The broad corridor was lined with marble-topped commodes, displaying pieces from Roderick’s collection of curiosities.
She bumped her knee with a soft thud against one of the commodes.
The music stopped. At the far end of the corridor, past the music room, a dim light rose up the stairwell from the entry hall. Anyone leaving the room would be outlined by the light.
She watched for the intruder.
But seconds turned to minutes.
She sighed. Of course, the culprit would wait, hoping not to be discovered.
Turning the knob on the music room door, she found it locked. A circumspect intruder locks the door behind him. Lovely. With a big sigh, she unlocked and opened the door.
From the doorway, she lifted her lamp, slowly illuminating each part of the room. The window curtains were pulled back, allowing the moonlight to diffuse softly through the room. The instruments were in their places. But no one was there.
Impossible.
She walked the edges of the room, then looked out the window to examine the open lawn. Nothing, and nothing to indicate how her phantom musician had escaped.
Reluctantly, she gave up, unlocking and locking the door to test the bolt, then she returned to her room for a restless night’s sleep.
* * *
“You are not expected, and we have no more places for scholars. Write to Lady Walgrave. Perhaps you can be admitted next month.” The housekeeper, a shrew named Mrs. Pier, placed her body between the door and its jamb.
Arriving as a scholar had its disadvantages. As lord of the manor, he would have handed his hat and gloves to the butler, strode into the drawing room or bedroom, and demanded an explanation from his wife. He hadn’t expected to be kept standing on the threshold, or he would have simply made himself comfortable in the family wing last night.
“I have permission from Lord Walgrave to use the library.” He held his letter of introduction.
The housekeeper snorted and rolled her eyes.
So much for the respect due Walgrave’s rank and status as lord of the manor.
“We wouldn’t know Lord Walgrave if he rode up on a white horse.”
As if given a cue, Harrison’s horse—white—whinnied.
Mrs. Pier, with instructions he couldn’t hear, handed his letter to a footman behind her. She stepped onto the porch and pointedly locked the main door.
“I suppose we have to make room for you. You can wait in the scholars’ parlor for her ladyship’s determination on where you will lodge.”
She led him briskly around the side of the house. There a covered walkway connected the main house to a two-story building built onto the ruins of the old rectory.
“The scholars lodge here.” Mrs. Pier unlocked the main door and led him down a long corridor. “Names on the doors.” She gestured at the framed pieces of slate scribbled on in chalk as they passed. But when he paused to read the names, she hurried him along. At the end of the hall, she gestured for him to precede her into an open drawing room.
Arms akimbo, she recited a much rehearsed speech. “The scholars share this parlor, so be neat. If you leave piles of paper lying about, the maids or other scholars might use your research to kindle a fire. Her ladyship provides a morning and an evening meal, with tea in the afternoon. Scholars eat on the terrace in summer, in this room in winter. No one is welcome in the kitchen without Cook’s permission. If you need help with your washing, the scholars’ maid is available on Saturday mornings.”
“Scholars’ maid?”
“Lady’s maid, scullery maid, scholar’s maid—isn’t that clear?” Mrs. Pier shook her head as if he were dim, then returned to her script. “Her ladyship welcomes new scholars on Wednesday afternoons when she hears the weekly reports.”
“Weekly reports?”
“All scholars explain their research on Wednesdays before tea.”
“I see.”
“Undertake what experiments you wish, but do no damage to limb or library. Do you have any questions?” Mrs. Pier’s annoyance was barely contained.
He opened his mouth to ask but reconsidered.
“Her ladyship won’t turn you away unless you can’t give a good reason to use the collection. If you are wise, you will come up with a good reason by Wednesday.” Mrs. Pier walked to the door.
“Can I see her ladyship before then?”
Mrs. Pier didn’t bother to turn. “Her ladyship welcomes new scholars on Wednesday afternoons when she hears the weekly reports. Once we’ve settled where you will be laying your head, Mr. Pier will show you to your room.” He heard her mutter as she left, “Muddle-headed manners, these scholars, every one.”
