Lord of Secrets (12 page)

Rosalie hadn’t missed the evasion. “Very well, Mr. Melton. Tomorrow evening, at Radcombe Priory. What time would you have us arrive?”

“We dine at six, ma’am, and I hope I may look forward to seeing you both.”

“Oh, we’ll be there,” she said lightly. “I assure you, Deal is not nearly so standoffish as people seem to think.”

Mr. Melton smiled. “Not with you, I’m sure, but we can’t all be lovely young ladies with big brown eyes and fetching smiles.”

He winked at her, and they both turned their horses about. Rosalie rode away wondering if she’d mishandled the encounter. On the one hand, she’d made the acquaintance of her nearest neighbor and secured a dinner invitation on her very first morning at Lyningthorp. On the other, she couldn’t help fretting about the surprise Mr. Melton had shown when she’d told him she was Lady Deal, and the doubtful expression on his face when she’d said David wouldn’t mind her asking company to dinner.

As soon as she stepped inside the house, the quiet enveloped her again like water closing over the head of a drowning man. Outside, it was all bright sunshine, azaleas and butterflies. Inside, it was hushed and shadowy, so that the sweep of her skirts on the flagstones seemed a harsh intrusion.

She would have to do something about Lyningthorp’s strange, oppressive stillness. She’d been here less than twenty-four hours, and it was already wearing on her nerves. The dark, echoing rooms and the muffled voices of the servants had left her almost grateful to leave the house. In all her years of longing for a home, she’d repeatedly wished for
safe
and
familiar
and
permanent
—never stopping to add
cheerful
and
heartening
.

Rosalie discovered David bent over the desk in his office adjoining the library, totaling a column of figures. He had that relaxed, loose-limbed look about him, the ease he showed only when he thought himself unobserved.

She cleared her throat.

He looked up, and immediately his eyes took on a shuttered look, his shoulders tensing. He set down his pen. “Rosalie.”

Now why should he freeze up that way, just because she’d appeared in the doorway? She was hardly intimidating, and not at all hostile. And the tension was clearly more than just uneasiness about the way their wedding night had gone. She’d seen that look too many times before.

Turning her riding crop over in her hands, she told him about her encounter with their neighbor and the invitation he’d extended.

David frowned. “Dinner at Radcombe Priory? But I’ve never dined there before.”

She’d wanted to be useful, yet so far all she’d done was disrupt David’s routine. “Mr. Melton seemed most gentlemanlike.”

“I’m sure he’s gentleman enough, but I would never call on him.”

“Why not? Do you dislike each other?”

David’s brows drew together. “I don’t even know him. That is, we played together on a few occasions when we were boys, but he and his family have kept their distance since the day my father killed himself.”

She hoped she hadn’t propelled them both into the thick of a feud. “How odd. I had the impression Mr. Melton thought you were the more unfriendly one.”

“I? But I’ve barely exchanged two words with the man in twenty years.”

“Perhaps that’s why he thinks you unfriendly, David. But we’ll soon set that to rights.”

Chapter Ten

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, ‘t were all alike
As if we had them not.

—
William Shakespeare

She went up to change out of her habit. When she rang for her abigail, a young maid she didn’t recognize answered the bell. Rosalie wondered if she’d made some mistake, confusing faces and duties—or if her chaste bedroom and girlish fashion sense had been so disappointing to Bridger, the girl had already handed in her notice. “Where’s Bridger?” she asked the new maid.

The girl set to work helping Rosalie out of her habit. “Her sister’s taken queer, my lady, and Mrs. Epperson said she might go to the village to check on her. I’m Coyle.”

“Her sister isn’t seriously ill, I hope?”

“I couldn’t say, my lady. All I know is she took to her bed all feverish.”

Rosalie glanced at the dressing room mirror, and the face that looked back at her wore an uncertain frown. During the brief spells she and her father had spent in England, she’d made a point of calling on his tenants. If one was sick, she’d offered whatever help she could. Her mother had done no less when she was alive.

Now she was the Marchioness of Deal. Being so new to her position, perhaps it would seem awkward if she called on one of the villagers. After all, she’d met Bridger only the day before, and Rosalie doubted she could avoid the strained manners that typically attended any interaction between mistress and servant, even if Mr. Melton did think her sadly unsophisticated. Besides, Rosalie hadn’t forgotten the cool reception she and David had met with the day before as their coach had made its way through the estate village.

But new or not, she was mistress of Lyningthorp now. What kind of example would she be setting if she failed to show even the most basic concern for the villagers’ welfare? And she wasn’t likely to be missed here at the house. David was occupied with estate business.

Before her, the face in the mirror went from doubtful to resolved. Perhaps this first call might be a bit awkward, but she liked looking after people—mothering them, her cousin Charlie liked to say. It was one of the few things she was good at.

