The Gamekeeper's Lady (6 page)

He grinned and complied. ‘I met Miss Bracewell in the garden on my way in,’ he said casually, hoping to glean a little more insight into the troublesome lass. ‘Is she the only relative to the master?’

The cook’s cheerful mouth pursed as if she’d eaten a quince. ‘The devil’s spawn, that one. You want to stay well clear of her.’

The venom in her voice rendered Robert speechless and…angry. He kept his tone non-committal. ‘She seemed like a pleasant enough young lady. Not that she said much more than good day.’

‘I likes her,’ Maisie said, returning with basket in hand. ‘She opened the door when I had me hands full once.’

‘Goes to show she’s not a proper lady,’ the cook said and sent Robert a sharp stare. ‘A blot on the good name of Bracewell, she is. Her and her mother. My poor Lord Wynchwood is a saint for taking her in. Mark my words, it’ll do him no good.’

‘What—?’ Robert started to ask.

‘Mrs Doncaster.’ The butler’s stern tones boomed through the kitchen.

Robert jumped guiltily. Old Snively was a tartar and no mistake. All the servants feared the gimlet-eyed old vulture. A smile never touched his lips and his sharp eyes missed not the smallest fault according to the house servants.

Snively’s cold gaze rested on Robert’s face. ‘Gossiping with the outside staff, Mrs Doncaster?’

Robert felt heat scald his cheeks. Arrogant bugger. Who did the butler think he was? Robert gritted his teeth, held his body rigid and kept turning the spit, lowering his gaze from the piercing stare. This man had the power to have him dismissed on a word, and from the gleam in his eye the stiff-rumped bastard wasn’t done.

‘If you’ve no work to keep you occupied, Deveril,’ Snively said, ‘perhaps Mr Weatherby can do without an assistant after all.’

‘I’m here to fetch a list for tomorrow, Mr Snively,’ Robert said.

‘Now see here, Snively,’ Mrs Doncaster put in, clearly ruffled, ‘if you kept that good-for-nothing footman William at his duty, I wouldn’t need Rob’s help, would I? Fetched the coal up, he did. Without it, his lordship would be waiting for his dinner.’

Snively fixed her with a haughty stare. ‘Planning, Mrs Doncaster. The key to good organisation. If you had William bring up enough coal for the entire day, you wouldn’t need to call him from his other duties.’

‘Ho,’ Mrs Doncaster said, elbows akimbo. ‘Planning, is it? Am I to turn my kitchen into a coal yard?’

It was like watching a boxing match threatening to spill over into the crowd, but Robert had no wish to become embroiled. It was more than his job was worth. It didn’t help that the old bugger was right, he had no business coming here this evening.

Across the room, Maisie had her lips folded inside her teeth as if to stop any unruly words escaping. Robert knew just how she felt. The portly, stiff-necked Snively was terrifying. Mrs Doncaster’s bravery left him in awe.

‘Planning,’ Snively repeated and swept out of the kitchen.

‘Hmmph,’ Cook grumbled. ‘Johnny-come-lately. Thinks just because he worked in London, he can lord it over the rest of us who’s been here all our lives. Hmmph. His back’s up because he heard what we was saying. Always jumps to defend her, he does.’

The butler rose a notch in Robert’s estimation. ‘I’ll be on my way now Maisie’s back.’

‘Yes. Go.’ Mrs Doncaster, still in high dudgeon, waved him away.

Holding out the basket, Maisie lifted a corner of the cloth covering its contents. ‘I’ve put a nice bit of ham in there for your breakfast,’ she whispered with a wink, then trundled off to her spit.

A cold chill seemed to clutch his very soul with icy fingers. They were all at it. Handing him food, putting him under an obligation. One day, by God, he would repay their charity. Somehow he’d find the means.

More debts to pay.

He pulled his cap on and made his way out into the growing dusk. ‘Spawn of Satan’ ? What the hell had Mrs Doncaster meant? And why the hell had he bristled?

Chapter Four

‘
B
ring the light closer, Frederica, for goodness’ sake—how can I read in the dark?’

Frederica rose from her chair and moved the candlestick on the tea table two inches closer to her uncle.

