The young footman, also steaming by the fire, sprang to help her. Felix was there first, potholders in hand.
“Do you remember, Fanny,” he said, lifting the kettle, “how once in Brussels I went to the kitchen to ask Henriette for tea and I claimed to be domesticated? You told me I must learn to make the tea for myself. The moment has come. What do I do next?”
Fanny laughed, plainly not in the least dispirited by her surroundings. “The teapot is already warmed and the tea-leaves measured into it, so all you need do is pour on the water. Connie, Frank, do sit down. Are you hungry? I can offer bread and jam.”
“So we see,” said Frank, grinning at Anita.
“It’s good jam, Uncle Frank.” Catching a drip, she licked her hand.
Soon they were all seated about the table with cups of tea, except Thomas, who bashfully accepted a mug but continued to stand steaming at the fire.
“Well,” said Frank, regarding his guests with a rueful air, “what can I say but welcome to Upfield Grange? I believe I can safely promise you all an unusual visit.”
They were laughing when Biddle reappeared. He was accompanied by a little old woman, bent with rheumatism, in a white cap and a grey gown with the wide, quilted skirts of a former age. Peering around the company, he spotted Frank and marched up to him, his wife in tow.
“You be Cap’n Ingram, the new master, sir?”
“That’s right.”
“Us can’t do it, sir, not nohow.” He made a helpless gesture at the horde invading his haven. “Us be caretakers, sir, me and the missis, not butlers and housemaids and cooks and such.”
Mrs Biddle nodded her crooked head and a tear trickled down her wrinkled cheek.
Frank took her hand in his. “My dear Mrs Biddle, you shan’t be expected to do anything beyond your strength. I hope you and Biddle will consent to stay and help as you can until I’m able to hire a proper staff, but whenever you choose to go, you shall have a pension.”
Constantia, sitting beyond Frank, saw the light of hope enter the old woman’s faded eyes. “Us’ll help, sir, to be sure.” She faltered. “‘Ee won’t bawl at un, like his grace do? I han’t made up but two beds yet, sir.”
“Fanny,” Constantia exclaimed, eyeing the twisted hand engulfed in Frank’s, “surely you and Vickie and I can make up the beds ourselves?”
Frank’s look of gratitude was reward enough for any amount of unpleasant labour.
“Oh yes!” Vickie appeared to regard the whole situation as a splendid adventure. “You’ll have to show us how, Fanny.”
“It won’t take long.”
“Joan should be here soon, too,” said Constantia, “with the luggage, and your man, Felix.”
“I shouldn’t dare ask Trevor to make beds,” her brother declared.
Fanny wrinkled her nose at him. “No, he is quite the most disobliging person. Mrs Biddle, have the linens been aired?”
“Oh, aye, miss, that they have.”
“Excellent. Thomas, if you are nearly dry, pray carry--” She stopped as the kitchen’s back door opened.
The Westwoods’ coachman and Felix’s new groom came in, the former with a decidedly grumpy expression. Though he seemed a trifle abashed to find the kitchen full of gentry, he addressed Felix in no uncertain terms. “Beggin’ your pardon, m’lord, but them stables is fit for neither man nor beast.”
Felix grimaced, then gave Frank an apologetic look. “I know,” he said to the coachman, “but you are to return to Westwood tomorrow with the landau. Dutton, have you managed to make my pair reasonably comfortable?”
Before the groom could answer, young Thomas stepped forward. “Please, my lord,” he cried, “Don’t make me go back to Westwood. My lady!” He turned to Constantia and begged, “Let me stay. I asked special to be let come to serve you. I’ll do anything, honest. I’ll make beds or...or even clean out the stables.”
Astonished, touched, even a little flattered, Constantia said, “Yes, you may stay, Thomas. Felix, did not Mama say Fanny and Vickie and I must take a footman to wait upon us?”
“She did.” He grinned. “However, I believe what she had in mind was your consequence, not my horses’ comfort.”
Frank groaned. “If anything is certain,” he said, “it’s that Lady Westwood would never have let you come, Lady Constantia, if she’d had the slightest notion of the state of things at Upfield Grange.”
Constantia smiled at him. “So we can only be grateful, Captain, that she did not know.”
* * * *
By the next morning, Constantia’s theoretical knowledge of running a large household and Fanny’s practical experience of providing necessary comforts had together resulted in a plan. Frank’s house was to be refurbished from attic to cellar. To start with, Felix had agreed to drive them into King’s Wallop, the nearest village, to call at the vicarage.
