The Lady Who Broke the Rules (10 page)

Wishing to consult the housekeeper on the details of some of her arrangements for the Dower House one afternoon, and having no desire at all to take the chance on her aunt sticking her oar in, Kate decided it would be safer to seek Mrs Stratton out in the servants’ hall. As she opened the heavy green baize door at the end of the kitchen corridor and stepped through onto the gallery from which Lumsden and Mrs Stratton were accustomed to keep a beady eye on the staff working below, she was surprised by a loud burst of laughter.

The huge Castonbury kitchen ran the full length of the house, with windows facing to the north and south. Heat emanated from the massive black range. On the long, well-scrubbed table was an orderly line of basins and bowls and kitchen utensils whose use was a complete mystery to Kate, but the main kitchen itself was empty. She made her way down the stairs and headed for the servants’ hall, which was on the opposite side of the room from the warren of pantries and stillrooms over which Lumsden presided. Another burst of laughter greeted her, and made her pause. Surely the servants would not be so noisy in the presence of Lumsden or Mrs Stratton? Perhaps those two were taking tea elsewhere.

She was on the verge of heading for the butler’s pantry when a slow drawl stopped her in her tracks. Kate crept towards the open door and peered into the servants’ hall. The table was set for tea, with bread and butter, a large fruitcake and several pots of jam, but the tea in the cups was half drunk, the bread on the plates half eaten, the majority of the wooden chairs pushed back and abandoned. Virgil sat in the middle of the table, shuffling a pack of cards. Lumsden was on one side of him, Mrs Stratton on the other, a smile crinkling her normally austere face. Clustered behind Virgil were Daisy the chambermaid, Polly, and Agnes the scullery maid, of all people. In all the years she had been working in the Castonbury kitchens, Kate had never once managed to elicit a smile from the dour maid and here she was, not just smiling but giggling.

Across the table, young Charlie was squirming in his seat, straining to get a better view. Beside him, Joe Coyle was looking decidedly out of sorts, while Watson, Virgil’s valet, was by contrast looking decidedly smug. Of the senior servants, only Smithins, her father’s valet, and Monsieur André, the chef, were absent.

‘Do another one,’ Charlie implored, his eyes fixed adoringly on Virgil.

‘Haven’t you seen enough yet?’

She hadn’t heard that teasing note in Virgil’s voice before. He looked completely at ease as he shuffled the deck expertly, his neck cloth loosened, his coat unbuttoned, sprawling back in his chair and seemingly quite at home. When Kate took tea in the servants’ hall, which she tried to make a point of doing once a month, she was always horribly conscious that they were all on their best behaviour. Teaspoons tinkled against the cups. Conversation was muted. Only Polly ever laughed freely at her jokes, and even then, it was a kind of defiant laughter.

‘Go on, Mr Jackson, just one more,’ Mrs Stratton said, and to Kate’s astonishment the housekeeper actually tapped Virgil on the hand.

The plea was taken up by all around the table save Joe Coyle, and Virgil laughed, a much more carefree laugh than Kate had ever heard; it was almost boyish. He spread the cards into a fan. ‘Take a card, Mr Lumsden. And you, Agnes. I’ll close my eyes while you let everyone see what you’ve chosen.’

‘No cheating now,’ Polly said, and outrageously leaned over to put her hands over Virgil’s eyes, flicking a knowing look towards the open door as she did so, making it clear that she, if no one else, was aware of Kate’s presence.

‘Right, put them back in the deck, anywhere you like,’ Virgil said. ‘You done? If the lovely Miss Polly will free me from her clutches?’

Kate caught her breath at his smile, and noticed she wasn’t the only one. Agnes and Daisy, blushing and nudging each other, were obviously quite smitten, and she couldn’t blame them. She longed to join them; she felt quite excluded and, yes, if she was honest, the tiniest bit jealous, hovering here in the doorway. But she knew that one step forward would have them all jumping awkwardly to their feet.

‘Now, then.’ Virgil made a show of shuffling the deck and frowning, selecting first one card, consulting it, shaking his head and putting it back. His audience craned their necks, anticipation and excitement writ large on their faces. They wanted him to succeed, Kate could see. All except Joe Coyle, that is. Charlie was kneeling on his chair, sprawled across the tea table in a way that would normally have earned him a sound box around the ears, but Lumsden and Mrs Strattton were far too engrossed in watching Virgil to chastise him.

‘Well, I don’t know. I think you have me beat this time. I just can’t find either of the cards in this deck. Won’t you check for me, Mr Lumsden?’

The butler took the cards and began to look through them, shaking his head. By the time he had finished, his face was a picture of bewilderment. ‘But I put my card in myself,’ he said plaintively, ‘you all saw me.’

