It Started with a Scandal (14 page)

And if he was honest with himself, he’d said those words for a reason.

The silence was filled with confusion.

And she was suffering. He wasn’t certain why. He only knew that he couldn’t bear it.

“Mrs. Fountain,” he said gently. “I sometimes forget that I am French and others are not. The English are perhaps more reticent. We speak of such things as if it were the weather.”

She looked up at him, searching his face as if for the truth of this.

“But not typically to housekeepers.” She said this gently, as if she were pointing something out to a child.

And yet there was the faintest hint of a question in her words.

He went utterly still.

His mind blanked in astonishment.

And all at once he was wholly abashed.

Then flooded with admiration.

Damned if she hadn’t skewered him with truth.

She was not a toy. She was not a game. She did not exist to ease his moods. She was not a woman of his world, for whom flirtation was merely a second language. For whom gifts were all but meaningless.

But she
was
a woman. With feelings of her own, no doubt secrets of her own, and right now she was suffering.

Was it . . . because of him?

Or perhaps his vanity suggested this.

The notion elated him in a way he was afraid to examine.

But it made him gravely unhappy to distress her.

“Perhaps I have forgotten my place,” he said gruffly at last.

She drew in what sounded like a bracing breath. “I won’t forget mine,” she said.

At the moment, they seemed like the worst words he’d ever heard.

He could feel the beginnings of a flush on the back of his neck. Of
all things
.

When was the last time he’d blushed?

Perhaps when he was fourteen years old.

“Forgive me if I carelessly caused offense,” he said stiffly.

“Oh, there is of course nothing to forgive,” she said hurriedly, graciously, and gave him an actual smile. The sort that made an impish point of her chin and revealed dimples and turned her eyes into stars. “One cannot help being French.”

The smile was gone too soon.

His regret made him realize he’d begun to crave that smile a bit too much.

It was better than laudanum. Than brandy. Than the vile willow bark tea.

And she was always so much more comfortable easing his distress than allowing her own to be eased.

Since “humbled” was another unfamiliar condition for him, he remained silent and thoughtful. At a loss, for perhaps the first time in . . . he could not recall.

“If you’ve no further requirements at the moment, my lord, I must oversee the apple tarts or they will burn. And just to remind you, tonight is my evening off.”

“Please do leave. Nothing is more important than those apple tarts. Enjoy your evening, Mrs. Fountain.”

But he could hear that his voice had gone peculiarly thick.

He didn’t know why his feelings should be hurt.

She curtsied and hurried past him.

He watched her go, rotating as if he’d been a weathervane and she the wind. Just that helpless.

Chapter 15

T
HE NEXT
DAY BEGAN
very early and innocently enough, apart from the glowering skies and the intermittent torrential downpour that would keep Jack inside and underfoot in the servants quarters. No one minded his presence, though, since he was like a lively breath of spring, and in great danger of being spoiled by everyone. Elise and the servants had reached a civil, even collegial, rhythm to their days—truly, everyone enjoyed being in a spotless house featuring strategically placed vases of flowers here and there. The footmen were quite decorative, as well.

They now all breakfasted together along with Jack.

Even Dolly had been . . . sweet.

Treacle sweet.

Elise decided to forgo suspicion and congratulated herself on winning her over.

Jack, perhaps with the instinct small children and animals have for people, generally went mute around Dolly and eyed her with big, wary eyes, which got warier when she smiled.

Fortunately it was Dolly’s half day off, and she wasn’t about to forgo it, rainstorm or no.

She pushed her empty plate away from her and thumped out a muffled belch with one fist to her sternum. “I’ll just get me cloak and go then, Mrs. Fountain.”

“You won’t want to go out in this, Dolly, will you?” Elise scooped Lord Lavay’s coffee into a pot and shook his tea into a cup, too. “Perhaps you can have an extra entire day later?”

“Oh, it willna be like this all day, Mrs. Fountain. Me sister will be taking me out, ye see, for a visit, and she’ll be waiting.”

Elise stood on her toes and peered out the window. She could just make out a cart and horse waiting at the far end of the drive, with what appeared to be a very large driver bundled in heaps of clothing. One would have to be mad or desperate to go out in this weather. It was close to being dangerous for everyone.

She frowned faintly.

They all scattered to see to their duties—Kitty and Mary to clean the kitchen, the footman to see to the fires—and Elise decided it would be a fine time to make more headway on polishing the silver. She sifted through her keys and paused.

The cabinet containing the fine porcelain appeared to be ever so slightly ajar.

She leaped for it and yanked the door wide open. She peered inside, her heart in her throat, a suspicion burning.

Suspicion was sickeningly confirmed: the little blue sauceboat was missing.

Fury hazed her vision.

She whirled and listened. Dolly hadn’t reappeared on the servant’s stairs. Usually one could hear her footsteps coming from a significant distance away.

Dolly might be big, but Elise was faster.

“Jack, stay here in the kitchen!” she ordered as she shut the cabinet. And then she bolted down the passageway and ran like the devil through the house.