It had taken the efforts of both ladies to persuade Felix to postpone riding over to Heathcote to inspect his and Fanny’s future home. Their efforts had been less successful where Frank himself was concerned. He refused to spend the morning abed, recuperating from the journey. Thomas and Dutton had carried a chaise longue out to a sheltered corner of the overgrown courtyard garden behind the house, and there the captain consented to recline in the sun. Constantia and Fanny left him poring over an account of Upfield’s tenants and rents that Mr Mackintyre had given him.
Miss Bannister, still suffering from a slight headache, was resting in her chamber at their insistence. Vickie had taken Anita off to explore the house.
Having put on their gloves and bonnets, the ladies descended the three steps from the bedroom passage to the gallery, crossed the gallery towards the main stairs down to the hall. Voices came from below, where Anita and Vickie were studying the wonders of the ornately carved chimneypiece.
“Look, Aunt Vickie, there’s swans. I like giving bread to swans.”
“We’ll have to see if we can find some near here,” said Vickie. “Look at these little tiny fishes.”
“Bless her.” Fanny squeezed Constantia’s hand. “And bless you, too. What should I do without the two of you?”
“We are both enjoying ourselves immensely. You cannot imagine how wonderful it is to have something useful to do.”
As they approached the head of the stairs, the great oak front door crashed open. The man in riding dress who appeared on the threshold was so large, his posture so belligerent, that Constantia would not have been surprised had he roared, “Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.” Had not Frank said the Grange resembled an ogre’s abode?
“Where is he?” bellowed the unpoetical ogre, glaring around the hall.
Vickie emerged from under the gallery, her bluebell-sprigged white muslin already dusty around the hem. “I don’t know who you are looking for,” she snapped, “but I wish you will go away. You’re frightening Anita.”
“No, he’s not,” Anita piped up bravely. “My daddy was a so’jer.”
“I’ve no desire to frighten women and children.” The ogre had ceased to roar, but he added in a fiercely threatening tone, “You can tell him that if he sets foot on my property he’ll be shot on sight.”
Constantia clutched Fanny’s arm. “It must be your uncle, the duke,” she whispered in horror, “and he is after your brother’s blood!”
Chapter 8
“I shan’t tell him anything of the sort.” Vickie’s belligerence equalled the ogre’s. “It’s his property, the lawyer said so. I daresay he could shoot you, or at least have you thrown in gaol.”
“Lawyer!” The ogre sounded aghast. He stepped forward. “What trumped-up roguery is the villain up to now?”
As the light fell on his scowling face, Fanny said, “He’s no older than I am, nearer your age, Connie, much too young to be my uncle. Sir,” she called, starting down the stairs, “pray calm yourself. I believe you and Lady Victoria are at cross purposes.”
“Cross purposes?” The young giant ran a bewildered hand through his dark hair. He looked from Fanny to Constantia, a step behind her, then to Vickie and Anita, and back to Fanny. “Lady Victoria? And who the deuce are you, ma’am? Begging your pardon.”
“I am Fanny Ingram. My brother is the new owner of Upfield Grange. And you, I collect, own the property between here and Heathcote?”
“I do,” he growled, “at least, so I supposed until...Lady Victoria?...said that the duke’s lawyer--”
“I thought you were the duke!” Vickie went off into a fit of giggles.
He grinned at her sheepishly. “No, ma’am, just the squire. Sir George Berman, of Netherfield.” He bowed, then added with a return to pugnacity, “And I’m not selling!”
They took Sir George out to the courtyard garden. He required considerable reassurance from Frank and Fanny before he believed that neither had any designs upon Netherfield. The Ingrams’ inheriting Upfield and Heathcote was a godsend for him, as he did not scruple to say. The late duke had plagued first his father and then himself mercilessly, and the present duke continued the harassment.
Constantia had scarcely recovered from her alarm on taking Sir George for the duke when she heard this evidence of his grace’s implacable nature. All his hostility must now be directed at the Ingrams. She could only hope that he might think twice about persecuting them when he learned of their coming close connection with her own noble family. Surely Felix would be able to protect Fanny, and Frank, too, until he recovered his full strength.
