Anne Barbour (9 page)

Rose pursed her lips, but said nothing. She was a nondescript-looking woman, faded and dispirited—as Claudia saw it, living with Thomas for ten years had taken its toll—who seemed to disappear into whatever background she was set against.

“I say, Mrs. Carstairs,” a nasal voice piped up. Fletcher Botsford had seated himself next to Claudia on a straw-colored satin settee, and now captured her hand. “You’re looking, er, very nice.” He pressed a moist kiss on her fingers, and beamed nearsightedly at her.

“I’ll wager you were surprised to see Fletcher, what?” barked Thomas. “Had to winkle him away from the pleasures of city life, doncher know. The pretty ladies there don’t want to let him go.”

Botsford cast down his eyes modestly without relinquishing Claudia’s hand. Easing her fingers from his clammy grip, she smiled. “How nice to know you are wanted, Mr. Botsford,” she purred. “We will certainly understand should you wish to hurry back to Gloucester.”

Guiltily, she observed his painful blush. Fletcher was not a bad sort, after all, but Thomas surely must know by now that she had no intention of marrying the poor twit. Why did he keep forcing her into the young man’s company?
You know very well why.
The thought curled into her mind with cold irony. Even as she watched Thomas, his eyes flickered about the room in an unpleasantly proprietary manner.

A soft sound behind her caused her to twist in her seat, and her eyes widened. Proceeding majestically into the room, pushing a tea table laden with gleaming silver and china was January, garbed meticulously in all his butlered splendor.

“Madam wished tea?” he queried austerely. Claudia could only nod mutely as Miss Melksham unfolded her angular form and rose to wave him forward.

“Yes, indeed, January. Over here.” She turned to speak to Claudia with an air of elegant condescension. “Would you like me to pour, my dear?”

Claudia looked again at January, who raised his eyes to hers for one swift glance of humorous mockery. She nodded again. Thomas raised his quizzing glass to inspect Jem, who moved with smooth grace to distribute tea and cakes without so much as rattling the delicate Spode china of which Claudia was inordinately proud. “This the feller who replaced whatsizname?” asked Thomas.

“Morgan. He replaced Morgan,” replied Claudia, her fingers clenching.

“He seems very young.” This from Rose, surveying the young man as, with a respectfully lowered gaze, he bestowed a cup of Bohea on her.

“Yes,” replied Claudia somewhat unsteadily, “but he came to us with excellent references.” Only she observed the slight twitch that turned up the mouth of the seemingly oblivious butler.

January remained until the ladies and their guests had been served. Then, with a deferential bow, he glided silently from the room. Claudia breathed a grateful sigh.

“Seems to know his job, at any rate,” said Thomas expansively. “Glad you finally replaced whatsiz—er, Morgan. Now then,” he rubbed his hands together, “tell us how you’ve been going on? Have you settled anything with Foster about your sheep yet?”

Claudia, loathe to discuss her business affairs with her brother-in-law, turned an inconsequential answer, then searched for a topic with which to end the conversation.

She bent her attention to Rose. “George is becoming quite the little man, isn’t he? Perhaps later, when he is, er, cleaned up, I shall take him to the stable to see our new colt.”

“The stables!” cried Rose, with a little gasp. “I don’t think—”

“Colt?” rasped Thomas, as though she had not spoken. “Has Jenny foaled then?”

“Last night,” Claudia responded, allowing the pleasure of this thought to leaven her ill temper. “A little stallion. We’re very pleased.”

Thomas looked very pleased, himself, as though someone had just informed him he’d won the lottery. “If he’s well formed, we could get a pretty price for him from Selwyn Morthwaite,” he said eagerly. “You’ve met him—he lives not five miles from me.”

We? Claudia caught her breath in anger at his inadvertent slip.

“He’s not for sale, Thomas. We plan to use him for stud when Warlock is no longer capable. Jonah says he will—” 

  “Tchah!” interrupted Thomas. “Are you still listening to that old fool?”

In her armchair of emerald-striped silk. Rose twittered ineffectually, while Aunt Augusta stiffened. Claudia shot her a smiling glance as she rose to face her brother-in-law.

