Authors: Jude Deveraux
Jace took the opportunity of Mrs. Browne’s absence to look about the kitchen. There were three doors in it; one was the entrance, so he looked at the other two. One door led to a room full of cabinets and a sink. A quick glance showed him the cabinets were full of dishes. None of it seemed to be the “good” china. No names like Herend or Spode or even Wedgwood were on the bottoms, but there was enough that he could give a dinner party for a dozen or more. If I knew anybody, he thought.
He stepped back into the kitchen, saw that Mrs. Browne was still bawling out the poor cleaning girl, then he went to the other door. It was a pantry with three skinny windows on one wall and slate shelves on the other. Cans, bags, and boxes filled the shelves, as well as jars of homemade jams and pickles. There was a big jar labeled “peaches in rum” that looked interesting.
“I’m turning into an alcoholic,” he said, then at a sound, he looked out the narrow windows. The view was almost obscured by strings of herbs and sausages, but he was looking at the entryway into the courtyard. Interesting, he thought. No one could enter or leave that Mrs. Browne, enthroned in her kitchen, wouldn’t know about. He saw her hurry through the opening, but she turned left into a narrow door. “Her apartment,” Jace said, smiling and feeling that he’d solved a mystery.
When she returned to the kitchen, Jace was back at the table, finishing his platter of breakfast. He looked at her for praise, but she just said “hmph” in a way that was becoming familiar to him.
After Jace finished his meal, he found the outside door and went into the garden. From what he’d seen so far, the grounds were beautiful and Mr. Hatch did a splendid job of keeping them up. The breakfast sat heavy in his stomach and he was still feeling the effects of the beer and wine from the day before, but all in all, he felt better than he had in, well, in three years. Again, he thought there was something being done or said to him that was making him feel good.
As he wandered about the acres near the house, he marveled at them. There were several flowerbeds, lush and full, with not a weed in sight. There was a pretty pond full of big goldfish and surrounded on three sides by tall evergreen hedges. His favorite thing was a row of topiaries in the shape of animals. There were four of them: a swan, a bear, a big fish, and something that could be a dragon if you looked at it at the right angle.
He walked under a long pergola with square brick pillars and wooden beams overhead. Lacy-leaved vines nearly covered the beams. There was a rose garden, and everywhere benches seemed to be tucked in some cool, beautiful spot.
At the end of the rose garden was a young man digging a hole, but there was something about the way he was digging that made Jace think the boy had almost been caught doing something else. His clue was that the young man was using a rake to dig with.
“Good morning,” Jace said.
“Morning, sir. You the new master?”
Jace smiled at the old-fashioned term, then followed the boy’s glance toward the trees. A small foot moved. “Are you the one with the girlfriend who’s going to be the downfall of him? Lead him into wicked ways?” Behind them, a girl giggled.
“Yes, sir, I am,” the boy said. “I’m Mick, the first garden assistant.”
The young man was tall, strong, and looked intelligent. “Planning to take over after Mr. Hatch leaves?”
Mick laughed as though that weren’t possible, but the girl came out of the trees, clutched Mick’s arm possessively, and said, “Yes, he is.”
Jace thought that if young Mick had any ambition it was because of her. There was something about them that made him like them. “So when’s the wedding?”
Mick looked at his feet, but the girl smiled. “In the autumn. I’m finishing a secretarial course, but my dad won’t pay for it if I’m married.”
Jace remembered that Mr. Hatch had said the girl was “cleaning toilets” so he guessed she was paying for most of her tuition herself. She had ambition and spunk; he admired that. “Wise decision. So where do you meet in the meantime?” When Jace saw Mick turn away nervously, he knew they’d been meeting in his house. And why not? It had been empty for years.
“Mick,” Jace said, “and…?”
“Gladys.”
“Isn’t there an empty apartment, a flat, over Mrs. Browne’s kitchen? Would you two like to live there after you’re married?”
Mick’s eyes widened in disbelief, but Gladys’s face turned pink with delight. “Oh, yes, sir,” she said. “And you wouldn’t be needing a secretary, would you?”
