A Sister's Secret (33 page)

‘Every family owns another family, a family of Negro servants?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, Annabelle will come round.’ The captain dipped into the hamper and came up with a jar of creamy mussels. He broke the red wax seal with a kitchen knife, prised up the large cork and smelled the contents. Caroline watched as he spooned out mussels and popped them into his mouth. ‘Delicious,’ he said, and sat down at the table with the jar and spoon.

‘Please, if you are hungry,’ said Caroline, ‘I’ll prepare a proper meal for you.’

‘We ain’t come down to having you set a table,’ said Captain Burnside. ‘No, not the thing at all.’

‘But without servants, we are all doing something. Do you think I could not set a table?’

‘I ain’t allowing it,’ said Captain Burnside, eating mussels.

The challenging light appeared in Caroline’s eyes. ‘I declare you out of order, sir.’

‘Marm, you may declare night is day, but I still ain’t allowing you to set tables.’

‘Captain Burnside, if I will, I will, and there is no more to be said on the subject. And please do not call me marm.’

‘Your Ladyship—’

‘Nor that,’ she said. ‘We are surely friends now, aren’t we? And there is some good in you, I know there is. So you may call me Caroline.’

‘No, it won’t do,’ said the captain, ‘except in front of Annabelle, or your friends. It would never do to become familiar with a patron. No, it shall be businesslike between us all the way, and when all is over, done and settled, marm, I shall depart in the agreed fashion, taking no advantage of Annabelle – and you, I hope, will be free of problems and worries, though lighter of two fifty guineas and expenses.’

Caroline stared down at him, appalled by such unfeeling matter-of-factness. ‘Captain Burnside, I can scarcely believe my ears,’ she said. ‘I have never required our relationship to be as businesslike as that.’

‘Marm, I fancy you made it clear at the beginning, which was wise and sensible of you.’

Caroline made an angry gesture. ‘Will you stop calling me marm?’ she breathed. ‘I detest the word, it is unctuous and unappealing. The beginning is irrelevant. It is the present that counts. Oh, I vow you a miserable and difficult man to put me in such annoyance and irritation with you, for you know very well things have changed. I won’t have you speak of being businesslike, no, sir, I will not. Was it businesslike to dance as you did at the ball with Annabelle, and make it such a joyful and exhilarating occasion for her?’

‘Surely, dear lady,’ said Captain Burnside, frowning at the mussels, ‘that was only as I was required to.’

‘Oh, you wretched man, was it also required of you to stand up with me in the cotillion? Was that an act of business you felt obliged to effect?’

‘That, Your Ladyship, was perfection, but it still won’t do, d’you see, for a patron to offer more than the terms of the contract.’

‘Oh!’ Caroline’s be-aproned bosom surged in an excess of stormy emotion. ‘Go about being miserably businesslike, then, for if you have no friendly regard for Annabelle and me I shall return to London, taking her with me, and Cumberland may do his worst!’

Captain Burnside stood up. ‘Cumberland will,’ he said, ‘so you shan’t.’

‘Shan’t?’ Caroline was fiercely glad he was on his feet. On his feet, he was easier to challenge, better to confront, to stand up to. ‘Who are
you
, sir, to say what I shall or shan’t do?’

‘Lady Caroline,’ he said firmly, ‘there’s no use your stamping your foot and waving your arms about, for you ain’t going back to London, and that’s flat.’

Electrified into incensed action, Caroline did what she had done before. She slapped his face. She had to, or else feel reduced to a spiritless creature only able to say yes or no to him.

Captain Burnside received the slap with frank surprise. ‘Damn me,’ he said.

‘Yes, you may well be damned, Captain Burnside, for your miserable lack of simple affection and your provoking excess of outrageous impertinence.’

‘Simple affection?’ he said, rubbing his tingling jaw.

‘Yes!’ Caroline was beside herself, and the more so because her angry emotions did not make sense. But there it was, she was unbearably wounded by his declared intention to depart and disappear once the venture was
over. ‘Annabelle has been sweet to you and sung your praises to our friends, and I have taken your welfare to my heart, worrying myself dreadfully that you may end up being hanged or transported. We have both earned some little affection, and it is of all things hateful of you to speak so coldly and unfeelingly.’

‘Oh, ye gods,’ said Captain Burnside, and eyed her in utter consternation, for his proud and magnificent patron was in stormy upset. ‘May the devil himself claim me if I’ve offended you. Marm – Caroline – not for the world would I consciously do so.’ In his contrition he took her hand and lifted it to his lips. ‘I beg your sweet forgiveness.’

