Etiquette With The Devil (9 page)

Bly was anxious to return to India. If he found one more item in need of repair at Burton Hall or received another letter denying his request for services, he would—

Well, he didn’t know what he’d do exactly, and it was that thought that unsettled him most. All he knew was fueled by the instinct that saw him to this very chair—to survive, and to keep moving.

He stared into his empty highball glass in lethargic defeat, remnants of another day scattered around him—the piling up of empty whiskey bottles, heaps of correspondence, and smudged ink stains on his calloused hands. He heaved a sigh as the gossamer wisps of opium danced around him, the pipe still clutched in his hand. The numbness finally quieted his ever-moving limbs, blissful.

Bly cradled his head into his hands, his fingers slowly tapping against his skull until those too stilled. He was tired, though he hated to admit that fact. Admitting as much meant life was strangling the drive out of him. He was tired down to his very soul—if he had one. He attempted to stack a playing card on another on top of the open ledger in front of him, but they both collapsed. His reflexes were much like the molasses Tilly used to bake his favorite cake earlier today.

The tiredness had set upon him some months ago in Ceylon. He had taken one step, then another, before resting his body against a stone ornament at the ruins at Anuradhapura. He had sunk down to the clay earth and stared down at the stagnant pool of green water feeling much the same. An object in motion that had suddenly come to rest. Since then, he had lost his brother and his sister-in-law to typhoid, and been charged with the livelihoods of three children and a small exotic menagerie. There was no time to rest.

Besides, what did he know of family?

Bly shared a heartless laugh with the lonely darkness of his makeshift office. He pushed away from the desk and staggered to his feet, drifting forward through the hall until he stood on the landing of the grand staircase in the foyer, gawking up at the ghost of the family portrait, long since removed and marked only by a box of vibrant wallpaper. He hadn’t looked upon it since he was a boy, but he felt it there all the same. His family’s eyes were still filled with condemnation toward him. There was still the uncomfortable distance his father kept from his mother in the painting. Those sad eyes of hers. That firm hand of his father he knew all too well wrapped tightly over his shoulder.

To hell with that portrait and his godforsaken family.

Burton Hall wasn’t haunted, but since returning, his spirit certainly was.

He shook his head clear and clutched the railing, pulling himself up the stairs one laborious step at time, as if his boots had been weighted with concrete blocks. He was about to turn the corner once he reached the second floor for his quarters, until a faint glow at the end hallway caught his eye.

Bly walked down the tiled hallway, noting the previous dullness of it had been polished to a gleam. Bent over a metal bucket, illuminated by flickering candles on either side of the hallway, was the sleeping figure of Clara. A wet rag had fallen from her hand onto the floor next to her dress, another ghastly frock.

She was too stubborn for her own good.

Earlier in the day, she insisted upon airing out the future schoolroom, even after he chased her through the house demanding that she take an afternoon off. She insisted that things be brought to order for the sake of the children as she stretched precariously on a ladder, washing down dusty walls. Routine was the word she chose to hiss at him when he pressed her on the point. It was not a new concept. He had been an army man, after all. Still, the word from her lips was more like a punch than a reprimand.

“Dawson,” he whispered. Bly waited, but she didn’t stir. With a pointed jab, he shoved his finger into her bony shoulder. Her lips parted and issued a soft sigh, but she didn’t wake.

“Dawson,” Bly said again, his voice a deep rumble. His hand hovered above her shoulder, scared that if he were to touch her again, he would break her. Judging by the stillness of her features, she was lost deep in sleep.

With an irritated sigh, he pushed aside his foolish fear and placed his hand on her shoulder. She stirred slightly, making a sleepy murmur as lush as a pluck of a sitar. Her eyes fluttered open—piercing gray. It felt as if she ran him through with a blade to his chest. Clara moved her lips as if to speak, but sleep won once more.

“I should leave you here,” he said. “You could use a night of sleeping on the tile floor for your stubbornness.” He thought of the way the late afternoon sun had danced around her as she stood on the ladder, wagging her finger and wet rag at him. The ice in her eyes while the world burned around her. “You probably wouldn’t even feel the cold, would you, you icy creature?”

He imagined her indignant outrage if she were awake and he smiled, wishing that she
were
awake to challenge him.

“Well,” he spoke aloud once more, rising to his feet. The hallway rocked beneath him, his knees threatening to give. If he didn’t bring her to bed, he would soon be passed out beside her. Bly extinguished the candles and bent down. “I hope you don’t wake and hit me, you impertinent woman.”

He lifted her into his arms, stilling as her body’s heat seared his skin. It felt as if he were picking up a hot iron, as if her weight in his arms branded him. His first reaction was to drop her as she nestled her head against his chest, a small smile playing at those beautiful pink lips. His second reaction, well…

Bloody hell.

He set Clara onto her bed off the nursery and slowly pulled the blankets over her as if he was covering up a secret. “I hope you don’t remember this. It won’t happen again,” he whispered. He looked down at her peaceful face, feeling the tinder of his heart flame with the birth of a small spark, giving life to a feeling he couldn’t identify. “It won’t happen again,” he repeated, more as a warning to himself, closing the door firmly behind him, leaving her alone in the dark room.

*

She had washed and polished what she could of Burton Hall, but if she had learned anything recently, it was that she could not outrun life. Sleep caught up with her eventually, and when she woke, Clara found herself not on the cold tile floor, but rather on the lumpy down mattress of her makeshift bed.

The sun punched through the small window in her room adjacent to the nursery. She righted herself and pressed her fingers into her cheek, feeling an odd indentation. As she pulled her hand away, she spotted a button caught at the hem of her sleeve. She pried it loose from the tangled thread, sucking in her breath as it ripped the seam open further. Another row of stitches she would have to mend.

