Everything I Ever Wanted (44 page)

India stood at the window of her receiving room and looked out over the moonlit garden maze. In the spring the yews would be neatly clipped to bring symmetry and order to the elaborate design. Now they were covered with a cap of glistening snow, and the path from the starting point to the stone benches and fountain at the center was not easily visible, even from India's vantage point.

It had been many years since she had wandered through the maze. It had been a place of solitude on the occasions she had visited Marlhaven. Margrave had been distracted by his father's illness and his mother's demands and had not made a nuisance of himself by following her. She had sometimes carried a book with her; more often it was her sketchpad. She would set it on her lap by the fountain and let her hand fly across the paper, putting down in broad charcoal strokes whatever her mind could imagine.

What had she imagined then?

India pressed the flat of her hand against the cool window-pane. Her smile was faint and wistful. Whatever she had seen in her mind's eye, it had not been this. If there had been a castle and tower and damsel needing rescuing, then there had also been a someone to mount the rescue. She had not been so foolish as to place dragons before her without drawing the dragonslayer.

In life, it was an entirely different matter.

Behind her, India heard a key being turned in the door of the adjoining bedchamber. She did not bother to leave her place at the window. In all the time she had been at Marlhaven, only Margrave or his mother had come to her suite. The countess's visits were unpredictable in both their frequency and their duration. Permission was granted at her son's whim, and there was no accounting for it. India had learned very quickly that Lady Margrave was as much a prisoner at Marlhaven as she herself.

"I have brought you dinner," Margrave said, entering from India's bedchamber. "Shall you have it here?"

India straightened, nodding dully, and closed her eyes. "On the table, if you will." She hoped he would not stay this evening to watch her eat and drink. She had spent the better part of the morning prying floorboards loose under her armoire. The hiding place would be the repository for her food for at least a sennight. The worst that would happen was that the mice would become fat and glassy-eyed while they dined on rich sauces and opium.

"It is shepherd's pie tonight," he told her."I remembered that you like it, and asked Mrs. Hoover to prepare it especially for you."

"It was kind of you to think of it."

Margrave's dark eyes narrowed as he studied India. She remained at the window, her shoulders slightly hunched as she hugged herself. Her head was bowed, and her long platinum braid had fallen forward over her shoulder, exposing the nape of her neck. She looked heartbreakingly vulnerable, and yet "If you are cold," he said, "you should come away from the window."

India had enough of her wits about her to recognize that Margrave's suggestion was not that at all. She took a step backward and turned on her heel slowly, opening her eyes before she was facing him. Her pupils were wide, her gaze a trifle vague. She moved away from the candlelight and into the shadow that was cast by the large easel and canvas.

"Will you join me this evening?" she asked. "There is enough for two."

Still watching her closely, Margrave shook his head. "I have already eaten. Mother begged me to join her, and it would have been churlish to refuse. She asks for very little these days save for the pleasure of my company."

"Of course." Careful not to press, India sat at the small table and lifted the cover on the shepherd's pie. Her mouth watered almost instantly. It would be difficult to resist tonight's fare. Shepherd's pie was a favorite, and she was very, very hungry. Conscious of Margrave's watchful gaze, she served herself a generous portion, then picked up her fork.

"He will not come, India," Margrave said suddenly.

India gave him no reaction. As if he hadn't spoken, she tucked into her food, taking as large a bite as she dared to satisfy him.

"He cannot come. You understand that, don't you? He is dead. Burned in the fire. Just like your parents."

In her lap her hand tightened into a fist, but the fingers around the fork remained light in their grip. "Yes," she said. "I remember. You have said so before."

Margrave's darkly remote glance shifted from India's plate to the bottle of wine on her right. He made his decision without warning, picking up the bottle by the neck and placing it under his arm. "Perhaps a different wine," he said. "I am not certain this one will suit your palate."

Eyes on her plate, India merely nodded. It wasn't until she heard Margrave's retreating footsteps in the corridor that she permitted herself the small luxury of a triumphant smile.

There was no servant at Marlhaven who was not afraid of the earl. No one ever said as much to South, yet there was no escaping the truth of it. Fear existed in the very air one breathed.

The large estate was understaffed. There were insufficient grooms for the stables, not enough maids of all work for the house proper, and the footmen numbered only six. South learned this state of affairs was the result of a relatively recent purge by the dowager countess. Normally, a country home with the size and splendor of Marlhaven was a veritable hive of worker bees serving the queen. In addition to footmen, grooms, and maids of all work, there would be laundresses and lamp boys, groundskeepers and gardeners, maids for the upstairs and maids for the downstairs, a first groom of the chambers, and first and second butlers. The cook had survived, but with only one of her helpers and the dairymaid. The baker and confectioner were both gone, as was the pantry boy.

There was work enough for all those people, and rooms enough to do it in. Marlhaven had vast galleries and drawing rooms. There was a breakfast room and a morning room, a dining room for the family, another for entertaining guests, and still another built to accommodate the King and his entourage if a visit of that nature were ever to come about. The grand public rooms also included an excellent library and the splendidly appointed master's study.

