“Friday, you say.” Hood paused, his mouth working hard as he weighed her promise against his trust. “In the same place as always, there on your new master’s land?”
“No,” she said hurriedly, wishing she’d remembered to mention that before he had. “No, but only because I wish to leave nothing to chance, and not because I distrust Captain Lord Claremont. Tell them we’ll meet just south of Green Bridge, below Solomon’s Hill.”
Hood nodded. “And what shall I tell them about you, mistress, if your word is worth their lives?”
“Because my name is Winslow,” she said without a moment’s hesitation, her voice ringing out in the tiny dairy. “And if any man in the Company is taken and hangs because of Captain Lord Claremont, then I will be there at the gallows beside them.”
George shielded his eyes against the sun with the curve of his hand, critically studying the patches being made to the cracks in Feversham’s west facade. At Fan’s suggestion, he’d called in the housewright who repaired the plasterwork on every other timbered house in Kent to oversee the mending, and others were busily replacing loose windowpanes, cleaning the chimneys, resetting crooked paving stones, and a score of other such tasks. He relished how the place fair hummed with activity, the same as he’d done with the ships he’d commanded, and already his home was beginning to shed the years, like a still-handsome dowager freshened with a smile and new powder.
His home. He still hadn’t grown accustomed to the sound of that, and he smiled now, thinking of how much that single word was already coming to mean. Five days, that was all he’d lived here, yet in that short time Feversham had become his. No one could take this away from him, the way the Admiralty had seen fit to strip him of the Nimble. Rootless and wandering most of his life, he found he was beginning to understand the glow and pride that filled other men’s faces had when they spoke of home.
Absently he fished in the overstuffed pocket of his coat for the sketch that the housewright had made earlier, intending to make notes on the margins. He’d been a list-maker from the time he could scribble with chalk on his slate, determined to find order in a life that, in his childhood, had had precious little in it.
But before the sketch his fingers found the round, hard curve of an apple. George smiled, turning the fruit in his hand. This was Fan’s doing, he was sure, anticipating that he’d be hungry at the precise moment of the morning that he’d reach into his pocket. She didn’t need lists or notes to arrange her life, but somehow she managed to keep every task and detail efficiently in her head. Nothing escaped her. She was a marvel, was Fan, not only as a housekeeper but as a woman as well, and as he slowly bit into the apple, he let himself consider exactly why more of that same marvelousness wasn’t shining his way.
Not that she was entirely to blame. He’d claim his due share of whatever it was stewing and brewing between them. Oh, they got along handsomely enough throughout the day, smiling and chatting as they discussed the plans for the house, or which boys from the village would be trustworthy additions to the stable. But two dark squalls clouded this sunny horizon, each so seemingly inconsequential that, if George had heard of it from anyone else, he would have laughed aloud.
He wished he could laugh, wished it with all his heart, for what better way to cope with his kiss to her hand, and her own stolen kiss in return? Hell, his brother could manage a full-fledged seduction with less turmoil than those two fleeting kisses had inflicted on his hapless consciousness, and with disgust George bit another chunk from the apple.
He wanted Fan as his housekeeper, his advisor, his companion. That was all logical enough. But he also wanted her as a woman, imagining her lush, pale body freed from its habitual black and sprawled across that enormous playing-field of a bed, her dark hair unpinned and spread across his pillow, the soft moans of pleasure she’d make when he’d wrap those long legs of hers around his waist and drive them both over and over to staggering, delirious bliss.
That was logical, too, but it was also thoroughly dishonorable. Only the lowest scoundrel would go poaching among his own staff, women whose dependency stole their right to refuse, and if he’d any pretense left of being a gentleman, a peer, and an officer, he’d have to train himself to view Fan with only the chilliest of regards.
But the extra twist in all this misery was that he sensed she was just as badly off as he. The way she’d jerk away as if she’d been singed if by accident they brushed against one another, the wistful, longing expression in her eyes when she thought he wasn’t watching her, the softness in her smile that seemed just for him, even this apple that she’d taken care to tuck in his pocket—didn’t that all point to a greater regard, a greater interest, in him than most housekeepers showed to their masters?