The button lay in her palm, unassuming, yet its very existence on her person weighed upon her chest. She shut her eyes, the dream she had had the night before repeating over and over. The warmth pressed against her, the way she had floated, a touch so gentle…

It was hogwash. Mr. Ravensdale should have left her as she lie.

Furious, she bounced out of bed and opened the door to the nursery. The children were not yet stirring. She closed the door and quickly undressed, rummaging through her trunk for another badly butchered dress of hers. If she had half a brain in her head, she would have found something to color her hair before arriving, anything to alter her appearance. One couldn’t wear the dresses she now owned and expected to blend in. She had done a terrible job altering them, another sign of many that she was not meant to be a seamstress.

Then again, it was hard enough remembering that in this small village she was known as Clara Dawson, not Clara Emsworth. Having to keep up with a new appearance might be too much in the wake of having to keep up with the barmy Ravensdales.

Her working corset dug into her ribs in this dress, her garters were too loose, and the shoes she had purchased three years prior, too worn. She averted her eyes as she exited the door, then backed up, flipping the small mirror. Clara Dawson, the governess—what a sad woman she was, what an empty future awaited her.

As it was still early yet, she didn’t check her movements. Clara bounded down the stairs, pins in her mouth as she twisted up her hair. She raced for the kitchen, flying toward the steaming kettle on the stove, desperate for a cup of tea and maybe a spoonful of sugar. It’d be a small delight to brace herself for another hectic day.

“I didn’t know we had mirrors for floors,” Tilly said, coming through the door with a basket of vegetables from the garden. The beet greens were wilted, suggesting Tilly had been up and working for hours. The housekeeper clucked at Clara, smiling, then wiped the dirt smudged across her wide forehead. “You’ll have Burton Hall gleamed up in no time. Between you and the boy, it’s as if this place hasn’t been forgotten about. It’s good to see life back here in these halls.”

Clara peeked over her shoulder, holding back a smile, and stiffened her shoulders. With a shaky hand, she shut the lid to the sugar dish, forgetting all about that second spoonful she was contemplating. “Just doing my part.”

She walked to the open door overlooking the courtyard, overcome with the sight of golden yarrow in the garden bed along with the harebells, and a beautiful deep green bush with clusters of pure white flowers. The weeds were gone, the herbs for the kitchen planted in pin-straight rows, the loam freshly turned over. The air still smelled of damp, sweet earth.

“I told you he worked wonders,” Tilly said, pulling a lifeless chicken out of her basket to pluck. “Ned is good to my girl. Couldn’t ask for a better husband for her.”

Clara blew over her steeping cup of tea, inhaling the sweet sugar and bitter tea leaves. She could never explain the part she felt was missing her in her life, but it was constant. It came on as a child and was a soft, nagging type of pain that sat in the bottom of her belly, that pressed upon her chest, that made her fingers long for someone else to touch or hold. It was an emptiness that might have had another name if only she knew its cause.

Ned and Molly strolled up the path to the courtyard, the morning sun bursting over the dark trees and gardens in the horizon. Molly skipped, then twirled from Ned’s fingertips, launching herself back into his arms as soon as she was free. Clara was certain she’d never see the straight-faced gardener smile, never mind laugh, but he did both as he doted upon his wife and bent down to whisper something into her ear.

The pair stopped when they spotted Clara in the doorway. Molly muttered good morning, a blush heavy on her cheeks, before entering the kitchen.

It was time that Clara started her day as well. She paused by the table as Tilly laid out the beets and carrots, the chicken resting in an old copper pot of water. “I found this on the way down this morning, Tilly. Maybe you can look for a match while mending?”

Tilly took the button from Clara’s outstretched hand. “No need. It’s one of the boy’s buttons, no doubt.”

Clara didn’t correct her for addressing the master of the house as a child, but she wished she were half as brave to do so. Mr. Ravensdale was to be as familiar to Clara as she was with the art of kissing. He was to remain an elusive concept that held no place in her life. A member of no permanence.

And yet, as she snuck into the old music room for a few minutes at the piano, she was greeted by a strong waft of coffee and leather, and the master of the house himself.

“Mr. Ravensdale,” she said, nodding. Her hand clutched onto the doorknob, her feet ready to run if only she could think of an excuse of where else she was needed immediately. But it was fruitless, even with his wide back turned to her while he examined the soundboard of the old baby grand piano.

“Don’t run now, Dawson. I’m here because I need your help.”

“Sir?”

She shut her eyes, cursing herself for calling him that. Yes, it was proper. Yes, it was how a governess should address her master. Etiquette secured her a spot in this world, even if it was at the bottom of the heap. If she acted as she did privately, then she would be no better than the actress mother of hers who abandoned Clara as a babe in the country.

He knocked the lip prop down and shut the piano. “We spoke about what you should call me.” Mr. Ravensdale turned slowly, not subtle in taking in her appearance this morning. “And we must find you some more dresses.”

She drew back, stepping into the hallway, her hand tightened around her teacup. “You should have no concern as to my clothing. These are serviceable dresses.” Clara was glad she hadn’t nipped a corner of fresh bread Tilly had baked, her stomach was now somewhere in her throat. She wished he would allow her to fade into the darkness of Burton Hall, allow her to be but a background to his life instead of constantly pushing her forward, toward the light.

“Whatever you wish, Dawson.” He laughed before taking a sip of his coffee from a chipped mug. “This piano needs to be tuned.” He tapped the top of the lid three times, then set off, waving for her to follow after. “As I mentioned, I need your help.”

Mr. Ravensdale must have gleaned perverse pleasure from making Clara chase after him and his ridiculous stride. She gripped her skirts and raised them above her ankles to give her more freedom. Clara was doing well until he began taking the stairs two at a time once more. At that, she let go of her skirts and huffed, refusing to give chase.