‘And me,’ Agnes agreed breathlessly.

‘I wonder.’ Virgil reached into the pocket of Daisy’s apron and pulled out one card. He reached behind the housekeeper and seemed to retrieve another from her cap. Holding them up, he received a spontaneous burst of applause.

‘But how…?’ Lumsden spluttered.

‘It’s magic,’ Charlie breathed, his eyes glowing in admiration.

‘It’s a trick,’ Joe Coyle said sullenly. ‘Go on, show us how you did it.’

Virgil grinned and shook his head, pushing back his chair. ‘It’s easy enough. Even a monkey could do it, if he knew how,’ he said pointedly.

The footman turned a dull red and glared furiously at Charlie, but the boy was too intent upon begging Virgil for just
one
more trick to notice.

‘No more,’ Virgil said, ruffling the boy’s hair. ‘Your tea is quite cold, and we’ve kept Lady Kate waiting long enough.’

All eyes turned towards the doorway, and exactly as she had predicted, there was a scramble to push back chairs and straighten aprons and make curtsies and bows. ‘Please, I didn’t mean to disturb you,’ she said. ‘Finish your tea. I merely wanted to ask Mrs Stratton—but it can wait.’

Chapter Five

‘K
ate, what’s wrong?’ Virgil caught up with her as she started to climb the stairs to the kitchen gallery. ‘I know it’s not exactly the done thing for guests to take tea with the servants, but I’m not exactly a typical guest. If I’ve offended you somehow, I’m sorry. After the way young Charlie described the reaction in the servants’ hall towards me, I wanted to meet them for myself. I didn’t think you’d mind.’

‘Of course I don’t mind.’ Kate hurried on through the baize door and back along the dim kitchen corridor.

‘Then what is it?’

She stopped, leaning against the cool of the tiled wall, embarrassed. ‘You’ll think I’m being foolish.’

‘Try me.’

‘You’re supposed to say that you could never think me foolish.’

‘I never lie.’

Kate was obliged to laugh. ‘You seemed so at home there and I felt like an intruder. I’ve never seen Lumsden so—so
unbent
!
And Agnes! I thought that woman didn’t know
how
to smile. It
was
foolish of me, I know it was, but I was jealous,’ she confessed. ‘I try, you see, to make friends with them, and though they are always polite enough, they are always on edge too.’

‘You are their master’s daughter. You cannot blame them for being concerned lest they offend you. They have their positions to worry about.’

‘They should know I would never threaten those without cause. Besides, it’s not that. I have not your ease with them, nor your ability to put them at ease.’

‘I was a servant once. I understand them.’

Kate nodded. ‘Yes, but it’s more than that. You have a way of making most people feel understood, regardless of their status. People warm to you. Look at Giles.’

‘Look at your Aunt Wilhelmina.’

‘That is different. My aunt has never warmed to anyone.
’

‘And your father, you surely do not think he will warm to me either? If I ever have the pleasure of making his acquaintance, that is.’

‘You need not indulge me, Virgil. I was only a very little jealous,’ Kate said. ‘In truth, I admire you for it. I wish that I had a lighter touch with people. I make them nervous.’

‘Perhaps you try too hard.’

‘My father would say I do not try hard enough.’

‘But why should you set any store by what your father says, when by your own admission he knows you so little?’

‘I was not aware that I did,’ Kate said stiffly after a short silence.

Virgil raised a sceptical brow. ‘I wonder how
he
would be received, were he to choose to take tea in the servants’ hall?’

Once again, she was forced to laugh. ‘Thank you, I shall now consider my conscience salved.’ The corridor was narrow, the only light coming from the wall sconces which were lit at long intervals. She did not know how it was, but suddenly Kate was very much aware of Virgil standing beside her, was conscious, too, of the odd intimacy of the space, a no-man’s land between upstairs and downstairs. She fought her own battles, and if challenged would have said unequivocally that she was not just more than capable but quite content to do so. Nothing had changed, but it was pleasant, just this once, to have someone on her side. She smiled up at him. ‘Thank you.’

‘Kate.’

He was standing close enough for her to feel this breath on her cheek. Her heart was beating too fast again. Her skin felt too tight, straining for his touch. ‘Yes?’

Virgil touched the pulse below her ear. He seemed fascinated by the spot. His fingers trailed down her neck to her collarbone. ‘Giles told me that there is to be an assembly in Buxton in a couple of weeks. I thought I might take you.’

Kate gave a start. ‘Oh, no. I cannot.’

His fingers stilled. ‘Why not?’

‘I told you, Virgil, I am not acceptable in certain company. Surely Giles told you so?’

