The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane (8 page)

Pansy finished her task and smiled smugly at
her achievement before casting her eyes around the room and through
the opened doors that revealed the pantry and meat locker. “Yes’m,
Miss Tansy. Sally went to market at first light. Everything’s here,
just like always.”

Upon hearing this piece of information, Tansy
decided a closer investigation was called for, and set forth at
once to make what soon became an extensive inventory-taking of
foodstuffs, cleaning supplies, candles, linens, and fuel. She even
climbed to the top of the house, where she inspected the
furnishings in the servants’ quarters. When she was finished she
returned to the morning room at the back of the house and gave the
bell-rope a mighty pull.

“Send Mrs. Brown to me at once,” she ordered
the footman who answered her call.

“Mrs. Brown, ma’am? There’s no Mrs. Brown
what lives ’ere,” the footman answered in confusion.

Tansy’s foot was tapping now. “The
housekeeper, you goose. I want the housekeeper.”

A light went on in the footman’s vacant eyes.
“Oh, you’d be meaning Mrs. Green, then, Miss,” he corrected.

“Green, brown, purple, I don’t give a bloody
damn what color she is! You just get her thieving arse to anchor in
here in less than three minutes, or I may start giving you the
drubbing I have planned for her!”

To say the least, the very least, Miss Tansy
Tamerlane was upset. The footman stumbled wildly for the door, but
still heard the irate woman’s parting order. “And tell her to bring
the household books with her if she values her skin!”

Tansy spent the next few minutes stomping up
and down the morning room in a high flight of agitation, until a
loud voice cut into her thoughts by demanding stridently, “Just
what is the meaning of this outrage?”

Tansy halted in mid-stomp and whirled upon
the speaker, her eyes raking the tall, raw-boned figure of the
housekeeper. Mrs. Green was standing, hands on hips, just inside
the door, her severe black gown gathered in at the waist by a wide
belt from which hung a multitude of keys. Her iron-grey hair
surrounded her sallow-skinned face by way of a coronet of thick
braids, and although she was no taller than Tansy she outweighed
her by at least three stone—making of herself all in all a very
imposing (threatening?) picture.

Tansy was not impressed. After allowing her
gaze to travel slowly up and down the person of Mrs. Green she
said, keeping a tight rein on her temper, “You will oblige me,
madam, by sitting down and shutting up. What I have to say will
take only a few minutes, and then—if you dare—you may try to
explain yourself.”

Tansy then launched into a pithy description
of the findings of her morning’s investigation, and as each new
fact was presented Mrs. Green’s complexion came one shade closer to
mimicking her name. Condensing nicely, it was not too long a time
(although it seemed an age to the housekeeper) before Tansy ended
her speech by declaring her next targets of investigation were to
be the huge clothbound books reposing on Mrs. Green’s now trembling
knees.

At her first opportunity, Mrs. Green sprang
to her own defense by trying to lay all blame on the outrageous
prices that were the bane of every housekeeper since the war
ended.

“Don’t try to cozen me with that outrageous
faradiddle,” Tansy warned.

Mrs. Green decided to take another tack. “I
admit, the place could do with a bit of a wash and a brushup, and
Lord knows how hard I try to drum some sense of duty into those
lazy housemaids...”

“Stubble it!” Tansy cut her off
contemptuously, her anger causing her to revert to the language
learned at her father’s knee. “Don’t embarrass either of us with
any more of your outrageous lies. Allow me to advise you that your
position in this household is terminated. Immediately. So why don’t
you just nip off upstairs and pack your bags? I want you out of
this house within the hour.”

Tansy made to turn away but then turned back
to add one more note. “And please, don’t hold onto any hopes of
taking along a recommendation. Unless you are applying for
employment as a thief, as for that I feel sure you are most fully
qualified.”

Suddenly Mrs. Green remembered something.
This Tamerlane hussy was nothing but a poor relation, with no
authority to fire anyone. “You are not in charge here, missy,” she
pointed out nastily. “I’ll just wait for the Duke, and then we’ll
see who’s to be set out on the street.”