The parlor was large, with a fireplace in the middle of one wall. Several chairs clustered around two low couches, the pillows askew. He pressed down on the padded seats of the chairs—well cushioned, with brocaded upholstery both expensive and relatively new. He wondered how much he had paid for such well-appointed rooms.
Walking back down the corridor, he read nameplates, quietly turning the knob on each door until he found one room unlocked. He tapped and called the scholar’s name. No answer. He opened the door and peered in: a cot, a desk, a chair, a set of bookshelves overflowing with books. Little else. Utilitarian but comfortable.
Hearing voices approach, he ran back to the drawing room. He took a seat in front of the fireplace and, closing his eyes, pretended to be asleep. He heard the shuffling of feet, then a pregnant hush. He opened his eyes to find a half circle of seven men, mostly in late middle-age or older, of varying heights, watching him.
“Ah, a new man. Welcome, welcome.” A tall, thin, grandfatherly man standing at the center of the circle extended his hand. “I am Otley, law and political economy. We are the Seven, the original scholars brought to the estate by the late Lord Walgrave, Sir Roderick. We’ll begin the introductions on your left.”
“Lark here. Natural history, ornithology, and herpetology.” A narrow-faced man squinted at him, then held up a magnifying glass which made one eye appear enormous.
“Martinbrook.” A coarse-haired man with a ruddy complexion held out grubby fingers. “Geology, antiquities, agriculture.”
“Nathan.” A dapper white-haired man nodded his head rhythmically, his voice a reedy tenor. “Music. I used to play the bassoon for the Royal Opera—but it’s not much of a solo instrument. Now I am reconstructing the transmission of our native folk songs.”
“You’ll have to excuse me if it takes a bit to learn your names.” Harrison wondered if this was the way Snow White had felt.
“Simply remember your alphabet,” Otley offered in a well-modulated voice. “Sir Roderick used to joke that he would eventually fill the alphabet up, but for the first seven he used the letters L through S. You’ve already met L, M, N, and me—O. You only have P, Q, and S left.”
“What about R?” Harrison questioned.
The seven men grew silent and bowed their heads slightly. After a moment, Otley spoke, “Our R was Sir Roderick himself. He was our patron, our colleague, and our friend.”
“Yes, the best of antiquarians, so knowledgeable about the best places to excavate.” Martinbrook rubbed dirt from one of his fingers.
“Yes, a true scientist.” Lark tucked his peering glass in a special pocket sewed to the front of his waistcoat. “He could identify any bird by its call or shadow.”
“Yes, a fine musician. I miss his hearty baritone in the parish choir.” Nathan waved his index finger, as if leading a chorus.
“Yes.” “Yes.” “Yes.” “Yes.” The remaining men’s heads bobbed with agreement.
Harrison was struck into silence, the men’s memories spurring his own. In his grief and anger, Harrison had locked away the sweetest memories, instead holding tightly to his father’s authoritarian orders and to their contentious final conversation. But at his ancestral home, the tender memories crowded out the rough. Suddenly he remembered the last time he and all his siblings were together. Every summer, h
is father had led his children on rambles through the woods, hunting for ruins or birds or some other interest. That summer they had spent weeks tracking a family of wildcats, his sister riding on their father’s shoulders. Harrison had imagined wildcats to be the size of large dogs, so in the end, he was disappointed to find them barely bigger than a barn cat.
A man with rumpled clothes twisted his monocle nervously as he broke their mutual silence. “Partlet here. Classics, logic and rhetoric.”
“Quinn. Astronomy.” A stocky man with a tonsure—Harrison immediately thought of Friar Tuck—fluffed his cravat to a more precise arrangement.
The last man in the row, a neat, broad-bellied man with a thick mustache, pulled a pipe out of his mouth. “Smithson. Engineer. I built fortifications in wars against the American colonies. Now I write biographies of famous men of science.”
“Let me see if I can remember your names.” Harrison made his way around the circle. “Lark, Martinbrook, Nathan, Otley, Partlet, Quinn, and Smithson.”
The men bobbed their heads, smiling and repeating “yes” as he called each name.
