Once Again a Bride (5 page)

Stepping down from the carriage before a town house that made Henry’s—hers—look pinched and mean, Charlotte was acutely conscious of her appearance. In Hampshire she’d had only the dressmaker who sewed for her mother, with very outmoded ideas of fashion. She’d turned to her for mourning gowns when her father died, partly out of foolish sentiment, she supposed, but mostly because Henry had been so beastly about anything she needed. She had no doubt that her clothes would be despised in such a modish house. Sir Alexander obviously despised her already. Not that she cared. Straightening her spine, she stepped up from the pavement. It was just that she had been mocked and belittled for so long she really didn’t think she could bear any more. As they passed through the front door, held for them by a smart young footman, she was near tears.

Something small and mottled black hurtled down the beautiful curving stair, trailing shreds of white. Footsteps pounded above. A housemaid emerged on the landing, followed by a superior manservant who roused unwelcome memories of Holcombe. “That… that creature is possessed by the devil!” the manservant exclaimed.

The black thing turned out to be a large calico cat. It crouched in the back corner of the hall guarding what looked like the mangled remains of a neckcloth.

“It
attacked
me as I came up the back stairs,” the man added. He held up a bleeding hand. “It was lying in wait! Six freshly pressed neckcloths spoiled and one”—he pointed a shaking finger at the cat—“destroyed.”

The footman took a reluctant step toward the cat. A pretty brunette girl of perhaps twelve came running down the steps. “Lizzy!” said Sir Alexander. Charlotte waited for her to cringe at the annoyance in his voice, but the girl merely disentangled the cat and scooped it up into her arms. The animal’s ferocity vanished at her touch. It lolled in the girl’s arms. “I told you that beast was to be confined…”

“Frances left the schoolroom door open. I told her not to.”

A tall, aristocratic-looking woman with the same dark hair had joined the servants above. “Alec. I cannot… I simply cannot…” The sentence trailed off as if she couldn’t even define what she was not able to do. She walked slowly down the stairs. She had the upright posture of a grand dame.

Sir Alexander sighed, and Charlotte turned to examine him. His lean face showed impatience, perplexity, resignation—but none of the cold anger Charlotte had expected. The girl—Lizzy, apparently, arms overflowing with cat—turned to her. “Hello,” she said brightly.

“Frances, Lizzy, this is Mrs. Wylde,” Sir Alexander said. “I told…”

“You are not to call me that!” It burst out, unthinking, and caused a startled pause. Charlotte flushed with embarrassment. Yet she couldn’t bear to hear that name over and over again. “My name is Charlotte.”

“Shall I call you Aunt Charlotte?” said the girl, and giggled. “You don’t look at all like an aunt, I must say.”

She didn’t sound mocking, just amused. But the really interesting thing was her brother. Charlotte kept waiting for the sarcastic scold, the threats of punishment. Instead, when the manservant had said the cat was possessed, she had almost thought his lips twitched. But that couldn’t be.

“This is my incorrigible sister Elizabeth,” he continued.

“Lizzy,” the girl interjected.

“And our cousin, Frances Cole.”

“Such a way to greet a visitor,” the older woman murmured. She pressed a handkerchief to her lips.

“Welcome to the Wylde household.”

Now he sounded… not sarcastic exactly, but exceedingly dry. Charlotte felt as if she’d taken a step in the dark and found the floor several inches lower than anticipated. “Thank you, Sir Alexander,” was all she could find to say.

“Oh, you can’t call him that,” said Lizzy. “It sounds so odd. Come upstairs. I’ll show you your room, and you must meet Anne.” She peeked around Charlotte. “Who are you?”

“Lucy, miss.” She bobbed a curtsy.

“Hello, Lucy. I’ll introduce you to my maid, Susan. You’ll like her.” She turned and started up the stairs. When Charlotte and Lucy hesitated, she repeated, “Come on then.”

Charlotte couldn’t quite believe that no one would object, but no one did. She walked upstairs at Lizzy’s side, Lucy trailing behind them. The cat gave a soft hiss. “Please don’t be offended,” the girl said. “She does that with everyone. She’s still getting accustomed to the house, you see.” On the landing, the servants backed as far away from the cat as they could.

“Accustomed to…?” Charlotte thought the cat was rather getting the house accustomed to her. Or perhaps subjugated was the better word.

