Felicia had, by force, kept her gaze from turning to the large rattan cane that had hung over the directress’s chair at the evening meal. Twelve children, ranging in age from just under two all the way to sixteen, had watched impassively from their places at table as Miss Dravoget had made rather a show of giving up her place of seniority to Felicia. They had not seated themselves when the meal commenced, but ate while standing. When asked, Miss Dravoget had said that the constant scraping of chair legs on the floor had so spoiled her meals that she’d had the chairs taken away. Even the smallest ate standing, though as a concession to their lack of inches, a bench was provided to stand upon.
In the kitchen, Mary said, “God be thanked her be too old—I hope—to have any young’uns of her own. But I do feel mortal zorry for that feller what’s marryin’ her tomorrow. Maybe he’ll be off to the navy in the morning. For me, I’d take the King’s Shilling afore I married a woman with no heart in her.”
“I’m afraid I may have too much heart,” Felicia said. “Did you see the room where the children sleep? Not a whole blanket among them. Girls and boys all tossed in together, and I saw Miss Dravoget lock them in before she brought out the sherry.”
“How be it?”
“The sherry? Drinkable. Not the best Malaga, perhaps, but drinkable.”
“That’s it then. I asked that drudge as does the cooking what allowance is made for foodstuffs. When I heard what ‘twas and zaw what she had the crust to zerve, I knew that zilver was goin’ somewheres outside the pot!”
“I thought the children’s food seemed insubstantial. Mostly cabbage, I imagine.”
“More cabbage ‘n aught else, ‘ceptin’ water. An’ the bread burnt zo it was a cryin’ shame t’zee it. That’ll change.”
Felicia chewed a moment on the inside of her lip. “Mary, how difficult would it be to.... No, never mind.”
“What?” Mary had, quite oblivious of class or indeed manners, seated herself at the scrubbed table across from her mistress and put her elbows on the table to lean forward. There was a definite sparkle in her dark eyes.
“I just hate the thought of those children going hungry one more night.”
“If you want key t’larder...” Mary opened her hand and a tarnished key fell to the table.
Felicia picked it up with a grin as mischievous as any boy’s. Then she sighed. “It’s not good enough. The children are locked in. It’s so dangerous. If there were to be a fire, they’d all be killed.”
“Aye, I can’t zee that one riskin’ her life to come back for ‘em. ‘First out and divil take the rest’ be my guess.”
Felicia tapped the key on the tabletop. “Mary, you open the larder and make a good supper — whatever you can find —for the children. I’ll find a way to unlock the door. There will be a midnight feast at Tallyford Asylum!”
“Iss, fai!” Mary exclaimed, using the old Devon ejaculation of extraordinary agreement.
Miss Dravoget had looked down her not-inconsiderable nose when Felicia had indicated that Blaic had come to stay. She had said, doubtfully, that he could sleep in an old shed where the last gardener had resided.
That had not been during her term of service, and the garden showed it. It was all but hopelessly overgrown, only a few brick paths and borders indicating the difference between what had once been flower beds and the wild grass. Miss Dravoget had only looked blank when Felicia had asked where the children played, and had waved a slack hand at the wilderness around them.
Behind the thinning clouds, the moon turned the sky to milk. The wind stirred it, but here, at ground level, there was no breeze to be felt. The grounds were completely unfamiliar. Felicia soon lost her way.
Then she heard a breath of sound, a flute far off but very clear. A light tune, a dancing tune, that spoke of revels and gaiety under the moon. Felicia began to follow it, straining her ears to catch the merry magic. There was something familiar about it. Was it the tune Blaic had been whistling between his teeth?
Now she heard the deep insistence of a drumbeat. It seemed to hurry her feet onward, toward the deep stand of trees at the farthest edge of the grounds. Was Blaic there, summoning her?
She realized, just as she reached the deep shadow of the wood, that she no longer walked alone. Blaic was there indeed, matching her stride for stride. His lean face seemed sharpened, his eyes hooded under a frowning brow. His lips moved as though he were saying something to her, but she could hardly hear over the drumbeats. They’d replaced the music of the flute; she could not hear it anymore.
