Rebecca smiled widely and returned her attention to the soup in front of her. Mary watched her daughter for a few moments before leaving the room. She went back into the almost empty tavern and took all plates, bowls, and cups off the tables. She swept the entire place and went back into the kitchen. She finished up the potatoes and served dinner into a plate that she took upstairs. She tapped gently on Madame Mackle’s bedroom door.
“Is that you, Mary?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mary replied.
“Come in,” Madame Mackle answered.
Mary walked in and dropped the plate on the table just adjacent to the door. Madame Mackle’s bedroom was a large room. She had a large bed four times the size of Mary’s, two tall mirrors hanging on opposite walls and a table and chair where she did her rare reading. Her windows were covered today by her rose patterned curtains with beautifully crafted drapery making the room even darker than the evening dictated. There was a small wooden sculpture on her reading table.
Mary remembered that the sculpture used to be on the table of Lord William. Lord William had given it to Madame Mackle when she was leaving his house. This was before Mary also left.
“I saw Mister Henry Steele today,” Madame Mackle said.
Mary lifted her head slowly and saw the wicked smile on Madame Mackle’s face. She was doing this intentionally.
“He was as lively as always. He asked about you, and I told him that you were faring well.Or are you not?” Madame Mackle asked.
Mary gave no verbal reply and only nodded her head. Mary was tempted to ask if he asked about his daughter, Rebecca, but she decided she wouldn’t give her boss the pleasure of another wicked answer. So she just nodded and turned back to leave.
“I might see him tomorrow once again. Don’t you have any message to pass to him?” Madame Mackle asked.
Mary shook her head. Henry had gotten her pregnant and had left her and the child when she gave birth. She had been unable to continue as a maid for Lord William, who was a wonderful man and had been forced to work for Madame Mackle.
“I don’t. I do have a message for Lord William, just that I am sending him my greetings,” Mary said.
She almost smiled when Madame Mackle frowned and turned up her nose.
“Hmmmph,” she grunted and nodded.
Mary opened the door and went back to the stairs. On getting to the final step, she rested her back on the wall, and memories flooded back to her. Mary remembered when she first met Madame Mackle at Lord William’s house.
“Mary, this is Mackle. She’s the cook and a senior house staff. You will defer to her,” Lord William told her.
Mary had curtseyed. Madame Mackle didn’t even deign to look at her. She just dropped the tray of lemonade she brought for the Baron and started to go away. Mary ran after her.
“Madame Mackle,” she said in the corridor.
The bigger woman turned back with a nasty scowl.
“You are not under any condition to call my name without a requisite need. When I need you, I’ll summon you. When I don’t, be wise to stay out of my way.”
With that, she turned and went to the kitchen. Mary was not a kitchen help but was employed to clean the house and the immediate environs. After a short time, she became rather great at staying out of the mean woman’s way. She wasn’t pained when the woman left. She only wondered which man had seen her fit to marry.
“He must be as blind as Lord William’s cat,” one of her fellow maids said one day. It was a joke that stuck, for Lord William had a one-eyed cat.
“Well, things went awry after that. I’m working for her now,” Mary said to herself. And the man that was supposedly blind was now dead.
Mary took the last step into the tavern and made her way to the kitchen. She met Rebecca standing in front of the stack of pots.
“Mother, I was looking for you,” Rebecca said.
“I went to see Madame Mackle,” she replied.
She bent and picked up her daughter, carrying her in her arms. She took her outside and placed her on the counter.
“Sit still. I’ll be back very quickly.”
Mary finished up the cleaning and placed every item at its correct position. When she was satisfied that Madame Mackle would not wake up the next morning to complain about the kitchen, she walked out and shut the kitchen door. She went to her daughter, who was playing with some cups on top of the counter.
“Can we go now?” Rebecca asked, looking up to her mother.
“Yes, dear,” Mary replied and carried her daughter once again.
Her daughter was her closest and best friend, and despite the age gap, they spoke about a lot of things.
