The Charmer (5 page)

"Does he know the master
can't pay him?" That was Cook.

"Aye. They offered him board
and food but no money."

"And he still took the job?
He must be desperate."

"That's the thing. I know
there's work up at Sutton Hall, but this man Holt said he'd been round there
and got turned away. There's probably work at Cowdrey too, but he says he's a
gardener, not a farm laborer."

"Aye, there's a difference
you know. The old mistress told me that once. She said gardeners got more
knowledge so they're smarter."

"You think this Holt fellow
has a brain?" The man snorted.

"He might have. Just because
he's got a face like an angel and the seams of his jerkin are popping apart
trying to cover those shoulders doesn't mean he's got wool between the
ears."

"Humph."

"So you think he's lying
about asking for work over at Sutton Hall?" Cook asked, her tone
challenging.

"Could be."

"Hendricks!"

"Well, none of us know him.
And he...never mind."

"He what?"

"He looks at Lady Lynden
like..."

Orlando pressed himself against
the wall and leaned closer to the open doorway.

"Like what?" Cook
prompted. She sounded indignant, defensive. Orlando liked her even more.

"Like he wants to...you
know..."

Cook clicked her tongue.
"They
all
look at her like that. She's a beauty, and any man with
eyes in his head goes a little foolish around her."

"Yes but he's...I don't
know. There's something about him I don’t like."

"You haven't met him!"

"I've seen him through the
window just now. He's got a swagger about him."

"Well, I never thought I'd
hear
you
judge someone before meeting them, Mr. Hendricks." The
sound of chopping filled the strained silence. Orlando thought the man called
Hendricks may have left, but then Cook spoke again. "You can't protect her
forever."

A deep sigh then, "I know. I
know, Cook. But something tells me this man Holt is going to bring trouble to
Stoneleigh."

"If he does..."
Whack
went the knife on the chopping board. "...I'll slice his balls off."

Orlando winced. "Slice whose
balls off?" he asked as he entered the kitchen.

Cook looked up at him but
continued to chop the turnip with a precision that would make Hughe pleased if
she was one of his band. A thin man covered in so many wrinkles he looked like
a crumpled piece of parchment sat on a stool near the hearth, stirring the
contents of the cauldron hanging from a hook above the fire. The suspicious
Hendricks.

Orlando nodded at him. "Well
met, sir." He held out his hand. "Orlando Holt. Gardener."

"John Hendricks,
manservant." He took Orlando's forearm with a grip so hard it left behind red
marks on his skin when he let go. "I hear you're helping the mistress in
the garden."

"Aye."

"For how long?"

Orlando shrugged. "Until
it's time to move on. I'm just passing through."

"Weather'll get bitter
soon," Hendricks said. "Don't leave your departure too late."

"I won't. I hope to arrive
at my sister's place in Salisbury by Christmas." He peered into the
cauldron and breathed deeply. "Ahhh, I haven't smelled a broth that good
in an age."

"It's beef broth left over
from dinner. There's bread and cheese to go with it." Cook waved her knife
at the bench seat on the other side of the table. "Sit, Mr. Holt.
Hendricks, fetch the marmalade."

"Why do I have to fetch the
marmalade when he gets to sit?"

She thrust out one plump hip,
making her skirts swish across the flagstones at her feet. "Because he doesn't
know where the pantry is and you do." She pointed the knife at a door
leading off the kitchen. "And when you get back you can take the dough to
the bakehouse and put it in the bread oven. It should be ready by now."

Hendricks eyed her knife.
"I'm supposed to be a gentleman's groom of the bedchamber," he
mumbled but softened it with a smile that made his wrinkles bend.

"And I'm supposed to just
cook and Bessie's supposed to just be lady's maid." She waved her knife at
the door. "Now go fetch the marmalade before poor Mr. Holt starves to
death."

Hendricks's smile was replaced by
a scowl. "He doesn't look like he's going to starve anytime soon," he
muttered as he stalked into the adjoining pantry. He came out holding an
earthen jar as another woman entered the kitchen. "Bessie, meet our newest
member of staff before he expires from lack of marmalade."

