The Lady Series (43 page)

Belle entered Graceton Castle's hall feeling more confident now that she’d warned Master Wyatt about Sir Edward. The door let her into a passageway, created between the hall's stone wall and a long wooden panel at her right. This was the hall's screen, meant to shield the greater room from door-drawn drafts. It was especially necessary here, where there was yet another door at the passage’s end, no doubt giving access to the kitchen yard.

Belle stepped through the opening to the hall and caught her breath. Warm light flowed through the tall windows, gilding everything it touched until the brick floor glowed rusty red and the oak paneling gleamed golden.

And the ceiling! Truss and hammerbeams did far more than keep the roof over their heads. Every inch of exposed wood was covered with carved tracery. Where the beams lifted away from the wall wooden flowers nestled in their spread leaves. At the intersections of the rafters pendants of wood descended, the trefoils decorating those lantern-like projections looking for all the world like sprigs of clover. A ceiling vent as ornate as the rest opened above the hearthstone at the room's center.

As the steward came to a stop beside Belle, she glanced at him. “This chamber is truly amazing.”

“If you say so,” he replied with an impatient snort. “I fear all I can see is evidence of the last Lord Graceton's spendthrift ways. Every stone and piece of wood in the hall is imported. When the old lord tired of throwing away his coins in building, he finished emptying of the family’s treasury by housing hundreds of dispossessed monks and nuns. The result was near penury for his children and grandchildren, and abeyance for their title.”

“Do you intend to stand at the door all day?” An old woman’s querulous voice rang in the hall.

The speaker stood like a sentinel at the hall’s rear. Her back bent and a walking stick to brace her, the ancient woman had a nose that jutted out over the pucker of a nearly toothless mouth, while what little hair she had left beneath her coif made a minuscule knot at her nape. Like all the other servants, she was dressed in maroon and gray. The only difference was the white high-necked partlet she wore atop her bodice. The nasty set of the woman’s jaw said she held power here and had no intention of ceding it to a newcomer.

A hiss of irritation escaped Master Wyatt. “That, my lady, is Mistress Miller, our housekeeper,” he said in a low voice. “The only reason she remains our housekeeper at her age is because the squire refuses to force her out or put another woman in her place. She’s got a vicious tongue. Although I've warned her to be civil, there's little chance she'll heed me. She never has before,” he finished, speaking more to himself than her, then again offered Belle his arm.

Together they crossed the room, stopping before the old woman. “Lady Purfoy, this is Mistress Miller, our housekeeper,” Master Wyatt said in introduction.

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” Belle said, putting as much enthusiasm as she could manage in the statement, even adding a smile.

The old woman gave an indignant sniff. “Lady Purfoy,” she replied, investing more than a little distaste in the two words. The promise that she'd never allow this interloper to rule her hall glowed in the rheumy depths of her eyes.

“What an insolent creature!” Peg’s irate whisper rang around them.

“Peg,” Belle warned quietly, tossing a look at her maid from over her shoulder. She didn’t want this battle now, not before she’d bathed.

Mistress Miller gave a dismissing jerk of her hairy chin toward Peg then brought her attention back on her new lady. “Your furnishings arrived,” she growled. “We’ve already paid the teamsters then sent those outsiders back where they belong. We'd no choice but to put your things in a storeroom whilst we awaited you.” Her tone left no doubt of how extreme she considered this imposition.

Belle blinked in surprise, having been certain she’d wait another week before her belongings arrived. “I appreciate the care you've given what is mine,” she told the old woman, doing her best to pacify. “And of course I shall repay the cost of my property’s transport.”

“You will not,” Master Wyatt snapped.

Startled, Belle looked up at him. He was staring daggers at the housekeeper. Just as he'd warned, the old woman showed not a whit of respect as she glared boldly back at him.

“You, my lady, are the squire's betrothed wife.” The way his voice lingered on the word was clearly for the housekeeper's benefit. “Squire Hollier will not demean himself or his station by asking his new wife to bear the cost of her dowry’s movement into his household.”

The housekeeper gave an indignant sniff then looked at Watt. “We go upstairs to choose the lady a chamber,” she called to the footman. “Stir that puny useless man,” she pointed to Richard, who stood near the hearth, “from his sloth and bring the lady's trunk above.” Without waiting for a dismissal, the old woman turned her back on her betters and started across the hall.