She intercepted Dolly hastening her way out the front door.

Dolly was swathed in a vast cloak.

And interestingly, carrying a valise that appeared to be bulging.

Elise leaped in front of her and barred the exit.

“Ye’ll want to move, Mrs. Fountain,” Dolly drawled. “Me sister will get drenched out there.”

“Why are you carrying a valise, Dolly?”

Dolly remained rooted to the spot. The hand not holding the valise was tucked beneath her cloak.

“I dinna think that be yer business, Mrs. Fountain,” she said pleasantly, which only served to make it sound sinister.

“Show me what is in your hand, Dolly.”

Dolly remained as rooted as a boulder.

“
Now
.” Elise spat the word like a bullet from a gun.

Dolly’s hand shot out, her eyes wide, looking as surprised as if she’d been a puppet and someone had yanked her strings.

Gripped in her fist was the blue Sevres sauceboat.

The sense of betrayal was immense. How, how, how could she have been so foolish as to trust Dolly?

Elise’s temper was sizzling dangerously. She’d given her trust before and regretted it deeply, and she would be damned if it would be trampled upon like this again.

“Why are you holding that sauceboat? Were you about to use it to put out a cheroot on your little jaunt with your ‘sister’?” Her voice was low and menacing.

The silence was deafening.

Elise was smaller than Dolly, but her anger radiated from her like the fur on a furious cat. She felt three sizes larger and twenty times meaner.

Dolly remained silent.

“How did you get into the cabinet, Dolly?”

“Ach, ye poor dear, ye think ye’re so kind and clever, and ye’re such an
amateur
. Ye wi’ yer sweetness and kindness and thank-yous. One thump with me fist at the corner and it popped right open.”

Elise blinked. “I thought we reached an agreement.” Beneath the fury, she was surprised to find that her feelings and pride were hurt.

“‘Tis better to be quick than kind, Mrs. Fountain. Now, if ye’ll
kindly
step aside.”

“Listen to me, you
fraud
. You are as of now released without references. I care not what becomes of you. You are fortunate I won’t ensure you are hanged for theft.”

Dolly finally, appropriately, blanched, which was not a pretty sight.

The first appropriate thing she’d done since Elise had arrived.

“‘Tis just one thing. That rich cove has so
many
things and I’ve—”

“You’ve what? A job? A roof over your head? Food in your belly? A sense of entitlement? No gratitude? How
dare
you. How
dare
you. The ‘he’ of which you speak is a prince of the House of Bourbon, who shed blood for this country and his own so that the likes of you can remain safe and enjoy, as you say, ‘your little pleasures.’ He is a remark . . .” Elise felt her voice crack. “. . . remarkable, kind, and just man, and he is the one currently keeping you alive. The thing you hold is one of the few things left of his possessions when his home was
stolen
from him. And now you would steal from him again? You’ve been treated a sight better than most servants ever are, and you repay him with thievery. Which you then, astonishingly, attempt to justify.”

It was such an assault of passionate eloquence that Dolly stood blinking, stunned, as if she’d been sprayed with shrapnel.

A fraught little silence ensued.

“What will ‘e do?” Dolly murmured nastily. “Chase after me?”

Elise had never been so tempted to strike someone.

“He doesn’t need to run in order to shoot you, and if he should wish to shoot you, I’d lie to the magistrate and say it was in self-defense. That you had gone mad and attacked him, because surely you must be mad to think I wouldn’t eventually discover your thievery. You’ve always struck me as the sort who would eventually meet her end at the end of a rope.”

Dolly was now scorching red.

“You’re one to judge, ain’t ye, Mrs. Fountain,” she hissed. “I’ve ‘eard a thing or two about ye, so’s I have. Let ye who be without sin—”

Elise stepped forward abruptly and put her face up to Dolly. So close she could see the hair in her nostrils and the color of her eyes and the tiny broken veins fanning from either side of her flaring nostrils. She could smell the woman’s sour breath, which was coming rapidly now.

“Spend a lot of time in church, do you, Dolly?” Elise said it very quietly, but apparently she managed to sound sinister. “I
dare
you to finish that sentence.”

Dolly’s throat moved when she swallowed.

“If you can tell me from whom
I
stole, and who I injured, then you may keep your position.”

Dolly remained wordless.

“I thought not. Give me the sauceboat.”

Dolly lifted her hand, prepared to throw it, but Elise was faster and snatched it from her.

“Drop that valise and get out of this house. NOW. You’ll find any belongings you left behind in the road tomorrow morning.”

Dolly spat toward Elise’s feet, missed, dropped the valise, and stormed her way out of the house, slamming the door behind her.

Elise seized the valise to search later, whirled on her heel, prepared to storm off, and staggered to a halt.

Lord Lavay was standing at the end of the hallway.

He was watching her.

His expression was very nearly . . . wonderment.

As if something was dawning on him.

He must have heard her passionately defend that blue sauceboat as if it had been Lord Lavay himself being spirited out of the house by a ham-handed Dolly Farmer.

