Midwinter Manor 2 -Keeper's Pledge (8 page)

A man like his lost lover, Robert, dead these past eight years of Spanish flu. And God, the lad was a beauty. Even Danny couldn’t deny that. The recollection of the lad’s face, his smile, was like a knife to Danny’s heart. What the hell would Philip want with a rough, coarse gamekeeper when he could have a boy like that?

W
HEN
Danny trudged back to his cottage, his chest tight and aching and his feet weary, it was to find Mam waiting for him in the parlor.

“What is it, Mam?” he asked, new worries assailing him. He couldn’t recall the last time she’d just dropped in on him like this. Lord love him, but this was turning into a day to remember.

Her mouth was twisted with sour disappointment as she spoke. “It’s that brother of yours. He’s run off to Pontefract.”

Danny was stunned. “What? And left Effie?”
She nodded. “Aye. He left me a note.”
“Can I read it?”

“That you can’t, because I threw it on the fire. But I’ll tell you what it said:
I’m sorry Mam, I can’t stay. Toby.
And that was it. Fourteen years I cared for that boy, and off he goes without leaving me fourteen words. Not to mention that poor lass he’s shamed and abandoned.”

Danny’s fists clenched. “Damn it, Mam,” he swore. “It’s my fault he’s gone. I shouldn’t have hit him.”

 

“I dare say he gave you enough reason, Danny, so don’t you go blaming yourself.”

 

“So how do you know he went to Pontefract?” “Joe Gordon said that’s what he’d been talking about doing.”

“And those two are thick as thieves, so if anyone’d know, it’d be him. Lord, what a mess. Is it worth my talking to Joe, seeing if he’s an idea where Toby might be?”

She’d sat at the table, and now she rested her head in her hands. Danny sat down beside her and flung an arm around her shoulders. “Mam?”

“I don’t know, love. I just don’t know.” Her voice was thick with tears. “I’d have said he’d have told me, if he’d ’a known anything, but then if you’d asked me yesterday, I’d have said Toby would never do a thing like this.”

Danny gave her a squeeze. “Don’t you worry, Mam. I’ll talk to Joe, and see that something’s done about Effie.”

“She’ll have to come and live with me,” Mam said. “I don’t see what else she can do, and I’ll not abandon my grandchild, even if the poor thing has to be born a bastard.” Her voice broke on the last bitter word.

“Don’t worry, Mam,” Danny said, an idea forming grimly in his mind. “We’ll see her right. You go on home now, and see to the girls’ supper. I’ll sort something out here.”

J
OE
G
ORDON
was no help at all. Shuffling his feet, looking anywhere but at Danny, he backtracked so far on what he’d told Danny’s mam, he was halfway to the next county. No, Toby hadn’t said where he was going to stay in Pontefract. Joe wasn’t even sure he was going that way. In fact, now he came to think about it, Toby had definitely said he was heading south, not north. Or was it east? It was one of them directions, any road.

Danny sighed and went back to the manor to see the lass who’d been the cause of all this.

Effie Smith was a thin scrap of a girl with downcast eyes, and what must even before her pregnancy have been the bosom of a much larger woman. It wasn’t hard to work out what a young lad like Toby might have seen in her, for all her shyness, and how he might have been overcome by his desires. It was harder to see why she’d let him, mind.

Or maybe it wasn’t. Like as not, she was starved for love, coming from the foundling home. Toby was a tall, strong lad, and handsome with it, for all he took after Mam rather than their da, who Danny himself favored. Easy enough for such a lad to turn a girl’s head with a few pretty words and promises. All of which he’d broken now.

Toby, you bastard, how could you leave the lass like this?
Danny lamented silently. What was the girl to do now? Live in shame with a fatherless babe? No. He’d not allow that.

“I’ll wed the lass myself,” he said into the silence. “If she’ll have me.”
“Have you?” Mrs. S put her hands on her hips. “Of course she’ll have you. Effie, say thank you to Mr. Costessey for his offer.”
“You needn’t thank me, lass,” Danny said hurriedly. “And I’ll not press for an answer right away.”
“
But
,” Mrs. S put in, lowering her voice and leaning in close to Danny, “have you considered what Mr. Luccombe’s going to say about it?”

Danny took a deep breath and looked her in the eye. “Seems to me, Mr. Luccombe’s had other things on his mind of late. Other people,” he added, with a sad emphasis. “I reckon he’ll see this as a good solution all ¼round.”

