Season For Desire (16 page)

Her scalp gave a prickle, and she hastily twisted back her unbound hair and slung it over one shoulder. Likely his hands were just cold. Not everything was a symbol of disaster.

This different style of puzzle box came apart more easily than the other two. Fewer pieces squeaked their protests, and eventually Richard slid aside a panel that revealed a hidden compartment. From there, he extracted a small key, and a few more minutes’ work with the false book spines exposed a keyhole.

“Three of three? Anyone want to place a wager?” Lady Irving said as Rutherford fitted in the tiny key.

“No, thank you,” he said with great calm, and Lady Irving’s mouth slammed shut.

Just as the box opened.

Inside, the fragrant wood was covered with chiseled letters, just as the other two boxes had been.

“Three of three,” breathed Rutherford as he skimmed the letters. “Sophia Angela Maria.”

“You all should have taken the wager,” Lady Irving whispered loudly.

“What else does it say, Father?”

“Several lines of mixed-up letters. But before that, ‘Now Thou dost dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word in peace.’”

“Because my eyes have seen Thy salvation.” Kitty rose from her chair with a hitch and a shuffle.

“You know this?” Giles asked.

She blinked at him, her expression puzzled. “Well, yes.
Nunc dimittis
.”

The Canticle of Simeon. Her memory prompted, Audrina could recall it now. The song of praise from the man who had wished only to live long enough to see the infant Lord. A quotation for an eagerly awaited baby.

All three boxes held quotations from the Nativity story. But why? And what in heaven’s name—if such a figure of speech could be permitted at the moment—did the scrambled chains of letters have to do with anything?

They all gathered around the tiny box, the dinner forgotten. Silently, Audrina read a string of letters as nonsensical as those from the first two boxes:

“We could think about this for ten years and never get anywhere,” said Lady Irving. “You know, the same amount of time young Rutherford took about opening that golden puzzle box.”

Giles’s hands fell from the coffee urn with a thump.

“Or,” continued the countess more loudly, “we could turn this over to my niece Louisa. Lady Xavier, that is. She has a head for puzzles like no one else I’ve ever met.”

“It’s too much to hope that she’s in York.” Nevertheless, Richard Rutherford sounded as though he did hope.

“She isn’t. But she will be in London after Christmas for . . . the wedding. Ahem. You know.”

“My sister’s wedding,” said Audrina. “It is a happy occasion. We need not act as though it is otherwise, and we certainly need not treat it as a secret.” Her smile was more hopeful than it would have been only a moment before. For if the Rutherfords wanted to go to London, she could accompany them. Perhaps they could leave in the morning, even travel over Christmas. They might just make it back to the city in time.

In time for what, though? For Audrina to wed Llewellyn? Impossible. To hand over to him a fortune her father did not have, in exchange for silence they did not know if he would keep? Impossible again.

“I must be getting home,” Kitty said. “If you’ve seen all you want to. Mr. Rutherford, is the box worth a—a pound to you?” She bit her lip, as though embarrassed to have asked for such a sum.

“Mrs. Balthasar, I’d be a villain if I bought it from you for less than twenty,” said Rutherford.

Kitty’s eyes widened, and she clapped her hands together—but Richard held his up. “I’m afraid you cannot be going home right now, though. Look at the turn the weather has taken.”

As one, they turned to the window. A window that was newly glassed with ice, and against which snow was battering in a furious white fist.

“I am sorry, Mrs. Balthasar,” he added. “But we are all quite snowbound. Mr. Booth’s prognosticating knee did not lie to us: There will be no leaving this inn for days.”

“A parcel arrived for ye, m’lady.” Mrs. Booth extended a paper-wrapped package to Audrina when she entered the otherwise-empty public room the following morning. “Las’ mail coach to get through before the snoo blocked the roods late las’ night.”

“A parcel was addressed to me here?” How odd. It was far too soon for any forgotten item to be sent from Castle Parr.