Caroline, head bent, eyes hidden, said unsteadily, ‘I will forgive you if you will promise never again to suggest Annabelle and I cannot be your friends. And you must also promise to give the most serious consideration to letting me help you live an honest and commendable life. It is in you to live very commendably instead of wasting your talents.’

‘Well, I shall even consider taking a rosy-cheeked Sussex wife,’ said the captain quite earnestly, at which she cast a shocked look at him. What was he about now in speaking of wedding a simple country girl? Such a wife would never do for him. Then she remembered it had been her own suggestion. How could she have been so absurd?

‘You may consider that,’ she said, ‘but need not promise.’

‘Then I shan’t,’ he said with a smile, ‘for if I did I’d be committed, and it ain’t quite the sort of thing on which to commit oneself. Now, may I hope you’ll forget what you said about returning to London? I don’t wish to be guilty of further impertinence, which I will be if you don’t reconsider, for you can take it from me I ain’t going to let you go, nor Annabelle.’

Caroline said in a low voice, ‘I have been graceless again. You have come all this way to see if we are safe and sound, and I have only given you a quarrel.’

‘Oh, a few spirited words,’ he said, ‘and there were also some excellent mussels.’

Caroline smiled then, although a little uncertainly. She could not make head nor tail of her recent emotions and tempers, nor why he aroused them so quickly in her.

Annabelle reappeared, wearing a fresh gown of blue, her face newly powdered. ‘Caroline, isn’t it all of a pleasure to have Charles here?’ Her blue eyes sparkled. It dismayed Caroline intensely, the certainty that Captain Burnside had succeeded with her sister. ‘It isn’t nearly so boring now,’ said Annabelle. ‘All the same – oh!’ The door bumped her back as it was pushed open by a basket of logs. The basket preceded Jonathan, who was carrying it. ‘Oh, you unmannerly brute,’ cried Annabelle, ‘must you throw doors bruisingly open?’

‘Humble apologies, my infant,’ said Jonathan cheerfully.

‘
Infant?
’ gasped Annabelle.

‘So sorry,’ said Jonathan. He placed the basket down on the stone hearth of the stove. In his shirtsleeves and minus his cravat, his hair damp at the roots, he looked warm from the sun and from the toil of splitting logs. ‘I trust you ain’t uncommonly bruised, Miss Howard? Beg to say hello, Charles.’

‘H’m,’ said Captain Burnside.

‘I shall discover myself black and blue,’ declared Annabelle hotly. ‘Charles, see what a ruffian you have attached to us. Oh, I meant to ask you, have you come to take us back to London?’

‘No, he ain’t,’ said Jonathan, ‘it can’t be done.’

‘I was not addressing you, Mr Carter,’ said Annabelle, and looked proudly pretty in her haughtiness.

‘It still can’t be done,’ said Jonathan.

‘Well, it’s true it wouldn’t be wise to return yet,’ said Captain Burnside, and Caroline thought how cool and collected he always was. Such redoubtable assets for a man of his kind. Oh, why did he have to be a trickster?

‘But, Charles,’ protested Annabelle, ‘I’m sure the Duke of Cumberland can’t be a danger to us. I’m sure you are wrong about him, sweet though you are.’

‘Bless us,’ said Jonathan, ‘is my hearing faulty? Sweet, did you say, Miss Howard?’

‘Captain Burnside is a gentleman, sir, which you are not,’ said Annabelle.

‘Well, I ain’t sweet, and that’s a fact,’ said Jonathan. He looked at Captain Burnside. ‘Sweet, oh Lord,’ he said, and laughed.

‘Kindly go away,’ said Annabelle.

‘Shall we go together?’ suggested Jonathan. ‘Will you come and help me split logs?’

‘Oh, I declare! You all will provoke me into flying back to London.’

‘In which case,’ said Jonathan, ‘I’d have to fly after you and carry you back here. Orders from Charles, don’t you see. He ain’t quite as sweet as all that.’ And Jonathan departed whistling.

‘I vow I shall scratch that creature’s eyes out,’ breathed Annabelle.

Caroline said to the captain, ‘You have given Mr Carter orders to restrain Annabelle forcibly in certain circumstances?’

‘Caroline, such a question,’ said Annabelle. ‘Charles would never allow anyone to lay rough hands on me, would you, Charles?’

‘Ah,’ said Captain Burnside and made a critical inspection of pots and pans.

‘And did such orders embrace me?’ asked Caroline.