She sighed, and patted his arm. “You may be right at that, young Danny.” Her sympathy shone in her eyes.

Funny how much more real suppositions felt when someone else shared them. There was a strange prickling in Danny’s eyes, and he blinked it away as best he could. “I’d like to speak to Effie alone, if I may,” he said politely.

Mrs. S nodded. “Ten minutes, then I’ve to be getting the dinner ready.” She bustled out.

“Effie?” Danny said. Her eyes were fixed firmly on the floor. He took a deep breath. “You needn’t fear I’ll… make demands upon you. I’ll see you and the babe right, that’s all. Give you both a name, see you’re looked after. But I won’t expect nothing in return.”

She looked up, then. “You mean we won’t really be married?”

“It’ll be a proper church wedding,” Danny assured her. “But we’ll be man and wife in nowt but name.” He couldn’t do this if they weren’t clear about it from the start.

She nodded, and he could see as she gathered her courage, like a mother hen shepherding her chicks. “Then my answer’s yes. I’ll marry you, for the child’s sake.” Then she made a little face. “And mine,” she added, and Danny found he liked her all the better for that admission. “It’s settled, then, and I’ll speak to the vicar tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Mr. Costessey,” she said gravely. “Will that be all?”

 

“Aye,” Danny said, unsettled once more by her formality. “You can go tell Mrs. Standish now.”

And he’d have to find Philip and work out some way of speaking to him alone. Danny’s heart was so heavy, it weighed down his steps as he plodded into the garden, hoping some fresh air would clear his thoughts of the black fug that suffocated them.

He wouldn’t ask about the Cranmore lad, he decided. Wouldn’t betray he’d seen them together. That’d just lead to recriminations and anger, and if it was over between him and Philip, Lord knew he didn’t want to end it that way. He’d just lay out what he’d done, and see how Philip took it, and then he’d know.

Danny paced around the garden in the near dark, the still, damp air chilling his bones without clearing his head. When the scullery maid popped her head out, Danny gathered his courage and called her over. “Can you ask Mr. Standish to see if Mr. Luccombe can spare me a moment of his time?”

She bobbed and scurried off. Danny then had to kick his heels for what felt like an age as the message made its tortuous progress through the house. If he’d had any sense, he’d have sent a note asking Philip to meet him at the cottage later. But no, notes could be read by them as weren’t supposed to. When the door opened again, Danny opened his mouth to tell the maid he’d changed his plans, but it was Philip himself who stepped out into the damp.
“Costessey?” he said, a frown creasing his brow.

The use of his surname seemed to sound the death knell to his hopes, but Danny realized the reason for both frown and formality when Miss Shorwell trotted out behind Philip. He nodded respectfully, his heart sinking so low he reckoned any minute now he’d see it take root in the ground. “Mr. Luccombe. Miss.”

“You, ah, wanted to speak to me?”

Not any more, Danny didn’t. Not with one of Philip’s guests there to force them into the role of master and man and nothing more. He stared at the tips of his boots, scuffed and muddy as they were. “Begging your pardon, sir, miss, but it’s a private matter. But it’ll keep—”

“No. Lord, don’t let me get in your way,” Miss Shorwell said decisively. “I’ll be off to see what Millie’s up to.” She took herself back into the house, but managed somehow to leave the awkwardness behind. Danny felt wrong-footed, unable to switch gait from servant to lover so sudden.

Philip seemed ill at ease too, looking about nervously. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, moving closer to Danny. “She and I were talking, and she just tagged along.”

Danny nodded.

“What is it, then? Do you want me to come to the cottage? I’ll try and get away, but I can’t promise anything. It’s just so difficult with guests in the house.”

Too many prying eyes, that was the problem, right enough. “No. I just wanted to tell you, before you heard from someone else, that’s all.”

“Heard what?”
“That me and Effie Smith are to wed.”
Philip flinched like Danny had struck him. “W-what?”

Too late, it occurred to Danny that like as not, word of Effie’s trouble hadn’t spread upstairs. “She’s to have Toby’s child, and he’s run out on her all the way to Pontefract, so I’m going to do right by the girl. I wanted to tell you myself.”

“You’re…. You’re going marry this girl just because your brother seduced her? But that’s absurd!”

