And thus, whilst Aubrey modelled for Halloway’s painting, Lindsey went up to the library and asked Charles to send for Mrs Sheffield to meet him there. He’d hardly opened the Pall Mall Gazette before she arrived.
A strong-jawed woman of middling age, Mrs Sheffield appeared unchanged since Lindsey had last seen her, he knew not how many years ago. Her dress, starched and ironed to rival any officer’s uniform, looked as if plucked out of a photograph from several decades before. In her typical brusque manner, yet nevertheless deferential, she asked, “How may I be of service, Sir Lindsey?”
“Miss Althorp has charged me with selecting staff to bring into the Manchester household.”
If Mrs Sheffield found this out of the ordinary, she hid it very well. Lindsey supposed Rowena had occasion to give her far more outlandish orders in all the years since she took control of the chatelaine.
“She thought,” Lindsey continued, “I might find at least a girl-of-all-work and a cook. Is there anyone you’d particularly recommend?”
After a moment’s consideration, Mrs Sheffield replied, “I should think any of our girls would be well-suited to the position of parlour maid. But, with your leave, I shall ask which of them have an interest in a change of scene. As for the cook, I’m loathe to spare Mrs Goode…”
“Nor would I ask it of you,” Lindsey replied in perfect solemnity. Though he would miss the comfort of Mrs Goode’s culinary prowess.
“However,” Mrs Sheffield went on, “I may persuade her to leave go of one of her kitchen-maids. They’ve all trained up under her, and with the opportunity, will doubtless rise to the occasion.”
“Splendid!” said Lindsey. Then, as a spark of inspiration struck him, he added, “Would it be possible for one such kitchen-maid to practice for her new role for the duration of our stay in the country?”
Mrs Sheffield concurred with his plan and, with a dignified curtsy, departed to carry out her orders.
Lindsey spent another moment entertaining himself with what his sister would think of his brilliant scheme, then finished with what he considered the interesting bits of The Pall Mall Gazette and moved on to The Strand. In the midst of a literary tour through the establishment of one Mr Doyle, the entrance of Charles interrupted Lindsey’s reading.
“Mrs Sheffield,” said Charles, “has consulted with Mrs Goode and they believe Miss Murphy will suit our purposes. In a related matter, luncheon is served.”
~
The modelling continued until shortly before noon, when Halloway set down the tools of his trade, cracked his knuckles, and announced himself famished. Aubrey dressed again and joined Halloway in returning to the breakfast room. There they found luncheon laid out upon the table, and Lindsey already at its head.
“We’re trying out a new cook,” he explained as Aubrey and Halloway took their seats upon either side of him. “Miss Murphy is eager to prove herself.”
From what Aubrey could judge of the quails and watercress, lamb cutlets with peas, and lemon-water ice, Miss Murphy had proved herself ten times over.
After luncheon, Halloway assured Aubrey he had plenty to work with from his sketches, and Aubrey, without any excuse remaining, finally conceded it might be time to go out to the stables. Lindsey retreated upstairs to don his riding attire. Halloway returned to the ballroom to continue his composition.
Which left Aubrey quite alone in the enormous emptiness of the country house.
And yet, whilst in Wiltshire, he could never truly call himself alone.
Even as he slipped out of the breakfast room, he espied out of the corner of his eye two footmen on their way to clean up after the gentlemen’s meal. A wash of shame overcame him as he considered what sort of mess he might have left behind; he did his able best to conduct himself in a tidy fashion, but nevertheless he couldn’t help thinking what the footmen might say between themselves. Endless comments about his appetite, his manners, whether he had left too much or too little food upon his plate, how his efforts at dirtying as few dishes as possible marked him out as a rustic unaccustomed to fine dining, or what they must think of him daring to sit at their master’s right hand—all ran through Aubrey’s mind in a closed circuit, no matter how he tried to wrench that particular train of thought off its track.
As such, he took an impulsive left turn down a corridor to avoid passing them and found himself in a part of the house he did not recognise. A long hallway of identical doors stretched out before him, ending in a crossway.