“She’s just come. I found her outside the garden gate. Frances says she has the manners of a street urchin.” Lizzy grinned, and Charlotte found herself grinning back. They started up a second flight of stairs.

“I had a cat when I was small,” Charlotte offered. “He slept by the fire and sat on my lap.”

“Callie is a more independent sort.”

“I can see that.”

“I know she is untrained. She just needs a little more time. Here is Anne’s room.” Reaching around the cat, Lizzy opened a door. “Anne, here is Aunt Charlotte!” she announced, and giggled.

She led the way into a pretty bedchamber, hung with floral chintz and warm from a large fire. The soft colors made Charlotte think of her old home. A girl who seemed a few years younger than Charlotte lay in the big four-poster. Her wheaten hair and green eyes made her kinship to Sir Alexander obvious. Her skin was far paler, however, and the form under the coverlet looked very thin. “Hello.” She coughed on the word, and kept coughing.

“Anne has been ill, but she is
much
better now,” said Lizzy, as if it had to be true.

“Yes, I am,” declared Anne, and gasped. Her midsection quivered as she struggled to control the coughing.

Charlotte knew it wasn’t true. She’d heard that sort of cough most winters through her childhood.

“I see you’ve met Callie,” Anne added. “What did she do now, Lizzy? I heard shouting.”

“She chewed up one of Alec’s neckcloths. Ames was so angry, he said she is possessed by the devil.” She smiled, revealing a fetching set of dimples.

“Oh, Lizzy.” Her tone was rather like Sir Alexander’s. It mystified Charlotte, who had no brothers or sisters. They didn’t seem to excuse Lizzy; they weren’t precisely angry. Was it worry?

“It is only a neckcloth, and Ames is always so stiff and proper.”

“That does not excuse Callie. You promised to keep her up here…”

“And so I shall, if people will not leave the doors open everywhere.” Lizzy turned away from her sister’s skeptical gaze. “I’m taking Aunt Charlotte to her room.”

“It seems odd to call you aunt,” Anne said with a tired smile.

“Just Charlotte would suit me.” She hesitated, but she had to speak. “You know… my father was troubled by a cough almost every winter. There is an herbal mixture that helped him be rid of it.”

Anne looked surprised, then interested. “Really?”

“We must get some right away!” exclaimed Lizzy.

“I would be happy to try it,” her sister agreed. She coughed again. “This is so very tiresome.” For a moment, her face looked pinched and worn. “Tell Alec the name; he will send someone out to ransack London.”

Charlotte nodded and followed Lizzy back to the hall, then along it to an equally pretty bedchamber papered and hung in blue. “This is yours,” Lizzy said. She went over and rang the bell. The cat squirmed, and she tightened her grip. “I need to take Callie back to the schoolroom. She wants to get down.”

“I can see that she does.”

“And I don’t want her getting loose again… just now.”

“Very wise.”

“Susan will be right up.” Lizzy turned to Lucy. “She can show you…” The cat writhed, nearly escaping her arms. “I must go.” Lizzy ran.

“Seems a funny sort of house,” said Lucy.

“Doesn’t it?” Charlotte agreed.

Once Lucy had been taken under Susan’s wing and gone off to explore her own quarters, Charlotte shed her cloak and bonnet and sat in the armchair by the fire. Everything in this room was lovely—the veined marble hearth, the blue wallpaper subtly striped with cream, the silver candlesticks and Dresden figurine on the mantle. The crackle of the fire soothed in a chamber without drafts; the air was scented with potpourri. She felt her senses open and expand. Her room in Hampshire had been rather like this. She had made her own potpourri, from her mother’s recipe. She had gathered beautiful things around her. Over these past months, it had been easier—imperative—to be shut down, to feel less, and then less still. Now her being stirred, eager to come back to life. And why not?

Charlotte’s hand closed on air. She would not be hemmed in any longer. She was free now—to savor, to expand, to make her own decisions. Nothing could make her return to the cramped, stunted life that Henry had forced upon her. Nothing would.

***

On their way to the top floor, Lucy and Susan passed a housemaid carrying a stack of clean laundry. Her dark blue dress and white apron were neat as a pin, and she gave Lucy a cheerful smile when Susan introduced her. She didn’t stop her work to gossip, however, which raised the household in Lucy’s estimation. When she found her bag already in the cozy chamber she’d been allotted at the top of the house, her opinion rose further. But still she had to say, “Odd sort of pet for a young lady.”

