Amanda Scott (15 page)

“Preaching insubordination to my wife, Charlotte?” Michael said, moving to stand next to Anne, who was a bit unnerved at hearing such odd advice. “Not very judicious of you,” he added. “Nor would it be particularly wise for her to follow your counsel. A good wife submits to her husband’s authority.”

“I must remember to inform Harlow of that,” Charlotte said, smiling at him and reaching out to pat his cheek. The gesture began as a teasing one but turned uncharacteristically gentle, and Anne saw at once that Michael occupied a special place in his sister’s heart. Letting her hand fall, Lady Harlow said quietly, “You have found yourself an excellent wife, Michael. Don’t try to alter her too much, will you, dear?”

With that Parthian shot, she allowed herself to be helped into her carriage, and a few moments later, she and her entourage had disappeared around the first curve in the carriage drive.

Seeing Sylvia move away from the others toward the house, Anne hurried to catch up with her, saying, “Would you like to come up to my dressing room, dear? I brought a small gift for you from home, sort of a get-acquainted present, and I’d like to give it to you.”

Sylvia looked soberly up at her and nodded.

Hearing Michael call out to Andrew with a stern note in his voice, Anne added in a swift undertone to Sylvia, “Do you like to ride?” When the child nodded again, she turned back and called out, “Andrew, do you remember that you promised to go riding with me today and to provide me with a proper mount from your stables?”

He looked taken aback but responded at once, “Yes, of course I do, but Uncle Michael insists I must study.”

“Elbert can ride with you,” Michael said, “and you should take one of the grooms, as well.”

“It wouldn’t be at all the same thing,” Anne said, showing her disappointment. “I’ve scarcely had a chance to become acquainted with Andrew, and I thought Sylvia might like to accompany us.”

Sylvia fixed her wide, solemn gaze on her uncle, and with a sigh, he said, “Very well then, but Andrew, before the day is out I shall expect you to finish the work I set for you.”

“I won’t be ready to go for at least an hour,” Anne said. “Perhaps you could get some of your work done before we go.”

She could see annoyance in the boy’s expression, and rebellion as well, but with a glance at his uncle and another at Sylvia, he shrugged and said, “I’ll just go to the stables first, shall I, and give the order to have our horses saddled in an hour’s time.”

Realizing that he was asserting himself in order to avoid any appearance of complete submission, Anne hoped Michael would not be so tactless as to tell him to send a servant with the order. To forestall such an occurrence, she quickly thanked Andrew for his thoughtfulness and urged Sylvia to make haste. “You will want to examine your gift before changing into your riding dress, my dear.”

When they reached Anne’s dressing room, they found Maisie there, and Anne introduced her to the little girl before saying, “Fetch out the red silk scarf and the book I brought for her ladyship, will you please, Maisie?”

“Yes, madam, certainly.” Maisie turned away at once to the wardrobe, her back stiff, her motions indicating anger.

Anne stared at her, the child temporarily forgotten in her astonishment at this most unusual behavior. “What is it, Maisie?” she demanded. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing at all, madam. Here is the scarf. And here,” she added, reaching up to the wardrobe shelf, “is the book you want.” Handing both items to Anne, she began to move away again, but this time Anne stopped her with a hand on her arm.

“No, Maisie, don’t go. Here, darling,” she added, turning to give the gifts to Sylvia. “Try the scarf on by the looking glass yonder, and have a look at the book. It is one of my favorites.” When the child had turned obediently toward the dressing table, Anne focused her attention on Maisie. “Now, tell me.”

Maisie looked doubtfully at Sylvia, but Anne said, “Pay her no mind, for she will not repeat a word you say. I want to know what is troubling you, and I want to know now.”

“I am to forfeit my next day out, that’s all,” Maisie said, her voice edged with indignation.

“By whose order?”

“Mrs. Burdekin informed me of it, but I’ve no doubt in the world it was Mr. Bagshaw who gave the order. I had the bad luck to encounter him when I returned to the house after my walk earlier, and it was he who asked where I had been and then demanded to know by whose leave I had gone out.”

“I hope you said I had given you leave,” Anne said, her own temper stirring.