Looking up from the most recent missive from Simon, Mortimer peered over his spectacles at her. ‘That’s better.’ He coughed into his ever-ready handkerchief.

Frederica handed him his tea. She hated tea in the drawing room. A senseless torture for someone who had not the slightest chance of making polite conversation under the best of circumstances. Which made her almost easy conversations with Mr Deveril all the stranger.

‘You s-said you needed to talk to me about something, Uncle?’ She needed to get back her drawings of squirrels. She hadn’t yet decided which ones to colour.

‘Is everything prepared for Simon’s visit?’

Inwardly she groaned. ‘Yes, Uncle.’ She took a deep slow breath. ‘I’ve asked Snively to have the sheets for the guests’ rooms aired and instructed him to hire help from the village for the day of the ball.’

He glanced down at the letter in his hand. ‘Radthorn is bringing guests, too, I gather. They will stay at the Grange with him. The ball is going to be far grander than usual. Simon has raised a concern.’

Hurry up and get to the point. She tried to look interested.

Uncle Mortimer lifted his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. ‘He worries you have nothing appropriate to wear. That you won’t be up to snuff. In short, he says you need dresses. Gowns and such. Kickshaws. He also says you need a chaperon, someone to keep an eye on you.’

Oh, no. Frederica’s body stiffened bowstring tight. Vibrations ran up and down her spine as if at any moment she would snap in two. A chaperon would interfere with all her plans. ‘I d-d-d—’ Inhale.

‘Do.’ Uncle Mortimer shifted in his seat. ‘Simon is right, you run around the estate like a veritable hoyden. Look at the way you ran off yesterday.’ He shook his head. ‘Do you even know how to dance?’

‘Simon showed me some country dances.’ Sort of. ‘Mrs Felton in the village has my m-measurements and can make me up a gown or two, but I d-don’t n-need someone watching over me. I’m almost five and twenty.’

Uncle Mortimer scratched at the papery skin on the back of his hand, a dry rasp in the quiet. A deep furrow formed between his brows. ‘Simon said there must be waltzing.’

She gulped, panic robbing her of words. All of this sounded as if Simon had every intention of submitting to Mortimer’s demands. Because he needed money, no doubt. She felt a constriction in her throat.

Breathe. ‘I’ve n-never attended the T-Twelfth Night ball before—why this time?’

Uncle Mortimer stared at her for a long time. He seemed to be struggling with some inner emotion. ‘Dear child. You cannot wed a man like Simon without at least learning some of the niceties. Given your…your impediment, I would have thought you would be eager to oblige. I am going to a great deal of expense and trouble, you know.’

He sounded kind when she’d never heard him sound anything but impatient. He was trying to make her feel guilty. ‘I’d be h-happy s-single.’

‘We are your family. You are our responsibility. Simon is generously shouldering the burden. You must do your part.’

‘Simon must know I’ll never be a fitting wife. After all, I’m m-my mother’s daughter.’

A knobby hand pounded on the chair arm. Uncle Mortimer’s tea slopped in the saucer. ‘Enough. You will do as I say.’ As if the burst of anger had used up all his energy, he sagged back in his chair and covered his face with one hand.

Frederica took the teacup from her uncle’s limp grasp. ‘Surely we can d-do without a chaperon.’

‘No,’ he whispered. ‘Lady Radthorn has agreed. It will be done.’

Could this nightmare get any worse? ‘Lady Radthorn?’ Frederica had seen the old lady in the village. She looked very high in the instep. Not the kind of person who would take kindly to a noblewoman’s by-blow sired by no one knew who, but everyone assumed the worst.

‘No arguments. Lady Radthorn has arranged for the seamstress to attend you at her house tomorrow. You will need a costume for the ball. Several morning and evening gowns and a riding habit. The bills will be sent to me.’

Frederica felt her eyes widen as the list grew. ‘It sounds d-dreadfully expensive.’

Uncle Mortimer’s jaw worked for a moment. He swallowed. ‘Nothing is too much to ensure that you have the bronze to make you worthy of Simon.’ He closed his eyes and gave a weak wave. ‘No more discussion. All these years I have paid for your keep, your education, the food in your stomach with never a word of thanks, ungrateful child. You will do as you are told.’