Susan laughed. Stocky, blond, and talkative, she had an infectious laugh. “Miss Lizzy took that cat in off the street, and a right argy-bargy it’s been, I can tell you.”

“I wonder she was allowed.” Lucy did more than wonder, after months in a house where it seemed nothing was allowed. She’d been braced for an explosion of masculine wrath in the entry hall and was surprised when it didn’t come.

“Miss Lizzy has a way of getting what she wants. That child can wheedle the birds from the trees. Do you want to unpack? Or come along down and meet everyone?”

“I’ll come.” Lucy had had more than her fill of solitude.

As was proper, Susan took her first to the housekeeper. In the tall, correct, cordial Mrs. Wright, Lucy recognized the sort of authority and experience she’d admired in the senior staff of the Rutherford house. Cook had it, too, in a more approachable way. She was plying the bitten manservant, who turned out to be the master’s valet, Ames, with tea and cake at the kitchen table. The sticking plaster on his hand seemed no hindrance to his appetite, though Ames moaned artistically now and then round a mouthful. From the amused glances exchanged, Lucy gathered that he had a taste for drama. When he held out his cup for a refill, his tragic expression set the kitchen maid—Agnes, Lucy reminded herself—giggling. She didn’t stop chopping carrots, though.

Something deep inside Lucy eased. The rich scent of simmering broth filled the air. The fire crackled in the hearth. The whitewashed walls and brick floor were spotless. The Wylde servants chatted easily with each other, clearly on good terms. She was settled with her own cup and plate during a round of welcomes. Another part of her relaxed, and then another. This was how it was meant to be. Every detail showed the rhythms of a well-run household, and to her that meant safety, respect, companionship, and a sense of possibility.

She’d been horridly alone even before all Miss Charlotte’s servants left, she understood now. No one in that house had given her credit for her skills, or advice about her difficulties, or a laugh to lighten a hard day. They hadn’t offered those things to each other, either. Bleak; it had been purely bleak. Back in a place full of life and energy, she knew she never wanted to be in such a situation again.

The footman who’d been at the front door earlier came in—Ethan, they named him. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, listening with a lazy smile and exhibiting his fine broad-shouldered figure. Lucy ignored him. She knew his type—the kind they warned you about—full of himself, with his well-turned leg and handsome face. Expecting every female he met to fall at his feet, and most likely deep as a puddle. Footmen were hired more for looks than brains. One of his sort—the servant of a visitor in Hampshire—had broken the heart of Lucy’s best friend, and nearly cost her her place. Lucy wasn’t about to be taken in.

That jet-black hair and those warm brown eyes did draw the eye, though, much as she wanted to deny it. Lucy found hers straying, and he managed to catch her gaze. “The cat bit me too,” he told her, raising one shapely leg in a smooth white stocking that showed no sign of a bite. Then he smiled at her. It was a flat-out beautiful smile. Lucy felt it all the way to her toes, felt her own lips automatically start to curve in response. She looked away.

“And haven’t you made the most of it,” Cook replied.

“A bit more gravy, Mrs. Wright, I’m wounded. Best have James lift the keg, Agnes—my leg, you know.”

“You scamp.”

It was said with affection, and everyone laughed, Ethan included. It seemed he was well liked. But that didn’t mean he could be trusted, Lucy told herself. She wouldn’t make that mistake. Hadn’t she just spent months watching the misery menfolk could bring to your life?

***

Ethan watched the new girl refusing to laugh. He saw a small female with a sharp chin, glossy brown hair, and wary blue eyes. Unless he was mistaken, a very neat figure lurked under her countrified gown. And he wasn’t ever mistaken about that sort of thing. Her gaze shifted from person to person, observing carefully, and clearly not trusting things to be as they seemed, which was interesting. Ethan was a dedicated observer himself. You learned a lot by being quiet and watching, particularly in the place he loved most in all the world—the forest. For him, in fact, observing was the only way to learn. Reading was no good. Little black marks on a page never penetrated his thick skull. Unlike his brother Sam, who loved figuring so much he got the parson to teach him “mathematics.” Now apprenticed to the estate steward, Sam was likely to make a big success of himself. You’d think that would be enough for their dad, but no…

The point was: Ethan got new skills by watching them done. Watching had taught him all kinds of things that people didn’t even know he knew.