She smiled over her shoulder at Coyle, who was busy with the buttons at her back. “Would you inform Mrs. Epperson I’ll be needing a few items from the stillroom and the larder? And I’d like to order one of the carriages...”

* * *

David rode up the narrow, pebbled lane, drawing Balthasar to a stop before a half-timbered cottage on his left. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d ventured this far into the estate village, or had the desire to do so. His estate manager kept matters in good order, and had done since his uncle Frederick’s day.

But it worried him to know Rosalie was here. According to his housekeeper, Lady Deal had gone to call on an ailing cottager. So why had she been absent almost two hours now? Why hadn’t she simply—well, done whatever it was ladies did on such calls, left a pot of soup and an extra blanket perhaps, then hurried home to Lyningthorp? What could she possibly have to say to these sullen, cold-eyed strangers?

He tethered Balthasar to the corner hitching post and rapped on the cottage door. From within, he could hear the sound of conversation—light, feminine voices, mixed with the occasional ripple of laughter. Laughter, in a sickroom?

At his knock, there was a muffled remark, followed by a burst of mirth. He waited. The din of conversation swelled as the door swung open, revealing a young woman in a plain osnaburg gown and linen apron. She wore a smile of greeting—until she saw who was standing on her doorstep, whereupon her smile vanished and the residents of the room behind her went abruptly silent.

“Good afternoon,” David said, determined to ignore the unfavorable reception. “I’m Deal. Is my—”

“Wait!” Rosalie’s voice came from inside. “Don’t let him in!”

He stood on the doorstep, confounded. He’d hardly expected a warm welcome, but to be barred from a laborer’s cottage—and by his own wife? And not just his wife, but sweet, anxious-to-please Rosalie. He must have looked almost as startled as the girl at the door, who was still gawking at him as if she’d turned to marble.

With a swish of skirts, Rosalie appeared at the young woman’s side. She peered out at him, her face pinched with anxiety. “Have you had the mumps, David?”

Ah, so that was what this was about. “Yes, when I was a boy.”

Rosalie relaxed with a visible sigh of relief. “Thank heavens. I was afraid you might catch them now, and for a grown man they can be—well, it’s a good thing you’ve had them already.” She smiled at the young woman beside her. “Might he come in, Sarah?”

The girl snapped out of her trance. Still speechless, she sank into a low curtsey and moved aside to admit him.

He stepped over the threshold, taking in the room at a glance. He’d expected to find Rosalie alone with the ailing cottager and perhaps another family member or two, but to his surprise a half dozen young women ringed the room—and, in addition, more than twice that many children sat playing together on the floor, most still of an age to be in leading strings.

But if the size of the gathering surprised him, he was even more thrown by the stark interior of the cottage. Outside, the estate village was a model of good management, with well-ordered lanes, neat, whitewashed houses and tidy gardens. A line of freshly painted doors overlooked scrubbed doorsteps. Most of the cottages even sported flower boxes in the windows. He’d expected an interior at least as welcoming.

This room, however, looked so spartan and so threadbare, he wondered for an instant if he might be the butt of some practical joke. Though the space was ill lit, its dim light revealed the sum total of a typical family’s furnishings—a worn bedstead, a battered table and mismatched chairs, all crowded together in this single room. Rushes littered the earthen floor, and despite the mild May weather such a chill lingered in the air, David peered with narrowed eyes at the meager fire burning in the grate.

The women had all risen at his entrance, offering stiff, grudging bobs. “Do please sit down,” he said, and after a brief hesitation they sank back to their seats, eying him warily. He had the impression they’d been talking and laughing freely together, Rosalie included, until his arrival had spoiled the party mood.

Rosalie gestured with a tilt of her head in the direction of the bed. “Poor Betsy Bridger here has mumps, as you can see, and these mothers have brought their children to play in the hope that they’ll catch the illness and be done with it.”

David glanced at the patient, only to look quickly away. She was dressed modestly enough, a linsey-woolsey jacket over her nightdress, and with the mumps distending her cheeks and neck she was hardly in a condition to inspire lustful impulses. Nevertheless, stepping into the room with a half-dressed girl flat on her back made him uneasy, even if his new wife and half a dozen young mothers were looking on in witness.

Rosalie gave him an anxious smile. “You know everyone, I’m sure.”

“Yes.” In truth, he could count the villagers he knew by name on one hand, but for some reason he felt it incumbent on him to agree.

The women stared at him in hostile silence, as if calling him a liar with their eyes. Or were their unfriendly, mistrustful glances simply a reflection of what they thought of him in general—that he was haughty, arrogant, possibly as unstable as his father?

A young child playing in the middle of the room let out a squawk, locked in an apparent squabble over a toy. At the sound, two of the young mothers dove at their children, hurrying to separate them as if they feared David might take it into his head to strangle the offending toddlers with his bare hands.