“No, of course I didn’t, when you had done no such thing. I just told him I often walk in the garden when my early-morning duties are done, but he said that female servants are not permitted to leave the house without his consent or Mrs. Burdekin’s.”

“I’ll deal with this,” Anne said. She was halfway to the door when she remembered Sylvia. The child sat on the dressing stool with her back to the glass, the red scarf draped around her neck, the book lying open but unheeded in her lap. She regarded Anne with her solemn, unblinking stare. Despite the lack of expression, Anne sensed distress, and said, “I will be back directly, darling. If you do not want to go to your room just yet, why don’t you curl up on the window seat with your book and Juliette until I come back. But I forgot! You have not yet made Juliette’s acquaintance. Being wary of strangers, she did not come at once to greet me like she usually does.” Finding the little cat curled on its favorite pillow in the bedchamber, Anne scooped it up and returned, stroking its fur and saying, “If you are quiet and don’t startle her, I think she will soon come to like you, Sylvia, but though she is purring now, she might scratch if I just hand her to you, so I will put her down on the window seat for now.”

Sylvia approached the kitten slowly, her gaze fixed upon it, and Juliette stared back with the same solemn expression. By the time Anne left the room, the two of them were sitting stiffly at opposite ends of the window seat, still staring at each other.

She found Mrs. Burdekin in the housekeeper’s sitting room, and said without preamble, “I am told that you have taken it upon yourself to admonish my maidservant.”

The housekeeper remained seated for a long moment before she clearly realized that she ought to stand. When she had done so, she said, “The Priory has strict rules for its maidservants, my lady. I am sorry if Maisie did not understand them, but we cannot make exceptions even for her. To do so would be very bad for discipline, as I am certain you will agree.”

“Miss Bray is not subject to your discipline, Mrs. Burdekin, only to mine,” Anne said. “Surely,
you
understand
that.”

“Why, no, your ladyship, I don’t. Since she is now an Upminster servant, she must obey the rules of the house.”

“Miss Bray is my servant and has been my servant since I was a child,” Anne said calmly. “She answers only to me. I will say no more than that, but I hope I have made myself clear.”

The housekeeper hesitated, but at last she met Anne’s steady gaze and said, “It shall be as you wish, madam, of course.”

“I am glad we understand one another,” Anne said. “Miss Bray will take her half day or day out when it pleases her to do so.”

“Yes, your ladyship, certainly.”

“Good day, Mrs. Burdekin,” Anne said, turning away with a sense that her grandmother’s enormous dignity had suddenly descended upon her shoulders like a warm and well-fitting cloak.

As she reached the door, however, Mrs. Burdekin said, “I spoke to Mr. Bagshaw about a new fireguard for the kitchen fire, madam, and it is his decision that one is not required.”

“Is it?” Anne said without turning. “Well, we shall see.”

Back in her dressing room, she found Sylvia curled up on the window seat, reading, with Juliette purring contentedly in her lap. “You must have your uncle’s magic touch with animals,” Anne said. “Until I made the acquaintance of your family, Juliette allowed no one but myself to stroke her!”

Sylvia had watched her gravely from the moment Anne entered, but when Anne smiled, the child rewarded her with a wavering little smile in return. Sensing that it would be a mistake to comment on it, Anne turned to Maisie instead, saying, “Everything is settled. Mrs. Burdekin now understands that you answer only to me.”

“It is to be hoped,” Maisie said dryly, “that Lord Michael don’t find himself moved to alter that understanding.”

Anne had nothing to say to that. She knew as well as any woman that her husband could quickly destroy what little authority she had managed to establish with the servants, and it occurred to her with unpleasant force that if Mrs. Burdekin or Bagshaw chose to lay the matter before him, he might well contradict the order she had given. She hoped he would not do so but realized that hitherto he had given her no cause whatsoever to believe he would support her against the upper servants, and rather more than a little reason to think he might support them against her. Indeed, she hesitated even to bring the matter of the fireguard to his attention, certain that he would tell her Bagshaw knew best.

Exchanging a look with Maisie, she suddenly recalled Sylvia’s presence, and turned back to the child with a strained smile. “If we are going to ride with Andrew, darling, you had better change into your riding dress. Gentlemen do not like to be kept waiting, you know, particularly dukes.”

