Change of Address (3 page)

Isabel wore a look of pure skepticism. “One glimpse of a
pretty face and you are lost. I do not even want to think about the number of
town girls you must have fallen in love with at Oxford this past term alone.”

“They need furniture!” he blurted out, relieved to have
remembered something useful.

“The town girls in Oxford?”

“No, the Castling family.”

“Are the furnishings of the dower house not fine enough for
them? I’m sure they have seen a deal of use over the years but—”

He held up his hand to interrupt. “The furniture is not
merely worn, it’s missing entirely. Puckett must have taken it when he moved.
The wastrel probably told everyone Papa’d given it to him in recognition of all
the fine service he’s rendered to our family.”

She snorted in derision. “Service indeed. He’s fortunate
Papa did not cast him out years ago when his brother stopped paying the rent.
So now there is nothing left for the new tenants?”

“I told them you’d see to it all.” Now he wished he’d
offered to deal with the matter himself since it would give him an excuse to
visit the Castlings on a regular basis. “But if you’d rather not, then—”

“I would be quite happy to help refurnish the cottage.” She
nodded toward the cold, wet mass of fabric on the ground. “Why don’t you take
care of this mess, since you ordered it.”

“We must invite them to dinner.”

Isabel’s left eyebrow shot up. “A very pretty face, then. Or
is it her figure that you find so enticing?”

“I don’t recall her figure. And it is not as you suppose.
The Castlings are plainly genteel and an invitation to dinner is the least we
can offer since we’ve rented them an abode in such sorry condition.”

“Our agent reported Mrs. Castling to be somewhat
unconventional. Yet you found her genteel?”

“Well, I did not meet her, exactly.”

“I see.” His sister nodded as she started toward the front
door of the cottage. “Will tomorrow suffice?”

He fell in step with her. “They have nothing on which to eat
dinner
today
.”

She sighed. “You will be responsible for informing Cook.”

“That woman hates me.”

“There is nothing special about you. She hates everyone,
with the exception of Papa.”

“Then we’ll let
him
tell her we expect guests for
dinner.” He paused as they reached the heavy oak door. “I suppose we should
knock this time.”

“Oh heavens, you just burst upon them unannounced before,
didn’t you?”

He bowed. “I shall let you enter first.”

Isabel grimaced and shook her head. “They probably find you
as distasteful as Cook does.”

“That is scarcely possible.”

“True.” Isabel reached up to knock on the door. “Unless
you’ve already started breeding frogs in their soup kettles.”

“Of course not. They haven’t any soup kettles.”

The door opened inward with a sudden rush. “Who goes there?”
demanded a girl’s angry voice. A bristling bundle of thorny sticks appeared in
the doorway.

“You might want to take a step back,” he suggested, pulling
on the sleeve of Isabel’s redingote.

“It is Miss Hilliar,” she answered, ignoring his warning.

The bundle of sticks shook menacingly. “Haven’t heard of
you.”

“But my brother was just here.”

“Oh.” The bundle of sticks quivered uncertainly for a moment
then retreated, replaced by the round face of Miss Honoria. “Your brother never
gave us his name,” she explained.

“Did he not? How unaccountably rude of him.” Isabel turned
to him with narrowed eyes. “Her sister must have a very,
very
pretty
face,” she whispered.

“I couldn’t think clearly because of the smoke,” he
insisted.

“Honoria?” a female voice called from within. “Has Mama
returned or are you reenacting a scene from
The Tempest
again?”

“Neither. Mr. Hilliar is come once more, only we did not
know it was him the first time.”

He could not hear Miss Castling’s grumbled response, but it
did not sound as if his presence evoked happy thoughts in her bosom.

“And he’s brought a sister,” Miss Honoria added.

* * * * *

A sister.
That gave Amanda pause. The sister might be
a woman of sense, someone with whom she could converse—a possible friend.

Or she might be as witless as her brother. He seemed so slow
of understanding that she almost wondered whether he’d been dropped on his head
as an infant. But on reflection she decided it was simply the natural
inferiority displayed by all males. Her mother once said her beauty distracted
them, which, if true, just showed how weak and silly men could be.

She smoothed her skirt before stepping into their view and
making a simple curtsy. “Mr. Hilliar. We did not expect the pleasure of your
company again so soon. Surely you’ve not had time locate a sweep already?”

“Er, no. But I thought it best for you to make the
acquaintance of my sister while she was in the neighborhood. Miss Amanda
Castling, may I present Miss Isabel Hilliar?”

Miss Hilliar had a high forehead and narrow eyes but as she
stepped forward to give honors she moved with so much regal grace and bearing
that Amanda felt she was in the presence of nobility. Her own manners seemed
oafish by comparison and she found it most distressing that this lady should be
introduced to her when in all likelihood the introduction should have proceeded
the other way around.

