Manor of Secrets (8 page)

Lady Charlotte shook her head. “Dull as a doormat, I’m afraid.”

“Do you know him well?”

“Not very. All he ever talks about is the weather. Or food.”

Janie bristled a little. “There’s more to food than just eating it, you know. Sometimes people aren’t what you think they are at first.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to offend you!” Lady Charlotte stopped moving, and Janie trod on her calfskin boot, leaving a dark smudge on the pale toe.

“I’m so sorry, Lady Charlotte,” Janie said quickly, and started to move away. “Please let me get something to clean that up.”

“It was my fault.” Lady Charlotte put a hand on Janie’s arm to stop her.

Janie blinked in surprise and turned to face her.

“You’re right,” Lady Charlotte said. “You can’t really
know
someone until you know more about them, can you?” She paused.

Janie nodded cautiously.

“Well, my aunt Beatrice,” Lady Charlotte went on. “I don’t really know her, you see? I’ve never really met her. She’s lived abroad for so long. And I … I want to know why she’s here.”

There was something Lady Charlotte wasn’t saying, Janie was sure of that. But she nodded again, hoping it would all become clear.

“Mother doesn’t want me to spend any time with her.” Lady Charlotte was speaking faster. “With Aunt Beatrice, that is. And I’d like to know why. I’d like to know
her
; she’s such an adventuress and all. But I can’t. Mother insists that I spend all my time with the guests at the shooting party. With Lord Broadhurst.” Lady Charlotte pulled a face but quickly altered it. “Whom I’m going to try to get to know better, as per your suggestion.” She smiled.

“People
are
surprising,” Janie agreed.

“But I was hoping that I could find out more about Aunt Beatrice.”

“So talk to her,” Janie suggested with a shrug.

“That’s just it; I can’t. Mother won’t let me out of her sight.”

“You’re here now.” Janie didn’t know why Lady Charlotte was telling her all of this. And was even less sure she wanted to know.

“And Aunt Beatrice is asleep. But you said …” Lady Charlotte paused. “You said servants know things.”

Janie waited for her to continue, but Lady Charlotte just bit her lower lip expectantly. As if anticipating some kind of response.

“I’m not sure I entirely understand,” Janie said.

“You won’t really spy on her or anything.”

“Spy?”

“Nothing so underhanded or immoral. It’s not like I want you to go through her papers or anything.”

“So what exactly are you asking me to do?” Janie asked cautiously. Because there wasn’t much she
could
do. She couldn’t go upstairs and had yet even to catch a glimpse of Lady Beatrice. “Dig up gossip?”

“Maybe just … listen.”

“And repeat it to you.”

Janie thought of Lawrence and the information he’d extracted from Beatrice’s lady’s maid. A staff entirely of women. Janie might not be able to find out information on her own, but she certainly knew who could.

Lady Charlotte bit her lip. “I just need something, Janie.
Anything
. I want to know who she is. And why she’s here.”

Suddenly, Janie realized that she needed to know exactly the same thing. If her mother really was planning to take a position on Lady Beatrice’s staff, Janie had to find out about it. Soon.

So she could prevent it.

And if she discovered any dark secrets about Beatrice, perhaps she could convince her mother not to leave. And everything would go back to the way it had always been.

Janie nodded.

“You’ll do it?” Lady Charlotte asked.

Janie froze. And nodded again.

And she pretended to smile when Lady Charlotte squealed in delight.

“We’ll need to find a way to get you upstairs,” Lady Charlotte said.

Janie’s guard went up. “I can listen perfectly well downstairs.”

“But … there may be more you can do upstairs.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to spy.”

“Oh, I don’t.” Lady Charlotte looked aghast, but bit her lip again.

Janie waited. She was going to make Lady Charlotte say it. And then refuse her to her face.

Lady Charlotte looked down. Her right hand squeezed her left so hard, her knuckles turned white.

