An Ideal Duchess (42 page)

             
“I don’t understand what you want.” He stated bluntly, his nostrils flaring a bit with his exasperated breath.

             
“Then you don’t understand me,” She replied just as bluntly, her words falling into the silence like a pin drop. “You haven’t even tried.”

             
A muscle in his cheek twitched, but he didn’t respond and she could feel him withdrawing from her even as he positioned her hand more firmly in the crook of his arm. She stared straight ahead, and as they made their way downstairs, she’d despised that once again, she was made to feel that she was in the wrong.

             
The sight of her sons, now sturdy and long-limbed at seven, stirred her heartstrings and she marveled at how fiercely this sensation of love could be when she looked at their small faces—though they were disconcertingly all Malvern, with the silver-gray eyes inherited from Ursula and the gleaming copper curls and lightly freckled faces shared with their father. There was not an ounce of Vandewater in them, but she loved them unconditionally.

             
She wanted to crouch down and hug them in greeting, but their nanny’s stern face and the detached expressions of the other family members in the drawing room deterred her. At Nanny Tester’s prodding, they approached her and Malvern with a polite “Good evening Mater and Father”, and bowed gravely, appearing rather like miniature adults in their pressed Eton suits and polished shoes.

             
“Happy birthday, Rodborough and Cornelius,” Malvern seemed repelled by them, unable to meet their eyes, and she blinked in confusion before repeating his words.

             
“Thank you Mater and Father,” they replied in unison.

             
Their blank expressions as the boys scrutinized their father, whom they only saw once or twice a day, made her shudder; they looked so like Malvern and yet so young to be so distant and cold. She reached a hand to touch them, but they were already returning obediently to Nanny Tester’s side. Malvern disengaged from her hand and moved towards the bell cord, and minutes later, Fowler opened the drawing room door and two of the upper housemaids—Janet and Mary, she remembered—wheeled in a tray holding the boys’ birthday cake, a stack of plates, forks, and a cutting knife.

             
Amanda moved to the tray and picked up the knife to slice the moist, three layer, iced cake she requested Mrs. Alcock prepare that afternoon.

             
“One small piece each, if you please, Your Grace,” Nanny Tester cleared her throat. ‘We don’t want to spoil their digestion.”

             
She smiled tightly at the nanny and sliced the thinnest pieces she could slice, and placed them both on the plates Janet held in her hands. The housemaid took the plates and their forks to the boys, who didn’t even begin to eat like normal boys, their faces automatically turning up to Nanny Tester, who nodded.

             
Amanda quickly sliced other pieces for the rest of the family, her heart sinking by the minute as she caught the slow, overly careful manner in which Roddy and Neil ate their thin slices of cake. Nanny Tester appeared to approve of their distinct lack of enthusiasm, and Amanda could hear the murmurs about the proper behavior of those two “dear dear little boys”.

             
There was half a cake left by the time slices had been passed to the other members of the family assembled in the drawing room, and she set the cake knife on the stand. To her dismay, this appeared to be the signal for Roddy and Neil to depart, for they immediately set their forks on the plates with their half-eaten slices of cake, and Nanny Tester brought them to the tray.

             
“We shan’t have them bother you anymore,” Nanny Tester said sternly as she set the plates on the tray.

             
“They were no bother, Nanny. Honestly,” She said quietly. “May they remain downstairs for a few more minutes?”

             
“I believe firmly in schedules, Your Grace, and a few more minutes could mean the disruption of their routine, not to mention their bodily functions.”

             
She forced herself to smile in agreement with the nanny, who appeared quite pleased with herself.

             
“Come say good night to your mother and father, young men,” Nanny turned to the boys. “And your grandmother as well.”

             
As Ursula was closest to them, they turned first to her. “Goodnight Granny,”

             
Ursula lowered her cheek to allow them to press a brief kiss to her papery skin. They then turned to Malvern, who stood facing the fireplace, one foot braced on the plinth hearth and his hand against the wall. He nodded, just barely, when they whispered their goodnights to him. When they reached her, Amanda could not let them go to bed thinking her just as unfeeling and distant as the rest of the family, and she broke with protocol by bending to embrace the two of them. They allowed her to hold them for a brief moment, her nose buried in Roddy’s soft curly hair, before they wriggled away, their normally blank faces scrunched with disgust.

             
She laughed, a joyous sound that drew everyone’s attention to her, but she did not care. Nanny Tester frowned in consternation as she led the boys out of the drawing room. Amanda could hear her admonishment against coddling children, but she simply did not care, and when the adults finally trooped over, arm in arm, to the dining room, she was determined to break protocol even further, Townsend traditions be damned!

*          *          *

              Maggie peered cautiously around the corner leading from the stairwell to the long, darkened corridor that ran the length of the middle storey towards the upper part of the kitchen and the store room. If she were caught creeping about belowstairs this late at night, she risked being sacked, but she did not want to disappoint Her Grace.

             
The doors of Mrs. Finch and Mrs. Alcock’s bedrooms were closed tightly, and she imagined the two formidable upper servants sleeping soundly, off their feet and out of their corsets for at least six or seven hours. There was another corridor leading south—this went directly past the steward’s room to where Mr. Fowler, Cecil, Michael, and the other footmen and hallboys slept. All was clear and silent, and she tiptoed lightly, quietly down the second flight of stairs to the basement storey, where she would find the larder.

