Night of a Thousand Stars (4 page)

“It’s to be watchful—to see all and understand what we see. I watched you with Mr. Madderley, and I could tell from the first moment I saw you together you were entirely unsuited.”

“You might have told me,” I said, kicking a pebble.

“You did not ask,” she returned mildly.

I grinned again. “All right, Masterman. I’ll give you that. And you can stay on if you like.”

She gave me a brisk nod to indicate her acceptance. We walked on in silence for a little while, taking a turn around the pond. A few apathetic ducks bobbed on the glassy surface and a limp lily floated along. There was no one else on the village green, and even the smoke coming from the chimneys drifted in lazy circles.

“Masterman, with your gift for watchfulness what do you make of our present circumstances?”

She looked around the village, taking in the quiet shops and tranquil, sleepy air of the place.

“I think, miss, we are in very great danger of being bored.”

* * *

She was not wrong. After that, our days settled into a pattern. Masterman and I went for long walks each morning, and after luncheon Father painted in his studio while I tried to make friends with George, although he remained stubbornly unmoved by my charms. I asked him to teach me to make his clever little soufflés or roast a duck or let me polish the silver, but each attempt was met with a firm rebuff. “That’s your side of the cottage,” he would state flatly, pushing me out of the kitchen and back into the hall. It was too bad really, because I was bored senseless and genuinely interested in acquiring a few new skills. It might come in handy to be able to roast a duck, I thought, but George was unwilling to oblige.

So I occupied myself with brooding. I wrote no letters and received only one—a curt message from Mother stating that she had returned the wedding gifts but that I had been remiss in returning my engagement ring to Gerald. It was an enormous pigeon’s blood ruby, a relic from the days of the first King George and worn by every Madderley bride. The viscountess had been particularly resentful at giving it up, and I was abashed I hadn’t thought to give it back to Gerald when he left the cottage. I made a note to take it with me when I went up to London next; I couldn’t possibly trust such a valuable jewel to the post. But London held no charms for me in my present mood. I had given up reading the Town newspapers after the second day. They were vitriolic on the subject of my almost-marriage, and going up would mean facing people who had decided I was only slightly less awful than Messalina.

So I buried myself in books, raiding Father’s library for anything that looked promising. There were a handful of Scarlet Pimpernel books and an assortment of detective stories, but beyond that nothing but weighty tomes on art history. I had almost resigned myself to reading one of them when I discovered a set of books high on a shelf, bound in scarlet morocco. They were privately printed, that much was obvious, and I gave a little gasp when I saw the author’s name: Lady Julia Brisbane. She was Father’s youngest sister, and the most notorious of our eccentric family. After a particularly awful first marriage, she had taken as her second husband a Scot who was half-Gypsy and rumoured to have the second sight. The fact that he was distantly related to the Duke of Aberdour hadn’t counted for much, I seemed to recall. There had been scandal and outrage that a peer’s daughter had married a man in trade. Nicholas Brisbane was a private inquiry agent, and Aunt Julia had joined him in his work. Ending up a duchess must have been particularly sweet for her, I decided. Father had talked about them my first morning at the cottage, and as near as I could guess, these books were her memoirs.

I turned the first over in my hands.
Silent in the Grave
was incised in gilt letters and a slender piece of striped silk served as a bookmark. I opened to the first page and read the first line. “To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband’s dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.” I slipped down to sit on the carpet, the books tumbled in my lap, and began to read.

I did not move until it was time for tea, and only then because Father joined me. He beckoned me to the table by the fire, giving a nod of his silvery-white head to the book in my hands.

“I see you’ve discovered Julia’s memoirs.”

I shook my head, clearing out the cobwebs. I had spent the whole day wandering the fog-bound streets of Victorian London with my aunt, striding over windy Yorkshire moors and climbing the foothills of the Himalayas. I took a plate from him and sipped at my tea.

“I can’t believe I never knew she did all those things.”

His smile was gentle. “It’s never been a secret.”

“Yes, I always knew she went sleuthing with Uncle Brisbane but I had no idea the dangers they faced. And you—”

I broke off, giving him a hard look.

