The Changeling Bride (16 page)

Chapter Twelve

After her lonely and unappetizing lunch, Elle took Tatiana for a walk through the overgrown gardens. Weeds shouldered their way past the few struggling flowers, and the paths had long since had their gravel devoured by mud. Fountains held stagnant pools of rainwater, leaves mouldering at the bottom, mosquito larvae squirming at the surface. The hedges were overgrown tangles of branches that grabbed at her as she walked between them.

She circled around the estate’s lake on a narrow footpath, noticing the hoofprints in the dirt. She had grown up in a small town surrounded by farms and open countryside, and recognized that the prints were those of deer. If not for the wild animals, the path would most likely have been impassable.

A break in the reeds along the lakeshore revealed a small wooden dock, and she walked out onto it, testing the silvered boards. They thunked with reassuring solidity beneath her shoes. A weathered rowboat drifted half
under the planks, tethered to a post. Bits of snarled line and a bailing cup floated in the inch of water in its bottom. Perhaps one of the staff used it for fishing. Certainly she could not picture the formal Henry ever doing so.

A dragonfly zipped in front of her and stopped, its frantically beating wings holding it motionless in the air, and then another appeared and chased it out across the water. She watched them, a smile on her lips, remembering her summers growing up and playing with the neighbor kids in the fields and woods. They had never managed to catch a dragonfly, for all their chasing.

If—no—
when
she found a way home, she suddenly resolved, she was going to look for a job in a small town. The pay would not be as good, but the rent would be cheaper. She had forgotten how much she liked the quiet of the countryside.

Making her way back to the house, she passed a number of outbuildings, whose purposes she could only guess. Coming into a walled garden, she at last saw signs that some care was taken of the grounds. Forcing pots covered a number of plants, and there were glass-framed beds that acted like miniature greenhouses for a number of seedlings. New leaves covered the espaliered apple trees that crept across the brick walls.

She wandered into the nearest building and found herself in a room painted entirely blue. Many-drawered cabinets lined the walls, and as she came closer she saw that each drawer had the name of a vegetable or plant neatly painted across its front. A peek inside revealed what she already suspected—seeds.

A sound from another doorway drew her attention, and she followed it into the damp heat of a greenhouse. An old man was preparing a set of pots, a tray of seedlings waiting by his side for the replanting. She remembered his face from her introduction to the staff, but for the life of her she could not recall his name.

“Good afternoon,” she said. He didn’t appear to hear
her. “Good afternoon!” she repeated more loudly. This time he stopped and turned, frowning slightly when he saw her, and he sketched a very short bow.

“Good afternoon, my lady. Have you come to inspect my gardens?”

“I was just wandering about the grounds.”

“Did you want a tour, then?” He sounded as if he hoped that were not the case.

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to interrupt your work. Have you no one to help you?”

“There be a boy.”

That hardly seemed like enough. She looked around her, at the trees growing down the center of the building, and the fruit that hung from their limbs. “These aren’t lemon trees, are they?” she asked, surprised.

“Aye.”

“But how do you keep them alive in this climate?”

“They have been growing here for one hundred and fifty years.” He gestured to a brazier that she had not noticed, heat coming from the coals in the bottom of the raised pan. “I give the trees what they need.”

He still had his trowel in his hand, looking as if he was waiting for her to finish her questions and go. She got the distinct feeling that she was intruding.

“Yes, well, and I see you do an excellent job of it. I won’t bother you further.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

Was that “thank you” for the compliment or “thank you” for leaving him alone? She slunk out the door, feeling very much that it had been the latter.

She checked the clock when she got back to the house. She wasn’t going to be late again, if she could help it, and the clock confirmed that there was no danger of that at the moment. She had at least two hours before she could even think about dressing for dinner. Two more hours alone, killing time. She checked on the staff who were busy emptying the trunks of Eleanor’s trousseau—linens,
silver, even dishes—but they had everything well in hand. What was a countess supposed to do all day?