Selfish. Ungrateful. The words squeezed the breath from her chest like a press-yard stone placed on a prisoner’s chest to extract a confession. Was someone like her wrong to want more than the promise of a roof over her head?

It all came back to her mother’s shame. The Wynch-wood Whore. She’d only ever heard it said once as a child, by Mrs Doncaster. Frederica had turned the words over in her mind with a child’s morbid curiosity, and later with a degree of hatred, not because of what her mother was, she had realised, but because she’d left Frederica to reap the punishment.

The sins of the father will be visited upon their children.
Who knew what her father’s sins actually might be? For all she knew, her father could be a highwayman. Or worse, according to the servants’ gossip.

Well, this child wasn’t going to wait around for the visitation. She had her own plans. And they were about to bear fruit. In the meantime she’d do well not to arouse her uncle’s suspicions. ‘As you request, Uncle,’ she murmured. ‘If you d-don’t n-need anything else, I w-would like to retire.’

He didn’t open his eyes. Frederica didn’t think she’d be closing hers for most of the night. She was going to finish her drawings and be up early to catch a fox on his way home. The quicker she got her drawings done, the sooner she could get paid. If she was going to escape this marriage, time was of the essence.

In the hour before dawn, normally quiet clocks marked time like drums. The ancient timbers on the stairs squawked a protest beneath Frederica’s feet. She halted, listening. No one stirred. It only sounded loud because the rest of the house was so quiet.

Reaching the side door, she slid back the bolt and winced at the ear-splitting shriek of metal against metal. Eyes closed, ears straining, she waited. No cry of alarm. She let her breath go, pulled up her hood and slipped out into the crisp morning air.

To the east, a faint grey tinge on the horizon hinted at morning. Ankle deep in swirling mist, she stole along the verge at the edge of the drive. Her portfolio under her arm and her box of pencils clutched in her hand, she breathed in the damp scent of the country, grass, fallen leaves, smoke from banked fires. Somewhere in the distance a cockerel crowed.

Thank goodness there was no snow to reveal her excursion.

Once clear of Wynchwood’s windows, she strode along the lane, her steps long and free. Gallows Hill rose up stark against the skyline. Its crown of four pines and the blasted oak, a twisted blackened wreck, could be seen for miles, she’d been told. She left the lane and cut across the meadow at the bottom of the hill, then followed a well-worn sheep track up the steep hillside.

By the time she reached the top her breath rasped in her throat, her calves ached and the sky had lightened to the colour of pewter. Across the valley, the mist levelled the landscape into a grey ocean bristling with the spars of sunken trees.

She stopped to catch her breath and looked around. Bare rocks littered the plateau as if tossed there by some long-ago giant. Among the blanket of brown pine needles she found what she sought: a narrow tunnel dug in soft earth partially hidden by a fallen tree limb. Where should she sit for the best view?

She had read about the habits of the foxes in one of Uncle Mortimer’s books on hunting. Her best chance of seeing one was at daybreak near the den. Hopefully she wasn’t too late.

A spot off the animal’s beaten track seemed the best idea for watching. A broom bush, one of the few patches of green at this time of year, offered what looked like the best cover. From there, the light wind would carry her scent away from the den.

She pushed into the greenery and sank down cross-legged. Carefully, she drew out a sheet of parchment and one of her precious lead pencils. Pencils were expensive and she eked them out the way a starving man rationed crusts of bread, but knowing this might be her only chance to observe the creature from life, she’d chosen it over charcoal, which tended to smudge.

As the minutes passed, she settled into perfect stillness, gradually absorbing the sounds of the awakening morning, cows lowing for the milkmaid on a nearby farm, the call of rooks above Bluebell Woods.

Someone whistling and stomping up the hill.

Oh, no! She looked over her shoulder…at Mr Deveril striding over the brow of the hill, a gun on his shoulder, traps dangling from one hand. He was making straight for the fox’s den with long, lithe strides. Blast. He’d scare off the fox. She put down her paper and rose to her feet, gesturing to him to leave.

He stopped, stock still, and stared.

Go away,
she mouthed.

He dropped the traps and started to run. Towards her. The idiot.

She shooed him back with her arms.

He ran faster, his boots scattering pine needles.