“I always listen to Jonah,” she said, her features a smooth mask except for tawny eyes that glittered dangerously. “He is, after all, well worth listening to.” With an effort she dropped the subject and gestured to Rose. “Now, I know you will wish
to
repair to your rooms. We have prepared the chambers you always use. Rose, George and Horatia will be in the nursery.”

Thomas opened his mouth as though he would say more, but after a glance at Claudia’s rigid form, apparently thought better of it. He rose and, offering his arm to his wife, made a dignified exit

Claudia sank back down in her chair. “Aunt, I am liable to do mischief to that man someday.”

“And I would enjoy helping you, my dear”—Miss Melksham enveloped her niece in an impulsive embrace—”but he is kin. Or at least, he’s married to your kin.”

Claudia gulped in wordless dismay. Rose was her only sister, though at nine years her senior, she had always seemed more like an aunt. An aunt, moreover, whose personality was the opposite of hers in every respect. Where Claudia was wild and stubborn to a fault, Rose was meek and biddable. Claudia, the rebel, vowed she would not be told whom to marry, while Rose at eighteen had blushed and declared herself more than willing to wed the prosperous landowner her father had chosen for her. There were other, less critical differences. Claudia loved books; Rose, except for the occasional volume on household advice was totally disinterested in them. Claudia loved long tramps in rain-washed, fragrant meadows; Rose squealed at the prospect of getting her feet wet. The catalog could be continued at some length, but Claudia preferred not to reflect any further.

She loved her sister, of course, but it took a great deal of effort sometimes to remember this fact.

Rising again, she smiled at her aunt. “But not nearly such beloved kin as you are, Miss Augusta Melksham. I am still thanking Providence that you agreed to come here and live.”

Miss Melksham, suffering a rare moment of discomposure, adjured her niece not to be a goose, and led the way from the room.

The rest of the day passed with little further event. As promised, Claudia took George, and Horatia, who insisted on accompanying them, to the stables to view Goblin. This resulted in Jonah’s taking unprecedented action when Master George insisted he be allowed to ride the little animal. The boy’s outraged screams when Jonah picked him up bodily and carried him from the building brought his mother on the run. She skidded to an abrupt halt when she reached the edge of the kitchen garden, and from the relative tidiness of its border, she railed first at Jonah and then at Claudia for allowing this attack on her son. Horatia provided an antistrophe of screeches and earsplitting demands for attention. Thomas, whether through determined deafness or disinterest did not appear, and without his bluster at her back. Rose soon subsided into a series of resentful sniffs. George and the iron-lunged Horatia eventually quieted as well. Claudia basely fled to her bedchamber.

Entering the dining room that evening, her eyes flew to Jem and as quickly turned to Thomas as that gentleman progressed directly to the chair at the head of the table. It was a source of intense irritation to Claudia, that it was Thomas’s habit to sit there when he visited. To keep peace in the family, she had never disputed his appalling presumption, but this night Jem was ahead of him. Placing his hands on the back of the chair, and thus making it inaccessible to Thomas, he waited until she approached before pulling it out with a flourish for her to be seated. Thomas reddened, and he swelled visibly, but said nothing, accepting with an air of bruised dignity the chair to Claudia’s right, drawn out for him with a profound bow by Jem.

From there, Claudia was pleased to note, dinner went much more smoothly. She was pleasantly surprised at the stature lent to her table by Jem’s presence. He had evidently coerced Lucas into service as a footman, although the only task entrusted to the young man was the carrying of food into the dining room and the removal of plates. January himself served each dish in turn, circling the vast table with inspired dignity, proffering the food as though he were ladling out precious gems.

As before, Claudia was vitally aware of Jem’s silent attendance—of his every move. She told herself that the heightened sense of vitality she felt whenever she was in his presence was due solely to her concern over his nefarious schemes.

“This is excellent soup,” remarked Rose in a tone of rather affronted surprise.

“Yes, Cook is famous for her vichyssoise.” Which might very possibly be true, reflected Claudia, except that she had certainly never prepared it before for the Carstairs family. She shot a sidelong glance at Jem, standing with unconscious grace at his position near the door. She rather thought it was he, rather than Aunt Augusta—who was not given to display— who had cozened the staff into providing this elegant feast. She breathed in the scent of the fresh-cut flowers that adorned the center of the board.