Then he reached out and took her hand.
The shock of skin-to-skin contact, longed for and dreamed of, seared through her obsession. She stopped, her leg muscles shaking. From the way she breathed, she knew she’d come down the steep slope from the large house at a run, though at the time it had only seemed that she’d walked quickly. A trail of darker grass showed where she’d changed her path at the command of the music.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Wild music. The People are here.” She saw that he looked toward a stand of trees with an expression she could not identify. Then his shoulders became a little straighter. “They’ve gone now. I wish I knew what....”
“Knew what?” She realized that her hand had turned under his, which she was holding tightly.
“Whether their being here was an accident or full of intent.” He looked down at their linked hands. “It was the only way to stop you,” he said. “Now....”
He opened his fingers and gently shook free of her grasp. “Command me.”
Felicia knew what she wanted more than anything. Her doubts about the fitness of the thing had been silenced by what seemed weeks of wanting. If she could have his hands on her just once — a lifetime of celibacy would become bearable. But not like this. Not with him powerless to say no, with every movement prescribed by her. He might as well be a slave, or an automaton. She wanted him as a man, with his own will, his own wants, his love for her shining in his deep green eyes.
He held still as the statue he had once been, awaiting her command. Indulging herself for one precious instant, she touched his face, feeling the drag and whisk of his evening’s beard against her fingertips. His eyes closed and he swayed toward her. “Command me,” he whispered, and when his eyes opened, she could see the banked flame there, so close to roaring into a consuming furnace.
She yearned to throw herself, like an ancient sacrifice, into the heart of the fire. Before the temptation grew too strong, she withdrew her hand, knowing the tingle would stay in her blood for hours.
“Blaic....”
“Speak and I will obey you in everything.”
“I want you....”
“Yes!” He stepped forward, his arms out, as though he would sweep her up and carry her away on a flying carpet. She leaned away, holding up her hands to keep him off as she asked him to stop.
For an instant, she thought he’d ignore her, but perhaps the Ancient Law still held. “Wait? Why?”
“You didn’t let me finish. I want you to pick a lock.”
The flame died. Though she knew she’d acted rightly, Felicia couldn’t help wishing to ignite that fire again. “Pick...a lock?”
“That’s right. That woman locked the children in their dormitory.”
“Sounds very sensible,” he said shortly. “Can’t have them wandering around, they might do themselves an injury.”
“It’s most unwise. Anything might happen. A fire, an accident...and she sleeps clear at the other end of the house. She looks as if she’d be a heavy sleeper, don’t you think?”
He dismissed this as an irrelevancy, which indeed at the moment, it was. “Felicia, don’t you realize it? I touched you. You can have what you want...what we both want.”
“Yes, I know it.” Then a thought occurred to her. “Wait. You touched me? I thought I had to touch you.”
“It works both ways to invoke the Law. Believe me, there have been times of late that I’d have
been willing to touch you again and again, the Law be hanged! But it wouldn’t matter how many times we touch, would it? I’ll never hear you say it.”
“I want to say it. But it’s wrong.”
“That mortal moral code.”
“Yes. Don’t laugh. It protects you as well as me.”
“You believe that you are protecting me?” The disbelief in his voice would have flayed an elephant. “Are you afraid that I will be ashamed of having been the tool of your lust come the morning?”
“Don’t. Don’t be cruel to me. This isn’t easy for me either.”
“Say it to me, Felicia. Say you want me.” His voice broke under the stress of so much feeling, and he ended in a whisper.
“You know that I do.”
“Then tell me.”
“I do want you, Blaic. More than anything, I want you for a lover. For my only lover.” She matched his whisper, giving him a glimpse into her heart, there in the darkness which made it possible to say things free of the euphemisms they hid under in the brightness of day.
‘ “Then why not take what I offer you? Let me touch you again and you can have what you want. Don’t you know by now that I — I live to give you what you want?”
“No.” She retreated again when he reached out to her. “Don’t you see? If our positions were reversed, you’d refuse me. Yes, you would. Something like this has to be equal.”
He laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. “Millions of mortal women in this world and I must find one who believes in the ‘Rights of Man.”
“How do you know about that? It wasn’t written when you were...”
“How do you think I’ve been spending my nights? I’m not likely to sleep when all I do is dream of you. I’ve been working myself to exhaustion, then reading half the night. Only then can I sleep dreamlessly, or nearly so. Believe me, Jean-Jacques Rousseau could only grip under such circumstances as these.”
Now it was her turn to laugh, from a full heart. “How did we move from unbridled passion to political economy? Come to the house with me and pick this lock. Then you may return to gentle Jean-Jacques.”
He did more than that, in the end. When the door to the dormitory opened, the children raised their sleepy heads. Felicia saw their eyes, feral as those of wild wolves, and their bodies tensing as though unsure whether to flee or to fight. Only the youngest few slept on, two to a bed.
The long narrow room under the eaves was cold as charity itself. A whispering draft crept along the naked floorboards. Felicia shivered as she thought what this room must be like in the depth of a December night.
She smiled as she entered, hiding her ache as the sight of these pinched, pale faces brought back intolerable memories. “Good evening, children,” she said. “In honor of my arrival here, I’ve ordered a celebratory meal. I’m sorry it didn’t arrive sooner.”
Blaic carried in the first tray, the steam from the soup tureen wreathing around his head. A dresser with a cracked mirror served as a buffet. Then Mary came in, her muscular arms strained by the weight of a tray with fat white rolls and half a cold ham she’d found, with only a little cut off. A tray of delicate pink cakes, with a suspiciously bridal appearance followed up at last with a pitcher of milk, yellow with cream.
Rather to Felicia’s surprise, the children did not come pouring out of their beds with cries of delight. Instead silence, fell. Then the eldest, a girl whose essential thinness was emphasized by the budding breasts beneath her plain white chemise, swung her bare feet over the edge of her bed. Felicia winced at the thought of the cold draft, but the girl hardly seemed to notice.
“What’s all this, then?” the girl asked.
“Just what it seems. Food.”
“Is that ham?”
“Yes. Why not?”
“Why not,’ she says.” The girl cast a glance over her shoulder at her audience. “Who’s to pay for it?”
“What do you mean? I’m sorry—what’s your name?”
“Melissa Bainbridge. Me dad’s the Duke of Brindle. He pays twenty quid a year for my plaice ‘ere, an’ no h’extras. That there ham looks like h’extra’s t’me.”
“That’s right,” one of the boys said, his voice quavering with nerves. “We ain’t got no more money, missus. Not ‘til Lady Day.”
“That’s true,” another boy piped up, giving his broken glasses a push to keep them from sliding off his nose.”And Lady Day isn’t for several weeks.”
“But I’m not asking you to pay anything,” Felicia said in confusion.
The boy with the glasses said, “‘Tis a false economy to buy on credit. Though it is tempting to fill our bellies now, it would only increase our future hunger.”
“You tell ‘em, Gig,” the girl said, giving him a curiously proud and tender glance. “ ‘E’s smarter ‘n the rest of us put together, ‘e is, fer all his dad’s nothing but a parson.”
“But a second son, Melissa. Don’t forget he’s a second son.”
One of the smaller children, seven or eight years old, had crawled out of bed to stand quite close to the makeshift buffet. She tilted her pinched nose and inhaled the steam of the soup as though it alone could give her strength. She almost lifted off her feet, her eyes half-closed with delight. “Coo, it do smell good.”
Felicia glanced at Blaic and Mary. What was to be done? She couldn’t force them to eat, and they didn’t know her well enough to offer any trust. She asked Melissa, “Do you always run out of money before Quarter Day?”
“Most always in winter. Not due t’being spendthrift, no matter what she says. Just that some tings are pricey come winter.”