Aubrey, with a final glance over his shoulder at the way he’d come, plunged down the hallway. He wished he had the materials to solve the problem mathematically—a piece of chalk to mark the walls, for example, so he might make full use of Trémaux’s method. In the absence of chalk, he supposed he must treat the house as a labyrinth rather than a true maze. To this end, he raised his left hand to the wall until his fingertips grazed its pristine surface, and continued on his way, keeping contact with the wall as he went, with allowances for the doors which dotted its length. When he came to the crossway, he turned left, maintaining his hand on the wall all the while. This brought him into another hall of doors, ending in a pair of double doors flung wide, through which he recognised the grand entryway of the house, its sweeping staircase stretching diagonally across the opening.
However, his victory in coming so soon to the end of his predicament proved short-lived. For as he strode forth, he caught a snatch of conversation, growing louder and louder as he approached the foyer.
“—ask Mrs Sheffield?”
“She’ll only tell me I’m being foolish. Can’t you just trade rounds with me? I’m half-dead of fright as it is!”
The two young women’s voices drifted out from a door halfway down the hall, just cracked ajar. Aubrey, already determined to push past it to reach the safety of the foyer, slowed at the mention of fright. He glanced through the crack of the door as he passed. Some manner of sitting room lay within, with sofas and settees and armchairs scattered about, and two maids in identical black-and-white uniforms, one kneeling by the fireplace to black the grate, the other standing by with her arms crossed over herself in a protective gesture, shoulders hunched, bent down to speak to the working girl.
“What’s there to be frightened of?” asked the girl at the grate, not pausing her task. A lock of dark hair fell out from under her white cap, and she tucked it back behind her ear without ceremony. She spoke low, her words collected and calm, with a slight lilting accent—Welsh, Aubrey thought.
“What’s to be frightened—?” the upright girl echoed in disbelief. “You’ve seen him! That face!”
Even as he’d listened, Aubrey had scolded himself for his foolish vanity in supposing the word ‘him’ referred to himself. Yet the final words removed all possible ambiguity. Hot shame surged through his cheeks, burnt and unburnt alike, flaring up the back of his neck and scorching his ears.
“It gives me horrors, it does!” the upright girl went on. “I can’t bear to go into the master chambers alone—what if he should walk in behind my back, and I turn away from the mantle to see—!” She cut herself off, shuddering. “All half-melted, like a wax figure come to life! I’d rather scour pots in the kitchen than risk seeing—”
“I’ll do it,” said the girl at the grate.
The frightened girl appeared as shocked as Aubrey felt at her interruption. The girl at the grate had never yet looked up from her blacking.
“You will?” the frightened girl asked, as much suspicious as hopeful.
The girl at the grate looked up at last. She turned away from Aubrey as she did, and he couldn’t see her face, but from her tone, he supposed she’d fixed the frightened girl with a severe expression. “So long as you never call such a face a horror again.”
The frightened girl blinked at her. “But—!”
“I don’t care what you think of it,” said the girl at the grate. She pushed herself up from her kneeling pose, and stood at least a head shorter than her fellow maid. “I do
n’t want to hear it.”
Her voice remained low and level throughout, revealing no touch of anger or scorn, and yet so stern as to brook no argument.
The frightened girl looked as if she had a great deal more to say on the subject, but shut her mouth with a nod.
The working girl bent to the grate again to pick up her bucket and brush. In doing so, her face turned towards the doorway.
Aubrey ducked away from the opening lest she catch sight of him and escaped down the hallway—reflecting bitterly as he went that he should have gone on ahead in the first place, and never stopped to eavesdrop at all.
~
Aubrey had toured the stables just once before, on his initial visit to the Wiltshire house, the very same occasion when Lindsey first proposed riding lessons. Now, Aubrey found them much the same as then; warm, bright, smelling of horseflesh and hay, full of handsome steeds and handsome grooms.
Over the course of his time with Lindsey, Aubrey had learnt that most households hired footmen on the basis of their height first and their handsome features second, with capability forming a more distant third. Thus, he knew the presence of so many tall and well-formed young men in livery was not so unusual as he’d first supposed.