He burst out laughing. “There’s no need to look so accusing, child. Yes, I did my fair share of detective work, as well.”

“I can’t believe Aunt Julia almost killed you once with her experiments with explosives.”

“Once?” His eyes were wide. “Keep reading.”

He urged sandwiches and cakes on me, and I ate heartily, suddenly ravenous after missing luncheon entirely.

“That’s what I want,” I told him.

He had been staring into the fire, wool-gathering, and my voice roused him. He blinked a few times and looked up from the fire. “What, child?”

“I want what Aunt Julia has. I want a purpose. I want work that makes me feel useful. I don’t just want to arrange flowers and bring up babies. Oh, that’s all right for other girls, but it isn’t right for me. I want something different.”

“Perhaps you always have,” he offered mildly.

“I think I have,” I replied slowly. “I’ve always been so different from the others and I never understood why. My half-sisters and -brothers, my schoolmates. Don’t mistake me—I’ve had jolly enough times, and I’ve had friends,” I told him, pulling a face. “I was even head girl one year. But as long as I can remember, I’ve had the oddest sense that it was just so much play-acting, that it wasn’t my real life at all. Does that sound mad?”

“Mad as a March hare,” he said, his lips twitching. He nodded to the mantelpiece, where a painting hung, a family crest. Our family crest. It was a grand-looking affair with plenty of scarlet and gold and a pair of rabbits to hold it up. “Family lore maintains the old saying about March hares is down to us, that it isn’t about rabbits at all. It refers to our eccentricity, the wildness in our blood. And the saying is a tribute to the fact that we do as we dare. As do you,” he finished mildly.

I started. “What do you mean by that?”

A wry smile played over his lips. “I know more of your exploits than you think, child.”

“Exploits! I haven’t done anything so very interesting,” I protested.

He gave me a sceptical look. “Poppy, give me some credit. I mayn’t have been a very devoted father, but neither have I been a disinterested one. Every school you’ve been to, every holiday you’ve taken, I’ve had reports.”

“What sort of reports?” I demanded.

“The sort any father would want. I had little opportunity to ascertain your character myself, so I made my own inquiries. I learnt you were healthy and being brought up quite properly, if dully. Araminta has proven herself a thoroughly unimaginative but unobjectionable mother. At first, I thought it best, given the sort of family we come from. I thought a chance at normality might be the best thing for you. But the more I came to discover of you, the more I came to believe you were one of us. They do say that blood will always tell, Poppy.”

I gave him a look of grudging admiration. “I’m torn. I don’t know whether to be outraged that you spied upon me or flattered that you cared enough to do it.”

His smile was wistful. “I always cared, child. I cared enough to give you a chance at an ordinary life. And if you think that wasn’t a sacrifice of my own heart’s blood, then you’re not half as clever as I think you are.”

His eyes were oddly bright and I looked away for a moment. I looked back when he had cleared his throat and recovered himself. “I’m surprised you found me clever from my school reports. The mistresses were far more eloquent on the subject of my behaviour.”

“No, your marks were frightful except in languages. Looking solely at those I might have been forgiven for thinking you were slightly backwards. It was those reports of your behaviour that intrigued me, particularly the modest acts of theft and arson.”

“But those were necessary!” I protested. “I broke into the science master’s room to free the rabbits he’d bought for dissection. And the fire was only a very small one. I knew if the music mistress saw her desk on fire, she’d reveal where she’d hidden the money they accused the kitchen maid of stealing.”

He clucked his tongue. “Impetuous. Instinctive. Audacious. These are March traits, child. We’ve been living by them for the past six hundred years. There have been epic poems written about our oddities, and more than one king of England has had cause to be grateful for them. And now you are one of us.”

I gave a little shiver as if a goose had walked over my grave. “Rather a lot to live up to.”

He shrugged. “I should think you would find that consoling. You have an ancestor who eloped with her footman, another who rode his horse into Parliament, a great-grandmother who used to dance with a scooped-out pumpkin on her head because she found it cool and refreshing. And those are the ones I can talk about in polite company,” he added with a twinkle. “Don’t be put off by your legacy, Poppy. Embrace it. Follow your own star, wherever it leads, child.”