She had hoped to elicit another smile, but Sylvia got to her feet without any discernible expression, set Juliette back on the window seat, and walked silently from the room.

When the door had been shut again, Maisie said, “At first I thought she was mute, Miss Anne, for she said not one word while you was gone. It is not my place to make personal comments, of course, even to so young a lady, but really …”

Anne explained about Sylvia, and as she had expected, Maisie was instantly sympathetic. “In an ordinary household, I’d have heard all about her within an hour of my arrival, but I’ve never known such folk as them what inhabit the servants’ hall here. The only one who talks to me is Jane Hinkle, and she don’t know the first thing about the family, being nearly as new as what we are ourselves. The others are as close as onions. Even that Frannie don’t talk like one would expect of a youngster like her. They’re a nervous lot, too, always looking about before they speak, as if they expect someone to be lurking, trying to hear what they say.”

“Nonsense, they are simply well trained,” Anne said. “The servants at Rendlesham would not betray family secrets to newcomers either, and like it or not, Maisie, that is precisely what we are.”

“Nonetheless, Miss Anne, it ain’t natural. I’ve never had the least trouble getting on with folks, either in my own home or in someone else’s, and when we was in London, I heard a right good amount about business in dozens of homes other than our own. You know yourself that the news travels fastest from servants’ hall to servants’ hall. Why should Upminster be different, I ask you?”

Anne was sure Maisie had failed to take into account the facts that most servants she had known in the past had been acquainted with one another for years and that Upminster servants were more strictly trained. Like it or not, the pair of them were intruders in the ducal household, and would remain so until they were truly accepted, by servants and family alike.

Requesting her riding dress, she changed swiftly, so intent on what she was doing that she did not realize that Sylvia had returned until, turning around on her dressing stool, she found the child standing silently before her. Starting, she laughed and said, “My goodness, I never even heard you come in. I must have been lost in my own thoughts.”

As the days passed, she learned that Sylvia had a knack for turning up in odd places, and in time Anne became almost accustomed to looking up and finding her in the room, or to turning around and finding Sylvia at her heels as she passed from the drawing room to the hall, or from the garden to the stable yard. She enjoyed the child’s undemanding company and soon formed the habit of spending several hours each day with her. But Sylvia also had a knack for disappearing as silently as she appeared, a habit Anne found much more disconcerting, particularly when she could not find her. Eventually the child would reappear, however, none the worse for her absence, and Anne could never quite manage to scold her.

Her own time passed swiftly, for although she could not seem to induce the household servants to alter their habits, she took both children into Chesterfield to be measured for new clothing, and found occupation in the gardens when she was not receiving callers. These were frequent, and although none but Lady Hermione spent more than the requisite twenty minutes with her, there were so many that Anne began to feel rather like Miss Fanny Howe, the young lioness she had once seen at the Tower of London menagerie—or Miss Nancy, the gentle ant bear from Canada.

Lady Hermione called nearly every day, for, as she told Anne, there was little to amuse her at her brother’s house.

“Shuts himself up with his books, does Wilfred, though his memory’s getting so bad I don’t know how he recalls what he’s read. Only yesterday, he forgot he had given his cook leave to visit her daughter, then demanded to know why he was served an indifferent dinner, which put Mrs. Medbury’s back up. She’s his housekeeper. I don’t think much of her, though to be fair, her mother has been ill, and she frets. If Wilfred would but listen to me …”

Anne found it easy to sympathize, and indeed, had soon found herself confiding some of her own troubles to her friend. Lady Hermione, in consequence, offered her a great deal of advice, none of which seemed practical since Anne could not imagine threatening to turn Bagshaw off, or Mrs. Burdekin, let alone telling Lord Michael to do so. Still, it had been a relief to unburden herself.

One afternoon, a fortnight after Sylvia’s return, Anne went to her dressing room to change her shoes. Hearing odd noises from her bedchamber as she approached the wardrobe, she went in there instead, to find Maisie on her hands and knees, peering under the bed, muttering, “Come out, you little rascal, if you’re there.”

“What is it? Who’s under the bed? Not Sylvia, surely.”