Anger flickered to life in Belle at this slight to her man but she caught back her words of protest. The only servants she could take with her into the safety of her new chambers were her women. Richard would be left to fend for himself among Graceton's menservants.

“She doesn’t like you, Mama,” Lucy said, frowning after the housekeeper. Confusion and surprise filled her expression, as if it were inconceivable that anyone might dislike her mother.

“She doesn’t know me yet, does she?” Belle replied, catching her daughter’s hand and following the old woman into the chamber behind the hall.

The room was small, its walls wainscoted with a pretty paneling. A thick rush mat covered the floor. Except for a long bench that stood before the fireplace in the far wall, it was empty. Indeed, it had the feel of a room that hadn’t seen use in years. Still, Belle knew it for a solar, her parlor, the place where she could eat in private and entertain visitors.

In its corner was a set of stairs. Mistress Miller was already climbing them, taking each step with a tap of her cane and a groan. With Master Wyatt, Peg and Brigit at their heels, Belle and Lucy started up after the housekeeper. When they reached the gallery Belle forgot all that was wrong to stare in pleasure. Oh, to be lady of such a place!

Sunlight flooded into the gallery’s wide corridor through its five windows, laying the pattern of the panes against white plastered walls and dark wood floor. Portraits hung along the inner wall, their frames gilded. There were so many they filled the gallery’s length. As tall as the ceiling, each window was nigh on deep enough to be a tiny chamber on its own. There was a seat in each oriel's bay, complete with a cushion. Two heavy chairs stood before one bay, as if to encourage a body to sit and enjoy the view.

Belle's awe grew as she counted doorways in the opposite wall. Seven private suites! Eight, if she added the gatehouse, and nine if another apartment hid behind the door in the curved stone wall at the gallery's end.

Mistress Miller had already started down the wide corridor, tapping rapidly past the first two doors. “This is where Master Kit stays when he’s home and that’s our lord's suite. You cannot have this one, either,” she pointed to the next door, “as that’s our steward's chamber.”

That left only four chambers from which to choose.

“Do any of them connect?” Belle asked as she trailed the woman, hoping for but a single door between her own chamber and Lucy’s nursery.

The old woman pivoted on her stick to look back at her new lady. “Aye,” she said, “but you cannot have those two. They're at the end of the gallery.”

Irritation flowed into Belle. Spine stiff she drew herself to her tallest, her jaw firm. “I don’t care where they're located. I want the adjoining chambers.” Her voice rang in the gallery clear, firm and commanding.

“You don’t,” the housekeeper argued. “’Tis there our ghost walks.”

Peg gasped. Brigit gave a tiny moan. Belle’s eyes flew wide. Oh, Lord! As if hostile servants and a husband who didn’t want her weren’t enough, there was a ghost as well? She drew Lucy closer.

“Truly, it isn’t necessary that we have adjoining chambers, my lady.” Brigit's voice trembled. “Perhaps the other two would be better?”

“Aye,” Peg managed. “It's no imposition to move from suite to suite, not when one can enjoy such a fine gallery.”

“There is no need to refuse those chambers,” Master Wyatt said, his tone irritated. “There’s no ghost.”

The old woman's chin jerked up as if in challenge. “You're an outsider here, Master James. You can’t know.”

James. Belle stared up into his face, all thought of spirits and hauntings departing. She’d forgotten that his given name was James. It suited him, unusual as it was, complementing his fine features and rare hair color.

“Say no more,” Master James warned the old woman.

She ignored him, her gaze slipping to her new lady as she spoke. “She’s the spirit of one of Graceton's ladies, left barren because her lord husband refused her bed in favor of his common mistress. Wanting to reclaim her lord’s affections, this lady did commit murder, ordering the slaying of the mistress and her lord’s bastards. When her noble husband discovered what his lady had done, he carried her to the top of yon tower.” The lift of her cane indicated the curved wall at the gallery’s end. Only then did Belle recognize it as the castle's corner tower.

