Heirs of Acadia - 03 - The Noble Fugitive (24 page)

Falconer ate his breakfast as the carriage wound its way through mist-clad London. Mattie had thrust a second basket of food into the hands of the two ladies, but they were too distracted to eat yet. They talked endlessly, but Falconer remained silent. He ate his meal and inspected the man seated across from him. Daniel had the look of someone who knew his way around a fight. Falconer found enough comfort in Daniel’s presence to allow himself to fall into a deep and dreamless sleep.

He awoke to their jouncing passage through a little stone village. He plucked out his vest watch and had difficulty focusing upon the numbers. He held the watch to his ear.

“You have slept eight hours, Captain Falconer.”

Falconer wiped his face with his hands and peered from the window. “Captain no longer, ma’am. I am merely acting as your husband’s manservant, Lady Powers.”

“I bear no titles. And I doubt very much that a man of your bearing is anyone’s servant.”

Falconer started to deny it, then recalled whose wife this was. “There is much truth to your words.”

She lifted the basket lid. “I see there are still some victuals, if you are hungry.”

“Indeed, ma’am. Thank you.”

“Tell me of your crossing, please.”

“Nineteen days from the Potomac River’s mouth to Portsmouth.” The biscuit crumbled in his lap as well as his mouth. “Had I not been aboard myself, I would not have dreamed it possible.”

“And Gareth? What can you tell me of him?”

He took in the way she twisted her kerchief in her lap. The edges of her mouth were crimped with strain, and her eyes
were clouded with fatigue on a journey filled with unanswered questions. “He is a most remarkable gentleman, ma’am.”

“I meant in regards to his health.”

“He has been sorely tried. But I trust he shall recover.”

“And Hannah?”

Falconer smiled. “I fear I am held captive by your daughter.”

“She—” Then something beyond the window caught her eye. “Are those the Harrow gates?”

Falconer had no idea, as his previous visit had been in utter darkness. But the carriage knew its way and made the wide turning. The graveled lane ran straight and true beneath a double parade of elms. “A place of wealth and power,” he murmured.

“And history,” Erica Powers added. “There are so many tales about this place and the people who have made their home here. The current lord of Harrow Hall is a fine man, a wool merchant and weaver from Gloucester. He is a good friend of ours, a believer and an ally in our struggle. And a supporter of Wilberforce. I understand you know Wilberforce.”

The driveway stretched ahead, seemingly without end. Falconer craned and spotted a deer in the distance. “Only by name, ma’am. I have never laid eyes on the man.”

Erica was so intently focused upon the empty lane ahead she may well have not heard Falconer’s answer. “The last earl of Harrow lost his titles and his land when he backed the American colonies in the war for independence,” she murmured. “Charles was his name, and we were distant relatives.” The way she twisted her handkerchief, the manner in which she craned her neck to see ahead, it was doubtful the woman heard even her own words. “The current lord acquired the house from the Crown some twelve years back . . . There!” She leaned forward. “Finally! The house! Oh hurry, driver! Please hurry!”

Before the carriage had swung around the forecourt and
halted, Erica Powers had opened the carriage door and stumbled down its steps. She ran across the gravel, calling, “Gareth! Hannah! Where are they? Where is my family?”

Daniel leaped down from the carriage and watched the two women disappear into the great house. “I reckon they’re safe enough here,” he said to Falconer.

“I should agree.”

“You look better rested.” Daniel studied Falconer. “My gut tells me the major has found himself a battle-hardened ally.”

It was rare that Falconer had to look up into the face of any man. “The major, you say?”

“We still call him such, those who served with him in the regiment. The major doesn’t take to it, so we speak differently when we address him.”

Falconer nodded slowly. “Gareth Powers is an uncommon man by any measure.”

Further discussion was halted by the appearance of an older gentleman at the top of the stairs. “Here now, what’s this?” The older man wore an impeccable dark suit, the long tails of his coat dangling below his knees. In the front it fitted around his ample girth with a double row of polished silver buttons. His muttonchops were a hand’s breadth in width and added severity to the scowl. “I run a proper household here. Proper, do you hear me? Menservants are not permitted to loiter about the forecourt discussing the weather!”

He halted on the last step but one, so that he was able to stare down his nose at the two taller men. “Your names, if you please!”

“Daniel and Falconer, sir.” The big man answered for them both.

“Which of you is assigned to the ailing gentleman and his daughter who arrived last night?”

When Falconer chose to remain silent, Daniel offered, “He is, sir.”

“And you, I gather, are the only escort the newly arrived ladies elected to bring along?”

“That is correct, sir.”

“A sorry state of affairs. What with my staff already stretched to the limit.”

“We left in a bit of a rush, sir.” Daniel had retreated to parade-ground formality.

The older man sniffed loudly. “I am Cuthbert. The lord’s chief butler. I am not someone you wish to get on the wrong side of. Is that clear enough?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Then you will unload those bags and carry them to the guests’ rooms. Their apartments are located in the Jacobean Wing.” He swung himself about. “His lordship likes to dine early. They are expected to table at the stroke of six of the clock.”

Daniel waited until the ponderous old man had slammed the front door to ask, “Where were we?”

Falconer smiled. “Allies.”

“Right.” Daniel did a slow turn, studying the ground with a soldier’s eye. “Looks quiet enough hereabouts.”

“We were attacked in Georgetown Harbor. Three men. Armed with smooth bore rifles. It was a close-run thing.”

“You think you were tracked here?”

“My guess is, word would not have reached these parts yet. Our crossing was uncommon swift. But I’d say it’s only a matter of a week. Perhaps less.” Even so, Falconer felt a hint of trouble. There was no reason for it. He had just said it himself. But the feeling gnawed at his innards.

