give her a speech about how young she was and how she’d ought to be gamboling about like a little lamb, when just yesterday she’d told him she wanted to be treated as an equal.

She was angry because last night he had just stared woodenly at her when she asked him to tell her how he felt about her, and he thought she was
jealous
? Of a woman he’d thrown over and forgotten?

But a pit opened in her stomach as she watched him disappear through the door with his bowl of stew. He was avoiding her?

If she made him hate her, he could leave town and go anywhere. Would
she
have to leave town? Lively St. Lemeston was her home. But would an abandoned wife dismissed without a character by the town vicar be hired anywhere respectable?

And that would be it. Her one chance at marriage, because
she
was no bigamist. She twisted her ring on her finger.
Let us share in joy and care.

She’d never have anyone to share in her joy and care again.

“Are you well, Mrs. Toogood?” Mrs. Khaleel asked. Everyone looked at her.

“Oh, Mr. Toogood and I had a little quarrel, that’s all,” she said with a nervesome laugh.

Mrs. Khaleel put a hand briefly to her shoulder. “Married people quarrel. Don’t take it to heart.”

Molly frowned. “He’s not kind to you. I don’t know how you put up with it.”

“Shh.” Sukey glanced at the kitchen door.

Molly’s frown deepened. “You shouldn’t be afraid of your own husband.”

Sukey threw her hands up. “I’m not. You’ll hurt his feelings terribly if he hears you. And he’s very kind to me.”

“Not that I’ve noticed,” Thea muttered.

“He’s been kind to me,” Larry said, but very quietly. Molly gave him a withering look.

Sukey stabbed at a piece of beef with her spoon. “He is. That’s what we quarreled about. I told him…” It was so stupid. “He’s just so much older than me.”

“Too old,” Thea agreed in an undertone.

Sukey ignored her. “He behaves like I’m a child who needs taking care of. He doesn’t listen to me.”

“Uch,” Molly agreed. “I hate it when men don’t take me seriously.”

“Why did you marry him?” Thea asked.

Because he made me feel safe. As if I didn’t have to do everything on my own.
“I think I wanted someone to take care of me,” she admitted miserably. She could remember being small and feeling safe and warm and loved. She remembered her mother’s hands in her hair, her father lifting her onto his shoulders. She missed it with a howling, childish grief.

She felt sick and disgusted with herself. Had she wanted a father all along, and not a husband? How could she be angry with John for giving her what she’d wanted?

“Don’t we all?” Mrs. Khaleel said wryly. But Sukey knew that she’d been strong. She’d sent Mr. Bearparke away and stood on her own two feet.
A friend should be a joy, not a burden,
she’d told Molly. Surely that was doubly true of a wife.

Molly snorted. “Women need to stop expecting men to take care of us, because they won’t. We need to take care of each other instead.”

Sukey was a little overwhelmed. At Mrs. Humphrey’s, she’d seen her friends at the servants’ balls, and now and then on Friday afternoons. She wasn’t used to having women about, whom she could talk to whenever she liked.

She hadn’t ought to have confided in them about John, not when he already thought she was making friends with them at his expense. But she’d done it anyway, because she craved their kindness so much. Just as she’d been unable to resist those two brandy-sprinkled raisins. She was weak—and contrary besides, because the more they sympathized, the more in the wrong she felt.

At a sign from the cook, Thea fetched a pan of baked dried apples out of the oven. Later they’d be piled in a pretty china bowl with whipped cream, nutmeg and toasted almonds for Mr. Summers’s own dinner. There was none of that at the servants’ table, but Sukey still marveled at the luxury of soft, sugary apples spooned onto her plate, bubbling from the oven. There were a dozen plump rum-soaked currants just in her portion.

This was exactly what she’d craved and imagined when she left Mrs. Humphrey’s. She’d imagined generosity in practical terms, rich food and people giving each other things, doing things for each other. But she hadn’t done these women any favors, and they hadn’t done any for her. They’d listened to each other, that was all. And it mattered more than the apples.

Meanwhile, John had tried to do something for her yesterday, and it had made her angry. Because that sort of kindness was a parent’s kindness for a small child. It went all one way. She’d thought that would make her feel safe, but it didn’t. She wanted a husband, not a father.