Tansy smiled—a wicked, wicked smile. “You are
correct, madam, I have no authority to dismiss you. Instead, why
don’t you look upon my order as being more in the nature of a
suggestion. You see, my authority in the matter is not the issue
here. What is more to the point are those books now reposing so
innocently on the sofa over there. Do you really wish the Duke to
examine them while you are still around to answer any questions his
grace might raise?”

Mrs. Green was packed and gone—well within
the time span Tansy suggested—and as she and Dunstan watched the
departing hackney carry her away from Grosvenor Square the butler
apologized for not being aware of the goings on beneath his
aristocratically humped nose. “My only excuse is that I am only in
town for the few weeks the Duke is in residence. As I much prefer
Avanoll Hall, my attention to this house has suffered
accordingly.”

“It’s of no matter, Dunstan,” Tansy assured
him. “I just hope I can manage to hold the household together until
such time as we can find another housekeeper. The Duke and dowager
must not feel the pinch of our shorthandedness. Can I count on your
assistance, dear Dunstan?”

The butler drew himself up to his full
imposing height and gave his solemn assurances that everyone,
himself included, would be more than happy to do anything they
could to help the young miss. “It seems the servants were none too
fond of Mrs. Green, and they’ve already taken to talking of you as
their savior. And, Miss Tansy, if I may be so bold,” he added
softly, “the family all call me Dunny. I would be honored if you
would deign to so honor me.”

B
y tea-time of that
same day, the remaining females had been apprised of the morning’s
upheaval, and the dowager was clucking over the obvious inequities
between the housekeeper’s books and the actual expenditures for the
household.

“You were too easy on her, Tansy, my pet. Too
easy by half. The wretch belongs in Newgate. And Ashley, that
blockhead, should be locked up for stupidity, for however he could
have overlooked such gross mismanagement I cannot fathom. Having a
charming wastrel for a father may not have been a pleasure for you,
Tansy, but since his laxity pitchforked you into handling the
running of his estate, he has indirectly done us a great
service.”

This praise was all well and good, but Tansy
was wise to enjoy it while she could—for even at that moment
Farnley was upstairs bending his master’s ear with his own version
of the story while his grace dressed for dinner.

“If you will but recall, your grace,” Farnley
pointed out smugly, easing his master into his evening coat once
his tale was through, “I did try to warn you about the young lady.
I knew she was bad luck for us the minute I clapped eyes on her.
All the signs were wrong that day. If you but tie this hag-stone on
your door key, it will go a long way toward heading off any more
disasters. When you retire for the evening, I can hang it from your
bed-head and nothing evil can harm you at night either. Please,
sir.”

“I’ll hang you on the bed-head if you don’t
shut up, Farnley. You’re as nervy as an old spinster who thinks
there’s murderers lurking under her bed.” The Duke walked over to
his dressing table and, picking up a small knife, began to pare his
nails.

Farnley, who had been momentarily diverted
while retrieving the Duke’s riding jacket from the chair upon which
its wearer had carelessly tossed it, suddenly realized what his
master was about and cried out in alarm—nearly causing Avanoll to
give himself a nasty cut.

“What the blazes?” the Duke barked.

His valet scurried over to the dressing
table, carefully picked up all the nail-parings, and cradled them
in his hand. “You must not trim your nails on a Friday, your grace,
as I have told you so many times,” Farnley admonished. “You will
have ill-luck for certain. I’ll save these pieces up until Monday
and then scatter them over the back garden.”

“Yes, you do that. Damned untidy, if you ask
me, and damned silly. Farnley, you must stop all this superstitious
nonsense, as it would grieve me deeply to have to let you go. But
you are a bit queer, you know, and sometimes most unsettling. Now
excuse me while I make my way downstairs to discover for myself
just what exactly transpired this morning to send Mrs. Green
bolting from this house without so much as asking for her last
quarter’s wages.”

To say that dinner that evening was not a
resounding success would be dressing up in fine linen a domestic
disaster too discouraging to recount step by depressing step. A
crushing set-down from his grandparent, touching on the
responsibilities of the head of any household in monitoring the
goings-on under his own roof—delivered before Avanoll had so much
as had recourse to a single glass of port—was compounded by his
sister’s undisguised glee in his discomfort and the rendering of a
vague warning from his aunt that went: “‘Anyone can hold the helm
when the sea is calm.’ Syrus.”