Oh. Perhaps it had been sent by her father? No, that was illogical. He could not know where she was.

Her fingers fumbled on the twine about the parcel.
Steady.

Audrina thanked the hostess, who tipped her a polite curtsy and went back to wiping off tables. Their small party had all risen at different times and breakfasted simply and separately. Mrs. Booth had sliced ham enough for a dozen guests, though the bread was running low.

Not that anyone else would be arriving to eat it today. Overnight, it looked as though the Almighty had slit His down mattress over the world. The snow had fallen in great fluffy flakes, piled high over the ice and slush that had plagued them during the previous day’s travel. Today the road was not only impassable, but invisible.

No. She had been more trapped before than this. She was safe. She was all right.

With a deep breath, then another, she seated herself at a table in the corner to open her parcel. It was a flimsy, tiny thing—and as soon as she pulled back the paper, she saw why.

There lay a silk ribbon and lace garter, embroidered in purple and gold with her initials. Unmistakably one of her most personal belongings; unmistakably one of the pair filched by Llewellyn with the help of Audrina’s former maid.

A note was enclosed with it:

The snow outside seemed to be piled upon her chest: heavy, freezing, choking. For a long moment she could only stare at it while her brain whirled with useless
hows
and
whys
.

She rewrapped the garter and pressed at her eyes with the heels of her hands. All right. She knew why: Llewellyn wanted to make her think of his threat. To feel desperate at the reminder of the ticking clock. Maybe even to be more willing to marry him. Anything to save her family the humiliation, the ruination, of the otherwise-inevitable jilting by the Duke of Walpole.

She lowered her hands with a thump. That was the why of the parcel. But how had it come to be
here
? Did Llewellyn think she had never left?

Turning it over, she studied the postal stamps. The garter had been sent not from London, but York itself.

A prickle between her shoulder blades made her shift in her seat. He couldn’t be here. Behind her. He wasn’t. She knew that, and yet . . .

With a quick twist of her head, she looked out through the row of mullioned windows that faced the main road. Nothing. No one. Just deep, unbroken snow. And no one was staying at the Goat and Gauntlet save their party and Kitty.

He must have had someone else post this for him. Once he reached London with Audrina’s father, Llewellyn would not have slipped away again; not if he could catch the ear of a duke. How much was it worth to him to be brother-in-law to Walpole? Far more than Audrina’s dowry, probably. Certainly far more than her father could pay.

Rain had turned to ice had turned to snow, and she had never felt so far away from where she ought to be.

Another deep breath. There was little she could do about that right now. Little to pass the time; little to take her mind away from the impossible.

Little, but not nothing. Her father wasn’t here to tell her to stay out of the kitchen this time. She could make something, could do something worthwhile, no matter how small.

“Mrs. Booth.” She pushed back her chair and stood, addressing the publican’s wife, who was still wiping tables at the other end of the public room. “Would you permit me to bake something in your kitchen? Bread for dinner, or some sort of Christmas pastry?”

Mrs. Booth’s mouth made an
oh
as she straightened up. “Well, now, m’lady, that’s a righ’ generous offer. But I shouldna like you to go to any trouble. Especially with it bein’ Sunday an’ all.” The older woman looked doubtful despite her polite words.

“We must have bread, no matter the day. I was taught by the Earl of Alleyneham’s favorite cook.” She disliked using her father’s title at this moment, but it had the intended effect of smoothing the doubt from Mrs. Booth’s sonsy features. “If my baking fails, I will certainly recompense you for the supplies used.”

Aha. With the magical combination of nobility and money, the doubt was entirely gone. “M’lady, I should be deligh’ed. Thank you. On Christmas Eve, why no’ have as much good things abou’ us as we can get?” Mrs. Booth bobbed a curtsy.

Audrina’s ear was adjusting to the soft patterns of Mrs. Booth’s Yorkshire dialect. “As you say, why not? I assume the weather will keep some of your employees at home, so perhaps this will ease the load on those who are here.”