‘I was not aware that I was expected to ask Giles for permission to take you to a dance. You are four-and-twenty, even in this country that is well beyond the age of consent.’

‘Virgil, I can’t. You don’t understand.’

‘Surely you’re not afraid, Kate? Or is it that you’re worried I can’t dance?’ Virgil slipped his hand around her waist and pulled her close against him. His cheek brushed hers as he bent to whisper in her ear. ‘Wouldn’t you like to dance with me?’

She could think of nothing she would like more. Save perhaps a kiss, which she would not think about. ‘Yes,’ Kate said, ‘but, Virgil, you would be my only partner.’

His hand tightened on her waist. ‘If that’s your way of trying to dissuade me, it’s not working. It’s been five years, Kate. I think you’ll find that it’s not nearly as bad as you imagine. Say yes.’

She wished she could believe him. She wished she did not care. But more than anything, what she wished was to dance with him. ‘Yes.’

He smiled. He pulled her tight against him. She tilted her head towards him, but his lips had barely grazed hers when the baize door to the kitchen swung back on its hinges. Mrs Stratton, carrying a large tray, all but collided with them.

‘Lady Kate, I was coming to fetch Mrs Landes-Fraser’s tea things in the hope I’d find you, but I see you have pre-empted me. And, Mr Jackson. I expect you were looking for these.’ She produced a pack of cards from her apron pocket. It didn’t seem to occur to her that their presence in the kitchen corridor was in any way strange.

Impossible, Virgil had called their attraction, and it seemed he was right, Kate thought, as he took the cards with a polite thank-you and turned towards the main part of the house. Impossible, she reminded herself as she followed in the housekeeper’s wake, wondering what that so-staid woman would have said if she had stumbled upon them a few seconds later.

* * *

In her bedchamber a few days later, as Polly put away her evening dress and jewels, Kate prowled restlessly. She wore her favourite dressing gown of heavy scarlet silk lined with quilting in the style of a Japanese kimono, the sleeves trailing almost to the ground. Ornately embroidered with wildly improbable flowers and tied with a long sash, it was both exotic and sultry, a garment quite contrary to Kate’s practical, prosaic self.

Or so it would have appeared to any who saw her clad in it. But the truth was, Kate had a liking for fripperies and feminine folderols. Since she knew perfectly well that such indulgences ought to be despised, and furthermore, that they were quite at odds with her looks, she kept her gowns plainly cut and, contrary to the current fashion, free from beading, ruching and tucking, confining her love of such things to her undergarments.

In these items of apparel, however, Kate indulged her sybaritic tastes to the full. Her stockings were black, clocked and held up by extravagant garters. Lace and ribbons made frivolous her chemises and even her pantaloons. Thanks to Polly’s connections with a specialised milliner, Kate had recently acquired a selection of decadent corsets in poppy red, sapphire blue, vibrant pink and even rich black velvet. Had she wished, Polly had informed her mistress, she could have had stays made of the softest of leather, but here Kate drew the line. It was one thing to wear, under her gowns, the undergarments of the doxy her father believed her to be, but quite another to wear something which she was pretty certain belonged to more specialised, if unimaginable, tastes.

It was late, past midnight. Outside, the night was clear, the moon half full, casting an eerie glow over the grounds. She wondered what Virgil was doing. Still closeted with Giles discussing politics? Perhaps he had retired for the night. Was he sleeping? Lying awake? Was he thinking of her?

Kate gave herself a little shake. They would go to the school tomorrow, no matter that there were still a hundred things to be done at the Dower House. She sat down at the inlaid escritoire which faced the sashed window embrasure to write a note to the schoolmistress. Picking up a quill, she trailed the feather over her lips. He would have kissed her the other day. She could have cursed poor Mrs Stratton for her untimely arrival. Kate knew
she wasn’t a
femme fatale
. She was not even a
femme
a-little-bit-intriguing, but for some reason Virgil found her attractive. He had said so. He had shown her so. She was not imagining it.

She tried to remember how it had been with Anthony. She’d been curious, she’d even expected to find it enjoyable, and Anthony, as he had never tired of telling her, was a man with lusty appetites, so she’d been persuaded. It was the threat of those appetites being slaked elsewhere which had won her over. But she hadn’t ever been particularly moved by Anthony’s kisses, which even at the time had seemed perfunctory, something he felt obliged to do, but which were merely a precursor to the main event, like sitting through the farce before the play. Virgil’s touch had made her tingle in a way that Anthony’s never had. Virgil’s kisses were complete in themselves, not a means to an end. If she had not known herself better, she would almost have been able to convince herself that she would have enjoyed whatever Virgil decided to do next. Though she did know herself better.