However, most households didn’t use the same hiring requirements for the grooms or the gardeners or any other place in the staff a man might fill.
Rowena, in her efforts to channel her brother’s interest, had.
And so every man in the Wiltshire house besides Aubrey stood over six feet tall and had, at the very least, extraordinarily symmetrical features, if not striking ones.
Aubrey, with his small frame and his half-melted face, felt rather like an imp amongst angels. Any moment the grooms would realise he didn’t belong and swoop down upon him to toss him out of their Heaven.
But, of course, they did no such thing. Though Aubrey did catch a couple of sidelong glances out of the corner of his eye. They didn’t look at his face. Not the whole of it. They looked at his burn scars, and then quickly away.
Aubrey turned his attention to the horses. These, at least, didn’t stare at his scars. He wasn’t sure they could stare, what with their eyes on opposite sides of their heads. They hardly seemed to notice him at all. Just kept on pawing the stable floor, munching straw, shaking their heads, occasionally snorting. They might kill him with their powerful muscles and massive hooves, but they wouldn’t judge his appearance.
“Aubrey!”
Aubrey whirled at the sound of Lindsey’s voice, lowered out of respect for their surroundings, but nonetheless joyful.
Lindsey stood at the entrance to the stables. Sun streamed through the open doors to bathe him in an heroic glow, turning the golden curls spilling out from beneath his top hat into an ethereal halo. A well-tailored coat clung to his slender waist, drawing Aubrey’s gaze in and down to the fawn-coloured breeches. These, so tight Lindsey appeared sewn into them, gave a splendid view of his lean, sinewy thighs and slid straight down into his tall black boots. The boots, polished to a gleaming sheen, had a heel just high enough to accentuate the elegant curve of his calves. This, then, was a man in full riding costume, and what a marvellous effect it had.
Aubrey realised he’d been staring, swallowed, and said, “Good morning.”
Lindsey grinned. “Have you chosen your steed?”
“Not yet,” Aubrey admitted. “Have you?”
“Indeed I have! Come and see.”
Aubrey joined Lindsey in the doorway. Lindsey gestured out into the stable yard, and a little way beyond to a particular circle of fenced-in turf. Within this enclosure stood an enormous beast, with hooves broader than Aubrey’s skull, and a head as long as his torso. A handsome groom held its bridle—a groom who either had a surfeit of courage or did not value his own life too highly, by Aubrey’s reckoning.
“This is Bellerophon,” Lindsey declared, gazing on the creature with as much fond tenderness as if it were a puppy.
“How tall…?” Aubrey started to ask, then trailed off as he realised it was a stupid question. The answer, obviously, was too tall. The beast tossed its head well above Lindsey and all the grooms.
“Eighteen hands at the withers,” Lindsey proudly announced.
Aubrey wondered how to convert hands to feet and inches, and furthermore, where exactly on the animal one might find the withers. Its shoulders towered over him, that much he knew for certain.
“Fletcher thinks Parsival might do for you to start on,” Lindsey added.
Aubrey, half-afraid to ask just how many hands tall were Parsival’s withers, turned away from the mighty aspect of Bellerophon to regard the approach of one of the grooms who’d stolen glances at him just moments earlier.
Fletcher, a tall young man with sandy hair and moustache, nodded briskly to his employer and to Aubrey in turn. Lindsey bid Fletcher show them Parsival’s stall, and Fletcher led the way down to the other end of the stables, past many more giant beasts at rest.
“Parsival,” Fletcher said when they reached the appropriate stall.
Aubrey peered up at the horse. He supposed its dapple grey coat pleasing to the eye. And its ears seemed to swivel with less unnerving frequency than those of its companions. Its large brown eyes roved over the three men. Then it ducked its head—Aubrey fought the urge to jump back—and gently butted its nose against Fletcher’s chest.