“Three other men hold fellowships this month.” Nathan’s rhythmic finger counted them off. “Fields is a mathematician. I understand not a bit of it, but he is a handsome boy. Jerome, our philosopher, a wary but quite charming man. His only flaw is that he loses his spectacles every day.”
“You’ve forgotten Lord Montmorency, who has a yearlong seat.” Martinbrook rubbed a dirty hand across his chest. “He divides his time between his research and his estate, but he’s here now. Last time he was unable to articulate how to distinguish Celtic and Pictish ruins from the Roman, and I hope he’s developed a better answer.”
“And what do you do?” Quinn leaned in, the hollows of his cheeks making him look severe.
“Do?” Harrison was caught off guard.
“Research, my boy. Why are you here?” Lark held his magnifying glass up to Harrison’s face.
Disconcerted, Harrison struggled for an answer. “My interests, I regret, are fairly pedestrian. Having served in His Majesty’s Navy, I wish to write a history of famous sea voyages, from Odysseus to Admiral Nelson.”
“Admirable aim, young man, admirable.” Smithson, the engineer, slapped him on the back. “We haven’t had a Nautical with us for some time. Hakluyt and the other maritime books are to the right as you enter the library above the main doors. You’ll find an empty desk there too, but most don’t like it. It’s a dark corner, though Miss Olivia provides a nice lamp and sufficient fuel. We’ll show you the way. Come along.”
Chapter Twelve
Olivia had made a list of what she must accomplish before she left the abbey. The list was like an hourglass, each completed task a grain of sand falling to the bottom, measuring out her remaining time. She had to end one part of her life, before she could begin the next. But she couldn’t yet see the next phase of her life—it was as if she were in mid-leap, and she couldn’t yet see the ground. The sense of uncertainty and the sorrow of ending made all the tasks harder than necessary.
Today, she was to gather all her belongings into her bedroom to decide what to take and what to leave. The unpleasant task of packing she’d listed for another day.
She’d come to the marriage with few possessions: some clothes, a valise of books and papers, some mementos of the children she’d taught. But from Sir Roderick, she’d acquired a cabinet full of treasures. When Roderick had discovered her love of antiquities, he had begun to give her little things. Once a month, she would arrive in the morning room to find a box sitting before her place at the table. She’d objected at first. But he’d shaken it off: You’ve given me back a daughter, Livvy. Indulge an old man. Eventually she’d relented, allowing herself the sensation of being valued and loved.
She smiled at the memory of slowly unwrapping the gifts, Sir Roderick urging her on. Come on, Livvy girl, untie it now. Here, give me that twine. Now the box lid. My girl, you’d think you’d never gotten presents, you move so slow.
She wondered if he hadn’t intended to give her so many, except she’d burst into tears at the first one. Her marriage gift—but not from Harrison. A set of volumes by different authors, all bound to match in a rich burgundy morocco, each one examining the history and antiquities of a different area or city in Britain. She’d caressed each volume, then over the next two years, she’d read them to her father-in-law. As they read, they made a list—a tour of England that would have taken the better part of a year—but he’d laughed off the time and distance. If one is going to see the finest antiquities, then one shouldn’t say before one begins “but I must be back in time to milk the cows.”
The gifts had continued for two years after his death, each one meticulously described in a codicil to the old man’s will, which the solicitor had included with the last present. She read the note once more, wiping away a tear.
These little gifts have I hope eased your grieving, Livvy—but they cannot repay the solace you have given an old man before his death. They are yours to enjoy and dispose of as you wish—my will makes that clear, even to a man as timber-headed as my son.
She had wept for Sir Roderick until there was no more weeping. But today, as she wrapped each one of his gifts, she felt the enormity of her action in leaving Harrison. The weight of her decision threatened to bow her to the ground.
To avoid her grief, she took out the codicil and began to inventory her things. But she couldn’t forget the phantom music that had woken her for two nights—it was as if someone had read The Deserted Wife and decided to torment her.
A tap at the door drew her attention.
Mrs. Pier entered. “The September scholars arrived last week and have settled in. Such handsome blokes. They’d make excellent footmen, so tall and well built.”
“Are you thinking of setting Mr. Pier over for a younger man?”
