Kissed by Starlight (28 page)

“It’s not we only, miss,” the maid said. “She’s been and dismissed most all the indoor staff and more ‘n a few of them outside. She says she don’t need half zo many no more, now that yer father’s a dead ‘un, that is.”

“A foolish economy,” Mr. Varley mourned. “If Hamdry Manor is permitted to go to wrack and ruin through neglect, it will take a powerful lot of brass to shine it up again.”

“Wouldn’t zurprise me none if she cleared out with what she can carry,” William the Footman said darkly. “You can’t get from it. She’s no true Stavely, not in my book.”

“William, you exaggerate,” Felicia said sternly.

Perhaps not sternly enough, for the young man went on, “Not a zoul about to keep an eye on her but that Mr. Ashton, what she has in her pocket, and some doddering ol’ trustee up in Lundon-town.”

Felicia never failed to be amazed by what the servants picked up. No one could suspect them of listening at keyholes, and yet William knew the terms of her father’s will. No doubt the entire servants’ hall knew to a penny what her own personal settlement was to be.

Mr. Varley said, looking down at his hands on the tabletop, “It’s not so easy to get a new position at my age. Never did I think I’d live to see the day I’d be turned out of Hamdry. Man and boy, I’ve always had the best interest of the Stavely family at heart.”

“There now, Varley, her ladyship is bound to give you a glowing reference,” Felicia said. She didn’t say so, but she meant to see to that personally, if it meant she had to take up one of her former duties and write the letters herself. Felicia was a trifle surprised that Lady Stavely had roused herself enough to dismiss so many people, face-to-face.

Varley’s troubled eyes rolled toward her. He had always been suspicious of her, keeping a sharp eye on her whenever she might stop to speak to one of the young men under his charge. Now he seemed on the verge of speaking more emotionally than was proper for a butler to a daughter of the house, no matter how irregular she was. But all he said was, “You’re very kind, miss.”

“If only Lady Clarice was in charge! She'd  niver zee us thrown out and our families left to starve!” A strong mutter of agreement arose at William the Footman’s outcry. “What’s to come to my poor mother? Five at home, miss, and my wages not comin’ no more. It’ll be the sea for me. Ever since my brother Jemmy was drownded, that’s her mortal fear.”

“I’ll call on your mother,” Felicia said rather feebly. “Perhaps she can help with the mending even more than she does now. If the linen-maid is to be dismissed too, there’ll be more for your mother to do.”

Lena said, “That’s all right for him, but what’s to happen now you’ve gone, miss?” The screaming fit having passed off, her face had lost some of its harsh redness. “You has your hands full with that there orphanage over to Tallyford, and a nastier, dimmer, dirtier place I never care to lay m’eyes on.”

“We’ve improved it past all knowledge,” Felicia boasted.

A sharp bang on the door made them all look around. The chambermaid came in talking. “I’m shamed t’be a woman,” Rose said dramatically, shaken out of her meekness for once, “if there be such creatures as that sharin’ the name!”

“Not you too,” Felicia said.

“Iss, fai! Just now on t’upper landin’. She comes oilin’ out, all smiles but sharp as cheese! Feels I’m not goin’ to be happy at Hamdry now master’s dead. Wants me to know what a valuable servant she finds me and hopes I’ll be happier elsewhere. She’s the one that ought to be happier elsewhere — somewhere hot!”

It might fall under the heading of gossiping with servants, but Felicia found herself musing aloud, “Why is she dismissing you all personally? I would have thought....”

“That she’d find some way of shufflin’ the dirty work off onto someone else now you’re gone, miss?”

“Surely, Mr. Ashton is the proper person.”

Cook sniffed. “It’s my opinion that she likes it. There was a wicked, gloating look in them tiny little eyes when she said she was letting the rest of you go, and on that I’ll take my oath!”

Felicia said to Rose, “Lady Stavely is upstairs?”

“ ‘At’s right, miss.”

“Where’s Lady Clarice?”

“In her room. Zick, her ladyship says.”

“Sick?”

Alarmed now, Felicia hurried up the stairs. Her dark suspicions of Lady Stavely conspired with her imagination to present a series of pictures that would have done justice to a nightmare. Clarice poisoned, lying pale and wan across her bed; Clarice starved or drugged. Even as she entered, she knew these ideas were foolish. The one person Lady Stavely adored was her daughter.