“I just …” she said, and paused. “It’s difficult for me to get away. From Mother. And if you could come upstairs, we could … talk. Because I’d like to get to know you, too.”

Janie again thought about Charlotte needing a friend.

“All right,” she finally said.

And regretted it immediately.

C
harlotte almost swept Janie into another waltz, right there in the kitchen. She was making a difference in her own life. She was making things
happen.
She felt she could make
anything
happen.

“Come to my room at three o’clock,” Charlotte told Janie. “Every day. No matter what.”

“Even if there’s nothing to tell you?”

If Charlotte didn’t know better, she’d think Janie looked a little scared.

“No matter what.”

The kitchen maid bit her lip and looked away.

“Is there a problem?” Charlotte asked.

Janie shook her head sharply and then looked up, her hazel eyes troubled.

“I don’t know which is your room.”

Charlotte relaxed. “It’s the second on the left. From the servants’ stairs.”

Janie nodded, still frowning. Charlotte waited.

“What if I get caught?” Janie finally asked.

“You won’t.” Charlotte smiled. Almost laughed. “No one’s upstairs at that time of day. And certainly no one will be near my room.” She paused, every trace of laughter suddenly erased. “I think they stuck me there so they can forget about me.”

She sagged against the wall, depleted. She was deluding herself, thinking she could make a difference.

A flash of imagination crossed her mind. An Italian count. A daring escape.

And then, almost as if she had conjured him up with her very thoughts, Lawrence appeared in the doorway. He had taken off his livery jacket and waistcoat, his white shirt in bright contrast to his dark hair, his white tie undone and hanging loose against his unbuttoned collar.

“Janie,” he called. “Come and have a dance. Harry says you promised him, but I’ve come to claim you.”

Charlotte felt a stab beneath her rib cage — half jealousy, half longing. She wished she lived in a world where someone could casually ask for a dance, not a world of prescription and
formal introductions. She wished she could talk to boys like Janie could — like they were equals. She wished she could discuss chili peppers and not the weather.

She wished Lawrence hadn’t asked Janie to dance.

But Janie wasn’t responding. She didn’t jump straight into Lawrence’s arms. She didn’t even smile. She stepped away a tiny bit, so her back was against the great oak table, and her fingers gripped the edge of it. Her eyes darted once to Charlotte and then to Lawrence.

He caught the glance and turned. And his smile grew even wider when he saw Charlotte, making her fingers tingle and her heart hammer high in her throat.

“Lady Charlotte,” he said with a bow. He didn’t scramble to retie his tie. He didn’t run in search of his waistcoat. He just straightened up and smiled again.

“How kind of you to grace us with your presence,” he said, and Charlotte found herself wishing he were less formal. That he could call her Charlotte, and drop the “Lady.”

“I was …” Charlotte found herself more tongue-tied than usual.

“I was just showing Lady Charlotte the hesitation waltz,” Janie interjected, stepping forward. “She heard the music and came down the back stairs.”

Lawrence raised an eyebrow at Janie and then turned to Charlotte.

“And what did you think, Lady Charlotte?”

“It’s different.” Charlotte paused and then grinned. “It made it easier to navigate around the table.” She was delighted with herself for saying something so blithely. An echo of the banter Janie seemed so comfortable with.

“Very different from what you’re used to. In a ballroom.” Lawrence’s expression didn’t change, but Janie frowned. Charlotte realized she sounded a little spoiled and wished she had said nothing at all.

“And we had trouble figuring out who would lead,” Janie said, pointing to the black mark on Charlotte’s toe. “I’m afraid Lady Charlotte’s shoes have suffered for it.”

Lawrence laughed and Charlotte felt again a little stab of jealousy. Until he turned those eyes on her. And it was like she was the only person in the room.

“I know how to lead,” he said. “Would you like to dance, Lady Charlotte?” And he held out his hand to her.

He wore no gloves. Charlotte looked down at her own hands. Neither did she.

