Carola Dunn (8 page)

“I insist upon your drying your hair.”

“Unless you prefer to summon Mr Harwood to adjudicate our disagreement,” she said with a green glint in her grey eyes, “pray tell me which way is the library.”

“Devil take it, woman, you try my patience. This way.”

He accompanied her, poked up the dying fire and added a log, and made her sit in one of the wing-chairs close to the hearth. She complied without demur, but adamantly refused his offer to stay while she spoke to the housekeeper.

“Mrs Hibbert will never have any respect for me if I use you as a shield,” she pointed out, then spoiled the effect by calling after him, “Mr Courtenay! Should I invite her to sit down?”

“Miles.”

“Miles, then. Please! She’ll be here in a moment.”

He wasn’t going to tell her he’d never been present when a housekeeper was interviewed by the lady of the house. “If her business seems likely to take more than a minute or two,” he compromised. “After all, she’s been with the family for decades, and you’re a baronet’s granddaughter, not a duchess.”

She nodded, her extraordinary eyes wide, tensely straight in her chair, looking very slight and vulnerable. Miles felt an unaccustomed surge of protectiveness.

He quickly suppressed the unsettling sensation. All the same, when he met Mrs Hibbert just outside the door, he commanded in a low voice, “Be kind!”

As he reached the hall, Miss Sophie was retreating into the drawing room. Glancing back, she caught sight of him. An expression of alarm crossed her round, pink face and she scuttled out of sight. Miles frowned. Of all Sir Barnabas’s relatives, he had the fondest memories of the vague, timid old lady. Also she had been the only one at the reading of the Will to make a gesture of friendship towards himself and Nerissa.

An aborted gesture, he recalled, as Mrs Chidwell had promptly removed her. What could Euphemia have told Sophie to make her afraid of him?

He was about to follow her to try to find out, but he heard a murmur of voices in the drawing room and changed his mind. Instead, he headed for the stables to see what sort of horseflesh he had inherited.

On the way, his thoughts reverted to Nerissa. Defenceless as she seemed, she showed occasional flashes of an indomitable spirit. It took courage and determination for a young lady to travel on her own by the stage from York to Dorset. She was no milk-and-water miss who would turn tail at the first difficulty.

And she faced difficulties aplenty. Miles’s compliance with his godfather’s terms was entirely within his own control. Nerissa, on the other hand, had to win the favour of the neighbouring gentry. Learning to run a houseful of servants would be child’s-play in comparison. Not that her manners were in any respect vulgar, as Sir Barnabas had expected, but there was a great deal more to being a lady than a lack of overt vulgarity.

Miles had noticed that when he swore in her presence--”Devil take it!” he had said--she had not so much as blinked. A well-bred lady would have appeared shocked and reproachful. No doubt her theatrical life had accustomed Nerissa to blasphemous and obscene language. Even Shakespeare was full of it!

She’d have to become unaccustomed, and learn how to show it. She had a great deal to learn, and there was no one but Miles to teach her.

Chapter 6

“But really, Effie, in the library?” said poor Cousin Sophie. “It seems so very unlikely.”

Sir Barnabas, comfortable in his favourite chair at last-- everyone still automatically avoided it--shook his invisible head at Sophie’s innocence. Effie voiced his thoughts.

“That sort of person,” she said magisterially, “will seize the slightest opportunity to misbehave.”

“Anyone might have gone in at any moment,” Sophie continued her brave protest. “Indeed, Mrs Hibbert did, and dear Miles left, which is why I stopped lurking in the hall. So very mortifying to be caught lurking.”

Mrs Hibbert had gone to see Nerissa in the library? Sir Barnabas sat up straight. So the impudent chit was already taking over the reins! Cousin Effie would be in high dudgeon.

Indeed, her face was rapidly attaining a hue to rival her purple gown. She opened her mouth, but before her wrath exploded Neville spoke.

“Sophie has a point,” he said. He quailed before Euphemia’s glare but continued, “If they were always together we might manage to watch them every moment of the twenty-four hours, but there are simply not enough of us when they go off in different directions. Where did Courtenay go, Sophie?”

“I fear I don’t know, Cousin.”

“You should have followed him,” Effie chided.

“Oh, I could not! He saw me!”