“How do you do?” Miss Hilliar intoned in a rich, resonant
voice.

“Very well, thank you,” Amanda squeaked in response,
suddenly noticing a number of soot stains on her dove gray gown and wishing she
had not changed to half mourning quite so soon.

“We are so pleased to make your acquaintance.” All at once,
Miss Hilliar’s formality was erased by an embarrassed smile. “I hope you can
forgive our deficiencies as landlords. I will order some furnishings sent down
immediately.”

“You needn’t take any extra trouble on our account—” Amanda
had to stop the polite words that first sprung to her lips. “Actually, I would
appreciate it a great deal if you would take that trouble. We’ve no place to
sit.”

“You are welcome to accompany us back to our house to rest
while I have furniture installed here.”

Amanda would have loved nothing better than to accept Miss
Hilliar’s offer and spend the afternoon reclining on a sofa with one of her
favorite books. But she did not like the look of pity in Miss Hilliar’s eyes.

“Please, Miss Castling,” her brother added warmly. “I
insist.”

That settled the matter. Mr. Hilliar may be her landlord,
but he was in no position to give orders concerning her behavior. “I am
grateful for your offer,” Amanda said in a firm voice “but I really must attend
to matters here.”

“You must join us for dinner then,” he blurted out.

She eyed him for moment, trying to figure out just what did
not seem quite right about him. He looked well enough, his finely tailored
clothes were not overly stylish and he wore his curly dark hair in a natural
manner, not all puffed up as her cousins did.

“That offer I will accept,” she said at last. “Since we have
as yet not even the means to boil water for tea.”

“Oh yes, the sweep. I shall see to it straightaway.”

“At what hour do you dine?” she asked Miss Hilliar.

“We usually intend to dine at five.”

Amanda nodded and began calculating what time they would
need to start dressing.

“But,” Miss Hilliar continued, “Papa is seldom ready at that
hour and he displays more ire than we would wish when he is hurried, so Cook
endeavors to keep the dishes warm until he is down.”

“In other words, Miss Castling,” Mr. Hilliar said with a
smile, “you need not trouble yourself to be prompt.”

“Thank you?” She was not quite certain how to respond to
this information, but since her own mother’s return was unknown, some latitude
for lateness was a good thing.

It was something about the way he smiled at her that gave
the impression of having bacon for brains, she decided. She would avoid his
company as much as possible.

His sister, on the other hand, seemed an acquaintance worth
cultivating.

Chapter Two

Charlie tried not to wince as the odor of brined cabbage assailed
his nostrils. Cook had probably ordered the footman to place that bowl nearest
to him at the table knowing full well how much he despised the dish. And she
probably planned two cabbage dishes for Christmas dinner.

Not only did it taste and smell like something to be mucked
out of the stable, the wretched vegetable was well known to cause wind, too,
although it would not matter. He had no intention of eating any; moreover, Miss
Castling had seated herself at the opposite end of their ridiculously long
dining table.

What he remembered most from his first encounter with her
was her assurance, the ease, confidence and intelligence with which she spoke
and conducted herself, as if nothing in the world would be too great a
challenge for her to take on. But now with her at such a distance and her
conversation largely inaudible, it was her golden beauty that captured the
majority of his attention. He would try to memorize every detail and recount it
on paper later, when no one could see.

“Cabbage, sir?” Robin asked as he indicated the bowl just
out of Charlie’s reach.

“No thank you.” Even
her
surpassing beauty was
somewhat tainted by the thought of cabbage.

He wished they had taken dinner in the breakfast parlor as
they usually did. The enormous dining table left them split into two separate
parties clustered at opposite ends of the room. His father and sister conversed
merrily with Miss Castling down at one end while he suffered with cabbage and
the stick-wielding banshee at the other. He had not developed much acquaintance
with Mrs. Castling yet but from the conversation she carried on with her
younger daughter, he could well imagine the elder matron wielding her own
bundle of sticks. The unrelenting black of her dress made her appear
exceptionally fierce, though her features bore enough resemblance to her
daughter’s that he supposed she was too handsome to be considered a
full-fledged Amazon.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Hilliar, but I have been remiss in not
thanking you for your kind attentions this afternoon.”

It took him some moments to realize that Mrs. Castling had
stopped discussing Viking invasions with her daughter and was now addressing
him.

“Really,” he had to clear his throat, “it was the least I
could do. One does need furniture, after all.”

“No, of course we are grateful to you for providing
furnishings so quickly—your servants were already bringing in bed linens and
bolsters by the time I returned from the village—but I spoke of your attempt to
rescue my daughters from the fire.”

Heat crept up into his cheeks. “The fire that did not exist,
that is.”

