The nerve of Mr. Wright!
To stand at the doorway, sending people away, as though it were his house.
Not that Fanny minded that part so much. It had always struck Fanny as wrong that the earl and his family had so much space when others had so little. It was only fair for Mr. Wright to think of it as his, too. After all, didn’t he do as much as anybody, more than the family, to keep the place running?
But Mr. Wright had stood there and spoken not just as though he was speaking for the earl. He’d done it as though he were speaking for everybody.
Well, he certainly wasn’t speaking for her.
So she would do whatever she could.
But that didn’t mean she wanted to be caught doing it.
Which is why it came as a great shock when: “I’m sorry to interrupt,” the duke said from behind as she entered the kitchen, determined to make straight for the back door, “but weren’t you supposed to be getting me a glass of water?”
Fanny half jumped, placing a hand to her chest as though she could still the racing of her heart.
“I’d forgotten you were back there,” she said.
“Apparently.”
Fanny felt time slipping away. She was losing time!
“I just need to…” she started to say, torn between doing what her job prescribed that she do—his bidding—and what she wanted to do: get to that back door.
“If I could have it now, please,” the duke said, amiably enough, “I would be most grateful, since as you can see, I am rather—”
“Fine,” Fanny said with ill grace, locating a glass and pitcher of water, filling the former from the latter, finally all but slamming the glass into his hand. “There you go. Drink up.”
Only he wouldn’t drink fast enough. He seemed content to take a sip, delicately wipe away any moisture from his lips with the back of his hand, take another sip…
Bloody hell! Why would he not just drink the thing down?
“You’ll feel better faster if you drink that faster,” she suggested.
“But then I might choke. It’s better and safer to sip.”
“You’d be more comfortable if you sipped it safely with the others in the parlor.”
“Walking while sipping isn’t particularly safe, either.”
“Nobody likes standing around a kitchen.”
“I suppose it could use a spot of color, but other than that…” The duke shrugged. “Doesn’t seem too terribly awful to me.”
Well, of course it didn’t to him, but that was only because he had a choice in the matter.
And now, having made the choice to come here, he simply wouldn’t leave.
Fanny couldn’t wait any longer. Already, she’d probably waited too long.
Could she trust him, though?
She didn’t have a choice.
She left him standing there with his half-empty glass of water as she hurried across the kitchen, at last achieving her goal of reaching the back door.
“What are you doing?” the duke called to her from behind.
Fanny turned to him just long enough to say, “I’m saving as many people as I can. This won’t turn into the Titanic—not on my watch!”
Then she flung open the back door.
Chapter
Forty-Three
The Titanic? the duke wondered. What could Fanny possibly mean by that? And “save people”?
But there was no time for him to figure out the answer to this puzzle, for now Fanny was actually leaving the building, running out into the night.
Without thinking, he raced to the doorway himself, although when he got there, he couldn’t bring himself to cross the threshold. Who knew what was out there?
“Fanny!” he yelled after her. What could that girl possibly be thinking? “It isn’t safe!”
But the sole answer he got was her voice, in what could be described only as a whispering shout, calling into the night, “Yoo-hoo! Is anyone still out here?”
He felt so vulnerable standing there in the open doorway. What if there was a threat out there? What if there were more like Dr. Webb and Mr. Young, just lurking? He thought to close and bar the door then, in order to save himself. But even though he knew it was the cautious thing to do, maybe even the right thing for him and everyone else in the house, he couldn’t do that to Fanny. He couldn’t leave her out there alone.
“Fanny!” he cried. “Get back here this instant!”
He felt despair overtake him as he realized he could no longer see her little form in the fog-shrouded darkness.
Would he need to go after her?
Then the duke heard murmuring in the distance, and he squinted against the fog to try to see something, anything. A few moments later, his efforts were rewarded when he saw Fanny emerge from the fog, leading a small contingent of people. As they drew closer, he saw they were rather grubby-looking people, perhaps amounting to no more than twenty in number.
“Fanny,” he demanded, “what are you doing?”
For answer, she stepped over the threshold, but before those behind her could do likewise, she turned to face them, hands held up.
“Now,” she said in a quietly commanding voice, “we need to do this in an orderly fashion, so please line up here.”
He thought they might charge her then. It was clear they were all desperate to get in. And yet something in her voice and the way she held herself caused them to meekly obey. Who knew that someone so small, a kitchen maid no less, could possess such commanding authority?
The first in line was a man who took his hat off before Fanny, holding it nervously in his hands.
The duke was sure he’d seen women and some children among the group, too. Shouldn’t this man, shouldn’t all the men have let those women and children go first? For whatever this was?
But Fanny seemed to take no notice of the man’s gender, merely requesting that he bend over a bit. The man complied, although he did want to know, “What’s this for, then?”
Fanny stood on tiptoe, running her hands through his hair and inspecting his scalp.
“Just checking for lice,” she whispered softly. “Can’t afford to have an infestation, now, can we?”
An infestation? Of lice?
But the duke could see that it wasn’t just that. While Fanny’s hands went through the man’s hair, her eyes were also examining all around his neck and any other exposed parts, sliding her hands down until she was holding his hands in hers, looking at them closely on all sides, even pushing his sleeves up a bit before looking steadily into his eyes, searching.