             
She passed the kitchen, pastry room, the scullery, and Mrs. Alcock’s special room before reaching the larder, and she carefully opened the heavy door that kept out the heat, bugs, and dust that could spoil the food. Once inside, she could breathe easier, and she reached up to pull the chain that would turn on the single electric light bulb screwed into the ceiling.

             
She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the sudden burst of light, and then moved towards the shelf where Mrs. Alcock had stored the boys’ birthday cake. It was wrapped in brown butcher’s paper and tied with twine, and she made sure the paper did not crinkle and crunch in her hands as she lifted it from the shelf. With the cake firmly secured in her arms, she freed one hand to turn off the light, and after a period of ocular adjustment, began her quiet, careful trek back through the halls of the servants’ quarters and upstairs.

             
She collapsed against the green baize door with a sigh of relief, and then looked up the interminable flights of stairs that would take her from the ground floor to the very top floor, where the nurseries lay. It would be shorter if she cut through the Saloon and used the grand staircase up to the second floor, but she met an even greater risk of getting caught.

             
Maggie shrugged and then turned to open the door that led to the Saloon and walked up those stairs. As she darted across the Saloon, a sliver of light caught her eye, and she glanced towards the half-opened door of the study to see His Grace bent over the large ledger book normally shelved in the steward’s room. He lifted his head and looked at the door. She backed into the shadows, watching curiously, as he rose from his chair and shut the door.

             
The sound of paper crackling brought her back to her more pressing concern, and she darted towards the stairs, hastening up the first and then the second flight to the second level, before opening the door to the servants’ staircase in the wallpapered hall. When she stepped onto the floor with the nursery wing, Her Grace was already there holding a small candle and a wicker picnic basket.

             
“The plates and forks,” Her Grace whispered softly. “We must be as quiet as church mice—Nanny Tester has ears like the very devil!”

             
Maggie grinned at that portrait of the stern, white-haired, and wizened old nanny. They were as quiet as church mice, and the door squeaked a little when Her Grace turned the knob to the night nursery and pushed it gently open. A cool night breeze wafted through the open windows, the long white curtains billowing and fluttering in the room like ghostly hands.

             
The gentle sheen of moonlight cast a white glow over the pale bedspreads covering the two small beds in the room and over the sleeping faces of Lord Rodborough and Lord Cornelius. She set the butcher paper wrapped cake on the nightstand and hung back as Her Grace set the candle on the table between the two beds and knelt to shake her sons awake.

             
Lord Rodborough came awake with a startled cry, and Her Grace clapped her hand over his mouth. Lord Cornelius awoke much more peacefully, blinking his bleary eyes until they focused on his mother; he smiled beautifully and sat up, pushing his blankets down his body.

             
“Why Mater, is there something wrong?” He rubbed his eyes. “Are you leaving us?”

             
Her Grace tensed, and Maggie stepped forward from the shadows. “We’ve come to celebrate your birthday, my lord.”

             
“What a bully idea!”

             
Her Grace shushed him and lowered her hand from Lord Rodborough’s mouth, rising from her crouch.

             
“Sorry Mater—what a bully idea!” Lord Cornelius whispered.

             
“Do we get gifts?” Lord Rodborough looked suspiciously at his mother.

             
“Of course, you silly goose,” Her Grace rumpled the eldest boy’s hair. “Look beneath your beds.”

             
They scrambled out of their beds to peer beneath the blankets, and Maggie suddenly recalled her own presents for the boys, lovingly wrapped in the nicest paper she could afford in Bledington’s village shop and hidden in her bedroom. With Her Grace’s permission, she hastened back to her bedroom to fetch the presents, and then hastened back to the night nursery, one eye on the closed door to Nanny Tester’s bedroom. It remained just as firmly shut as everyone else’s doors in the house—save His Grace, she remembered with a frown—and then returned inside. The boys were unwrapping their mother’s gifts, two long, large boxes. Inside were expensive toys—a small printing press for Lord Cornelius and a box of Harbutt’s Plasticine Builder for Lord Rodborough, who had a penchant for building and smashing things.

             
They were pleased and thankful, and Maggie stepped forward with her own wrapped gifts. She wasn’t ashamed of her much less expensive choices; for she was just a lady’s maid, but she was positive they would enjoy her presents just as much as their mother’s. They ripped open her beautiful wrapping paper (she winced—five and six a sheet!) and only just remembered Nanny Tester in their excitement over the pocket compass and knife pouch she ordered from Peter Robinson’s.

             
“Oh thank you Maggie!” Lord Rodborough whispered loudly.

             
“Bully gifts, Maggie,” Lord Cornelius’s eyes glowed with pleasure.

             
Maggie smiled shyly until she noticed Her Grace’s faltering expression of happiness.

             
“Now we can go scouting, Mater!” Lord Rodborough flicked open the compass and began walking with it around the nursery. “Come look at this, Neil.”

             
Lord Cornelius obeyed his brother’s abrupt command.

             
At Her Grace’s confused frown, Maggie supplied an explanation, “Their lordships pestered the footmen belowstairs with stories about Baden-Powell and his scouting about the countryside. I-I read about it in the newspaper and thought to purchase some of the tools for scouting.”

             
She lowered her eyes from Her Grace’s stricken expression, suddenly ashamed that she had not thought to inform her mistress about their lordships’ being mad over scouting.

             
“You are very clever, Maggie,” Her Grace said softly. “I knew I was right to value you so much.”

             
Maggie darted a glance at Her Grace, who smiled at her. She returned the smile, though she still felt worried over her surprising oversight. “Shall I slice the cake, Your Grace?” she said hastily.