The Duke could not dispute his Grandmama’s
words, and dismissed his sister and his aunt as unworthy of his
sarcasm. The only target left to him, besides himself, was his
cousin—that infuriating termagant who was just then sitting with a
deceptively demure expression hiding what he knew could only be an
overweening feeling of superiority.

“So,” he suggested as he walked over to stand
leering down at her, “you are well on the way to worming yourself
into convincing everyone that you are an indispensable part of this
household. I didn’t know you were so concerned with either my
domestic routine or my purse. Or is it that you are simply a nosey
busybody who delights in sticking her fingers into everyone else’s
pie?”

Tansy’s brown eyes flashed fire. “That was a
sinister remark,” she responded boldly.

“‘There are some who bear a grudge even to
those that do them good.’ Pilpay,” came an unmistakable, trilling
voice from across the room—a voice his grace ignored as best he
could while he asked his acting housekeeper the menu for the
evening.

Tansy’s smile fairly dazzled him as she
informed him brightly, “Baked river eel in parsley sauce, if it
please your grace.”

Once the figurines on the mantelpiece stopped
shaking (due to the vibrations caused by the angry slamming of the
front door), the ladies repaired to the dining room to partake of
an outstanding example of the heights of culinary excellence Cook
was capable once supplied with quality foodstuffs.

In the wee hours of the morning, a trifle
worse for wear, the Duke stumbled into the foyer and dropped his
house key, the hag-stone attached to it making a terrible din in
the quiet house. The butler peeped his head around the corner to
see what was the matter, and his grace—putting one unsteady finger
to his lips—whispered loudly, “Shh, Dunny, it’s only your sweet
laddie-boy, home at last.”

“The name is Dunstan, your grace,” the old
family retainer pronounced crushingly, before leaving his master to
negotiate the path to his bedchamber as best he could in his
castaway state.

When the Duke could no longer shut out the
glare of the mid-morning sun that had crept relentlessly across his
bed the next morning until it sent skyrockets of pain into his eye
sockets, he pushed himself up on one elbow and cast his eyes about
his chamber. The mantel clock told him it was only ten o’clock—not
too late an hour, considering his activities of the night before.
Further investigation showed him what his shivering body already
had guessed: there was no fire in the grate, and, stranger yet, no
cup of chocolate stood on his bedside table, no fresh clothes hung
from the clothes-tree visible through the open dressing room door,
and Farnley was nowhere in sight. Odd, indeed.

He leaned over, a move that sent cymbals
crashing through his head, and pulled the bell rope. Farnley did
not appear. When three more vicious tugs produced not one servant,
he opened his mouth and gave a mighty bellow. “Farnley!” he called
once, then clapped his hands to his head to still the bells that
had set up a discordant clanging between his ears.

Finally, convinced help was not forthcoming,
he searched out his maroon brocade dressing gown and spied out his
slippers beneath the bed, but in the end he chose to forego the
slippers as bending over to retrieve them proved too painful a
project.

Eventually he groped his way unsteadily to
the dining room—for by now his stomach was paying him up—following
the sounds of voices in hopes someone would take pity on him and
give him something to make his mouth taste less like a stable
floor.

Once propped against the door frame he could
make out the figures of the dowager, Emily, his aunt, Dunstan, and
his accursed cousin, all seated around a dining table piled high
with what must have been every piece of silver in the house.

His sister saw him first. “Oh, Ashley,” she
giggled, “you look Perfectly Awful!”

“I don’t recall requesting your opinion,
puss, and I am not here to amuse you. Where is my breakfast?”

“Oh,” Tansy said sweetly, “we didn’t expect
you down before noon. I’m afraid there is nothing to be had right
now.” She replaced the lid on a silver bowl with a slightly heavy
hand, and hid a smile when Avanoll grimaced in pain.

“What in blazes is going on in here anyway?”
he asked.