“Gladys!” Mick said. “That’s askin’ too much.”
“Actually,” Jace said, “I do need a secretary. Maybe you two could look at that office by—”
“The laundry,” Gladys said. “Yes, sir, I know it well.”
When they looked at each other, Jace knew that had been her plan all along. Yes, with her around, Mick would do well for himself. “Perhaps you could make a list of what I’d need to set up an office—computer, printer, all that—and give me a price list. And let me know your salary requirements. We’ll have everything in place for you to start by the time you graduate.”
“Oh!” Mick said. “She can start before she graduates. She can work evenin’s, if that’s all right with you, sir.”
“Perfectly all right. Now, Mick, you better stop digging a hole there or Mr. Hatch will have your hide, and, by the way, even I know you dig with a shovel, not a rake.”
Gladys laughed but Mick turned red.
He left them to continue his tour of the garden. He felt that he’d just made a couple of friends and had gained a secretary to take care of the bill paying and the…He wasn’t sure what else he needed a secretary for, but he knew he wanted people in the house. Not that their apartment was anywhere near the main house, even though it was connected by a long passageway, but he liked that they’d be nearby. Talk and laughter might keep him from missing his family so much.
Standing at the end of the formal garden, just before the woodland park began, Jace looked back at the house. Yes, it was hideous, but now that he was really seeing the place, there were things to recommend it. To his American mind, it was odd having two kitchens, but his mother always said that there was no kitchen on earth big enough for two women. If a family lived in the house, Jace thought, it might be nice to have a place that was just for the husband and wife and the kids.
Stacy would like this house, he thought. When she wasn’t working she could make pancakes for the kids on Sundays and—
He stopped that thought. It seemed that Stacy had known the house, but she’d never mentioned it to him. And as for having children, that argument had started everything.
He walked along a path in the woodland, which was acres of beautifully manicured trails shaded by fabulous old trees. He saw copper beech, sycamore, horse chestnut, as well as oak and elm. Most of the trees he didn’t recognize and figured they were exotics, specimens that didn’t usually grow in England.
Someone has loved this place very much, he thought.
He took a left at an intersection of pathways and came to a tall brick wall with an oak door. Opening it, he saw a beautiful vegetable garden. Neat rows of vegetables were surrounded by foot-high boxwood hedges. A long greenhouse stood at one end, and there seemed to be half an acre of cages that kept birds away from the berries planted inside.
As Jace looked about, he saw the pretty girl Mrs. Browne had been chastising scurry from behind one tall bean tower to another. She was followed by another girl. They didn’t see him, so Jace stepped behind the end of the greenhouse and watched.
One young girl was plump and pretty, the other skinny and plain, and they were sneaking toward the raspberry cage. They opened the door slowly so the hinges wouldn’t creak, then tiptoed inside. Since the garden was huge and enclosed by a tall brick wall, he wondered who they thought might hear them.
Jace stayed hidden and watched them fill little tin buckets with ripe raspberries. There were row upon row of bushes, each one dripping fruit. He remembered Mrs. Browne’s complaints about the theft of the berries, but he or his employees couldn’t eat all of them, so why not let the girls have them?
He opened the cage door, noting the oil glistening on the hinges, popped a raspberry in his mouth, and said, “They’re good, aren’t they?”
The girls jumped at his voice, then the pretty one looked as though she was going to cry. The thin one put on an air of defiance. “We can pay for them,” she said, glaring at him.
“Will you call the police on us?” the other girl asked.
“You are…?”
“Daisy, sir,” the pretty one said. “I helped put you to bed last night. I took off your shoes and socks even though Mr. Hatch said to leave you the way you were.”
“Thank you.” He turned to the other girl. “And you are…?”
“Erin.”
“Do you both work for me?”
“Yes, sir,” Daisy said. “We clean your house.”
“And do whatever vile task Mrs. Browne can come up with for us to do,” Erin added, watching Jace to see his reaction to that statement.
His instincts didn’t allow him to trust these girls as he had Mick and Gladys. He was afraid that they would tell Mrs. Browne whatever he said. “So what do you do with the raspberries?”