With a hand at the small of her back, the publican’s wife admitted that only one maid and the stableboy lived in. Though she did the cooking herself, the baking was usually done by a kitchen maid. “She an’ the others who work here don’ live far, but they won’ be able to get in today with the snoo as deep as your chin.”

This was an exaggeration on the level of at least one human torso, but Audrina made a sound of sympathy. “You have not much help today for such a grand place as this. As soon as I stow my parcel, I will get right to the kitchen.”

Another curtsy. “Once my maid, Jeanette, finishes her work, she migh’ be able to give you a hand wi’ the baking.”

Scooping up the paper-wrapped garter—she felt distaste at touching it, though it was her own belonging—Audrina raced up the stairs to her bedchamber, the same one in which she had stayed the night of her unexpected arrival in York. Her breath came more quickly than it ought after such a short flight.

The fire had been banked, but a nudge with a poker turned over coals hot enough to burn the parcel paper and Llewellyn’s note. It was a tiny triumph to watch ash eat the terrible words and crumble them to nothing, though she would not forget them so quickly. Eyeing the garter, she considered throwing it in the fire, too, but settled for stuffing it into her trunk along with a few other oddments that Lady Irving’s maid had not unpacked. It was
hers
, for God’s sake. There could be nothing wrong with having it in her chamber.

Right. Wiping her hands on her skirts, a cotton print of thin brown and blue stripes, she closed the door on that morning’s unpleasant surprise and went in search of the kitchen.

It would be on the ground floor, she knew. As Audrina checked one doorway after another for the right room, she heard male and female laughter mingled. Across from the servants’ stairs she found both the kitchen and the source of the laughter.

The kitchen was a comely room, similar in its trappings to the kitchen from which Audrina had once been chased at Alleyneham House. The whitewashed walls were bright, with light slanting in from large windows next to which were arrayed gleaming tin-lined copper utensils. At the center of the space stood a huge wooden worktable and a laughing Giles Rutherford and Kitty Balthasar.

Audrina peered past them to see what they were looking at. “Is that a vegetable marrow?” She squinted at the large green gourd. “Wearing a diaper?”

Giles turned first, his grin still in place. “Audrina!” He sounded so pleased to see her that she couldn’t help grinning back. Not that it was difficult to enjoy the sight of a big, broad red-haired man with a sweet scoop of a dimple.

Kitty matched their smiles. Though dressed in the same print gown as the previous day, she looked much less bedraggled and fragile. “Mr. Rutherford told me he had a houseful of younger brothers and sisters. I was never around a baby before, so I’d best figure out how to care for one before my own’s born in another two months.”

“So he taught you to put a diaper on a vegetable marrow.” Audrina held up a hand. “No, Giles, there is no need for explanation. It makes perfect sense. What else would you use? After all, an apple or a sack of walnuts wearing a diaper would be ridiculous.”

“To be strictly accurate,” Giles said, “it’s not a diaper. It’s one of Mrs. Booth’s finest napkins, so don’t tell her.”

Kitty laughed again, one thin hand resting on her great ball of a belly. “Oh, Lady Audrina, I’d no idea the cloth had to be folded so many times. Only imagine the disaster if I hadn’t learned.”

“It would indeed be a disaster for your clothing.” With a little wave, Audrina took an apron from a hook, then slipped behind the pair of them to the far side of the kitchen. “Carry on with your diapering lesson; do not let me stop you. I am searching for the pantry.”

Holding on to the cloth about the wizened, bulbous old vegetable marrow, Giles flung out an elbow. “It’s that way. Step across the corridor, right at the corner of the building. That’s where we found the marrow.”

He turned back to his task, and as Audrina passed through the doorway into the scullery, she heard him add, “Once it’s nicely folded, you can tie it around the baby’s waist, like a little sash, or fasten it with a pin.” After a moment: “No, not a hairpin! Good Lord, Kitty. You’ll pop the baby like a bubble. Use a spring pin.”