This night wasn’t going the way she’d imagined. Her plan had been to talk to Janie. She’d imagined herself sneaking
back up the stairs, not seen by any of the other servants. Certainly not seen in her hastily donned traveling dress, having tried — and failed — to lace her own corset.

She hadn’t imagined herself dancing with the footman.

But she found herself wanting to.

Janie stepped between them. For a second, Charlotte thought the kitchen maid was going to whisk Lawrence off into the dance herself. Instead, Janie took Charlotte’s hand in hers.

“It’s all right,” Janie said, placing Charlotte’s hand in Lawrence’s. “He won’t bite. At least not during a waltz.”

When Lawrence stepped closer, Charlotte expected something extraordinary to happen. She expected thunder to sound. Or her mother to enter the room and scream the house down.

But all she felt was Lawrence’s confidence — his fingers gentle, but slightly rough at the edges, and the strength of his grasp.

When she felt his other hand on her waist, she was suddenly — painfully — aware that she hadn’t tightened her corset. That her skirt was merely pinned closed. That she could feel her clothes moving against her skin. She’d danced with boys before, of course. Under the watchful eye of her mother and the entire aristocratic circle of Kent and Sussex.
She’d danced with her brothers and the local landowners and her father. She’d danced with Andrew Broadhurst.

But Andrew held her hand lightly, his fingers barely touching her waist as he methodically led her through the dance.

Lawrence held her hand firmly, his touch on her lower back sure and present, his fingers pressing her skin through the thin linen of her traveling jacket every time he steered her in another direction. Lawrence danced like he
felt
the music. He held her like he was sure she wouldn’t break.

He waltzed her around the table as if they were in an uncrowded ballroom, each turn bringing her another glimpse of the stove, the window, the sink, Janie. She had to move exactly as he wanted, follow his rhythm, his guidance.

This wasn’t a showy dance with quick turns. It didn’t cover a lot of ground. It wasn’t one where the girl could draw attention to the drape of her skirts or traverse an entire ballroom. It was intimate. Close.

Delicious.

She was just getting the hang of it — the music building into the final measures — when Lawrence stepped her into a spin. She turned beneath his arm, looking up into his face. His hand was light on hers against her stomach. His breath whispered on her cheek.

Suddenly, Janie pushed between them, clipping Charlotte’s hip on the edge of the table and nearly sending her sprawling.

“What the bloody letter, Janie?” Lawrence yelped, stumbling away from them.

“Language, Lawrence,” another voice said.

Everything in the room stopped. Mrs. Griffiths, the housekeeper, stood in the doorway.

Charlotte braced herself on the table. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lawrence buttoning his collar.

“Lady Charlotte,” Mrs. Griffiths said coolly. She was the picture of deference, but her eyes held censure. Behind her, Charlotte caught a glimpse of Sarah the housemaid.

Charlotte looked around the room, terrified. Hoping for rescue. When she saw her expression mirrored in theirs, she realized Janie and Lawrence could get into much more serious trouble than she could. So she stepped forward.

“I was just going, Mrs. Griffiths.”

Mrs. Griffiths narrowed her eyes. “Sarah, would you accompany Lady Charlotte to her room, please?” The housekeeper’s Welsh lilt grew more pronounced when she was angry.

“Janie can take me, Mrs. Griffiths,” Charlotte said quickly.

“A
kitchen
maid upstairs in the bedrooms?”

The housekeeper’s voice conveyed all anyone needed to know. All Charlotte needed to know. No wonder Janie was afraid to go upstairs. No wonder she was afraid of getting caught. Charlotte wondered if Janie would come the next day at three o’clock. She wondered if she had made a mistake in asking.

Janie didn’t move, but Sarah stepped aside to let Charlotte pass, one hand guarding her from the flame of the candle she held.

As she walked through the kitchen doorway, Charlotte threw one last glance at Lawrence over her shoulder.

But his eyes didn’t meet hers. So she walked up the stairs silently, the shadows of the candle following her.