Despite himself, Orlando laughed,
and if he wasn't mistaken, Hendricks almost cracked a smile but held it in
check. The thin old man wasn't so bad after all. Orlando rose and bowed to
Bessie. "We've already met," he said. "Bessie was kind enough to
grant me an audience with Mr. Farley."

"I could hardly say no when
you said you wanted to help my lady in the garden." He guessed her to be aged
about fifty like the other two. She had a smooth, friendly face with golden
flecks in her green eyes that made them merry and spirited. A caul covered all
of her hair except for the front and she stooped a little, as if her back pained
her.

"Ignore Hendricks," she
said with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "None will expire from lack
of marmalade at Stoneleigh. We have enough to feed the queen's army if they
pass through."

"Heaven forbid," Cook
wailed. "Don't talk about armies and wars coming to Stoneleigh."

"So where did such a
handsome devil as yourself blow in from?" Bessie asked Orlando.

Cook's knife stilled and
Hendricks paused at the doorway, the cloth-wrapped dough in his arms. The only
sound was the crackle of the fire and Orlando's heartbeat. Every time he spoke
a lie he wondered if he'd be caught out, if he'd gone too far and
under-estimated his audience. This time was no exception. Country folk weren't
always simple. Some traveled. Others might have family in other counties.

"I worked in the garden of
Collier Dean in Sussex."

"Who's the master there?"
asked Hendricks.

"A gentleman by the name of
Tindale." The harder his heart beat, the smoother his lies became.

"And you were
gardener?"

"Aye." The shorter his
answers, the less likely he was to be caught out. Hughe had taught him that and
a near-fatal experience had driven the point home.

"Is Tindale nobility?"
Hendricks went on.

"No."

"Does he farm his
land?"

"He has sheep."

"Did you—"

"Hendricks!" Cook and
Bessie cried together.

"Leave him be," Bessie
said.

"Off to the bakehouse with
you," Cook scolded, shooing Hendricks out the door with a shake of her
knife. "Don't mind him, lad," she said to Orlando. "He's just
jealous a younger and more handsome man has come into his domain."

Bessie burst out laughing.
"Aye," she said. "He's used to us fussing over him, but now
you've come along with your dimples and long eyelashes and he thinks we'll
stop."

Hendricks flirted with the other
servants? Orlando liked the old boy more and more. "I'm sorry my presence
upsets him."

Cook dismissed his concern with a
wave of her hand and ladled broth from the cauldron into a bowl. Bessie
disappeared into the pantry and returned a moment later with bread and a wedge
of cheese which she set on the table. She handed a knife to Orlando and he
sliced up the cheese.

"Ignore Hendricks,"
Cook said, placing a bowl of broth in front of Orlando. "He's just set in
his ways."

A ribbon of steam drifted up from
the bowl, and Orlando breathed in its spicy aroma. He was starving. "Has
he worked here long?" he asked, sitting down.

"Going on thirty
years," Bessie said, sliding into the seat beside him with her bowl.
"Cook and I arrived about the same time as each other, a few years later."

"That's a long time. Have you
always been the only servants at Stoneleigh?"

"Goodness no," Cook
said. "There were more than a dozen of us once all crowded around this
table. Stable boys and maidservants and two gardeners too."

"Really?"

"Oh yes," Bessie said
as Cook pulled over a stool and sat at the table with them. "They did all
the hard work the mistress couldn't do on her own. That's Mistress Farley, Lady
Lynden's mother."

"When did she die?"

"Three years ago. Her orange
trees almost died that winter too, but Lady Lynden rallied from her grief long
enough to save most. She worked hard that year, with the gardeners' help. That
was before she married Lord Lynden."

"The gardeners had to be let
go after that," Cook said quietly. She stared at the steam rising from her
bowl. "Master couldn't afford to keep them on. Nor most of the
others." She glanced at Bessie. "We were the lucky ones. We got to
stay."