Her hand stilled in its course from her soup plate to her lips. The word she so often uttered when contemplating the mysterious Jem January—or Standish—leaped into her mind.
Why?
What possible difference could it make to him if Rose and Thomas Reddinger were served vichyssoise or mutton broth? Was it because he could not bear to see any standard beyond that of excellence prevail at his old home? She risked another peek toward the shadowy  figure by the door, but could find no enlightenment in her butler’s stony features.

Jem intercepted the glance, wondering what was behind it. The widow had been casting him some extremely odd glances all day, or at least during the portion of it that he had been given the opportunity to observe her. He watched her unobstrusively, noting the graceful tilt to her head as she maintained a courteous conversation with Thomas Reddinger. Lord, what a nodcock the man was. And yes, definitely as greedy a muckworm as any he’d ever seen—and God knew he’d seen quite a few. As for the other guests, Rose Reddinger was such a nonentity that it was hard to consider her as anything beyond a taker up of space, and Fletcher Botsford was enough to make a person cast up his accounts.

Botsford was seated on Miss Melksham’s left, but she might have been invisible for all the attention he paid her. His slightly protuberant eyes focused solely on his hostess, and he responded to her every word with a bray of laughter that set Jem’s teeth on edge. Lord, did the booberkin really believe he stood a chance with an incomparable like Mrs. Carstairs? Jem’s gaze caressed her again, following the pure line of her cheek to the delicate tracery of her lips, and down the slender column of her throat. The gown she wore tonight was the amber-colored affair she had worn the night before, and his breath caught as she moved slightly, causing the roundness of her breasts to shift enticingly under the silk. Abruptly, Jem came to himself as Lucas came to stand beside him, swearing softly under his breath in discomfort at the livery he’d been forced into.

After dinner, Thomas declined the port decanter and accompanied the ladies to the music room, where Rose favored the company with a selection of rigid little etudes that had Claudia yawning behind her teeth.

It seemed a small eternity to Claudia before Jem once more put in appearance with the tea table. It was a little early for this, the final refreshment of the day, and she shot him a glance of abject gratitude, which he returned with the merest lift of his brows.

Later, as she wearily crawled into bed, she wondered how she would manage to get through the next week or so. She supposed she should be grateful that, since they lived less than a day’s drive, the Reddingers did not stay long when they came. On the other hand, she thought wistfully, if they lived farther away, she might not have to see them so often. She shrugged her shoulders in a rueful gesture, realizing that the chances of her sister and brother-in-law moving to the Antipodes with their awful offspring were woefully slim. Yawning, she nestled her head in her pillow and prepared to give herself up to sleep.

But no.

She sat up. She had forgotten to tell one of the maids to leave a candle burning in the hallway outside Rose’s bedchamber. Being a light sleeper, it was her habit to rise frequently in the middle of the night to check on George and Horatia. The fact that Nanny Grample reposed in a room next door to the children, and could be depended on to awaken at a sound bore no influence with Rose.

“A child waking terrified in the dead of night requires the presence of his mother,” she was fond of saying in a tone of long-suffering sweetness. Privately, Claudia considered that it was the recounting of her nightly forays at the breakfast table, garnering murmurs of awed commiseration from her listeners, that provided the momentum for this evidence of maternal devotion.

No, she definitely had not given instructions for the candle, and in the morning Rose would comment plaintively on the oversight

Sighing, Claudia flung aside the covers, and, not bothering with robe or slippers, she lit her own bedside candle from the glowing embers in her fireplace and tiptoed from her room.

Moving quietly along the gallery that spread from the great staircase to create a balcony on the second level of the house, her gaze was caught by a flicker of light from below. Curious, she peered down into the cavernous blackness of the hall and discerned in a moment that someone was approaching from the service area.

With a quick breath, she extinguished her candle and waited. In a moment, a figure could be discerned walking swiftly into the huge chamber. His face was clearly visible in the pallid light surrounding him, and Claudia realized with a start that the late-night wanderer was Jem January.

Holding her breath, she watched him traverse the hall in his circle of light, moving with a silent intensity that brought her sharply to mind of a slender, elegant panther sliding through a midnight jungle,