TheWifeTrap (5 page)

She saw nothing
out of the ordinary. Grass, trees, flowers, a bird singing on one of the
branches. Only she couldn’t hear his pretty warble, drowned out by the horrid,
monotonous thumping.

What was that
noise?
Where
was that noise? It sounded like…hammering or chiseling
perhaps as she caught the metallic clang of metal striking metal.

Adam’s
apples,
she
inwardly cursed,
have I taken up residence in a madhouse?

She crossed to
the bellpull, rang for Betsy. Obviously any further attempts to sleep would be
futile.

Her maid entered
looking a bit tired herself. “Good morning, my lady. Are you awake?”

“How could I be
anything else with that infernal din going on outside? What in blazes is it, do
you know?”

“Builders, my
lady. It’s my understanding that the west wing is being repaired.”

“Repaired, you
say? Hmm. You’d think they could show some courtesy and start a bit later. I
shall have to speak with my cousins about this.” Jeannette sighed. “Well, since
I’m up and not likely to return to sleep, I suppose you may as well help me
dress.”

“Very good, my
lady,” Betsy said, dipping into a curtsey.

Half an hour
later, still weary but feeling more herself in an exquisite day dress of pale
pink spotted muslin and a sweet pair of primrose-colored slippers that she
couldn’t help but admire as she walked, Jeannette made her way through the
house in search of the morning room. Since this was her first day in residence
and she was awake so early, she decided she would break her fast with her
cousins, who she was informed dined nearly every morning around this hour.

The house was
large—though not as large as her father’s house in Surrey—and done in the
Palladian style that had been all the rage during the previous century. For her
part, she found the architecture rather austere, with far too many unforgiving
lines. Walking past a pair of Doric columns placed for dramatic visual
effect—faux painted to resemble marble, she discovered with a casual touch—she
finally located the morning room.

The infernal
pounding eased slightly with the blessing of distance.
Heavens, how long
will it go on?
she wondered.

She found Wilda
seated at a linen-draped dining table, the furniture comfortably arranged for
intimate family occasions. Attired in yet another sadly unfashionable gown, her
cousin resembled a quaint country matron. Her fringe of short, curly white
tresses were tucked beneath a frilly mobcap and lent her a curiously poodlelike
appearance.

Jeannette hid a
smile at the image.

At least the
dress’s color wasn’t bad, she decided, the vibrant cornflower blue youthful
enough to bring out the sparkle in her cousin’s gray eyes.

As Jeannette
crossed the threshold, Wilda laid her knife along the edge of her plate,
strawberry jam shining berry-bright on the golden triangle of toast she held in
her left hand.

Wilda beamed a
smile. “Oh, good morning. Come in, come in. Do please take a seat.”

Jeannette
strolled forward and accepted a chair across from the older woman, murmuring a
polite good morning in reply. A footman appeared, teapot in hand. With a silent
nod, she gave her permission for him to serve her. He set a fresh cup and saucer
before her, then poured the tea.

Her eyebrow went
up of its own volition as she noted the color of the steaming brew—a dark,
nutty brown that resembled coffee far more than tea. Obviously a different
varietal than the pale gold, flower-scented Darjeeling she preferred. An Irish
derivation, she supposed. Something that Darragh O’Brien would likely drink.

Forcing him from
her mind, she reached for the sugar and cream, added healthy dollops of each to
her cup.

“We breakfast
casually most mornings,” Wilda explained, pointing to a row of silver chaffing
dishes on a nearby sideboard. “Please help yourself to eggs and sausages and
kippers. They should still be warm. Or if you’d rather, we can send down to
Cook for something else. Pancakes perhaps?”

“Eggs and toast
will be fine, thank you.”

When she made no
move to rise, Wilda took the hint and nodded to the footman to prepare a plate.
A second later, her cousin bit into the slice of toast still in her hand and
chewed, tapping a nail against her teacup whilst she did so.