He looked about him, wondering how the children could possibly be comfortable. “Why is it so cold in here? Is that to bring the fever down?”

The women said nothing, sitting tight-lipped. Finally one looked down and muttered, “It’s hard to make the coal stretch.”

“But Lyningthorp provides the coal allowance for the cottages here.” It was part of the longstanding arrangement between the estate and its workers. Some landlords paid higher wages but provided fewer essentials. Since it was cheaper to buy coal in bulk, David paid less but supplied more.

No one answered.

At the deafening lack of response, Rosalie launched into a nervous stream of talk. “Betsy was kind enough to let me play apothecary. I made her a ginger paste to help with the swelling. It did help a little, didn’t it, Betsy?”

“Yes, my lady,” the unfortunate girl replied, as David wondered at the strange silence that had met his earlier mention of the villagers’ coal allotment. “More than a little. I’m not nearly so sore.”

“If I had Indian gall nut I could try another remedy, but who knows where to find Indian gall nut in these parts? It’s a shame, for they set great store by it in India. It was their castor oil, bitter but good for whatever ailed one.”

There was a subdued chuckle from the other women, who had no doubt suffered through swallowing—and administering—more than enough castor oil in their time.

“Though that was not the worst medicine they used there,” Rosalie plunged on. “They had one particularly dreadful-smelling remedy called
hing
, which we would call asafetida. I tried to give it to my father once for a bad tooth, but the smell was so revolting he said he preferred the toothache.”

Poor Rosalie. She looked so pretty in her simple eyelet gown, so earnest and eager to please, his heart went out to her. What was she doing here, wasting her breath and her goodwill on these surly, narrow-minded villagers? They were incapable of appreciating it.

But to his surprise, one of the young mothers spoke up. “I use a salt rinse for toothache. It tastes bad but works wonders.”

Rosalie nodded. “And there’s no unpleasant smell.”

“A raw onion works, too,” said another young woman. “Or if you’ve no onion, a raw potato.”

“Or oil of clove,” said another, lifting her toddler to her lap. “Even a dried clove helps. When my John had the toothache this winter, it was the only thing that gave him relief.”

“That and a third glass of gin punch, eh?” said the woman who’d recommended a salt rinse, and there was a chorus of laughter from the others—until they remembered David was in the room. In a flash they sobered, casting uneasy glances in his direction as if they feared his presence might have unpleasant repercussions for poor tippling John, with his bad tooth and his dried clove.

Why hadn’t he made his exit sooner? David wasn’t sure what to say, but he felt he should say
something
, if only to reassure the women he didn’t begrudge the poor toothache sufferer some measure of relief, estate worker or no. “My uncle Lord Frederick Linney was partial to brandy for toothache. He never touched a drop otherwise, but a bad tooth could drive him to the bottle every time.”

“Did he suffer much from toothache?” Rosalie asked.

“He certainly looked as if he did,” said the woman who’d made the jest about the gin punch.

The room erupted in peals of laughter.

“Oh, dear.” Rosalie cast a look in David’s direction that was half mirth, half apology. “I’m sure he can’t have been as bad as that.”

“He was every bit as bad,” David said, smiling at the woman who’d made the remark. For once, it was easy to smile, for he was in on the jest. “He had the look of a bulldog sucking on a lemon.”

There was another ripple of laughter—quickly stifled, but laughter nonetheless.

A little boy who couldn’t have been much more than three years old planted himself before David and held up a toy. “Fix my cart?”

“Daniel!” His mother sprang from her chair and darted toward the boy. “I’m sorry, your lordship, he doesn’t know who you—”

Despite David’s limited contact with the villagers, the anxious mother looked vaguely familiar. He recalled seeing her at the smithy. Yes, he was almost certain she’d married the blacksmith’s son. And if the blacksmith was named King, that would make her...

“Don’t worry, Mrs. King. He simply needs the wheel of his cart replaced.”

She looked surprised—no, astonished—that he should know her name. She wrung her hands on her apron. “He doesn’t mean to be a bother, your lordship, truly.”

“Of course not. What good is a cart with three wheels?” Bemused by the woman’s obvious agitation—
terror
would not have been too strong a word—he pushed the wheel back on its wooden prong and smiled down at the little boy, a round-faced cherub with a riot of dark curls. “Here you are, Daniel. Fortunately the axle isn’t broken. My coach broke an axle once, and believe me, it was a most costly repair.”

The village women had been staring at him as if he’d sprouted a third arm. As David handed the boy his toy, they traded puzzled glances.

Though David pretended not to notice, he couldn’t help feeling stung. What had they imagined he was going to do, tear the child limb from limb? He
liked
children. They were more genuine and less judgmental than most of the adults he knew.

Weary of the constant scrutiny, he told Rosalie, “We’re expected at Lyningthorp for dinner.”