“Well yes, but it was noble of you all the same. Honoria
told me all about the episode.”

He looked over at the girl assiduously sawing away at a
tough piece of mutton on her plate. Had she told her mother all about how he
had burst in unannounced and frightened them to the point that she’d felt the
need to arm herself?

Honoria looked up at him with a frank expression. “At first
we thought you were a loose screw but then I pointed out that there was rather
a lot of smoke and Amanda initially thought the house was on fire, too, so she
decided it was a reasonable mistake.”

“Did she?” Hope surged in his chest. Despite her perpetual
scowls at him, perhaps Miss Castling found him not so odious after all.

“Yes,” Honoria continued, tapping absently at the meat on
her plate, “and she said it was just like a man to believe women incapable of
removing themselves from danger so we should not think so much the worse of
you.”

“Oh.”

She laughed. “Did you really believe that if the house were
on fire we would just sit there with a lapful of embroidery?”

“No!” Here he had been trying to be helpful and they merely
saw his actions as an insult to their intelligence. “I did not think you would
be in the house at all, actually.”

Mrs. Castling offered a bemused smile. “Whom did you
expect?”

“The old dower house had been in the possession of the same
family for such a length of time,” he explained, “that I never considered we
might let it to someone else.”

“I see. You were well acquainted with the other family,
then?”

Heat seeped into his cheeks again. How could he explain the
difference between the Pucketts and the current tenants without calling
attention to their obviously reduced circumstances? Mrs. Castling’s black
bombazine plainly showed that the family had lost its primary means of support.

“In such close proximity,” he began, searching for words,
“we could of course not help but be well acquainted. Old Puckett was a groom my
father had known since his youth and it gave Papa great pleasure to have his
family inhabit the cottage. But his sons…did not show themselves to be cut of
the same cloth. Particularly the younger one.”

“Did they evince a tendency to sell other people’s
furniture?” Mrs. Castling asked with a twinkle in her eye.

“I have to confess it would not surprise me to learn that
Bartholomew Puckett sold off items piecemeal as the need arose. After his
brother died he had no one to keep his drinking in check and so remained
insensible most of the time. Papa always tried to watch out for his daughters,
of course, and now they’re all grown and off in service, except the youngest.
That was who I thought might still be in the house.” He turned to Miss Honoria.
“I believe she is probably about your age.” A lump rose in his throat as he realized
they no longer had the power to protect her from her father’s drunken rages or
any of the other consequences of his behavior.

“Well,” she opined, waving her fork, “if she is anything
close to my age she is well aware of the danger of fire and stood in no need of
rescue, so you needn’t have barged through the door without knocking. Amanda
thinks you’re a rattlepate but I wonder if you are not just an overbearing
landlord.”

“Honoria!” her mother admonished.

“What? You agreed with me.”

This time it was Mrs. Castling who flushed.

He couldn’t decide whether to attempt to defend himself or
call for more wine.

Fortunately—although the fortune was not necessarily good—he
was spared the necessity of reacting to these statements by the toasted half of
a Sally Lunn bun that hit him on the ear.

He touched the side of his head, brushing crumbs out of his
hair. “What the devil?”

“Charlie, my boy,” his father called from the other end of
the table. “I’ve been trying to obtain your attention for a time, times and half
a time.”

“Well, you have it now.”

“Damn this long table of your mother’s, I shouldn’t have to
interrupt my dinner to shout to my own son.”

“Or to throw the half of your dinner, either,” Charlie
added, grateful his father had a good enough aim to avoid hitting their guests.

Chair legs scraped against the floor as his father pushed
back from the table. “Let us move to where we can be in greater proximity to
our tablemates, shall we?” He grabbed his wineglass and waved to the footman in
the corner. “Come, Oliver, don’t just stand at your ease, help the ladies.”

Charlie jumped up to help—it would be no good having his
father spill claret all over their guests, after all.

But he was at a disadvantage at such a distance and had
barely traversed three steps before the butler Jameson entered the dining room
with a decanter of wine and blocked his path. The poor man visibly started at
the sight of his master tugging on one side of Miss Castling’s chair while his
junior footman struggled to wrest control of the chair without shaking the
young lady to bits.

Charlie decided to step back around the other end of the
table and assist his sister instead.

“Disgraceful, isn’t it?” he murmured to Isabel as he pulled
her chair away from the table.

“Really no more than I expected. You know Papa always drinks
more wine when we have guests.” She stood and paused before continuing in a low
voice, “I’ve never known him to throw food before, though.”

Charlie grinned as they made their way toward the other end
of the table. “He does not usually have such a fine opportunity. It is no
challenge to hit me with a toasted bun if I’m sitting at his side.”