Was she making
her nervous? Jeannette pondered. She supposed with her London manners it might
be possible. Then there was the fact that despite her unmarried state she
outranked the woman socially. Mrs. Merriweather might be a relation of her
mother’s on the Hamilton side, but the connection was inauspicious at best.

Cousin Wilda’s
father had been a mere baronet, and Mr. Merriweather, though descended from
good stock, was no more than the younger son of a viscount. A rather
impecunious viscount who hadn’t had the means to provide adequately for his
offspring in England. The reason her cousins Cuthbert and Wilda had moved to
Ireland nearly forty years before.

The footman set
Jeannette’s plate before her. Improperly laden, she saw, with too many eggs, a
blood sausage for which she had not asked and only a single square of toast. Oh,
well, she was no longer at home and would have to get used to new routines and
customs, she supposed. Lifting her fork, she tried a bite of scrambled eggs.

She had just
swallowed when a loud crash reverberated through the house. Jumping an inch in
her seat, her gaze winged across to her cousin. Wilda sat sipping her tea,
apparently not in the least disturbed.

Wilda met her
look. “And how did you sleep, Cousin Jeannette? Well, I hope?”

Hmm, how to
respond? Particularly with the nearly constant round of banging and pounding
that rang out more loudly than a harborful of shipbuilders.

“My room is quite
comfortable, thank you, and the color most soothing.”

Wilda’s thin lips
curved in a buoyant smile.

“There is the
matter of the noise, however—”

“Good day, my
dear, good day,” boomed an older man as he burst into the morning room on a
short but quick pair of legs.

A puff of pure
white, his hair stood nearly straight up in a ring encircling his all but bald
head. His eyes were dark as mahogany and every bit as opaque, slightly
unfocused as if his thoughts were elsewhere. He wore breeches of brown worsted
and a plain blue waistcoat and jacket, his ill-tied neck cloth clean but
horribly wrinkled around his throat.

Barely glancing
at her and Wilda, he made a beeline to the sideboard, clanged open one chaffing
dish after another until he found what he was seeking. Plucking a sausage out
of a pan, he ate the entire thing in a trio of bites. Jeannette watched in
amazement as the odd little gent picked up a plate and began to heap eggs,
scones, butter, jam, bacon and four more sausage links onto it.

He gathered up a
fork and napkin, started back toward the door. “Can’t stay, m’dear, ever so
sorry, but I’ve got an experiment running and I mustn’t leave it long.”

“What sort of
experiment?” Wilda asked, her usually even tones pitched high in suspicious
alarm. “You haven’t left a beaker of mercury heating again, have you?”

The man, who
Jeannette concluded must be her cousin Cuthbert, turned an offended look upon
his spouse as though her question had wounded him to the heart.

“Of course not,”
he said. “You know I promised I wouldn’t ever do that again, not after what
happened last time. If you must know, I’m timing the pollination cycle of my
Strelitzia
reginae.
”

“Well then,”
Wilda declared on a relieved breath, “your tropical flowers can wait a moment,
long enough for you to meet your cousin Jeannette who’s come to stay with us
for a few months. Remember, Bertie dear, my telling you about her?”

His bushy white
brows furrowed for a moment as his gaze settled upon Jeannette as if he’d only
just then noticed her presence at the dining table.

The expression
cleared as abruptly as it had come, then he smiled. “Of course, of course.
Brantford’s chit, eh? Jeannette, is it? Well, welcome to you, cousin. Most
welcome, and pardon my lack of manners.” He clipped off a quick but respectable
bow.

Jeannette rose,
curtseyed in reply. “Thank you, cousin, for inviting me to your home.”

“From what I
heard tell, it was your mother did the inviting and not the other way round. Edith
always would have her way even when she was younger than you. Knew your mother
in my youth and she always shot the fear of God straight up my spine. Worse
than being chased by Diana with her quiver of arrows.” He broke off, nodded at
Jeannette. “Some sort of scandal, wasn’t it, got you shipped off here?”