Fletcher, with perfect sangfroid, pulled a chunk of carrot from his pocket and held it out to Parsival in a flat palm. Parsival’s maw opened to reveal a row of teeth like chisels, each blade wider than Aubrey’s thumb and about as long. The enormous flapping lips picked up the treat, and with a crunch like cracking bone, the carrot vanished down Parsival’s gullet. Fletcher gave a gentle pat to the horse’s muscular neck.
“Gelding,” Lindsey offered up in answer to Aubrey’s many, many unspoken questions. “Sixteen hands.”
Smaller than Bellerophon, at least. Though it certainly didn’t look small up close. Aubrey, no innate judge of horseflesh, could do little more than nod his assent to the groom’s choice.
Fletcher appeared sceptical. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but may I see your boots?”
Aubrey, reminded none-too-fondly of being asked to present his personal effects for inspection at the workhouse, plucked at the knees of his trousers to pull the hems up away from his boots, raising each foot in turn and twisting it to show Fletcher the sole. Even in the soft light of the stables, every scuff and scratch stood out like lightning against stormy skies.
“You’ve got a heel at least,” Fletcher conceded. “They’ll do well enough to keep your feet in the stirrups for today.”
Without further ado, Fletcher took the horse out of the stall and, assisted by his fellow grooms, began tacking him up. Lindsey, apparently content to leave his servants to their work, returned to the stable yard, and Aubrey followed him.
“It might,” Aubrey said in a low voice after touching Lindsey’s arm to get his attention, “assist me in understanding how to go about horse-riding if I had a fresh example in my mind.”
Lindsey required no further prompting to stride out into the paddock towards proud Bellerophon. He walked right up to the beast’s left side, put his hands upon its back, slid one foot into the stirrup, then leapt into the air and swung his leg out over the saddle in one fluid motion, coming down into a seat as easy and comfortable as if he were perched in his favourite chair, the reins already caught up in his hands, smooth and effortless.
At some secret signal, Bellerophon started forward, his gait resolving into what even Aubrey could recognise as a trot. Lindsey gracefully rose and fell in the saddle in tandem with his steed’s movements, as easily balanced as if he walked upon his own two legs.
Aubrey watched the whole proceedings from his perch against a fence-post. The stunning display absorbed all his attention so thoroughly that he didn’t notice Fletcher’s approach until the man spoke.
“He’s an able sportsman, is Sir Lindsey,” Fletcher declar
ed with no small amount of admiration in his tone.
Aubrey certainly agreed, yet something about the praise gave him pause. Fletcher, like all the rest of the grooms, and every other male servant in the house—apart from the butler, Mr Hudson—had been hired by Rowena with very specific hopes in mind. To wit, that should Lindsey’s nature overwhelm him, he would find a relatively safe outlet amongst the staff. Not only was every man on the property tall and strikingly handsome, but, to hear Graves tell it, had also been chosen for his predilection to respond favourably to untoward advances from his employer.
Before now, Aubrey had assumed this merely meant Rowena had gone out of her way to hire a full staff of sodomites. But the admiration in Fletcher’s tone as he praised Lindsey’s skills as a sportsman shone new light upon the situation. Perhaps the staff were more than inclined to react well to indecent proposals. Perhaps they were expecting them. Perhaps they’d even hoped for them.
Until Aubrey came along.
For all he knew, any man on staff at the Wiltshire house had banked on improving his position in life through becoming the chosen favourite. Then, in a sequence of events absolutely no one could have predicted, Lindsey had won a mill in a card game, encountered a particular lowly clerk at said mill, and had given his heart over to him at first sight. Aubrey knew well how unspeakably lucky he was to have met Lindsey. Yet he also knew how their meeting had thrown a wrench into everyone else’s plans for the baronet.
Everyone’s plans, quite possibly including his staff’s.
“Ought to see him jump,” Fletcher added, drawing Aubrey out of his uncomfortable musings. “Fence, beck, stones—he’ll throw his heart over any obstacle.”
Fletcher looked as if he would speak on, but then Lindsey’s circuit around the paddock brought him past where they stood, drawing their attention.
Lindsey tipped his hat to them as he trotted past. His broad smile bespoke an invitation as loud as any speech. Join me?
Throw His Heart Over Page 4