Mrs. Pier shook her head. “If I did, I’d have to listen to them talk, and there’s nothing more comforting than Mr. Pier’s silences.”
Olivia laughed. She would miss Mildred’s practical good humor, but until she knew if Harrison would agree to her terms, she couldn’t risk inviting any of the servants to leave with her.
“I indicated you would welcome them at tea this Wednesday.”
“Of course, Mildred, that’s perfect. Do you happen to remember their interests?”
“Yes, miss.” Mrs. Pier straightened to recite. “Lord Montmorency continues his investigations into the Roman ruins at Bignor. I gave him a place far from Mr. Martinbrook to avoid too easy disputation.”
“Good decision. Martinbrook nearly caused him a fit of apoplexy last time he was in residency.”
“Mr. Jerome is consulting the Boethius, Mr. Fields the Euclid.”
“I remember their applications now: philosophy and math.”
“We also have an unexpected guest with a letter of introduction from his lordship himself.” Mildred held out a heavy piece of monogrammed paper.
“Strange. Walgrave never sends us scholars.” The seal was a version of her own. “But as he grows more engaged with the estate, we must expect things to change.”
“The house will not be the same without you, my lady,” the housekeeper offered with a solemn shake of her head.
Olivia placed a hand on the housekeeper’s arm. “Thank you, Mildred. But it’s for the best.” She opened the introduction. “Let’s see here: a Mr. T. L. MacHus. Scottish?”
“Uncertain.”
She read aloud only the most important details. “‘MacHus . . . Oxford . . . Historian . . . Welcome him as you would me.’” She grimaced. Should she embrace or throttle him?
“An unfortunate choice of words.” The edges of Mildred’s mouth ticked upward. “With Mr. MacHus we have eleven scholars, and the lodge only houses ten.”
“If we were to follow Walgrave’s recommendation, we could house him in the pigsty. But that would probably violate some rule of hospitality.” She closed her eyes, imagining the av
ailable rooms. “How are the repairs to the guest wing windows?”
“Most of the rooms have one window missing, if not more.”
“Not the guest wing, then.” Olivia shook her head. “Is he an able man?”
“Appears to be.”
“If Mr. MacHus is to be welcomed as we would his lordship, he will take his lordship’s old room.”
“In the nursery?” Mildred brushed her hands on her skirt.
“No, after his mother died, Walgrave moved out of the family wing. His father converted the front corner tower into a suite.” She rejected keys on her ring before holding out an ornate old key. “This should be the one. Tell MacHus his room offers the most spectacular views in the county.”
“The tower will have to be aired.”
Olivia rubbed the key, suddenly unwilling to let anyone else reopen her husband’s room. “I should ensure that Walgrave left behind nothing of any consequence. Have whichever of the maids you can spare meet me there.”
“Of course.” Mrs. Pier turned to leave.
“Mildred, did you hear music last night?”
“No, Miss Livvy, I sleep as sound as a hedgehog in winter.” The housekeeper’s gaze grew sharp. “Was one of them scholars in the music room without permission?”
Olivia shook her head. “No, it was a dream, nothing more.” She tucked Sir Roderick’s letter in the front of the trunk and rose. “I’ll follow you down.”
* * *
In the days after their wedding, when Harrison had seemed smitten with her charms, Olivia had been grateful his rooms weren’t in the family wing. Having lived with his father for so many months, she’d found herself unexpectedly private when it came to the pleasures of married life.
She wondered what she would find in Harrison’s old rooms after all this time: spiders and cobwebs and the musty smell of stale air, or a return of the desperate longing she’d felt when she’d closed them up so many years before?
When he’d left, he had pressed the key into her hand. “Remember me, Olivia, until I come home again.” In the weeks after Harrison had left her, she had made his room into a private retreat—as it had been during the week after their wedding. She had lain on his bed and imagined his body beside hers. She would close her eyes, and pretend her hand was his, letting it trail down her neck, across her breasts and the flat plane of her belly, as he had done, allowed her fingers to touch again all those places he had touched, even the places she had believed led him to glimpse her very soul.
Tempting the Earl Page 11