“Follow my own star,” I said slowly. “Yes, I think I will.”

The only question was, where?

* * *

The next day I had my answer. I had gone to the pantry to try yet again to help George with the washing up, determinedly cheerful in the face of his resistance.

“You will come to like me,” I promised him.

“I have my doubts,” he replied shortly. I put out a hand to wipe a glass, and he flicked the glass cloth sharply at my fingers. “Leave that be.”

“I could read to you while you work,” I offered. I picked up the book he had stashed on a shelf in the pantry—
Northanger Abbey
.

I sighed. “It’s not Austen’s best, you know.”

He snatched the book from my hand. “It’s Austen and that’s good enough for me.”

He replaced the book lovingly on the shelf, and I took it down again. “Very well. I apologise. But why do you like it so much? Don’t you find Catherine Morland appallingly naïve?”

“It seems to be a common failing in young ladies,” he said, giving me a dark look.

I burst out laughing. “Oh, George. You do say the nicest things.” I flipped to where he had carefully marked his place. He had almost reached the end of the first chapter. I cleared my throat and read aloud. “‘But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.’”

I looked up, giving George a thoughtful look. “Do you suppose that’s true, George? Do you think when a young lady is supposed to be a heroine, her hero will appear?”

“Certainly,” he said, polishing an invisible spot from one of the glasses. “If Miss Austen says it, it must be true. But not all young ladies are meant to be heroines,” he added pointedly.

“That’s very hurtful, George,” I told him. I turned back to the book. I read the next paragraph, then slowed as I came to these words, “‘...if adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.’” I looked up again. “‘She must seek them abroad,’” I repeated slowly.

George kept on with his polishing, but he flicked me a glance. “An excellent idea. You should go abroad.”

I smiled in spite of him. “Why are you so eager to get rid of me, George? Surely it’s not that much extra work to scrape a few more carrots for dinner. And I’ve seen Masterman doing heaps of things for you, so it’s clearly just me you don’t like. Why can’t we be friends?”

I turned up the smile, giving him my most winsome look. He turned and put down the glass, folding the cloth carefully.

“I’ll not have you hurt him,” he said plainly.

I blinked. “George, what on earth are you talking about?”

“I’ll not have you hurt Mr. Plum.”

I felt my throat tighten with anger. “The very idea! I have no intention of hurting Father at all. I can’t believe you would even suggest such a thing.”

“I don’t say as you would mean to do it,” he allowed. “But things happen. He’ll get used to you if you stay on here. And then you’ll go away and it will break his heart. I don’t think he could stand that again.”

My anger ebbed. I had not considered what a wrench it must have been for him when Mother took me away. “You’ve been a good friend to him, George.”

George scowled. “I’m his manservant, and don’t be forgetting that, for I’m not. But I’ll not have him hurt again. His heart isn’t what it was. He has spells with it. Not serious,” he said, noticing my start of alarm. “But he needs calm and we’ve had that here. That was when he moved down to the country and left London for good. He keeps regular hours here and paints. And there’s no more detective work.”

“Detective work? George, what are you talking about?”

“Your father’s work in London. He was part of your uncle’s private inquiry agency. Among other things.”

I blinked. “But that was decades ago! Uncle Brisbane and Aunt Julia gave that all up well before I was born.”

George snorted. “Publicly, they did. But privately, they carried on just as they had. And your father was a part of it. They did government work, and if it weren’t for them, we’d have had a war with Germany twenty years earlier than we did.”

“George, are you seriously asking me to believe that my family were involved in some sort of global espionage?”

He shrugged. “You haven’t read all of your auntie’s memoirs yet, have you? Believe what you like, miss. It matters nought to me. But the work was demanding. They had friends killed, and your father had a close shave or two, I don’t mind telling you. That’s how he met me, in fact, and no, I’ll not tell you the story, but I will say your father saved my life, he did, and I’ll serve him until the end of mine. But all of that is behind him. He’s got a pleasant way down here, just his painting and his garden. He’s right old, miss, and he’s not got many years left. I mean to see they’re peaceful ones.”