“Bungler!”

Sir Barnabas knew better than to expect Sophie to defend herself with the obvious truth that there was nowhere to hide in the passage outside the library. Effie would never accept so feeble an excuse anyway. He was rather surprised when his brother came once again to the rescue.

“There are places where it is impossible to remain hidden,” he said pompously, “and times and places where it is indeed unlikely that debauchery will occur. We must strive to know at all times where Courtenay and Nerissa are, but to concentrate our full efforts on the most likely moments.”

With a snort of disgust, Sir Barnabas floated from the room. Miles and Nerissa had only been in the house a few hours and already his allies’ resolve was weakening. He always knew they were a bunch of incompetent loobies.

Mrs Hibbert, on the other hand, was both competent and strong-minded. He’d like to see how a hussy bred up in the theatre was dealing with his fastidious housekeeper. However, he could only keep his eye on one at a time and Nerissa was under observation. He sniffed the air, found a faint trace of Miles--not so much a scent as a hint of his passage--and followed it towards the stables.

He was perfectly capable of drawing Harwood’s attention to any breach of the rules, even if he hadn’t quite worked out how to manifest himself to anyone else.

While Sir Barnabas endured a tedious conversation between Miles and his head groom, in the library Nerissa breathed a sigh of relief. A fortuitous question had started the stiffly polite Mrs Hibbert reminiscing about Mama’s childhood. After that, the housekeeper had remained cordial, advising her new mistress rather than challenging her. Though Nerissa was still muddled about the duties and responsibilities of the lady of the manor, she hoped for Mrs Hibbert’s continuing help.

However, she dared not count on such forbearance. Mrs Hibbert probably didn’t know her grandfather’s Will had described her as an actress and a whore. The servants had left by the time that part was read, she recalled. The housekeeper’s attitude was bound to change when she found out, but Nerissa didn’t quite dare broach the subject in order to deny it.

When Mrs Hibbert left, she sat by the fire considering her best course of action. She didn’t think a respectable servant would ever confront her face to face about so scandalous a rumour, so how was she to deal with it?

Perhaps Miles would explain for her. He had known the woman since childhood and was on friendly terms with her, and he seemed to believe Nerissa’s claim of innocence.

She already owed him so much, though. She had definite qualms about putting herself under further obligation. After all, he had not quibbled with Sir Barnabas’s opinion of him as a debauched gamester. Perhaps he expected her gratitude to take tangible form, some time in the future if not at once. Nerissa shivered as her imagination suggested what tangible form a libertine might demand.

Yet he had been very kind, and he must have realized from the first that she was a rival for the baronet’s fortune. Now that he had shaved, his eyes no longer red-rimmed with fatigue, he didn’t look dissolute any more. At least she’d ask his advice.

A footman came in to light candles, and she realized that the autumn afternoon had faded to dusk outside the windows.

Carrying a candelabrum from the mantelpiece, she moved to the desk to write to her parents. Despite the manifest difficulties ahead of her, she wanted to stay. She wanted to prove to herself that she was capable of more than turning a length of shoddy plaid cotton into a kilt.

In a desk drawer she found paper, pens and penknife, and sealing wafers. The brass inkstand was half full of ink. There was nothing to hinder her but uncertainty as to how to persuade Mama and Papa to let her stay at Addlescombe. If she told them she had been outrageously insulted by Sir Barnabas’s Will, her presence was bitterly resented by her relatives, and her only ally was a wastrel with a penchant for actresses, they’d order her home at once.

As she dipped a quill in the ink, a white-capped head peeked around the door. Cousin Sophronia scurried in, then stopped in dismay, her hand clapped to her mouth.

“Oh dear, you are busy,” she squeaked. “I do beg your pardon for interrupting.”

“Not at all, Miss...” Nerissa cast her mind back to long-ago introductions. “Miss Datchett.”

“Oh please, everyone calls me Miss Sophie. Though you are some sort of very distant cousin, are you not? Effie explained, but I fear I did not follow her. I seldom do,” she confided with a nervous glance over her shoulder, “but I’m sure you ought to call me Cousin Sophie.”

“If you will call me Nerissa, ma’am.”

“I will, when Effie is not about. Are you writing to your mama? Do please send dear Anthea my fond remembrances.”