The captain, studying an iron pot as if it were grievously suspect, cleared his throat and murmured, ‘Do excuse me while I look around.’ His exit from the kitchen was effected smoothly.

‘Mercy me,’ laughed Annabelle, ‘I do believe he has elected to be stern and masterful.’

‘Your sweet gentleman has only elected to be evasive, sister,’ said Caroline.

‘Yes, he isn’t at all like your agreeable Mr Wingrove,’ said Annabelle, and eyed Caroline a little teasingly. ‘He would surely make a delicious husband, don’t you think so?’

‘For whom?’ asked Caroline, resuming her unpacking of the food basket.

‘Why, dearest, for you, of course.’

‘That is not very amusing,’ said Caroline.

‘Then for me,’ smiled Annabelle, and Caroline thought that even less amusing.

Captain Burnside, having established that the cottage was no citadel, that it was a safe retreat only while the presence of its occupants remained unknown to Cumberland’s hirelings, decided for his own peace of mind to investigate the situation at Great Wivenden. He needed to find out if Cumberland had come to the natural conclusion that Lady Caroline and Annabelle had fled in fright to Great Wivenden. If so, his cut-throats might be in the vicinity already. It would be as well to know.

The captain decided to investigate after supper. Meantime, he had taken over the task of splitting logs. The kitchen stove was huge and ravenous, and Lady Caroline insisted that a constant supply of hot water be available. He had asked Jonathan to turn his hand to the lighter chore of preparing supper, with Annabelle’s help. Annabelle, quite unused to kitchen work, or any kind of labour, had scarcely been able to believe he could command this of her. Moreover, there was the entirely repellent aspect of having to share this domestic ordeal with the utterly horrid Jonathan. For his part, Jonathan accepted the situation cheerfully.

But it provoked a further altercation between Caroline
and the captain, though not such a stormy one as the first. She elected to confront him in the little wooded area that bounded the back garden, where he was splitting the logs in a clearing. With his coat and cravat off, his shirtsleeves rolled up, he looked a man of lean, strong sinews.

‘Captain Burnside?’ There she was, before him, tall, proud and challenging.

‘Marm? Ah – Caroline?’

‘Mr Carter and Annabelle have taken over my kitchen.’

‘Have they? Yes, I believe they have.’

‘It happened while my back was turned,’ she said.

‘Well, since they offered to prepare supper—’

‘No, Captain Burnside, they did not offer. They were commanded by you, and Annabelle is horrified that you insisted on incarcerating her with the ruffianly Mr Carter. And I am very vexed, sir, that preparation of our supper has been taken out of my hands behind my back.’

Captain Burnside examined the cold chisel and said, ‘Assure you, not consciously, no, not at all.’

‘Very consciously,’ said Caroline, the confrontation a compulsive thing. ‘Will you kindly explain?’

‘You’ll not mind that I’ve set Sammy peeling potatoes outside the woodshed?’

‘No, I do not mind that at all, though your question neatly avoids your giving an answer to mine.’

‘H’m,’ said the captain, and wedged the chisel in a log.

‘I have remarked to my sister that you can be very evasive,’ said Caroline. Sunlight filtering through the trees dappled her hair with fiery glints. ‘Do you intend to explain why you frustrated my wish to prepare the supper myself?’

‘Oh, it was merely a matter—’ The captain broke off to give the chisel a light tap with the hammer. Insecurely wedged, the chisel jumped free. Caroline hid a smile.
She moved forward, her feet entering a pile of chips and splinters. She stooped and retrieved the chisel. She wedged it again and held it firmly. She was down on one knee in the drippings.

‘Strike again,’ she said.

‘Faith, no, not with your hand there,’ he said, looking down at her like a man uncertain of their relationship.

‘Well, you were saying, Captain Burnside?’

‘Ah, yes, that it was merely a matter of establishing what was right and proper.’

Caroline laughed, her hand still around the wedge. Again there was this enjoyment of being in challenging dialogue with him. ‘You are not a man to worry about what is right and proper,’ she said. ‘I can prepare a meal and set a table, and there is nothing wrong about that.’

‘So you have said,’ conceded the captain, ‘but I ain’t having it.’

‘Sometimes, sir,’ she retorted, ‘I have the greatest difficulty in convincing myself that what I have heard is what you have said. I am my own mistress. Do you understand?’

‘Perfectly,’ said Captain Burnside, ‘but it’s still a question of what’s right. I ain’t having you sweep floors, scrub pots and pans, and peel potatoes. Jonathan and Sammy can attend to all that, with Annabelle’s help.’