She went in search of the library she remembered from her exploration. She’d do what she did at home, and lose herself in a book.

Tatiana followed her into the dusty room, and made herself comfortable on a ratty old sofa. Elle didn’t bother scolding her. The furniture in the room was more fit for a dog than for humans. Even her own fondness for a clean room was overwhelmed by the library. The place didn’t need to be cleaned so much as it needed to be stripped to bare floor and wall, and a bonfire made of the rubbish. Only then could a real cleaning begin.

But perhaps that would never be her problem. She wandered along the shelves, pulling out and replacing books. There were many empty spaces, and she imagined the late earl had sold those books that were in any shape to be sold. Certainly all that remained were books warped from damp, smelling of mildew, and in several unhappy cases, infested by small creatures that made a diet of paper. She shuddered, and wiped her hands on her skirts after one particularly unpleasant encounter with a half-eaten book.

And then, tucked behind a stack of mouldering Milton, she found a small book bound in stained green leather.
Folklore of the British Isles
was stamped across the front, the gold lettering all but rubbed away.

She sat down next to Tatiana, and opened the book to the table of contents. There, in between a chapter on ghosts and one on witches, was a chapter on fairies. She flipped quickly to the right page and read with greedy eyes.

Henry watched Elle pick at her dinner, poking the tip of her knife at the piece of fat that clung to the edge of her meat. Her nose was wrinkled. She had not touched the chopped liver in aspic, and the butter on her boiled vegetables
was in danger of congealing, it had sat so long on her plate.

“If the food is not to your liking, you can talk to Abigail about it. I am sure she would welcome any direction you might offer. We do not have a proper cook as of yet, and she has been making do with what she knows.”

“I don’t know any woman who appreciates being given ‘direction’ in the kitchen,” she said, abandoning her meat and reaching for yet another roll. It was her third, if his counting was correct.

“Elle, you are a countess now, not the daughter of the house. The staff expects you to direct them, not to wait upon their pleasure.”

She spooned a healthy glob of strawberry jam onto her roll. “Which reminds me,” she began tentatively, looking up at him from under her brows, her eyes huge and dark. The candlelight made her skin look like cream. “There are some things I’d like to ask you about my job description.”

“Job description?” Her question did not succeed in distracting him from his perusal of her flesh. Was her skin even whiter beneath her clothing? He had almost felt guilty leaving her to lunch alone this afternoon, she had looked so woeful. Already his plan was working. By the end of the week she would be seeking out his company, and soon all that lovely skin would be his to touch.

“You know—what I’m expected to do, as countess. What will my responsibilities be? What do you expect me to be in charge of? What am I supposed to
do
all day?”

“The usual.”

Elle put down her roll, her brows drawing together. “I think my parents may have misled you, if they gave the impression that I knew much about running a house. Maybe they thought I paid more attention than I really did. I don’t know. The truth of the matter, I’m sorry to
say, is that I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing with my time. I don’t know how the food for the kitchen is purchased or cooked, or the dishes cleaned. I don’t know how the laundry gets done. I don’t even know how much anything costs. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be directing, if I’m to be directing anyone at all. I am completely unprepared for this position. I just thought you should know.”

Henry watched her list her incompetencies, his eyes on her mouth. She had marvelously straight teeth, white as proverbial pearls. And her lips were so full, so soft. They were slightly pouty now, indicative of her present discomfiture. Apparently she was not pleased to admit her ignorance of household matters. He listened to her with half an ear, more intent on those moist lips, and thoughts of what it would be like to have them touch his bare skin. His eyes moved to her neck, and he imagined placing his hand there, stroking her, then running his fingers up into her hair and pulling her to him, bringing her to him without resistance, even eager for his touch, her lips parted and waiting. . . .

“Well?” he heard from a distance. The ringing of a spoon against the side of her water goblet brought him back to the real world. “Anyone home in there?” she asked.