The emphasis on the pronoun showed more clearly than anything else the hatred these children cherished for Miss Dravoget. Yet Felicia couldn’t help but wonder if Miss Dravoget’s unusual system had not its root in the tightly drawn purse of Lady Stavely. The late viscount had surely provided enough money to feed the orphans regularly. Her father had never been tightfisted, though he had known, as the country people said, how to keep household.
Then Felicia recalled that her father had left the day-today operations of his charitable institution in the hands of Mr. Ashton. Had that included the money their fathers gave for the maintenance of their illegitimate children?
“Melissa, has a man named Ashton....” Felicia began, but was interrupted by an outraged bellow from the doorway. Miss Dravoget, her hair twisted up like lamb’s wool in innummerable cloth ties and a stained wrapper caught around her middle, took in the illicit feast at a glance.
“Miss Starret, what is the meaning of this — this luxuriousness?’’
“I intend merely to make up for the deficiencies of that so-called meal you served these children earlier tonight.”
But Miss Dravoget had retreated into the corridor. Her voice, muffled, came around the corner. “Kindly ask your servant to go.”
“Mary, perhaps you’d better be off."
“Not the girl," Miss Dravoget said. “Him. Ask him to go!”
“Blaic?” Meeting his eyes, Felicia suddenly saw the funny side of the situation. Her eyes began to sparkle, and it was that laughing warmth that he took with him to his lonely shed. But first, he walked past Miss Dravoget with his eyes resolutely shut, not that he was tempted to open them. He then hung about in the hall, unashamedly listening at the door. It was only a long time later that it occurred to him that he could have easily become “unseen” and entered the room again with no one the wiser.
“In all my years, I have never permitted eating in the dormitory. The mice! The slothfulness! The immorality! Young as you are, you cannot know the evil that dwells in the heart of even the most innocent child! It must be routed with severity, not cultivated with indulgence.”
“I’m afraid I don’t approve of your methods, Miss Dravoget,” Felicia said, her tone royal. Blaic had noticed already that any mention of her youth made her act as though she had a hundred years behind her. He could have found himself believing that her queenly bearing was t
he truest facet of her personality, if he had not seen her warm and passionate side.
Felicia continued, “This home will undergo changes while I am in charge. There will be regular meals, for one thing, the substance of which shall not rely on how near the end of the quarter we may be.”
“Where’s the money to come from?” Miss Dravoget sneered. “Raising the subscription is not to be thought of, and they don’t have it.” From behind the door, Blaic could almost see her broadly dismissive indication of the children.
He himself was not impressed with what he’d seen of them. Scrawny, blue with cold, their hair lank and greasy, they had not struck any sparks in his heart. Felicia, must have been reminded of herself in the dark days before her father had come for her. For that reason, and that reason alone, Blaic was prepared to help her with this institution. He wished he could have helped Felicia and her mother overcome their hardships, though he’d known nothing about her or her dismal childhood at the time.
Inside the dormitory, Melissa said, “Wait just a minute. Are you sayin’ that she didn’t know nuffin’ about this ‘ere spree?”
“That’s right, Melissa. It’s entirely my own doing. I was not informed about this ‘system’ that you work under, and I don’t care to know. From now on, things will be different.”
“Hold on, my fine lady! Until tomorrow, I’m still directress here!”
Blaic looked up and down the hall. He remembered seeing a dusty tall-case clock that had been pushed, unregarded and unrepaired, into the far corner. The hands were fixed at ten past nine. Looking more closely, Blaic saw that the hands were indeed fixed, being nothing more than black lines drawn in on the face. Nevertheless, when he pointed his finger at it, it began to strike the twelve steady strokes of midnight.
He plainly heard Miss Dravoget suck in her breath in alarmed surprise. Felicia said only, “There! It’s now tomorrow and my new duties begin at this moment! Melissa, kindly wake up the youngest children. Mary, serve the soup. There’s plenty for all.”
Miss Dravoget gobbled like a drunken turkey. Felicia said, still coolly, still queenly, “Perhaps you’d like to go to bed, Miss Dravoget? We have no further need of you, and you must sleep. There will be pouches under your eyes on your wedding day if you don’t get your rest.”
Kissed by Starlight Page 19