Like other country homes, Marlhaven was a repository for artwork, and all of it required care. Portraits of Margraves past crowded the gallery and lined the main entrance and staircase. Landscapes depicting the pastoral pleasures of hunting and fishing occupied prominent places in the dining room and study. Tapestries hung in the library and in many of the private apartments. Nor was the art limited to what crowded the walls. It was intrinsic to the house itself, from the magnificent setting amid a fairy-tale woodland to the impressive gardens that enhanced the home's Elizabethan architecture. Art existed in the woodwork and ceilings and intricately inlaid floors. The three-dimensional expression of it could be seen in the elaborately carved mantels and again in the polished marble columns that stood like sentinels in the palatial drawing rooms.

For centuries artists and artisans commissioned by the family had contributed their considerable talents to imbue Marlhaven with grace and grandeur, and had circumstances been different, South could have found much to admire about the house. What he noticed, however, was that nowhere was the artwork representative of the current Earl of Margrave's peculiar personal tastes.

South's arrival at Marlhaven was timely, coming as it did on the heels of the dowager countess's elimination of better than half of her staff. With so many positions vital to the maintenance of the estate gone, it required only the passage of a few weeks before the rashness of her act bore consequences. There were simply not enough hours in the day for the remaining servants to see to all the tasks that were laid before them.

So it was that in spite of their best efforts, things fell by the wayside. Linens were not changed with the same frequency, and bedchambers were not aired. Cobwebs appeared in dark comers. Dust lay in the scrollwork on the wainscoting. The silver lost some of its polish, and the oil lamps were no longer collected, rilled, and trimmed daily. It was not possible to sweep all the floors or beat the carpets, or even visit all of the rooms where the work was to be accomplished. The chambers and halls at Marlhaven numbered one hundred twenty-seven.

South was hired when the dowager countess rescinded her order to the estate's steward and allowed for the reappointment of some positions. It was now South's job to carry coals from the coal house and see that there was always a sufficient supply of full buckets for the fireplaces and ovens.

It was hard and honest work, suitable for the man he had become. He walked with a slight limp and stooped carriage, his shoulders permanently hunched as though he were braced for the cold. His dark hair was covered with a shaggy wig that had been liberally woven with wiry gray strands, and he wore spectacles high on the bridge of his nose. Complaining of rheumatism, he often hid his youthful hands under gloves. When that was not possible, he was careful to keep his fingers stiffly curled. It was Doobin who taught him how to paint shadows under his eyes and emphasize the creases at the comers so that they would hold up under some scrutiny. South had thought himself skilled at such deceptive practices until India's young helper had shown him how much he had to learn. He altered the tone and volume and cadence of his speech until he affected the accents of an old salt he'd served with from Liverpool.

In the end, just as he promised the colonel, South was unrecognizable to his own mother.

On the morning of his fourth day at Marlhaven, South sat on a three-legged stool by the kitchen's large hearth and warmed himself. Occasionally, he stirred the simmering kettle of chicken stock with a long-handled spoon given to him by the cook. Mrs. Hoover determined that if he was going to avail himself of the heat before lugging in another pail of coal, he may as well make some use of himself.

South did not attempt to make conversation with the cook.

Except to give orders, she rarely spoke to anyone, though she often looked as if the silence pained her. In that respect she was like most of the other servants at Marlhaven. It was such a contrast to South's experience in his London home or his family's estate that it struck him as singular from the very first. As a boy he had often escaped notice of his nannies and tutors by hiding in the warren of rooms where the servants lived and carried out many of their tasks. He had never noticed the maids or footmen lacking for something to talk about or being reluctant to do so. South had on occasion learned more about what was happening in his own family from eavesdropping outside the scullery or wash-house than he had from his parents.

It was very different at Marlhaven. The way the servants were given to glancing over their shoulders at odd moments, South suspected they were in almost constant anticipation of being interrupted or spied upon. Without any apparent edict to do so, they went out of their way to perform their duties without being seen or heard. What work could be accomplished by their reduced numbers was many times completed hours before first light. The housemaids used the backstairs whenever possible and walked out of their way to avoid an accidental meeting with the master of the house.

The threat of dismissal was suspended above every one of the servants like a guillotine blade. Reestablishing a dozen positions in the household did not lessen their worries or calm their fears. Both emotions were palpable. South believed there would have been a mass exodus if they believed their lot could be improved elsewhere.

A comely chambermaid stepped into the kitchen and retreated just as rapidly when she saw the cook had work to be done. South heard Mrs. Hoover cluck her tongue disapprovingly and mutter something under her breath. He chuckled loudly enough to get her attention but pretended to be oblivious to her sharp look.

"There's something amusing you?" she asked, dusting off her floured hands.

South shrugged his narrowly hunched shoulders.

"That's what I thought." She eyed the soup pot. "Have a care not to let the vegetables scorch on the bottom."

Under her watchful gaze, he gave the soup a vigorous stir.