“There, he threw her off the wall to her death. Take those chambers if you will but be warned,” the housekeeper continued. “Never follow our White Lady. She'll lead you to the wall and bewitch you into leaping off it. Twice before she's done it, both of them women forced into unhappy wedlock just as she was.” Her mouth twisted into a vindictive smile. “Just as you are.”

“Enough!” Master James shouted, the word thundering around them.

At his roar, Lucy loosed a frightened cry and burrowed into Belle's skirt. No such fear plagued her mother. Indeed, as grateful as Belle was for Master James's protection, she didn’t need it this time. The housekeeper should have ended her tale before she’d added that ridiculous codicil. Here was proof that all the woman had said before was nothing but another attempt to humiliate her new lady.

“I’ve endured your insolence and your bad temper for Squire Hollier's sake, but this goes beyond any toleration,” Graceton’s steward chided the housekeeper. “In spinning this lie to frighten his wife, you denigrate not only the squire, but his family and his house.”

“It's no lie,” the old woman retorted, sounding almost hurt at the accusation. “Ask any of the servants and they'll tell you what I say is true.”

His expression earnest, Master James looked at Belle. “My lady, I apologize on the squire’s behalf. Mistress Miller's rudeness passes all bounds. I'll have you know my office is in yon tower. I've kept it there for all of the ten years I’ve been Graceton’s steward, using that chamber both day and night. Not once in all that time have I seen anything remotely unnatural. Madam, if the adjoining chambers are the ones you want, I tell you that you have nothing to fear in taking them.”

Belle drew a relieved breath. His office would be next to her chambers. Aye, he was right. As long as he was close enough that her raised voice could bring him to her, there was nothing she need fear.

She looked at the housekeeper. “Those are the chambers I want and they're the chambers I'll have. See that my belongings are brought to me there. In two hours' time we'll want a meal. What we need now is warmed water, enough that each of us can have a fresh bath.”

The housekeeper’s eyes narrowed. Her chin jutted out. Belle fought her grin. They both knew she’d won this encounter, and the housekeeper was finding that hard to swallow.

The bend of the old woman’s head made a mockery of obedience. “As you will my lady, but it'll be only your own man serving you,” the old woman said with a haughty lift of her gnarled brows. “None of our folk will go to that end of the gallery.”

“They will if I have to walk the distance with them every time,” Master James retorted, his voice a blade. Turning, he fixed a piercing gaze on the two footmen behind them.

Whilst they’d waited on Belle to choose her room, they’d set the heavy chest upon the gallery floor. Richard stood behind the chest as impassive and silent as ever. Beside him the one named Watt was worrying his cap in his hands. He shifted uneasily from foot to foot as he glanced from the housekeeper to his steward.

At last, he gave a halfhearted shrug. “If none of the others will lift their sorry arms to aid the lady, it'll be me and John helping Richard, here.”

Mistress Miller’s eyes widened at this betrayal. Her mouth began to move, as if she needed to chew up his words before they choked her. She turned and started back toward the stairs.

“Don’t complain to me that you weren’t warned, my lady,” she threw over her shoulder as she went.

Belle watched her go then glanced at her womenfolk. Brigit was frowning after the old woman while Peg was in full glower.

Crossing her arms over her bodice, the maid’s brows rose. “What does that old hag think us, rustics to be driven off by a fanciful tale such as that? Of all the nerve! Lead on, my lady. Let's see what she meant to keep us from having. I’ve a suspicion those far chambers are finer than the other two.”

Beside Belle, Master James laughed, the sound low and rich. “Wise words and God's own truth. My lady, shall I escort you to your chambers?” Once more, he extended his elbow toward her.

“Me, too,” Lucy insisted, darting around her mother to stand beside the handsome man. “That is, if you please, Master Wyatt,” she amended with a quick bend of her knee.

Master James smiled and extended a hand. As Belle settled her hand into the crook of the steward's elbow, she leaned nearer to him. “Thank you for that,” she breathed, so Lucy wouldn’t overhear, then dared to ask for even more. “Master Wyatt, I mean no slur or complaint against my husband’s household, but could you see that Richard's needs are met? I fear there may be a few here who would wish him ill-treated.”

“Another truth,” he returned, his voice as low as hers. “Aye, you have my word. No harm will come to him.”

Belle smiled. With Master James at her side, she would make this place her home.