“Felicia!” Clarice exclaimed, sitting up in her chair, a book falling to the floor from her hand.

“Dearest! They said you were ill.”

“So I am,” the girl said. Her glorious hair was confined by the linen cap tied down over it. Her eyes were swollen and the tip of her nose was carnation-pink. She had a stack of neatly folded handkerchiefs tucked down beside the cushion and a glass of some ruby-colored tonic on the elbow-table.

“A cold in your head?” Felicia asked.

“Not just a cold. The most abominable case of grippe that ever struck suffering humanity. I haven’t done anything but sneeze and cough for the last two days. And I had the headache so bad that I dreamed the top of my head was on fire. But I am recovering nicely now.”

Felicia bent to pick up Clarice’s book. She had not meant to ask, but the question came out. “Why haven’t you written to me?”

“But I have. Half a dozen times. Didn’t you get them?” When Felicia shook her head, Clarice sniffed again. “Mama. I thought she might.”

“I’m relieved to hear that you are not displeased with me. However, there’s something more important than that. Do you know that she has dismissed all the servants? All your servants.”

“Yes, I know.” She shifted in her chair and blew her nose. “I’m afraid we haven’t much choice. Don’t you know that we have no more money?”

“No money? But Papa....”

“He left little but debts. Mr. Ashton has explained it all.”

“Mr. Ashton!”

“Yes, what about him?”

“I — I have never trusted him.”

“Well, I don’t say that I do. Mama, however, seems to regard him as some sort of oracle. There’s only so much I can do with her, you know. How I wish I were older!”

There was no help for it: Felicia had to tell what she suspected. She sat down rather heavily on the edge of the rumpled bed. “Have you never felt that there was more between your mother and Mr. Ashton than his being our father’s solicitor might explain?”

“You mean — their being lovers?”

Clarice laughed and then, as a cough took her, spluttered. “You look like a gaffed fish!”

Felicia shut her gaping mouth. “You know?”

“Naturally. I have eyes.”

“And you are not shocked?”

“Indeed, most shocked that you know.” The younger girl leaned back in her chair with an assumption of nonchalance. She looked like a mischievous rabbit with her pink nose and clever eyes. “Of course, I would wish Mama hadn’t hurried into a love affair — with Mr. Ashton, of all people. I mean — ugh!” She shivered.

“You don’t like him?”

“Who could? Those hands like a fish’s fin and that way he has of watching one as though expecting the worst...not my idea of ‘Love-in-Idleness,’ to say the least. But I can’t blame Mama. That expression of sympathy must have been very appealing.”

“But did Papa know?”

“I don’t see why he should have known, do you? Papa didn’t notice her at all. They weren’t in love when they married, were they? Papa was still dreaming of your mother. I don’t believe he ever stopped loving her. As for Mama, she married him because her father told her to.” She sniffed and looked wise. “I don’t think marriages should be arranged. I hope to be spared that much, at any rate.”

“Clarice, I don’t see how you can be so cynical!”

“Cynical? I?”

“Do you condone your mother’s behavior?”

“It’s hardly my place to disapprove of anything she chooses to do. But I can, I think, understand her better than you can. You’re good, Felicia, good all the way through. I’m not at all good, not honestly good.”

Clarice looked toward the window, where the gauze curtain over the glass softened the light into something like a mist. As though she were praying aloud, she said, “I try to be; I mean to be. But I can understand how loneliness, loneliness that has never been relieved, could drive someone into doing a thing they’d never do if they were well-looked-after and truly loved. I hope I shall never have to know what that is like.”

Felicia leaned forward, dropping her hand lightly over Clarice’s. “You are good; never doubt that. You are quite wrong, though. I do understand what loneliness can make a woman do. Sometimes I think I would be willing to risk anything not to feel that dreadful way anymore.”

“You, Felicia? Who is it?”

“Who is who?” she answered, relieved to hear the lightness return to Clarice’s cold-roughened voice.

“Who is the man you’ll risk everything for?”

“No one. I was speaking hypothetically.”

“Then why are you blushing?”

Felicia had been thinking of Blaic’s mouth moving so tenderly over hers. Did kisses show on one’s face so that anyone could see?

Clarice crowed triumphantly. “There is someone! You weren’t blushing before; you are now! Who is it? Some lusty farming lad at Tallyford? The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker?”