Not that Fan could act upon her desires any more than he, not and retain any sort of integrity or reputation. As the lone woman living and working at Feversham, she had to keep herself as free of gossip as Caesar’s wife herself, and though it had only been a few days, thus far she’d shown no signs of giving in. They’d even fallen back into the stiff formality of using their titles, especially when others were in hearing.
And so here the two of them were together at Feversham, knotted and bound by respect and behaving as properly as either of them ever could wish, and arriving at the same point of abject misery and frustration.
He thought of what Brant would say, how his brother would howl with amusement until the tears rolled down his cheeks at such a dilemma. With a muttered oath, George threw the apple core as far and as hard as he could into the hedges.
“Ahoy there, Cap’n M’Lord,” roared Leggett from the crest of the roof where he perched, mending the chimney’s flashing. He pointed down the drive, over the trees towards the main road. “A strange coach an’ four, Cap’n M’Lord, bearin’ down hard from the east.”
Oh, blast, thought George glumly. He hadn’t planned on having to entertain guests just yet. Another five or six years would be soon enough for him. “Very well, Leggett,” he called back. “Any markings to tell if they’re friendly or otherwise?”
“Gentry,” called back Leggett succinctly as he peered off into the distance. “I’ll venture no more than that, Cap’n M’Lord.”
Of course it would be gentry, thought George crossly. Who the devil else had the inclination and energy to ride about the countryside in a coach and four, pestering their unsuspecting neighbors?
“Fetch Miss Winslow directly,” he called. “Warn her to prepare to engage the enemy.”
He could see Leggett’s grin from the top of the roof as he began to clamber down. “Aye, aye, Cap’n M’Lord! Enemy it is!”
George sighed, wishing he shared the seaman’s cheerfulness. He couldn’t exactly hide and pretend he wasn’t at home, since by now likely every red-faced country squire and lady in Kent knew he’d taken up residence, just as their unmarried daughters likely knew his every move and breath about the county. He’d been their target often enough while in London with Brant, and it amazed him how that hard-won Spanish silver had magically made him more handsome, more clever, more everything in the starry-eyed gazes of husband-hunting young Dianas.
At least it had in London, when he was being shepherded about by Brant. Without the charming (if even more elusive) Duke of Strachen beside him, his own appeal might be diminished. He could only hope, and sigh again as he watched the coach come lurching and rumbling along his rutted drive, finally coming to a queasy halt before him.
The driver leaned down from the box, his mouth twisted into an unpleasant snarl, doubtless brought on by considering the fresh damage to his coach’s springs.
“Tell his Lordship that Sir Simon Blackerby has come to call with his ladies,” the man called to George. “Go on, sirrah, don’t keep your betters waiting!”
George blinked with surprise, then smiled. He’d dressed in his oldest clothes, the way he always did on working days at sea or on land, clothes so worn that the fabric was soft and comfortable and too disreputable for
any new stains or spots to show.
And, apparently, so shabby as to fool the self-important driver of Sir Simon Blackerby’s coach.
“Get on with you now, you grinning sot!” said the driver, raising his whip as a threat. “Go to his Lordship directly!”
“I have,” answered George mildly, “and so have you, too. I am Captain Lord George Claremont, and so you may tell your master.”
“You, sir?” Sir Simon himself thrust his head out the carriage window, in his haste nearly knocking his old-fashioned periwig into the drive. “You are the one they’re calling the Silver Lord?”
“And you must be the one they are calling the Sir Simon Blackerby,” said George with the slightest, least encouraging nod possible. “Forgive me for a sorry host, Sir Simon, but we are thick in improvements here at Feversham, and not ready for receiving guests.”
“For certain you are, my Lord!” A flushed woman with creaking stays and an overabundance of bows on her gown pushed her way to the window, applying her elbows with great vigor and skill. “You see, my lord, we are not mere ordinary guests, but neighbors—Blackerby Hall lies just over South Bridge, you know, the shortest drive or ride possible—and you need not stand on the slightest ceremony with us. I am Lady Blackerby, my Lord, and I am exquisitely honored to make the acquaintance of such a hero!”