She looked at the captain and smiled. He was laughing as he waved a handful of papers at the squire. “I wager you’re the very person I need, Sir George. I know nothing of estate management and I cannot make head nor tail of this twaddle. I’ll pick your brains if you’ll give me half a chance.”
“So shall I,” said Felix, who had joined them in the courtyard in search of his passengers when the phaeton was ready to go. “I daresay you have a fair idea of the condition of Heathcote?”
Sir George, an ingenuous young man when not incensed, flushed with pleasure. “I do know this area and the land pretty well,” he said modestly. “I’ll be glad to advise you.”
Both Frank and Felix at once started to question him.
“Felix,” Constantia expostulated, “you promised to take us into the village.”
Her brother waved a dismissive hand. “In a minute.”
“Or an hour,” said Fanny with a resigned shrug. “Well, I for one don’t mean to spend another night in a chamber where every blink raises a cloud of dust. Come on, Connie, Dutton shall drive us.”
As they headed for the stables, Constantia glanced back. Frank was listening to Sir George with a serious, intent expression, his determined chin very much in evidence. He looked not at all like an invalid. For the first time since she had met him, she could picture him as an officer, commanding his troops with authority.
Vickie hovered on the edge of the group, attracted by the engaging young squire yet conscious of her responsibility for Anita, now exploring the tangled shrubbery. Constantia felt a moment’s qualm at leaving her sister unchaperoned, but after all, Vickie was still a schoolroom miss and Felix was there.
“Connie, are you coming?” Fanny called.
“Yes!” She had fallen behind. As she turned to follow, Frank looked up and waved to her, and her heart gave a little skip. He was going to have the most comfortable home imaginable, she vowed to herself.
The next three days were a whirlwind of activity. Mob-capped and aproned, Constantia, Fanny, and Miss Bannister supervised a swarm of village women as clouds of dust flew. Young Thomas laboured mightily, building and tending fires in each room to drive off the damp of disuse--though strictly speaking he was Lady Constantia’s footman, he willingly joined in. Furniture emerged from under dustcovers, some in good condition, some moth-eaten or worm-eaten but repairable, some fit only for the bonfire. Aromatic odours filled the air as woodwork thirstily drank in beeswax, lemon oil, and turpentine until it gleamed. The sun once again found its way through the diamond-paned windows.
Frank and Felix escaped the chaos with the excuse of inspecting the estate and visiting the tenant farmers. Sir George accompanied them, performing introductions and pointing out desirable improvements. From the ladies’ point of view, he made himself still more useful by inviting Vickie and Anita to spend the days at Netherfield with his mother and two sisters. The girls returned each evening with reports of puppies and kittens, Lady Berman’s kindness and Pam and Lizzie’s good nature.
Late on the fourth afternoon, Felix dropped Frank at the front door before driving round to the stables. Entering the great hall, Frank found Constantia admiring its now pristine glory.
“Look, even the chairs and settles and the sidetables have polished up well,” she pointed out, turning. Her apron was a smeary grey; a cobweb decorated her mob cap; and above the smudge on her cheek her blue eyes sparkled. “They are centuries old, Jacobean I believe, and magnificently carved. Did I not say this is a splendid hall?”
“You did.” He was torn between mirth, dismay, and a sudden urge to drop a kiss on the tip of her nose. “However, I hardly expected you to be used as a dust-mop in the cleaning of it, Lady Constantia. Indeed, I never dreamt you’d take an active rôle in the process, merely that you’d advise Fanny.”
“But I am having such fun.” She took off the cap and saw the cobweb. “Though I cannot say I care for spiders, alive or dead. Fanny and I, and Miss Bannister, don’t actually do a great deal, you know, we just tell the others what to do.”
“As an officer I appreciate the distinction, but I also know that if Lady Westwood saw you now she’d drag you home and never let you set foot in the Grange again.”
“You cannot imagine how glad I am that Mama is not here!” She glanced down ruefully at her filthy clothes. “I must go and change for dinner. I am not fit to appear even in the kitchen.” He watched her move to the stairs, her graceful dignity no whit impaired by her disarray. Who’d have thought that the sheltered daughter of an earl would take on so cheerfully the menial tasks of housekeeping?
Despite her contentment and his gratitude for her assistance, he was beginning to think it had been a mistake to invite her. Now that the world might consider him a worthy suitor, he found it more and more difficult to control his attraction to her. She was adorable, irresistible!