“I’d best go off-load these wares and see to the family,” Daniel said. “You coming?”

“In a minute.” Falconer felt drawn by what he could not name. “I want to have a look around.”

“Take in the field of fire,” Daniel agreed. “Meet here in an hour?”

“By the stables,” Falconer replied. “No need to draw the butler’s ire.”

Chapter 17

Serafina’s days remained a blur of work and weariness. She rose before the dawn, awakened by the clamor of the household staff coming to life. The youngest cook rose earlier still, lit the main stoves, and set a great iron vat of tea to simmer. There was always a basket of bread husks set on the table, made by slicing the previous day’s bread and leaving it on cooking pans overnight by the dimming fire, the last duty of the last cook each evening. The various maids and houseboys and gardeners came stumbling in each morning and wordlessly took a cup and a husk of toasted bread. They stood about and slurped their tea and ate the piece of bread without speaking or hardly even glancing about them. Mrs. Marcham arrived and issued terse instructions for the day. Soon enough they scattered to the morning’s first duties.

Harrow Hall held eleven great rooms plus a large front foyer with marble fireplaces at either end. Each morning Serafina swept all the fireplaces. She then carried the ashes out to the compost heap behind the farthest barn. The fireplaces were scattered about the manor’s first and second floors, and emptying all thirty-four and bringing in fresh wood required more than two dozen trips to and from the barn. She climbed upwards of forty flights in the morning and the same number again each evening.

As the household gradually came to life and the fires were set, Serafina’s duties shifted from the manor to the kitchen stoop. She and two of the youngest footmen cleaned and polished the women’s shoes and gentlemen’s boots, as many as fifty pairs if there were guests. When these were finished, she polished cutlery and silverware. The two boys, both aged thirteen, would snigger and whisper as they worked alongside her. Serafina suspected they talked about her, but she did not bother to find out.

At four o’clock each afternoon, the staff was summoned by the ringing of a large bell. They gathered at two kitchen tables opposite the main stove. The larder was behind one locked door by the men’s table, the sugar storeroom by the women’s table. When Mrs. Marcham had discovered that some of the younger lads were being jostled and kept from eating their fill at the men’s table, she made room for them at the women’s table.

There was a general rush for places, as the tables were not large enough to seat all fifty-one of the household staff. Those who came late, including the men summoned from the farthest fields, either sat on benches lining the wall or squatted in the doorways. But there was always enough food for everyone. Mrs. Marcham saw to that. Several times Serafina heard the servants talk of how the lord kept a good table, all watching Mrs. Marcham as they said it. This was as close as any came to praising their mistress.

Their afternoon dinner consisted of a large dish of stew or a big joint of cold beef or lamb or pork, served with bread and cheese. On Saturdays the pastry cook brought out steaming trays of fruit cobbler and clay jugs of fresh cream to pour over each portion. After dinner the senior staff returned to their chambers and dressed for the dinner service. When he was well enough, the lord often entertained guests from nearby estates or up from London for a visit to the English countryside. Serafina did duty as a dishwasher. She was rarely in bed before midnight. The hour before dawn, it started all over again.

If she started to enter a great room and heard talk, she quietly backed out unseen. She had never even met the lord of the manor. The wife she had seen occasionally and once been introduced to her by the cook. But it was unlikely the frail woman even noticed Serafina. She had been preoccupied with that evening’s meal, as one of their guests was to be a Cabinet minister. Serafina worked through her days with her eyes downcast.

Her duties were so overwhelming she rushed about in a haze of constant fatigue. Her body ached horribly the first week, but gradually she grew accustomed to the chores and the strain. Serafina’s greatest difficulty was her hands. Carrying the heavy baskets rubbed them horribly. Harry showed her how to wrap her hands with rags to cushion them against the basket’s chafing, and this helped some. Yet washing dishes softened the hands and opened the blisters. In truth, she did not mind either the pain or the chores. They kept her mind occupied and away from the ache at the core of her being.

She had Wednesday afternoons and Sunday mornings free. She spent most of these hours in bed, sleeping with the same desperate insistence of a starving woman being offered extra food. Her exhaustion became almost a friend, for it held back the nightmares. But she often woke with her face streaked by tears and her heart’s wound reopened by dreams she could not remember.

Serafina spoke hardly at all. She had no friends among the staff. The other servants accepted her silence as simply her most obvious trait. That and her beauty. She could feel the men watching her sometimes. But as she was Mrs. Donatella’s niece, they left her alone.

She occasionally caught a glimpse of the young lord of the manor. Whenever Serafina spotted him, she slipped away as quickly and unobtrusively as she could. Occasionally she had the feeling he was stalking her—taking his time, moving with the calm patience of a predator who had marked his prey. She was frightened of him but did not know what else to do besides flee.

On her free afternoons and mornings, Serafina awoke from her comatose slumber and went to the kitchen. Staff were permitted to stop by for bread and cheese and tea on their half days, so long as they stayed out of the cooks’ way. Serafina took her chipped mug and her slice of fresh-baked bread and wedge of good Cheshire cheese into the corner between the front entrance and the tunnel stairs. She stood
and watched the red-faced kitchen staff move in easy concert, their heads wreathed by smoke from the fire or steam from the great stew vats. They worked as hard as any of the staff, yet seemed to always have time for a nice word. When she had made her tea last as long as she could, Serafina went for a visit with her aunt.

Twice each week she visited Aunt Agatha, who had been given a pair of rooms on the ground floor of the old manor. Several times Serafina had intended to speak with Agatha about her concern over the young lord. But the older woman was never alone. She had many friends among the staff, and they were constantly dropping by for a chat. Agatha showed a stern visage toward her niece, a silent warning for Serafina to remember her place at all times, particularly in front of the other servants. Serafina’s worries remained unspoken.