‘If I didn’t know you better, I’d say the last thing you were thinking about doing with that feather was writing with it.’ Kate jumped. Polly was leaning against the window seat with that look in her eye which preceded something outrageous. ‘There’s men will pay good money to have a woman stroke them with a feather like that—or stroke themselves, depending. On the lips. Though not them lips,’ she added with a smirk.

Usually Kate found such insights embarrassing as well as incomprehensible, a fact which she was certain contributed to Polly’s persistence in sharing them with her. Not wishing to seem naive, she was wont to pass them off with a knowing laugh and change the subject, but tonight her curiosity got the better of her. ‘Why would they do that?’

‘Why? What do you mean, why?’

‘Tickle themselves. Why would that be—you know, why would a man pay to see that?’

Her previous pretences of understanding had obviously been too convincing. Her maid was looking at her in disbelief. ‘Well, you know.’

‘I really don’t,’ Kate said.

‘Lord Almighty!’ Polly plonked herself down on the window seat. ‘You mean you and that Lord whatshisname—him that you were going to marry— But I thought—I heard— They told me downstairs that he ruined you. Isn’t it true? What was his name?’

‘Lord Featherstone,’ Kate said.

Polly tittered. ‘That’s a bit of a coincidence,’ she said, looking meaningfully at the quill. ‘Isn’t it true, then? Didn’t you and him—
you
know!’

Kate blushed painfully. ‘There weren’t any feathers involved.’

Polly rolled her eyes. ‘Usually there aren’t. And it’s not tickling so much as— Do you mean to tell me you haven’t ever? Not with him? Not even by yourself? Never?’

If Polly was astonished, Kate was now utterly lost. ‘By myself? Without a man, you mean?’

‘For the Lord’s sake, Lady Kate, you don’t need a man to bring yourself off. Do you mean to tell me you haven’t ever? And that lord of yours, he didn’t do it for you either?’ Seeing her mistress’s blank face, Polly tutted extravagantly, sat down beside her and began to whisper.

By the time her maid had finished her explanation, Kate was fiery red and still not entirely sure what was being described, though she was certain it was something she’d never experienced. ‘Do you mean that
every
woman can—can…’

‘Well, not all the time,’ Polly said, drawing her an odd look. ‘If the man doesn’t—I mean, some men, they just don’t know their way around a woman. Listen…’

But as her maid, now she had recovered from her incredulity, determined to initiate Kate into what she obviously believed was some sort of natural rite, began to explain using even more graphic terminology, Kate stopped her. ‘I understand, really,’ she protested.

Polly shook her head. ‘Do you? Sounds to me as if that lord of yours is the one who didn’t understand. That Mr Jackson now,’ she said.

‘What about him?’

‘I bet he knows what’s what. Fine figure of a man, he is. And don’t say you haven’t noticed, because I know you have. I saw you looking at him the other day in the servants’ hall and I don’t blame you. I’d look myself if I thought it would do any good, but he’s not interested in me. Or Daisy—and that flighty piece has done her best to get his attention, thrust that chest of hers practically in his face, and he didn’t even notice. I bet if Virgil Jackson stripped down for you, it would, um, tickle you,’ Polly said with a leer. ‘I know it would tickle me. He’s got muscles on his muscles, your American. I’d like to see him work up a sweat. There’s something about a man working up a sweat, isn’t there?’

Was there? Kate decided not to answer this, but she thought most likely Polly was right. The candles on the mantel started to gutter, and she took the opportunity to cover her high colour by snuffing them out and telling her maid it was much too late to talk any more.

After Polly left, Kate, forgetting all about her note to the schoolmistress, discarded her kimono and pulled back the bed covers. The warming pan was cold. She hauled it out and placed it on the hearth. Jumping into bed, she blew out the last candle. In the all-encompassing dark, she snuggled down under the bedclothes and pressed her hands between her legs, and thought of Virgil, sweat, muscles and tickling.

* * *

Kate’s opportunity to discover for herself whether there really was, as Polly said, something about a man working up a sweat, came quite unexpectedly the next morning. Though she made a point of being down to breakfast early, Giles informed her that Virgil had already eaten.

‘Said he had business of his own he needed to take care of today,’ he told her.

‘What business?’

Giles shrugged. ‘I didn’t ask him.’

Kate’s hand hovered over the bread basket. The temptation to throw a roll at her brother was almost irresistible, but if Giles was teasing her, then he’d know he’d hit home, and if he was not, he’d wonder why she was so upset. She picked up the roll, but only to put it down on her own plate. ‘He didn’t give you any idea where he was going, then?’ she asked with studied indifference.