"Aye," Bessie said
sadly. "The master was kind and took pity on us. We three were too old to
get work elsewhere you see. We knew no other way except how it was at
Stoneleigh. He's the kindest master is Mr. Farley. The very best."

They both bowed their heads,
their voices hushed. It was as if Farley were already dead. Perhaps the old man
was more ill than he appeared.

"I have a question that's
been nagging at me ever since I arrived at Stoneleigh," he said.
"It's a little personal and if you think I'm prying..." He left the
sentence hanging. In his experience, people liked to gossip about their
betters. It made gathering information from servants his favorite method of
investigation.

"Go on," said Cook.
"We've nothing to hide." But she glanced at the back door leading to
the kitchen garden and the outbuildings where Hendricks had gone.

"Lady Lynden is a widow and
her husband was the brother to the current master of Sutton Hall?"

"Cousin," Bessie said.
"It's coming up to twelve months since the previous Lord Lynden left
us."

"How did he die?"

Cook shrugged. "Weak heart
the coroner said."

"A coroner was called?"
Usually a coroner was only sent for when a death was thought to be suspicious.

"Aye. Lord Lynden was young
and his death sudden. A waste of time if you ask me. Course he died of natural
causes. Anyone who saw the body would know that."

"Really? What did he look
like?"

She looked at him like he was a
simpleton. "Like he was dead."

"You saw him?"

"No, but I know others who
did."

Orlando didn't ask the rest of
his questions. He didn't want to raise her suspicions, and he suspected she
wasn't the right person to ask anyway. He needed to find someone who'd seen the
body. Preferably the coroner himself.

"Lady Lynden must have been
heartbroken," he said instead.

The ensuing silence and furtive
glances told him more than words ever could. Lady Lynden wasn't heartbroken in
the least.

"He was her second husband,
was he not?"

"Aye," Bessie said with
another glance at Cook.

"How'd you know about
that?" Cook asked, dropping her spoon with a clunk in the bowl.

"I asked at the
village." Orlando held up his hands in surrender, spoon and all. "I
confess I wanted to find out who would be in need of my services the most. The
innkeeper at The Plough told me some of Lady Lynden's history."

"Bloody Milner," Cook
mumbled. "Can't keep his mouth shut, that one."

"I'm sorry I pried,"
Orlando said. "But I admit, Lady Lynden intrigues me."

Bessie sighed. "She
intrigues all the men," she said. "That's the problem."

"Problem?"

Cook pointed her spoon at him.
She seemed to do a lot of implement pointing. "She's not for the likes of
you, young man. She's a gentlewoman so keep your hands to yourself."

Hendricks re-entered the kitchen
with a scowl that gouged deep grooves across his forehead. "And if you
don't, you might find yourself carved up in the middle of the night."

Bessie and Cook stared at him,
but Hendricks had his back to them, ladling broth into a bowl from the
cauldron. They were still staring when he sat next to Cook.

"Just letting our young
gardener know how things lie here at Stoneleigh," Hendricks said cheerfully,
scooping up a spoonful of broth.

"That's enough, Mr.
Hendricks," Cook said. "He means no harm."

The air in the kitchen suddenly
seemed as oppressive and charged as a summer thunderstorm. Orlando decided to
leave his question about Lady Lynden's poverty and ask a more pressing, but no
less provocative, one. "Indeed I don't," he said. "Poor Lady
Lynden is only young and yet twice widowed. That happened to my sister by the
time she was eight and twenty." He had a thousand questions for the people
who'd known Susanna all her life, but there was one burning above all others to
be asked. He had to approach it carefully, with stealth, so as not to fuel
their suspicions. "In my sister's case, her husbands both died in the same
manner too. It was very sad. People began to suspect her of doing something to
bring about their deaths."

"What are you
implying?" Cook blustered.

Orlando shrugged. "Only that
my poor innocent sister had to suffer through suspicion from certain quarters
for a time. It was unfortunate."

"It was," Bessie said,
reaching for the bread and the marmalade jar.

"But that's all it is,"
Hendricks said. "Unfortunate. There's nothing more to the deaths.
Understand?"