"Better," she said. Picking up a muffin still hot from the oven, she held it in her hands a moment as though undecided what to do with it. Somewhat reluctantly she thrust the thing at South. "For you. It will warm your insides."

"Thank you," he said in the gravel-filled voice he had perfected. "It's kindness you are."

Suspicious of any sort of flattery, Mrs. Hoover merely pursed her lips.

"And a most excellent maker of muffins."

She gave him an arch look and went to check on a second batch of muffins.

"It seems to me," South went on,"that the good countess does not know your worth."

"What do you mean by that?"

"She would see to it that you had help enough in the kitchen so that you might devote yourself to these." He swallowed the large bite he had been cheeking. "Food of the gods."

Mrs. Hoover could not quite hold her rather sour, put-upon expression any longer. Her mouth twitched.

It was not a smile, South thought, but a good beginning. He took another bite and once again spoke around it. "I have never tasted the like before."

"These were a favorite of his lordship's." She set down the pan she had removed from the oven. "I made them often for him when he was a boy. I thought he might like them again."

"No doubt he will appreciate your efforts." He noticed that the cook did not look at all certain of the same. "But what of Lady Margrave? Surely you mean to please her palate as well. You have something particular for her?"

"The soup is for her. She takes little else these days."

South had observed the same. While there was almost no discussion among the servants of how things fared at Marlhaven, their careful and quiet activity spoke for them. He learned that the trays of food prepared by Mrs. Hoover never went to the dining room but were delivered to the private apartments in the east wing. It was there that the earl accepted them because none of the servants had been allowed into the corridor in weeks.

"She is not well?" South asked.

The cook glanced over her shoulder in the manner that was peculiar to so many among the staff. "I fear it's the melancholia again."

"I see. She is given to bouts of it, then."

She nodded quickly. "Since her husband died. This is the worst it's been." Mrs. Hoover pressed her lips together suddenly, quite certain she had said enough.

South finished his muffin and stirred the soup. "There's no physician?"

Mrs. Hoover hesitated, then said, "His lordship cares for her. He will not have it any other way."

South watched the cook spread flour across the breadboard and bend to her kneading. Cords of muscle stood out in her forearms as she pressed the heels of her hands into the dough. She folded it, gave it a quarter turn, and pressed hard again. "I've heard melancholia can account for peculiar notions. That must be the way of it with Lady Margrave."

The cook frowned deeply, but she did not look up from her task. "What notions?" she asked brusquely.

"The dismissals."

Mrs. Hoover glanced over her shoulder a second time. "I don't know what accounts for the notions you've taken into your head, but the dismissals were his lordship's idea."

South saw her mouth clamp shut and knew he would not pry another word out of her. The creases deepening around her bow mouth and widely set eyes spoke eloquently to her fears, and for the first time since returning to Marlhaven, South understood what he had not grasped before. The dowager countess's staff was not entirely worried about what would become of them but rather what would become of her.

And still, after three days of shuttling coal between one place and another, making himself almost perfectly inconspicuous so that he might hear what they would never reveal to a stranger, South had yet to catch a single word spoken of India Parr. It was as if the staff at Marlhaven had no knowledge of her existence.

The possibility that Margrave had kept India's presence a secret disturbed South. The possibility that she was no longer at Marlhaven terrified him.

Lady Margrave preceded her son into India's suite. She walked with stately grace, her carriage erect, her head held high. Her sharply defined features were what one noticed first. She had high, finely arched cheekbones and a strong chin. The long oval of her face was accented by a bold nose with slightly flaring nostrils and eyes that were as dark as coffee. Her mouth was firmly set, but age had turned the corners permanently down, and delicate lines were etched across her wide brow. Her hair was no longer as light a color or as fine as it had been in her youth. Now threads of gray mingled with the flaxen shades at her temples and at the crown of her head. She resisted temptation to hide them under turbans or lace caps in her own home, preferring to address these signs of advancing years with an excess of dignity.

At the entrance of mother and son, India stopped her rocking chair and set her feet flat on the floor. She was a trifle unsteady as she came to her feet. "Good evening, Lady Margrave. M'lord."

Margrave removed his hand from where it rested at the small of his mother's back. "Mother desired the pleasure of your company tonight, Dini. I told her that she might visit for a while. Would you like that?"

India nodded. "Yes. I should like it very much."

Margrave smiled encouragingly toward his mother. "See, Mother? Did I not say she would approve?" His eyes darted to India. "She frets that you are still angry. She thinks you blame her for your being here."

"I have never been angry with her, m'lord." She said nothing about blame. If she exonerated Lady Margrave, then the matter of responsibility would be placed squarely on her son's shoulders and he would never accept it. India had no desire to raise his ire this evening with talk of fault. "Come, my lady, we will sit in the other room. I think you will find it quite comfortable. I have the piece of embroidery you were working on during your last visit. Perhaps you would like to do that."

Lady Margrave nodded faintly.

India closed the distance between them and cupped her elbow. "This way," she said. Looking around her ladyship toward Margrave, she added, "I would like a moment of your time, please."