“Not the butcher, at any rate. He’s married to the dreadful Miss Dravoget.” Felicia stood up, giving her twisted skirt a shake. She glanced sideways at Clarice. “I shall tell you all about it later. I promise. But for now, I must see Lady Stavely.”

“Must you? She is in no good temper. She feels cruelly deceived by Papa’s will. Even her dower may be in jeopardy.” Clarice coughed, pressing her hand to her chest. When the spasm passed, she reached for her cordial and sipped, making a grimace. “Nasty stuff! I daren’t even think what dear Doctor Danby puts in it, but I believe he strains it through his old stockings!”

Felicia took the glass from Clarice. “You should be in bed. Come, I’ll tuck you up.”

“I did so want to stay out of bed today. But perhaps a little nap....” She turned her head fretfully on the pillowcase, searching for a cool spot. “Send Nurse to me, won’t you? She’s a good old thing. I shall keep her by me, if I can.”

Felicia stayed for a moment, smoothing the sadly flattened golden curls. The too-bright eyes closed and Clarice began to snore softly. Felicia crept out. As she opened the door to slip through, Clarice said, “You will tell me his name as soon as you can, won’t you?”

“As soon as I can.”

She met Nurse on the landing. The woman carried a covered tray and wore furious creases in her forehead. She was muttering in a fierce monotone under her breath. “Proud...inconsiderate.... Oh! Miss Starret!”

“Good morning, Nurse. I was just visiting Lady Clarice. She seems fevered.”

“That she is. Poor thing. Stands to reason she’s ill. Such a shock — one day a child, the next all grown up, or nearly. She still needs me....” She bustled away, pausing as she rested the tray on her hip to free her hand for opening the door. “Have you come to see her ladyship? She’s gone out.”

“Where?”

“To see that Mr. Ashton. She was in the library and I heard kind of a shouting. She brushed right against me when she came out and all but spilled this soup! Black in the face she was, black as a raven, and pushed past me like I wasn’t even there! Not a word about the child — not one!”

The nurse went into Clarice’s room before Felicia could form any of the questions that leapt to her mouth. Confused, but glad that Nurse was remaining at her post, Felicia left Hamdry, hurrying to where Blaic waited for her. At first, she didn’t find him, though she looked high and low.

“Let me think,” she said when he at last appeared from behind the trunk of a tree she knew she had looked behind. Obligingly, he leaned his elbow against the bark and waited.

“Everything is in utter confusion in the house. Did you see Lady Stavely leave a few minutes ago?” He nodded. “Did she look angry?”

“Furious. She waited outside for the barouche to be brought around and paced back and forth like a lioness deprived of meat. When the driver asked for orders, I thought she was going to leap at his throat.”

“Where did she go? Never mind! I can guess. Mr. Ashton?”

“Exactly. Do you think they’ve fallen out?”

“I don’t know. But I do know that my father left this world owing no debts! Oh, fifty pounds to his tailor, a few odd bills for wine or books, but never more than a just amount. Certainly not enough to swallow his entire fortune! I kept his accounts; I know.”

“Who said your father left debts?”

“Mr. Ashton told Lady Stavely that he had. That Clarice inherits the title by right of blood succession but that she and Lady Stavely were otherwise left penniless.”

“Yet you don’t believe a word of it. Well, I’d trust your word over an attorney’s any century. Where shall we go? We can be ahead of Lady Stavely if you will but touch my hand.”

Felicia remembered all too well what had happened the last time she’d touched him. “You’ll show restraint?”

“Though it kill me.”

“That’s hardly a reassuring vow.” With a tender yet wary smile, she slipped her hand into his. He passed the firm pad of his thumb over the tops of her knuckles. She had never thought of the bony protrusions as wickedly arousable, but now she knew better. She snatched her hand away and said, “Take me to Mr. Ashton’s house.”

They did arrive before Lady Stavely, but not by many minutes. Felicia had just turned from standing on her toes to peer into an uncurtained window when the two-horse conveyance came rattling down the street. Lady Stavely did not wait for the coachman to hand her down—she flung the door open almost before the horses had stopped.

Though she wore a mantle over her mourning, she had not taken time to put on a hat. She hurried up the half-dozen stairs to Mr. Ashton’s door. His house, tall and narrow, stood a little apart from the others on the street and had, as it were, a shoulder turned against them.

Felicia came out of the area beside the stairs as Lady Stavely pounded furiously on the grimy white door at the top of the landing. “Open this door!” the older woman demanded. “I know you’re there!”