Maybe generosity wasn’t about giving or receiving. Maybe it was just about the sharing. In joy and care, whichever happened to be in the offing.

John had arranged it again so she was with her friends and he was working alone somewhere. Could be that was what he wanted, but she didn’t believe it. He’d been the one who wanted to work in a house with staff.

“I’ll take some down to Mr. Toogood, Thea.” Sukey stood up to fetch a bowl.

“Eat yours first,” Mrs. Khaleel chided, pushing her plate towards her. “They’ll get cold.”

Gratitude closed Sukey’s throat. “Yes, ma’am,” she mumbled. “Thank you.”

Stomach comfortably full, she made her way down the cellar stairs. She felt like an intruder as she eased the door open. Was it too late to turn back? The wine cellar was the menservants’ domain. It was surprisingly cozy. Brick arched overhead and a fresh carpet of sawdust held in heat from the big covered brazier, set in a brick circle at the center of the room. Casks sat in scalloped wooden racks along the wall.

John was trickling a bottle of white wine through a cambric-lined strainer and a funnel into a crystal decanter, arms rigid and eyes fixed on the sediment in the bottle as if trying to set it ablaze. “Shut the door, please. The heat’s going up the stairs.”

She did as he asked. The heavy door and the brick overhead seemed to cut off all sound from upstairs. “It’s nice down here.”

He made a disgusted sound. “I need to overhaul the whole mess. My predecessor was a lazy idiot as well as an abuser of defenseless women. When I started here, the claret wasn’t properly insulated, the sawdust was ancient, the casks months overdue for reracking, and the red wine so badly pricked I’ve almost given up hope of recovering it.”

The tension in his deep voice set her to vibrating with it, the way one guitar string set off another. He was furious with her, even if he was trying not to say so.

Maybe she should leave and let him come to her. But—he hadn’t even asked her to. She refused to behave like a servant hiding from her master. Yes, he was angry. What was so terrible in that? So had she been angry. Married people quarreled, like Mrs. Khaleel said.
She was sure by now he wouldn’t hurt her, and he couldn’t sack her without losing his own post. She’d spent enough of her life backing down and begging for forgiveness. He was more miserable than she was, looked like, and she was going to fix it.

She ventured closer. His dinner bowl had been emptied, at least. “I brought you some dessert.”

“Put it there, on that keg. I can’t set this down until it’s finished.”

She pricked up her ears. “Really?”

“The sediment is already disturbed. If I set the bottle upright, it will slosh about and mix with the good wine.”

She slipped behind him. “So if I wanted to do…say…this, you couldn’t stop me?” She ran her hands over his thighs. They were nice thighs, and he’d be a sight more relaxed after, that was certain.

She couldn’t feel him jerk, but she heard the trickle of wine falter and begin again. “Stop that at once,” he said through his teeth. “For God’s sake. Can’t you understand this is delicate work?”

She resisted the urge to give him a hard poke. “I don’t know why you always do delicate work when you’re angry.”

“Because it requires my entire attention,” he said pointedly.

She came round to his front again so he could see her rolling her eyes. “Pouring wine, even very slowly, doesn’t require your entire attention. Maybe you should smash a few things instead.”

He snorted like an outraged bull. “And who would clean them up after I’d smashed them?”

“I could.”

His breath caught with a sound almost like a laugh. “And then Mr. Summers would take it out of my pay. I find it hard to believe it would be worth it.” At last he set the bottle down, peering at the cambric with a shake of his head and at the decanted wine with grudging satisfaction.

He needed this. They both did. She cocked her head and tried to sound sure of herself. “I can think of something that would require your entire attention.”

His jaw clenched.

“You’d feel better after.” She stepped closer, though her stomach plummeted an inch for each second of his silence. “Shut your eyes if you like.” She thought of something she’d done twice now that he seemed to like very much. Her mouth watered with eagerness, her nipples tightening.
Don’t let him refuse me.
She knelt in the sawdust.

Ah yes, the front of his trousers moved a little at that.

She licked her lips and winked at him. “If you don’t want me to, now’s the time to say so.”