“Bertie,” Wilda
hushed, admonishing him with a stern look.

“What?” he asked
on a shrug. “She’s the one involved in the dustup, so it shouldn’t come as any
surprise to her, what? Doesn’t come as a surprise, does it now, girl?”

Jeannette paused,
caught somewhere between affront and laughter. Humor won as she burst into the
first laugh she’d had in a good long while. “No, no surprise at all.”

“See, Wilda, she
don’t mind. Well, my eggs are getting cold and my
Strelitzia
awaits. Make
yourself at home, Cousin Jeannette. Wilda, my love, I’ll see you this afternoon
at tea.”

And with that he
hurried from the room, breakfast in hand.

“Tea indeed,”
Wilda scoffed, “if he doesn’t lose himself in one of those projects of his and
forget the time like he always does.”

Jeannette resumed
her seat and let the footman refresh her tea.

“You’ll get used
to Bertie if you stay here long enough,” Wilda continued. “He puts in an
appearance for meals and not much else. Heaven knows why I continue to love
that man. When he’s not lost among his plants he’s busy experimenting with his
sun-image idea. Wants to make pictures of his flowers.”

“Drawings, you
mean?”

“No, dear. There
are blind men who draw better than my poor Bertie. Try as he might he’s utterly
helpless with a pencil or paintbrush, much to his eternal regret. No, no, he’s
taken the notion into his head to put images of living things onto a hard
surface. He mutters on about it to me occasionally, talks about silver halides
and such, but I don’t understand the half of it. Thomas Wedgwood and some
French fellow—Niépce, I think that’s his name—are apparently busy attempting to
beat Bertie out. They’re all playing around with the same dangerous nonsense. I
only hope those other men don’t burn down half their houses like Bertie did.”

Jeannette stopped
buttering her toast in mid-stroke. “Burned the house?”

Wilda nodded
animatedly, the lace edging on her cap fluttering at her movement. “Yes indeed.
The silly man left one of his experiments heating over an open flame while he
wandered off to the library to look up some fact or other. By the time he
returned, his entire laboratory was engulfed. We were lucky only the west wing
burned to the ground. If not for the local people setting up a bucket brigade
down to the nearby stream, I fear we’d have lost the entire house.”

“How dreadful,”
Jeannette sympathized.

“It was, and
we’ve had workmen here ever since. Surely you’ve heard them racketing away?”

A fresh crash
reverberated in the distance, followed by several indistinguishable male
shouts.

Jeannette hid a
grimace at the irony, set her knife and slice of toast onto her plate before
politely reaching for the marmalade dish. She wondered if the older woman might
be slightly deaf, since no one with adequate hearing could possibly miss the
ongoing clamor.

“Yes,” Jeannette
agreed. “They are rather difficult to miss.”

Wilda drank
another swallow of tea, set down her cup with a delicate
clink
of
china on china. “In the five months they’ve been here, I’ve gotten rather good
at tuning them out. Barely even notice, these days.”

Wilda angled her
head to one side as if a new thought had just occurred. “They didn’t disturb
you this morning, did they, cousin? I asked the architect in charge most
expressly to begin late today since I knew you would want to sleep in. They
usually begin at first light, around six o’clock.”

Sleep in!
Jeannette marveled in horror. Wilda
considered seven-thirty sleeping in? Obviously the woman had kept country hours
for far too many years. She opened her mouth to correct her cousin’s
misconception, when she met the ingenuous expression in Wilda’s eyes.

Now was her
chance to complain, she realized, to unleash the barrage of displeasure that
had been fairly burning a hole in her tongue for the past hour. But even as she
opened her mouth to speak she realized she couldn’t do it. Wilda would be hurt
despite the fact that it was the workmen who were at fault.

Still, Jeannette
knew she would simply die if forced to awaken every morning at the unholy hour
of six. Perhaps some compromise could be reached.

She smiled.
“Thank you for your consideration. I wonder, however, if I might beg a favor?”