“I will, Cousin Sophie. Won’t you sit down?”

“I cannot stay more than a minute. Effie doesn’t know I have come. I just want to tell you that I don’t mind a bit if you inherit Addlescombe and two hundred pounds a year is excessively generous and I would so like to be friends but you must promise to keep it secret from my sister,” she finished breathlessly.

“Why, yes, of course,” said Nerissa, surprised. “I’ll be delighted to be friends, and I promise not to tell Mrs Chidwell.”

Cousin Sophie’s round face crinkled in a happy smile. “Good, then that’s settled. Oh dear, I must run.” She darted around the desk and dropped a soft kiss on Nerissa’s cheek, then trotted off towards the door. Reaching it, she stopped, turned, and exclaimed, “Dear Miles, such a nice little boy.”

The next moment she was gone. Nerissa couldn’t help smiling as she looked after her. What a dear little lady, and what a joy to have at least one of her relatives accept her with good will!

Something glinted on the red Axminster carpet. Going to investigate, she found a hairpin. There was another by the desk and a third on the polished floorboards by the door. She didn’t think they were hers--though her hair often escaped its pins, the pins rarely escaped her hair--so they must be Miss Sophie’s.

Quickly she collected them and hid the evidence of her elderly cousin’s presence at the back of a drawer. The tyrannical Mrs Chidwell should not learn of her sister’s timid rebellion from her, she vowed.

She returned to her letter, glad to be able to put in a cheerful reference to Cousin Sophie’s amiability.

For some time she pondered what to write about Miles. She could not leave him out altogether, for she was sure to want to mention him in future letters. In the end she simply wrote that she’d have missed the reading of the Will had not Sir Barnabas’s godson, bound upon the same errand, taken her up in his curricle. That would predispose her parents in his favour. Mama might even remember his childhood visits. Fortunately, Cousin Sophie said he had been a nice little boy.

And a mischievous one, Nerissa was prepared to wager.

She signed the letter, folded it, wrote the direction, and sealed it with a wafer. By writing very small she had fitted all her news on one sheet, without even crossing her lines, so her parents would not have to pay for a second sheet. The postage from Dorset to York was surely shockingly high. She hoped Mr Harwood would approve paying for their reply, for she must save the few coins left in her purse in case she failed and had to return home with no inheritance.

At home one simply left a letter at the post-office, but Addlescombe certainly had no such convenience. What was she to do with hers now it was written? There was such a dreadful lot she didn’t know, she thought, sighing.

She’d ask Miles. With a rueful smile, she decided she had best start keeping a list of all the things she needed to ask Miles.

As she reached the hall, letter in hand, Snodgrass was crossing it.

“Snodgrass!” About to ask him if he knew where Mr Courtenay was, she told herself not to be such a poltroon. Notwithstanding his haughty air, the butler was her servant, however temporarily. “Snodgrass, I have a letter for the post,” she informed him in her most dignified manner.

“If you put it on the table here, miss, it will go out tomorrow. One of the grooms rides down to Riddlebourne every day to the receiving house.”

“Thank you, Snodgrass. That will be all.”

He inclined his head and went on his way. Nerissa was glad she had summoned up the courage to request his advice. He had not seemed to see anything out of the way in her ignorance. She only wished she had asked him Miles’s whereabouts too.

She started as the long-case clock struck the half-hour. Half past six. Mrs Hibbert had told her Sir Barnabas always dined at seven. She was used to an earlier dinner, because of the demands of the theatre, but she saw no reason to upset a long-standing arrangement. Besides, her mealtimes for several days had borne no relationship to the usual.

Everyone must be above stairs, changing for dinner, she guessed. Having already put on her best dress, she turned to the door that a vague memory from this morning told her led to the drawing room.

This morning, skewered by inimical stares, she had not taken in the appearance of the room she now entered. It seemed to have been formed by throwing together two smaller rooms, for an arch of heavy beams divided it in half, each half having its own fireplace. The furniture was just as she would have expected from what little she had seen of the rest of the house: plain, but comfortable and exceedingly well kept. Though the predominant colours were a cool willow-green and white, window-curtains of the same red as in the library added a touch of warmth. Generous fires burned on both hearths.