“True enough.” His sister lowered her voice to a whisper.
“Though he directs his gallantry at Miss Castling, I believe he makes this
change in table arrangements to be seated closer to her mother. He’s asked no
end of questions about her.”

Charlie grimaced, not expecting his father to show such poor
manners. “She’s in
mourning
.”

“I don’t know.” To his surprise, Isabel did not share his
repulsion at their father’s interest. “She speaks like a woman who lost her
husband a great while ago.”

At this point he had reseated Isabel across from the chair
their father endeavored to pull out for Miss Castling. Since the esteemed head
of the household spent most of his attention focused on either their guests or
the wineglass he still clutched in his left hand, his efforts met with little
success until Miss Castling took the chair in hand, disentangled it from its
neighbor and pulled it out for herself.

Charlie started to smile as he realized that the new seating
arrangement placed Miss Castling’s chair right next to his, but as soon as the
hope of redeeming himself formed in his mind, it was vanquished by the sight of
his father seating himself in that chair, placing himself between Miss Castling
and her mother. He waved at Charlie’s plate. “Move this, will you Oliver, and
bring my plate ‘round. After you’ve brought the ladies theirs, of course.”

There was space on the other side of Miss Castling but no chair
so he would have to move one and that would look very forward when he could
have simply seated himself next to his sister. Did he care what Miss Castling
thought of him?

Unfortunately, yes. That look she gave him—as if he were a
clod of mud stuck to her shoe that wouldn’t quite come loose—would not likely
improve if he were to drag a chair next to hers.

And seated next to Isabel he would still be much closer to
their enchanting neighbor than he had been before.

He reached over his father’s shoulder to pick up his
wineglass, helped himself to more wine from the sideboard and stepped around to
sit down next to his sister.

“This is almost as bad as having to stand up with me at a
dance, isn’t it?” she whispered.

“No. Here you cannot step on my toes.”

“Yes I can.” She tried to demonstrate but he slid to the
side and avoided her.

Miss Castling looked at them strangely from across the table
and Charlie almost hoped his father would start throwing bread again.

He did at least bring attention to himself by clearing his
throat. “So Mrs. Castling,” their father said with a jovial smile, “I hope you
will not consider it untoward, given the recent nature of our acquaintance, but
we would be so pleased if you would join us for Christmas dinner.”

“Oh no, Mr. Hilliar,” she insisted with a firmness very much
like that of her daughters. “We could not impose on your household in such a
fashion. Why, Christmas is the day after tomorrow. I’m sure your cook has half
the dishes already prepared.”

His father waved off her objection. “Nonsense, the woman
loves a challenge.”

A nearly audible sigh was felt around the room, from the
butler and footman to his sister and himself. That Cook hated guests was well
known throughout the household to everyone but their father. She would exact
her revenge with burnt toast and soured puddings for everyone else, but Mr.
Hilliar would never know the extent of her ire.

“Besides,” the esteemed head of the household continued
after a mouthful of collared beef, “with the day so close you have no time to
get your kitchen settled in order to prepare a proper dinner. You’ve not even
time to hire a cook, let alone train one.”

Mrs. Castling swallowed with obvious discomfiture as if this
thought had occurred to her too. She had no ready answer.

“We do not require a state dinner, we have very simple
tastes.” Miss Castling said calmly, resting her fingers around the stem of her
wineglass with an elegant nonchalance that seemed to belie her professed
simplicity. She looked pointedly at him. “So long as we can build a fire, we
shall manage.”

“We will?” Her sister looked dubious. “We none of us know
how to cook.”

“I know a great deal more than you realize,” Miss Castling
shot back, “and I thought
you
wanted to be a pioneer.”

“Oh, you are right. We can forage for food.” Honoria
returned her attention to her pudding.

Mrs. Castling, however, was not reassured so easily. She
seemed torn by her desire for independence and the obvious practical need that
required her to depend on her new neighbor.

Her elder daughter evinced no such hesitation. “Mama, you
suggested that we needed to think more like Honoria. She is prepared to get our
own Christmas dinner, so we must. It will be the first in our new home.”

“Very well then, Mr. Hilliar,” she said with reluctance and
a certain amount of surprise, “we decline your very kind offer to dine with you
on Christmas.”

“What?” His face grew red. “B-but that’s ridiculous! My
dears, you know that—”

Mrs. Castling held up her hand. “Once our minds are set
there is no changing them, I’m afraid. Now what can you tell us of the
neighborhood?”

The indignation with which he received the decline of his
invitation gradually faded as Mr. Hilliar was drawn into a discussion of
whether Mrs. Castling’s mare might take the hedge on the west side of the property.

For the remainder of the meal conversation was dominated by
the two elders and even when Isabel tried to draw out Miss Castling or her
sister, she succeeded in obtaining answers so brief they were just barely
civil.