The Maid of Fairbourne Hall (23 page)

Margaret carried her kettles back to the kitchen for one more refill. That should bring the water level up past her legs, she hoped. Then perhaps one more can to rinse her hair. Her arms began to tremble from the heavy load, her hand to feel permanently bent in a clutch. Ah, but the warm water would soon soothe her aches and pains.

She lugged the kettles down the long passage, past the housekeeper's room, stillroom, storerooms, and around the corner to its end, only to find the bathroom door closed. She was sure she had left it open. She frowned. Surely not . . .

She knocked experimentally. “Hello? Is someone in there?”

No one answered. The door must have swung itself shut. Relieved, she pushed it open and shrieked. Thomas sat in the bathtub. In her bathwater.

He didn't even have the shame to appear sheepish. In fact, he waggled his eyebrows at her by the light of a candle lamp—the one she had lit. Fortunately the tub hid all but his head and upper torso from her view. She was torn between the desire to flee, shielding her eyes, and the urge to throw him bodily from the tub.

“What do you think you are doing?” she fumed. “I hauled all that hot water for my own bath.”

He smirked. “I did wonder who left it. Awfully kind of you.”

“It was not kind,” she said between clenched teeth. “It was for my own bath. Why would you presume someone filled it for
you
?”

His eyes narrowed. “How high and mighty you speak all of a sudden.”

She felt her cheeks burn. “Well, I'm angry!”

He gripped the sides of the tub and made as though to rise. “Then I shall get out straightaway if you like.”

“No! Not with me standing here. I shall wait outside.”

She stepped out and closed the door. Five or ten minutes later he finally emerged, hair slicked back, skin still glistening. “It's all yours, love.”

“I trust you're going to help me refill it?”

“No need. It's perfectly good water. Still warm. I shall even come in and scrub your back, if you like.” He winked at her.

“Not on your life. How selfish you are.”

He lifted his square chin. “Well, I shall definitely not fetch and tote for you after that.” He turned away, whistling to himself as he walked jauntily down the passage, her towel around his neck.

Jackanapes!

The tub, at least, had a drain pipe, or she would have had to haul away the dirty water before she could refill it. While the tub drained, she began the whole process all over again, refusing to bathe in water used by the boorish Thomas. She retrieved a clean towel from the servants' linen cupboard, and laid it over the chair. This time she closed the door when she returned to the kitchen, hoping to mark her territory.

Finally, an hour after she should have, she shut the bathroom door behind her, levered the chair beneath the latch, and disrobed. She removed her spectacles, extracted the anchoring pins, and peeled off the wig. Lifting a foot over the tub edge, she tested the water. Just right. She stepped in and sat down, knees bent. How good the hot steamy water felt on her back and bum. She released a long, satisfied sigh.

Reaching up, Margaret unpinned her hair from its tight knot, then leaned over to pile the pins on the shelf. She combed her fingers through her hair and massaged her scalp. Ahh . . . She sank lower in the tub.

Margaret washed her body and lathered her hair, relishing the relief and pleasure of the scrubbing. Then she poured the remaining water from the kettle over her head to rinse, careful not to spill any onto the floor, which she would have to clean up. She leaned back against the high back of the tub once more. Her eyes began to droop. If she wasn't careful she would fall asleep.

Eventually the water began to cool, and the parts of her above its surface grew chilled. She stood, toweled off her body, and stepped from the tub. She slipped into her night dress, wrapper, and slippers, unplugged the drain, and gathered up her pins. Too exhausted to comb out and repin her hair and replace the tiresome wig, she instead wrapped her head in the towel, careful to be sure all her hair was covered. She rolled the wig and pins into her dress and tucked the bundle under her arm. At the last minute she remembered her spectacles and picked up the foggy lenses from the shelf. Her towel was too tight to allow her to slip the earpieces on, so she simply carried them. The passageway would be dark but for her candle lamp, and she was unlikely to meet anyone this time of night.

Checking to make sure she had gathered all of her belongings and left no blond hairs in the tub, Margaret stepped from the bathroom, hands full with wadded garments and spectacles in one hand, and the candle lamp in the other. She had made it to the foot of the basement stairs when she was startled by footsteps coming down, directly toward her. She looked up in surprise only to quickly wish she had kept her head down. Nathaniel Upchurch was descending the stairs, carrying his own candle.

She was naked. Suddenly naked. Without floppy cap, wig, dark brows, and spectacles to shield her face, her self. What was he doing belowstairs?

“Beg pardon, sir,” she mumbled, forgetting she was to be mute unless spoken to. She moved to the other side of the stairs, head ducked, and climbed quickly from view. She didn't risk a look back to see what expression might reside on that strong, haughty face: shock that she had spoken to him, shock at her state of dress, or the shock of recognition?
Heaven help me either way.

———

Nathaniel Upchurch had decided to go down to the kitchen himself, though he rarely entered the servants' area these days. He had been too restless to sleep and hungry in the bargain. He thought a bit of bread and cheese might help. Normally, he would ring for a servant. But after his recent encounter with the housemaid, he was reticent to ask anyone to come into his room at such a late hour.