“Hmm? Oh, yes. That should not be a problem.” So, Mr. Moore had lied to him about her housekeeping skills. Apparently the good merchant had lied about a number of things concerning his daughter. At least the money was real enough, and the money had been the impetus for the marriage, after all. It would not do to become angry with Elle, when the mendacity had been her father’s.

“I already have a steward,” he continued. “He is in London at the moment, hiring servants. It may be a few weeks before he is finished. He can take care of the more mundane details of running the house, such as making
purchases, keeping the books, paying the servants, and so on. Abigail and Thomas can direct the servants, as they have been, if you do not wish to do so.”

“Then what is it that a countess is supposed to do?”

“She has only one absolutely necessary duty, and the rest are optional.”

“And what’s that?”

“To bear heirs, of course. Given your present reluctance to take on the preliminaries to that task, I suppose it is the optional activities you will have a greater interest in, at least for the moment. I hardly think they will prove as entertaining as the first would be, but I am determined to submit to the vagaries of my beautiful bride.” He smiled mildly at her.

Her frown deepened. He wanted to rub his thumb between her brows.

“So what are these optional duties?”

“For the most part they are social and aesthetic. You can choose the style in which the house is refurbished, you can choose the weekly menus, you can decide on livery for the footmen, you can have a say in how the gardens are landscaped. You can send and receive invitations to visit friends and relations, and eventually plan parties and balls, and do your part to ensure that our future offspring are viewed as the civilized children of civilized parents. I imagine it is much how your mother spent her time.”

“That’s it? Lovely home, lovely garden, and teach the children manners. Throw good parties. At least it sounds like there is shopping involved,” she concluded, sounding a bit letdown.

“There are also the charity visits. Bringing food baskets to tenants in need, and taking care of minor health concerns, if that is an area in which you have knowledge and feel inclined to act. But surely you know all this already?”

“As I explained before, I am ignorant on the most surprising topics.”

“You are an intelligent young woman. You will learn.” He took a sip of his wine. “Perhaps you would like to see some of the estate tomorrow, since you have already seen the house. You
can
ride, can you not?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Splendid. Tomorrow morning, then, we shall ride out after breakfast. But for now, my dear, what say you to adjourning for our dessert?”

Elle put her hand on Henry’s arm and let him lead her from the dining room, her mind stuck on the topic of riding. Yes, of course she could ride. Her neighbors had had horses, and she had often ridden with them. Bareback. Astride. This was the eighteenth century, though, and women here rode sidesaddle. Oh, joy. The last thing she was about to do, though, was admit to yet another thing that she could not do. How hard could a sidesaddle be, anyway?

Henry led her upstairs, and it wasn’t until they were climbing their third set of stairs that she came out of her sidesaddle fog.

“Where are we going?”

“To one of the banquetting houses.”

“Ah.” Of course. That made perfect sense.

He laughed softly. “You shall see.”

They climbed a final, narrow set of stairs, and Henry opened the door at the top. She stepped out onto a railed walkway, a lantern beside the door making a circle of yellow light in the darkness. Another lantern hung some distance away, beside a door at the base of one of the domed turrets she had noticed from the ground below. She was on the roof.

She leaned against the rail and looked out into the darkness. The sun had set some time ago, but the horizon to the west was tinged a light charcoal blue. The moon hung above it, fuller than it had been a few days ago,
with bright-shining Venus close by. Above her, the stars were silver glitter thrown across an endless sky of midnight blue.

Henry stood close behind her, his legs pressing slightly against her skirts. He brought his face down close to her ear.

“I shall have to bring you back to watch the sun set.”

She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “It’s a beautiful view even in the dark.” Every fiber of her was aware of his presence. “Do you come up here often?”

“Not in recent years. As a boy I would sometimes come to lie on the roof and watch the stars.”

“An amateur astronomer?” Her back tingled with his closeness.

“I was not such an intellectual. It was more of an escape, a place to be completely alone with myself . . . and my thoughts.”