Kitty’s laughter sounded again, much like a bubble itself. Audrina’s step faltered.
This is what he’s like with his sisters. This is what he gave up to come here.

America seemed farther away than ever.

But the pantry, as Giles had promised, was quite close, and it was there that she must turn her thoughts. Resolutely. Immediately.

Although a small room tucked behind the servants’ stairs, the pantry and larder were cleverly arranged to use every bit of wall space and even some of the awkward triangular space beneath the stairs. Wooden shelves of jarred and preserved foods, a butter churn, apples and root vegetables in barrels, wheels of cheese, cones of sugar.

Cold nipped her nose, and she tied the apron on over her gown in a hurry. She would come back with a measure once she decided how much bread to make. While the dough rose, though, perhaps a treat? It was too late by a month to start on a Christmas pudding, but she thought she could remember how to make apple tarts. With mulled wine, that would give their evening a festive air. She piled a dozen apples into her apron, then, shivering, darted back into the kitchen.

Kitty had gone, and Giles was removing the makeshift diaper from the vegetable marrow. “What are your plans for the morning, princess?”

“I told Mrs. Booth I would bake something.”

The smile that spread over his face was warm and secret, quite different from the mischievous look he’d worn with Kitty. “Will you really? Good for you. No one to chase you from this kitchen.”

“There’s no one to work in this kitchen at all today, except for Mrs. Booth.” Audrina hitched up the apron to the level of the huge wooden table and let the apples roll out. “And me.”

“And me, if you like.”

“You? Really? It is even worse for a man to work in a kitchen than an earl’s daughter.”

“Then we won’t call it work.” He winked at her. Shrugging free of his coat, he added, “You’ve got an apron as big as Yorkshire, but I have to protect my clothing somehow. Can you find me a knife? I’ll start peeling those apples.”

“But your hands—” She bit down hard on the end of that phrase.

Giles shot her a Look as he hung his coat on the apron hook. “My hands are fine. They’ve been well-rested for a few days and they’re not too painful. Nor are they clockwork machines whose life winds down. I can use them even if they hurt.”

Audrina found him a small paring knife and herself a larger one. With the urge to avoid his gaze, she made herself tip up her chin all the higher. “I did not mean to insult you, Giles. Only to let you know that I don’t want you to be hurt. Not for something so frivolous as apple tarts.”

“That’s a compliment indeed.” He set the knife tip near the top of one apple, then sliced free a long, tidy curl of blush-red peel. “But if there’s anything worth hurting one’s hands for, it’s an apple tart.”

So much of a conversation bobbed below the surface.

As Giles worked on the apples, Audrina tried not to be obvious about watching his arms flexing within their shirt sleeves.

Instead, she made herself familiar with the kitchen. The floor was made of large flags of native stone. One wall was taken up by a fireplace large enough to roast a calf, though fortunately a modern oven was set into the brickwork. Clean sand scattered about the hearth would catch drippings and ash. An ironwork rack held bowls and serving dishes and—aha!—the blobby leavings of the last baking, well covered in flour to preserve it for leavening the next baking. Thank goodness. Audrina had a vague idea of how to start a loaf from a dirty-gold slurry of yeast, but this would be much easier.

As she collected what she needed, she felt Giles’s gaze following her—though every time she looked at him, he was studying another long curl of apple peel as he sliced it free. “You know, princess, you don’t have to make bread any more than I have to peel these apples.”

“Why are you peeling the apples, then?”

“Why are you making the bread?”

“Because someone needs to, and I know how.”

“Likewise.” He looked up, one eyebrow arched.

“Oh, stop it. If you want me to praise you, just say so.”

He considered his handiwork: five neatly peeled apples in a line, with seven more to go. “Yes. I would like you to praise me. I’m doing an excellent job and I want you to know it and prove to me that you know it.”