But as he reached the bottom of the stairs, a figure appeared in the shadowy passage below and scurried up the stairs past him. He froze. His mind flashed light and dark. His heart rate accelerated. The woman he had just passed—the voice had belonged to the new housemaid. But the face belonged to the woman who haunted his dreams. Margaret Macy.

It could not be. . . .
He sunk to the stairs, sweat pouring from his skin. He was distraught, exhausted, losing his mind. The stress of the fire, the loss of half the year's profits, the debts. These had taken their toll, and he was now imagining, hallucinating the face of Miss Macy on one of the housemaids?

He shook his head to clear his vision and his mind.
Dear God in heaven, help me.
The image seemed burned into his brain, unshakable. The oval face with pointed chin, framed so starkly by the towel. The face so young and innocent, without the powder and paint she had worn at the ball when he had glimpsed her last. The blue eyes, wide at seeing him, fearful.

No! He was imagining things. The new housemaid had come to Hudson's aid near the London docks. Hudson had then recognized her at a hiring fair in Maidstone, and offered her a post out of gratitude. This maid did not speak nor dress like a Macy. Besides, she had dark hair, unless she had dyed it. And she was a maid, for heaven's sake, though not a good one, he gathered. Proud, conceited Margaret Macy would never so demean herself as to enter service. Besides, he would have recognized her immediately.

Or would he have? He had never really looked at the new maid, any of the maids for that matter, until he feared he'd kissed one of them. And they, in turn, did their best to avoid him. If he were honest, as a younger man he had thought himself too far above the servants to give them a second thought. Since his change of heart, he no longer felt himself better than the people working for him. Still, that did not change the ways ingrained in him since youth. Which was obvious in the fact that he had barely looked at this new maidservant before now.

How strange that he had imagined Miss Macy's face on the new housemaid. He needed more sleep. He needed to pray more fervently for God to heal his heart, to help him get over her. He thought he had, for the most part. Returning to London and seeing her, though fleetingly, must have brought her to the forefront of his mind again.
Botheration.

He rose from the stairs, wishing it were not so late. He was tempted to rouse Hudson from his slumber and demand a rematch of the morning's fencing defeat. A bout with the foils seemed to help. He felt he could go twenty bouts at that very moment.

Nathaniel decided he would not look at her again, not risk another fanciful likeness, until he had fenced with Hudson, bathed, dressed, read from the Scriptures, prayed, and prayed some more. Then he would be ready to face her. To see that she was merely a housemaid from a rough London neighborhood. A fishmonger's daughter, perhaps. Or even a merchant's daughter, for her speech, though accented, carried the vocabulary and syntax of an educated woman. He would see her for what she was and be relieved to find his faculties intact. Might there be some small stab of disappointment that she was not Miss Macy in the flesh?
Ridiculous.

The clash of steel striking steel echoed against the garden wall as the two men fenced in the long arcade, hemmed in by its columns. Hudson retreated, struggling to parry as Nathaniel advanced, driving him back and back, closer to the arcade's end with every lunge. Finally the practice tip hit its mark, and Hudson touched his chest in acknowledgment.

“Touché,” he panted.

Nathaniel stepped back, still bouncing gently on his feet to stay loose.

“Good heavens, sir!” Hudson wiped a sleeve across his brow. “What has got in to you this morning? You're on fire!”

“Determination,” Nathaniel gritted, breathing hard.

“To kill me? What have I done since yesterday to so vex you?”

Nathaniel's only answer was to raise his blade once more, and the bout resumed. He advanced, striking again and again. His wrist and fingers began to ache, his thigh muscles to burn from the low stance and grueling pace. Sweat poured down his face and back, shirtsleeves clinging to damp skin. He scored another hit, and the men paused to catch their breaths.

Nathaniel shook the sweaty hair back from his brow. Between pants, he said, “Tell me again why you hired the new housemaid?”

Hudson grimaced in surprise. “I told you, sir. To repay her kindness.”

“You said you recognized her.”

“Yes, from London, the night of the fire. When we lost our way.”

“But had you seen her before that?”

“No, sir. Where should I have seen her before?”

Hudson would not have seen her. He was being illogical again. Miss Macy would have been quite a young girl the last time Hudson was in England.

“Never mind.”

“Do you recognize her, sir? From somewhere else, that is?”

“No,” he said. “She reminds me of someone, that's all.”
But
God help me if I'm wrong.

Nathaniel muddled his way through morning prayers, trying not to stare at her. He would not ogle her in front of the other servants. Not embarrass her or himself. Yet how could he see her more closely? He supposed he could corner her behind closed doors in one of the bedchambers when she was making beds and doing whatever else maids did to tidy the place, but that might stir rumors. Rumors which would make it difficult for her to stay, once he assured himself he was mistaken. Besides, he did not like the thought of sneaking up on her while she worked. He had done so inadvertently once or twice before and had frightened her half to death. But what reason could he give Mrs. Budgeon to summon the girl to the library for a private interview?

When the staff was dismissed, he turned to the housekeeper. “Mrs. Budgeon. I would like a word with the new housemaid, when it's convenient.”

Mrs. Budgeon looked stricken. “What has she done now? I know I was her biggest critic in the beginning—girl had not a whit of experience. But she has improved. I'm sorry if you are disappointed, sir.”