With the same vigorous elbows she launched her way through the carriage door just as one of the footman flipped the step down, and landed upon the drive a whoosh of underskirts and scarves.
“Besides, my lord,” she continued coyly, “a great hero and gentleman such as yourself would not turn two ladies away from his doorstep without so much as a drop of refreshment?”
“She wants to see the damned house,” said Sir Simon bluntly. “She wants to see what all that Spanish silver can buy.”
“Do not be vulgar, Simon,” said Lady Blackerby, her smile sweet for George, and her gaze quite the opposite for her husband. “We are interested in your progress, of course, being neighbors, and poor Feversham having been in such a shambles for so very long, but most of all we wish to make your acquaintance, and offer whatever assistance we can in helping you to acclimate yourself to our little society.”
She stopped just short of winking at George, who was fortunately spared making a reply as the lady had already turned away, back to the carriage door. And there, he knew, was poised the true reason for this visit.
“My daughter, Miss Eliza Blackerby,” said her mother, beaming so broadly that dusty furrows appeared in her face-powder. “Eliza, make your curtsey now to Lord Claremont.”
“Honored,” the girl whispered faintly as she sank rather than curtseyed. With golden hair, milky skin, and enormous blue eyes, she was fair enough to be a belle here in Kent. But even with a good fortune, a girl this meek would be lost in the crush of a London season, and for her sake George hoped her parents would spare her that ordeal.
Though not, of course, at the expense of his own bachelorhood.
“Miss Blackerby, your servant,” he said, bowing the precise degree that his brother promised was acceptable for well-bred virgins.
“Ah, my Lord, I see your serving maid is ready,” said Lady Blackerby as she pointed towards Fan waiting patiently at the front door in a starched white apron. She jabbed her fan into George’s arm, striving to gaze up at him coquettishly. “You are far too modest, my lord, claiming you weren’t ready to receive us!”
Eagerly the woman swept up the steps to the house, pausing only long enough to peer up into Fan’s face with as little regard as if the housekeeper had been made of wood.
But Fan’s composure remained unruffled, even by such open rudeness. “Good day, my lady,” she said to the other woman’s broad back. “Tea shall be served here, in the front parlor, if you please.”
George followed in the Blackerbys’ wake, now seeing the parlor through their more critical eyes. In the short time since the house had become his, he’d had time to make only a few changes in here. The ghostly dust-cloths had, of course, been removed from the furniture, and he’d also had the heavy old drapery taken down from the windows to bring more sunlight inside. Everything, too, had been scrubbed and shined and polished to Navy standards as well as to Fan’s, and George had added a few of the souvenirs of his voyages that had long been hidden away in storage-trunks: an enormous sea shell from the South Pacific, framed views of the volcano at St. Pierre on the Caribbean island of Martinique, a fragment of an ancient statue from Naples.
But new for this occasion—at least new to George’s eyes—was an entire elaborate service for displaying and dispensing tea, arrayed on a table near the chairs, and two trays with sandwiches and biscuits. Clearly Fan, and Small in the kitchen, had interpreted his warning regarding the arriving enemy in a more hospitable light than he’d intended.
They should have listened to him.
“Oh, I say,” exclaimed Lady Blackerby with relish. “The Trelawneys did let things go, didn’t they? This is most hideous! Eliza, there, take a place on that settee, and pray leave space for His Lordship to join you.”
Too stunned to reply, George didn’t obey, either, and if he hadn’t been so appalled by the woman’s audacity—and if Fan hadn’t been there as a fellow victim—he would have turned and walked from his own house, and not stopped until he’d found a ship, any ship, to take him back to sea and away from such civilized society.
But Lady Blackerby wasn’t finished. She’d scarce begun. Gingerly she tipped one of the chairs back on its legs to inspect the bottom of the seat cushion, wrinkling her nose with disdain.