“Did you do your sums today?” Mary asked her as she walked down the aisle.
Rebecca shook her head. Mary frowned, purposely showing displeasure at Rebecca’s laziness.
“I tried to, but I kept falling asleep. And when the rain started, it became too noisy,” Rebecca explained.
“Hmmph,” Mary grunted.
“I’m serious. I’ll do them tomorrow,” Rebecca offered.
“What if I’m too busy tomorrow to help you?”
“I can do my sums myself. I’m a big girl now.”
Mary chuckled. Yes, she was getting bigger, growing faster than Mary could understand. But she was a long distance from a big girl. She wasn’t and wouldn’t be for quite a while. Mary decided to humour her daughter despite her opposing thoughts, using it as an avenue to train her a bit before they slept.
“So you’re a big girl,” Mary said.
She went to the main tavern door and noted that it wasn’t locked, just as expected.
“You’ll need to come down, big girl,” Mary said.
“Okay,” her daughter replied.
Mary stooped to drop her five-year-old form on the ground then she stood back up. She picked up the thick wooden slot beside the door and placed it into its home, firmly jamming the tavern door. She did the same for the lower slot before turning once again.
“Are we finished?” Rebecca asked.
“Yes, of course.”
They walked back to the kitchen and took the shortcut out to the back.
“So you know big girls can spell things, Rebecca.”
Rebecca nodded.
“I know that, Mama. I can spell things.”
“’So spell, ‘Malice’, without mistake.”
“Maaa – leese,” Rebecca said in an attempt to pronounce the word.
Mary corrected her and gave her three chances to spell. None of her spellings were correct, and Mary was correcting her as they were returning into their cabin. Rebecca was eager for another attempt to spell, upon entering, but Mary was tired and desperate to sleep.
“We need to sleep, dear,” Mary said.
She undressed quickly and wore her satin nightgown. It was a gift from Henry, one of the things she hadn’t destroyed in a mad rage.
“But can we spell tomorrow?” Rebecca asked as they lay side by side on the straw bed.
It was far from comfortable and was a long distance from the soft bed she used to sleep on in Lord William’s house. But that was years ago, and she was used to this new sleeping condition.
“Yes, dear, we can spell tomorrow.”
“Okay, good night, mama.”
“Good night, daughter.”
Both of them lay silent after that, Mary, tired and eager for sleep to overtake her and deaden her to the world and her worries. But tonight, after attempting to catch sleep for a good while, it didn’t come. Mary could not but think back to the activities of the day, and that was when she remembered the old knight and his son.
She remembered the alarm on the face of Sir Ollerton and the way he rapidly stood up to leave. Only the seriousness of the situation had prevented her from laughing but now that it was in retrospect, she could not help laughing. Mary laughed and looked to her side. Rebecca was already asleep.
The son, Mr Ollerton, was a different case. She had noticed
him from the first instant he came in. She had first seen him talking to Earl at the door. He was wet and dripping and spoke a lot to Earl before hanging his coat. He had deep brown hair that was well cropped and a shadow of a moustache over his upper lip. His face had no creases, unlike his father’s, although they shared the similar high cheek boned look. But his eyes did not demand like the knight’s; instead, they enraptured and allured. His stare had made her feel hot and overly conscious many times.
“He’s handsome,” Mary admitted to herself.
She liked the way he took his drink in sensible sips and possessed the demeanour to laugh even while he and his father were talking about serious issues. She had stayed close to them because of him.
Mary, her name is Mary.
That would inform her that he was just as interested in her as she was in him. But Mary was wise to such wiles. She had fallen for them once from another high standing man. She wasn’t going to repeat it. Her words had chased them, but Mary saw how he looked back longingly at her when he was leaving. He would come back. Mary hoped she would be prepared to withstand his charm. She had failed to do that once, and it had cost her quite a lot.
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Under the Seductive Lady's Charm: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 31