She felt like screaming. He’d ruined everything. Any self-respecting fox would be long gone by now and no doubt Mr Deveril would have him shot long before her next opportunity to come up here. Drat. She would need to find another den and right when she didn’t need a delay.

She bent to pack up her stuff.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked, stopping short of the shrubbery. His massive shoulders in a brown fustian jacket blocked her view of the sky as his chest rose and fell from exertion. Lovely, beautiful man. She had the sudden desire to snatch up her pencil and draw. Him.

A dangerous notion. ‘I would have been perfectly all right had you stayed away,’ she muttered, pushing through the scratchy branches.

He frowned. ‘You waved me over. I thought you must have had an accident. Fallen from your horse.’

‘I walked.’ As if it mattered how she got here.

‘All the way up here?’

‘An early morning stroll. For my health.’

His expression of disbelief said it all and his gaze dropped to the portfolio beneath her arm. ‘You came up here to draw the fox?’ He sounded disapproving, dismissive, just like everyone else.

‘Not possible since you decided to gallop over here like a runaway carthorse.’

A muscle in his jaw flickered. His lips twitched. Amber danced in his eyes. Was he laughing? It certainly looked like it. She found herself wanting to smile, despite her disappointment.

‘You looked as if you were trying to get my attention. I didn’t realise you were here on a drawing expedition.’

‘What else would I be doing up here? I had hoped to draw it, b-before you k-killed it.’ She marched past him and headed downhill.

‘Wait,’ he commanded, deep and resonant.

How dare he order her about? She forged on.

‘Miss Bracewell,’ he called out. ‘There is a better place from which to watch.’

She twisted to look back at him.

He stared at her silently, challenging her to return, looking like a dark angel with the grey sky behind and the dark pines above. A tempting dark angel. Her heart speeded up. She hunched deeper into her cloak. ‘W-Where?’ Now she sounded like a sulky child. What was it about this man that made her behave so badly? Apart from his physical beauty, that was, which would affect any warm-blooded woman.

‘You would have missed him from there.’

‘Oh?’

‘I can show you, if you wish?’

‘You said him? Is it a male?’

He smiled and her knees almost gave out as he transformed into a Greek god with a simple curve of his mouth. ‘The dog fox. Aye. This tunnel is his escape route. The front door is yonder.’ He nodded toward the blasted oak. ‘I’ve seen him go in three times this week.’

The country accent missing from his earlier speech returned. She hesitated, her mind clamouring a warning even as her eyes worshipped the fierce beauty of his carved features. She longed to draw the character and darkness in his face and the athletic grace of his body. Not a clumsy attempt from memory, but from the flesh. Heat crawled up her face.

His smile disappeared. ‘As you wish, miss,’ he said, clearly taking her silence as refusal.

‘I will.’

A brow winged up and he tilted his head. ‘You mean, yes?’

She nodded, her head bobbing as if her neck had turned into a spring.

‘This way, then, miss, if you please.’

She followed him to a knobby protrusion of rocks beside the blackened tree.

‘There,’ he murmured, pointing at the ground a few feet away.

Nothing. Then the darker black of a hole took shape among the shadows. ‘I see it.’ She tore off the portfolio’s ribbon.

‘Sit here,’ he said, a large, warm hand catching her elbow, steering her to another pile of rocks. Sparks seemed to shoot up her arm, as if he’d touched a lightning bolt and transmitted its energy to her through his fingers.

Her mouth dried. A man of his ilk shouldn’t be touching her at all.

Was this how her mother had felt with the lower orders? Entranced. Breathless. Hot all over. She could quite see why one might want to experience it again. And more.

Somehow she sank down in the place he suggested and saw with amazement that the rock on which she perched formed a comfortable backrest and screened her from the opening to the fox’s den, except for a narrow slit between two rocks.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘This is perfect.’

‘I aim to please,’ he replied with a flash of a grin.

The breath in her chest left her mouth in a besotted rush. The man should not smile. It was fatal. And, from the broadening smile, he knew it.

He sank to his haunches beside her, his back against the rock on which she sat, his shoulder touching her skirts. He sat and stretched out legs which seemed to go on for ever and terminated in sturdy brown boots covered in mud. The rough fabric of his trousers clung to his thighs in a most revealing manner, suggestive of hard muscle and power.