They mutely regarded each other. The expression in his eyes nearly buckled her knees, so soft yet fierce it was.

“Thank you for defending my honor, Mrs. Fountain. You looked for a moment there ready to do murder,” he said softly. “And I should know, as I’m quite familiar with the look. Pirates frequently sport it.”

She tried to smile. She couldn’t quite do it.

If I were to kiss you . . .

She held his sauceboat out to him wordlessly. Tenderly. As if it were, indeed, a kiss.

He strode slowly over to her and took it from her just as gently, almost ceremoniously, his fingertips brushing hers.

He looked down at it for some time without speaking.

Very like he didn’t want her to see his expression, either.

“She was wrong, Mrs. Fountain. It’s better to be kind than to be quick. Please don’t lose heart.”

“I won’t. But I think we need a new lock for the porcelain cabinet.”

He looked up. “I’ll find room in the budget.”

She smiled at that.

“I fear she was the cook, Lord Lavay.”

He shrugged with one shoulder. “I’ll eat bread and cheese if necessary. Or dine out with the Earl and Countess of Ardmay.”

“It won’t be necessary,” she rushed to assure him. “A man can’t live on apple tarts alone. I can cook adequately until we find another. And I’ll have your coffee brought up to you. My apologies for the delay in bringing it to you this morning, if that’s what brought you down.”

“I can survive a few minutes more without coffee. And fear not. These things happen, Fountain. I’ve sacked many a man in my day. None so large as Dolly Farmer, however.”

She smiled at him.

He turned to return to his study, and over his shoulder called, “Oh, and congratulations. The job is officially yours.”

A
LL THE
WAY
up the stairs, down the hall, and back to his study, Philippe was savoring in his mind’s eye the expression on Mrs. Fountain’s face when she’d defended him.

He could not recall ever before seeing quite the same expression on a woman’s face. That tender ferocity. Moments of peril had much the same effect as alcohol: they shook loose truths.

He held the sauceboat tenderly, as if escorting a prisoner of war to safety.

He came to an almost skidding halt, just as a small boy he’d never seen in his life did as well. They were approaching each other from opposite directions.

They perused each other silently, nonplussed and warily, from a distance of about twelve feet.

“You must be the giant,” the boy said finally.

“The
giant
?”

The house likely had its share of ghosts, given that it was a century or so old, but he hadn’t yet encountered any of them. This one wasn’t transparent. He had what appeared to be crumbs clinging to the corner of his mouth. In all likelihood apple tart.

Philippe approached slowly, as if the boy were a feral animal with sharp teeth rather than a child.

He stood and looked down.

The boy stood his ground, his eyes huge.

“Please don’t eat me.”

“I’m not hungry,” Philippe found himself saying inanely.

Did he work in the kitchens? What was he doing running amuck on this floor of the house?

“You can eat Liam,” Jack offered, as smoothly as a courtier maneuvering palace politics. “He can run faster than me, but there’s more of him. For now,” Jack vowed. “I’ll be bigger.”

“You really ought not betray your mate. It’s a matter of honor, young man.” This was somehow a reflex, too.

“Honor?” Jack repeated, testing the word and clearly liking it.

“Yes. It means to be proud to do what is right. And a true man is loyal to his compatriots.”

He couldn’t shake the dreamlike quality of the dark hallway. And there was something about the boy . . . it was like a word at the tip of his tongue that he couldn’t quite reach.

“Are compatries like apple tarts?”

“‘Com-pa-tri-ots’ is a word that means ‘friends’ and ‘comrades in arms.’ The men who look out for you when you go into battle. And every day in life, too.”

Why had he launched into a lecture as naturally as if it were something he did always?

“I wish I had a lion,” the boy said suddenly.

“Of course. Everybody does.”

“And a horse.”

“Naturally.”

He’d happened into a conversational labyrinth without a compass, clearly.

Jack brightened. “Do you eat little girls instead, then? I know where you can find
loads
of them. Over at Miss Endicott’s Academy. They’re usually cleaner.”

“I’m partial to apple tarts. I have not yet eaten a person. I
have
eaten a weevil.” He said this as if playing a trump.

“Ewwww!”

A gratifying reaction.

“When I’m a little bigger, I’ll be able to ring the church bell by myself with no help at all.”

“An admirable ambition.”

“I like apple tarts, too,” the boy confided. “Have you slept in a hammock?”

“Have I wha—yes. I have.” He’d begun to rather look forward to where this conversation would next lead. It was a bit like fencing, but much less dangerous. “I was a sailor on a great ship. I slept in a bunk, which is simply a very hard bed. But my men slept in hammocks.”

“My mama says sailors sleep in hammocks.”

“Your mama . . .”

“She told me not to bounce on the bed or I would sleep in a hammock.”

The back of Philippe’s neck prickled portentously. His mama . . .

“What do you think giants eat?” the boy asked.

“Whatever they want to eat, I should imagine.” Philippe heard his voice go remote, a little colder now, because a realization was beginning to solidify.