The Lost Bee (4 page)
Authors: L. K. Rigel
“And will you be leaving the Leopard & Grape?”
“I will indeed, Mr. Davies. His grace has invited me to take Millam Cottage.”
The horses startled and the coach lurched forward, drawing Morgan’s attention. His eyes met Susan’s, but again he looked straight through her as if she wasn’t there. As if she had never been there.
Three years later, 1799 London
Matthew Peter reached the end of the hall with a light heart. Every day at Gohrum House was a good day, today better than most. He was tempted to fly down the stairs by threes. But of course he’d be seen, and he didn’t want to bring grief to his father.
“We must set the example, son,” Mr. Peter always said. He was butler of Gohrum House, the highest position in the Duke of Gohrum’s London household, a position Matthew Peter would hold one day. Matthew Peter was bound to act with proper decorum.
But Miss Gray made it difficult. In the hall just now, she’d smiled at him. He sighed at the memory and shifted the silver tray he carried to one hand, tucking it under his arm. He took the stairs down to the kitchen one by one.
Something was off. The kitchen maids were chopping and pounding like mad, their faces serious and fixed on the task at hand. It was so quiet he heard an ember pop in the open fire. Cook stomped over to the stove and stirred a pot, then stomped to the sideboard and sorted through her herbs and spices, apparently not finding what was wanted.
The woman could be as gentle as a kitten when things ran smoothly, but since yesterday all of Gohrum House had been knocked askew by the duke’s new houseguests. Matthew Peter felt sorry for Cook. The kitchen was getting the worst of it.
“Matthew Peter.” Cook pointed a long wooden spoon at his chest. “You’re just the man I want, with your long legs.”
“I just came downstairs to fetch the plate from the butler’s pantry,” he said in protest. But he laughed good-naturedly and set the tray down on the worktable. “Madam, what is your desire?”
“There’s a good lad.” Cook broke out in a broad smile, and her staff relaxed. “Bring down the egg basket for me. Lady Delia has a desire for a soufflé with her tea this afternoon, and I’ve used all my eggs for the breakfast she and the countess barely touched.”
Lady Delia was the daughter of Earl and Countess Devilliers. The family were currently the duke’s houseguests, and Lady Delia had proved demanding beyond all belief.
“I always wonder why the grand folk hate the Frenchies but love their food,” Matthew Peter said. He was taller than any of the footmen, but he still needed a stool to reach the wicker basket on the top shelf. As he stepped down, he almost trampled Miss Gray who’d just come into the kitchen.
“I beg your pardon.”
“Not at all,” she said, moving out of his range.
He felt his face go red, but it couldn’t be helped. The kitchen maids exchanged a look and grinned. Yes, let them laugh. Everyone knew his heart was lost to Miss Gray. Everyone, that is, but Miss Gray.
“Cook, I’m going out,” Miss Gray said. “Is there anything I can pick up for you?”
Wasn’t that just like her to offer to help on her free day? She was a wonderful person.
“You’ll save me from Lady Delia yet, Miss Gray,” Cook said. “Take the egg basket to Mrs. Jenson across the park. She borrowed two dozen last week. See if she’s in a position to return them. If not, I’m afraid you’ll have to buy some.”
Matthew Peter handed Miss Gray the basket, hoping for another smile, but she didn’t even look at him. “I’ll get some house money just in case,” she said to Cook. She left the kitchen for the work room she shared with the head housekeeper, the basket swinging lightly at her side.
It was tragic Miss Gray didn’t know he was alive. She was a hard worker and a good person, firm but fair and kind to the housemaids in her charge. She was clever, too, always using the oddest words. One day he’d be butler, and one day she’d be head housekeeper. Matthew Peter’s one dream was to make her see they were perfect for each other in every way.
Singer
The world these days was a fascinating place for a young man of mind and means, full of inventions, discoveries, news of geographical expeditions, the latest German music and English poetry. He was in England for the first time, the new century was mere months away, and he would be twenty-one in the spring.
Lost in the umbrella’s mystery, he didn’t see an oncoming coach pull to a stop on the narrow road; nor did the man who stepped out of the coach have a care for where he was going. The two men collided. The Englishman dropped a fine ash cane, and Leopold caught before it touched the ground.
The precious thing felt welcome in his hand, pleased to be there. He twirled the stick with unconscious delight and with a deft movement returned it to its owner who snatched it back protectively.
As if Phaeton in his mad streak across the heavens had stumbled upon Orpheus emerging from the underworld, the two men locked eyes. Leopold felt an instant, irrational dislike of the other man—and sensed the feeling was shared.
They were a fine study in light and dark. The Englishman’s neat strawberry-blond hair contrasted with the Leopold’s thick and loose brown curls. The fair man was taller, thin, and blue-eyed, with the grace of a gazelle, dressed in the tight-fitting costume of a fashionable gentleman. Leopold was dark-eyed and more muscular, with the sleek but thicker strength of a panther and careless ease in his clothing and manner.
“Welcome back to Asherinton, Sir Carey.” The butler stepped out from the townhouse. “I hope you left Baroness Branch in good health?”
“The baroness was in excellent health two days ago.” Sir Carey disappeared inside without offering, or waiting for, an apology.
Leopold tucked the umbrella under his arm. So that was Sir Carey Asher, one of his father’s partners in business. He continued on his walk. They would be introduced tomorrow night at the Duke of Gohrum’s supper.