“Oh, my lord,” she said, “you must let me recommend to you the best cabinetmaker in Brighton, so you can toss these dreadful old sticks on the rubbish heap and begin afresh.”
But even though the old-fashioned chair was one of the exact ones that he himself had faulted when he’d first been shown the house by Fan, now that this same chair was his chair, he didn’t wish to hear it abused.
“I’m not about to scuttle these just yet, Lady Blackerby,” he said, placing a protective hand on the carved back of one of the chairs. “I’m told they were fashioned of the same Weald oak as the paneling, and there is much to be said for keeping the old ways. Isn’t that so, Miss Winslow?”
She stared at him over the heads of the oblivious others, her eyes wide with surprise that he’d remembered, and with pleasure, too. But that shared glance had a shock and pleasure for him as well, a fleeting connection as intense as if she’d touched him with her hand, as if they were the only two in the parlor. The connection lasted only an instant before Fan looked away to return to pouring the tea, yet it was more than enough to shake George.
“But my lord,” insisted Lady Blackerby, undeterred. “New furnishings can do so much to reflect and improve one’s taste.”
“You should know, my dear,” said Sir Simon testily. “You have been reflecting and improving our house for years.”
But Lady Blackerby had discovered a topic even more fascinating than spending money. As she took the dish of tea that Fan poured for her, she once again stared intently into the housekeeper’s face.
“You are most kind to keep that girl in your house, my lord,” she said in a loud whisper, as if Fan had left the room entirely instead of merely turned away from her to serve Sir Simon. “Considering her father and all. That old man was quite the wild hare, they say, always in his cups and chasing after Tunford girls half his age. Quite goatish, he was. There were more than a few folk in this county who did not grieve when he disappeared last year, doubtless so drunk he failed to notice when he’d drowned.”
George saw Fan’s back stiffen, all the retort that a good servant was permitted to make to a baronet’s wife who was a guest of her master.
Fortunately, as master, George had no such restrictions.
“I don’t put much weight into village scuttlebutt, Lady Blackerby,” he said, not bothering to keep the distaste from his voice. “All I know is that the Trelawneys
spoke most highly of the loyalty and devotion of both Mr. Winslow and his daughter, and I have found no reason yet to disagree. Indeed, I cannot imagine Feversham without Miss Winslow’s assistance.”
This time Lady Blackerby noticed the glance that he exchanged with Fan, but George didn’t care. Let them all be as scandalized as they pleased, he thought. If he were truly lucky, they’d be so scandalized they’d consider him beneath knowing, and wouldn’t return to badger him again.
“It is all well and good to be tolerant, My Lord,” cautioned Sir Simon, slurping his tea from his dish, “but you cannot be too careful with some of these local men. We have the very devil of a time with smuggling on this coast, My Lord, the very devil, and have since the days of the Conqueror himself. But then I expect you’ve heard that, being an officer of the king.”
“I was most recently stationed in the Caribbean,” said George warily, wondering exactly where the baronet was now steering the conversation. “We heard little of domestic matters here in England.”
“Low, thieving dogs, that’s what smugglers are,” said Sir Simon, his eyes glowing with righteousness as he warmed to this subject. “And it is not a mere domestic trifle, My Lord. Their audacity undermines the safety of all of Britain, and that is the honest truth. What is the good of chasing the French when we’ve our own native vermin littering our shores?”
George didn’t answer. Smuggling was a favorite topic for gentlemen who enjoyed being publicly outraged, and also enjoyed telling the Admiralty how better to do their job. But George would also wager a guinea that, for all of Sir Simon’s indignation, there was smuggled French and Spanish wine served at Blackerby Hall, just as somewhere on their beruffled persons, Lady Blackerby and the silent Eliza wore French lace and silk ribbons, and sipped tea that had come from Canton by way of Paris instead of in an English East Indiaman. Even the tea George had found in the caddies here at Feversham was of a far higher quality that would be expected in a country house.
The Silver Lord Page 8