“No, it an’t!” Danny flushed. “What’s the lass to do if I don’t? You tell me that. She can’t carry on working here, can she?” He made an effort to calm his breathing. “’Sides, it’s safer this way.”

“Safer? What do you mean, safer?” Philip hugged himself, looking pinched with the cold as he hopped from foot to foot in his fancy shoes.

Danny felt coarse and shabby in his work clothes and boots. He sighed. “There’s been that talk Toby told me of. About you and me. And then there was that bloody door…. If I marry the girl—”

“If you marry the girl, there won’t
be
any you and me!” “What? It’s for the looks of things, that’s all. It don’t have to change things between us.”

“Of course it’ll change things between us. You’ll be a married man. I can’t carry on with you when you’ve a wife and child!”

“It won’t be a proper marriage!” Danny took a deep breath, tried to hold back from shouting it. “It’s just to give the girl a name.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Philip looked away, the withdrawal already starting. Or had it started days ago, and Danny just hadn’t noticed? “I can’t. Not when you’ve a wife. I just can’t.”

How could he not see it meant nothing, this thing with Effie? Danny found his fist clenching as he racked his brains to try and find a way to make Philip understand. Then it hit him like an ice-cold splinter that pierced his chest and forced a way in. Maybe Philip didn’t want to understand.

He’d been right to fear Philip’s closeness with Matthew. Whether or not there was owt between them—and God, Danny didn’t want to believe Philip could have betrayed him like that—spending time with people of his own class must have shown Philip what a gulf there was between him and Danny. Was he ashamed now of his coarse, uneducated lover? Maybe all this talk of Danny being a married man was just an excuse for Philip to be rid of him. Danny felt hollow inside. He wanted to beg Philip not to push him away, to give himanother chance, but it weren’t his place, were it?

Danny was just the gamekeeper.

 

“Right,” he said slowly. “Then I’m sorry, sir, for taking up your time, and I’ll be on my way now.”

 

He nodded once more and walked away.

P
HILIP
watched Danny go, taking the last remnants of his shattered heart with him. How could he have been so blind, so stupid? When Danny had spoken of Philip marrying, having children, it should have been obvious he was only voicing his own wishes.

But Philip had thought only of himself, had just assumed Danny shared his contentment with the way things were. Of
course
Danny wanted children. What man didn’t? Then a new suspicion dawned. Philip leaned against the garden wall for support, its chill seeping through him and meeting the ice at his heart.

What if Effie’s child were Danny’s all along? The very thought made him nauseous, but it refused to be banished. With every day that passed, Danny grew physically more like his father. And Jack Costessey had never let a small fact like marriage to Danny’s mother hinder his dalliances with the manor staff.

Like father, like son?

 

Philip doubled over and retched.
Chapter 8

I
T WASN
’
T
much of a Christmas for Danny. Oh, he tried to make merry for his mam and his sisters’ sake, but his heart wasn’t in it. His heart was still up at the manor, being trampled on by Matthew bloody Cranmore. Lord, but he’d be hard pressed to avoid temptation on the day of the pheasant shoot, with a shotgun in his hand and that simpering lad in his sights….

Danny caught himself. This wasn’t him, thinking like that, and it wasn’t Matthew he had to blame for his present misery. He’d no proof of anything between Philip and Matthew. ’Twas his forthcoming wedding with Effie that’d driven the wedge between him and Philip, no matter what or who had lent a hand wielding the mallet. Danny had racked his brains to think how he could have acted differently, but when it came down to it, what else could he have done? He couldn’t force Toby to come home and accept his responsibilities, and no more could he have left the lass friendless. And so what if there had maybe been other considerations driving him that day? Lord, if only he’d kept his temper with his brother…. But what was done was done. Had been done already, when he’d told Philip of it.

And what gave Philip the right to decide what Danny’s marriage meant to their relationship? It wasn’t like he and Philip could marry. Why shouldn’t he give his name to a girl in trouble, damn it? Danny cursed under his breath.

“You never want to play with us no more,” Abby said sadly. He was ¼round at his mam’s, had spent a fair bit of time there, of late, not being caught up in other things. This morning in church they’d read the banns for him and Effie for the second time of asking. Third time would be next Sunday, and the wedding the Tuesday after.

Danny roused himself with an effort. “’Course I’ll play with you, lass. Come on, Mary, where’s your ball?”