He should cut short his stay in England. His education had become a too-long holiday from the real world, and in truth he spent little time at his studies. If he’d wanted to learn something, he should better have chosen the university at Edinburgh. Cambridge was more likely to turn him out in the image of that dandy with the walking stick than of David Hume or Adam Smith.
He attended lectures and argued Revolution with chaps in the coffeehouses, sided with Burke against the Jacobeans, and fancied himself a good candidate for The Lunar Society, if only he’d been born a generation earlier. But it was all less than necessary to his happiness.
Enough learning! He wanted to be doing.
He’d adapted to London circadian rhythms. He breakfasted well after noon and dined at an hour when decent Austrians were asleep in their beds. He was a tourist of both mean and splendid places.
The messy, alive jumble of London architecture and pickpockets and street vendors and theaters fed his imagination with far better stuff than professors’ lectures, and his father’s letter of introduction had made him welcome through Gohrum into good company in both town and country.
The weeks in August at Millam Hall were best forgotten, spent almost entirely in the avoidance of Lady Delia Devilliers. He’d only escaped after promising to attend Gohrum’s first London supper of the year, the one tomorrow night. It was only October, but the trickle had started, soon to become the river of society flowing back for another season of cards and cotillions, fortunes made and more fortunes undone, according to the stories he’d heard.
A few cool drops of light rain fell as he entered St. James Square. The duke’s residence was across the park, a stark patch in all the white marble and red brick of the neighborhood. Gohrum House was close enough to his own rooms that he could walk tomorrow, if the rain had gone. He opened the umbrella into the path of an oncoming young woman.
“Oh, mux!” What an odd curse. It betrayed a lack of deference to the superior being who had poked her in the eye.
He tossed aside the offending machine and grabbed her arm, but a stream of brown and white eggs rolled down the folds of her skirt, breaking on the grass in slow sequence, one upon another. “Pardon me, miss. I am an oaf.” Within one half hour, that confounded umbrella had involved him in two clumsy encounters.
“Aren’t you,
now.
”
Charming. But then, she’d surely have to replace the eggs, and with money she was not likely to have. He picked up the empty basket. “You must let me refill this. But first, I was just on my way for a spiced coffee. Will you share a pot with me, as some small amends?”
The gentle rumble of his voice worked its magic, and she looked at him more kindly. Her strange eyes were gray and bright like clouds in sunlight. He hoped she’d say yes.
“I assure you, ladies find The Lost Bee quite suitable.”
They hurried through the rain, only a Scotch mist, down Charles Street, turned a few corners, and slipped into one of London’s innumerable coffeehouses. “They know me here,” Leopold said. “It’s where the coach from Gohrumshire stops.”
She suppressed a smile. She wasn’t pretty, and she wasn’t that much of a girl. She must be a few years older than he. But the dash in the rain had awakened his senses. He wished he could touch her hair.
“Mr. Leopold!” The middle-aged proprietress of The Lost Bee waddled toward them through the tables. “Give us those wet things, now that’s it.”
“Good day, Mrs. Jones.” She always clucked over him like his old nurse. At home it would be irritating, but in cold London he welcomed the solicitous attention.
“Isn’t this the charm of a sudden shower, to take shelter in a respectable establishment like my Bee?” She frowned at the girl’s thin shawl. “Caught by nature, as it were, and forced to spend half an hour in pleasant conversation till things let up.”
Leopold asked for his companion’s name.
“Susan, sir. Susan Gray.”
“Ah, Susan, sir,” he teased. “Susan, sir, allow me to present Mrs. Jones, owner of this fine establishment. Mrs. Jones, I quite literally ran into Miss Gray and destroyed her groceries, so I’ve brought her to The Lost Bee for the best spiced coffee in London and to beg you to sell me a dozen of your fine eggs to replace those I broke.”
“Two dozen,” Miss Gray said.
Mrs. Jones took the shawl and umbrella and sighed as if his troubles were her own. She muttered, “Mr. Leopold being kind again, taking it into his mind to address some situation. The world’s full of sorry tales.”
The Lost Bee’s tables and even the floors were clean enough not to repel ladies of quality. There was a window table available, but Mrs. Jones led them to a quiet corner. The scent of Susan’s hair reminded Leopold of springtime at home. He felt a loss of self-control, at once alarming and delightful.
For so long that it seemed a natural fact of his life, he’d judged himself smarter, bolder, and more capable than most people he met. Susan was the last sort of person he should feel equal to—a foreigner, a servant, a woman. Yet he felt instantly at ease in her company as if there were no distinction between them of rank or sex. They’d exchanged but a few words, and he sensed that she knew him completely.
A serving girl brought hot bread and butter with the coffee. Susan’s plain features softened as she took in the scent of nutmeg, cinnamon, and cardamom. She wasn’t beautiful or even sweet like Marta Schonreden back home, but she fascinated him. Susan’s eyes were a preternatural light gray. An informed intellect shone through.
He wanted to make a ridiculous comment about windows to the soul.
He liked her self-confidence, her sensual enjoyment of the hot drink, her open demeanor—no sparkle, but intelligent spark. By the time the pot was empty, he had told her all about himself.
“Thank you, Mr. Singer. I am sure I will badger Cook to introduce spiced coffee to the manse.” She said
manse
with ironic humor. The more she spoke, the more she seemed too fine for a servant. He laid his hand on the table near hers, but she ignored it and stood. “I must get those eggs to Cook.”
He followed her to the street. She made a slight curtsy which he also suspected as being ironic. “Goodbye.”