The girls exchanged looks and seemed to decide to tell the truth. Daisy said, “Our mothers make raspberry tarts, then they sell them at the local shop.”
“May I assume that you do the same with…” He looked around the garden at the other bushes and had no idea what they were.
“Strawberries, blackberries, gooseberries,” Erin said.
“And apples, quince, medlars, apricots, peaches, pears, and cherries,” Daisy said.
“And mulberries,” Erin added. “My mum makes mulberry jam and they sell it at Harrods.”
“That’s impressive.”
Erin took a step forward. “But the only way we can turn a profit is if the fruit is free. No one’s lived here for years, so the fruit was going to waste.” She glanced at the cage. “Not even the birds could get to it.”
“What does Mr. Hatch know of this?”
“Everything. We couldn’t do it without him.”
“And Mrs. Browne?”
The girls again exchanged looks, but said nothing.
“If she knew for sure, she’d fire you, right?”
“Yes,” Erin said. “If she caught us here we’d be sacked in a moment.”
“What if I told her she couldn’t fire you? I do own the place, you know.”
The girls smiled. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but do you? Owners come and go, but Mr. Hatch and Mrs. Browne stay. They make the rules.”
“I can see how that would happen.” He didn’t say so, but he knew that he, too, would be leaving soon. “Perhaps if I tell Mrs. Browne that you two have my permission to pick all the fruit you want—”
“Oh, no, sir!” Daisy said. “She’d make our lives a living hell, and we can’t quit because our mums need the fruit, and we all need the money. There are six women, all with children, who work in the business. And no men. My father is ill and Erin’s ran away with the postman’s wife, so—”
Erin gave her a look that cut her off. “She means, sir, that we have families to feed and while it’s kind of you to offer to help…”
“It would be better if I kept my nose out of it.”
“Exactly, sir,” Daisy said, dimpling prettily.
Looking at her, Jace felt sure she’d be married and pregnant in another year. “All right,” he said, smiling. “I won’t—”
“Crickey!” Erin grabbed Daisy’s arm and they crouched down in the bushes.
Jace, not knowing what was going on, remained standing, then he saw that Mrs. Browne had just entered the garden, a trug over her arm.
“Will you give us away?” Daisy whispered, looking up at Jace with big blue eyes.
He shook his head and took a step forward, but Erin grabbed his pant leg.
“She’ll come in here and see us. Could you distract her so we can get out of here?”
“Maybe take your shirt off,” Daisy said, then put her hand over her mouth to stifle her giggle.
In spite of himself, Jace felt his face turning red. The girls were no more than eighteen and at his thirty-two, they made him feel like a lecher.
“He’s blushing,” Erin whispered, then nudged Daisy and had to cover her own laugh.
Mrs. Browne had picked some beans and was now heading straight for the raspberry cage. Jace had to distract her, but how?
As he was thinking what to do, he saw an extraordinary sight. To the left, the nearly transparent form of a woman stepped through the brick wall. Mrs. Browne had just stooped to cut something from a plant and was bending over, so she didn’t see the figure.
The woman stopped inches from Mrs. Browne, then reached out to take something from the wall. He couldn’t see what it was, but she cupped it in her hands. When Mrs. Browne stood up, the woman—the spirit—opened her hands in front of Mrs. Browne’s face and blew on them. For a split second, Jace saw what looked to be a spider go from the woman’s hands to Mrs. Browne’s face.
The next moment Mrs. Browne was slapping at her face. She dropped her basket of vegetables and ran for the door, swatting at herself as she ran. Beside him, Daisy and Erin stood up and watched the show, laughing.
But Jace’s eyes were on the woman who was standing by the wall and smiling. He could see through her. She had on a high-necked, long-sleeved white blouse; her slim waist was encircled by a wide belt above an ankle-length skirt and soft, lace-up boots. Her long, dark hair was tied back at the nape of her neck, forming a thick tail that hung down her back almost to her waist. Her face was in profile and he saw delicate features, a perfect nose, and long-lashed eyes. Through her, he could see the bricks of the wall.