Seemingly satisfied with what she’d found, or hadn’t, she leaned into the man and whispered, “Now, you haven’t been bitten anywhere that I can’t see, have you?”
“No, of course not,” the man said, shaking his head vehemently.
The duke wondered how she thought she could take him at his word. Couldn’t he be lying?
But Fanny merely looked deep into the man’s eyes once more and, again seeming satisfied, told him, “You’re all right then. You can come through.”
She stepped aside, and once the man was in the building, she gave him directions to a staircase and told him to use it.
“But step as quietly as you can,” she cautioned him. “I’ll be up soon as I can to get rooms and sleeping arrangements sorted out.”
Rooms? What was Fanny thinking? Sleeping arrangements?
The man tipped his head to her before placing his hat back on it and proceeding to do as she’d directed.
“Fanny, what are you doing?” the duke demanded again. He would be heard this time. He would receive an answer. He was the duke!
“Why, I’m saving as many people as I can,” Fanny said, as though it were the most reasonable thing in the world, before turning her attentions to the next person in line, a girl, possibly no more than twelve years of age. “Next?”
“But you can’t do that!”
“Watch me.”
“But Mr. Wright said—”
>
“I know what Mr. Wright said,” Fanny replied as she inspected the girl’s scalp and other exposed parts. “But he’s wrong. Don’t these people have as much right to survival as anyone else?”
“Perhaps, but—”
“There’s no perhaps about it.”
“Fine, but—”
“There’re no buts, either.”
Satisfied that this girl was acceptable to enter, too, Fanny let her pass, directing her to the stairs just as she had the man.
“Look,” Fanny said before turning to the next person. “You have a choice: you can report me or you can ignore me, pretend you haven’t seen any of this.” She paused. “Or you can help me.” Then she shrugged, as if it no longer mattered what he decided to do, and continued with her work.
Help her?
He wasn’t about to…
Oh, blast it all to hell.
The duke reached for the person next in line behind the one Fanny was examining. But then he thought of something.
As he had earlier in the evening, when he’d removed Mr. Young’s perspiration-soaked bedding, the duke took off his own jacket, waistcoat, and tie, removed his cuff links, and rolled up his sleeves, opened his stiff collar.
There. That was better.
Then, with tentative fingers, he began going through the scalp of the woman who bent her head before him, gingerly going over the parts of her he could see. Whatever else he might find, he certainly hoped there wouldn’t be any lice.
The duke and Fanny were in this position, examining farmers and villagers side by side, when a voice behind them boomed, “Fanny! Stop what you are doing this instant!”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Wright,” Fanny said, not even bothering to look up as she continued.
“I turned these people away!” Mr. Wright said.
“And I’m letting them in,” Fanny said. “Look,” she added, and the duke recognized the calm, reasonable voice she’d employed with him earlier. “We can’t just let people die. Don’t you see, we’re responsible for them, too?”
“What I see here is insubordination! What I see is insurrection! What I see—”
“What are you going to do about it, Mr. Wright?” Fanny said. “Fire me? Order me out into the night, too?”
The duke wondered: Would Mr. Wright do that? Could he be that cold…to Fanny?
But then he saw the butler color at this. “No, of course not. But I know what the earl would want, and the earl would not want—”
“Ah, but you see, Mr. Wright,” the duke said, drawing himself up to his full height and authority, although he did feel a bit silly doing so in rolled-up shirtsleeves and an open collar, “it doesn’t matter in this instance what the earl would want, because a duke outranks an earl, and I am the duke.” He paused. “And I want this.”
He heard Fanny gasp, and then came a sound that was shocking on such a night: Fanny giggled.
Seeing Mr. Wright’s expression, the duke was tempted to join her, but where would be the authority in that?
So he forced himself to look as serious as possible as he added, “The way I see it, Mr. Wright, you have a choice: you can report us to the earl, you can ignore what you’ve seen here, or you can help us.”
“I shall need to think about this further,” Mr. Wright said, sounding like his usual self-important self, but there was no real heat left behind the words.
“You do that, Mr. Wright,” the duke said. “And while you’re doing it, please get out of our way. Some of us are trying to work here.”
The butler half bowed and stepped back, turning on his shiny heel. As he turned, the duke heard him mutter to himself, “Perhaps I didn’t see anything. Maybe my eyes were just playing tricks on me. Perhaps I just need sleep…”
When he was gone, Fanny burst into giggles again, and this time the duke joined her.
But a moment later, the laughter stopped. He looked up and saw her expression had turned serious.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing,” she said, but there was a forced blitheness in her tone.
His eyes shot to what she was looking at, and then he saw it, too: a mark on one of the hands of the woman Fanny was now examining. The woman had wild gray hair that made her look quite old, although on closer inspection, the duke guessed she was not much over forty and maybe not even that.
“If you would, please,” Fanny said, taking the woman by the elbow and positioning her to one side of the remainder of the line.
“Is there something the matter?” the woman asked, concern in her eyes, which, the duke noted now, looked a bit feverish.
“No, not at all,” Fanny said, still blithe. “But it’s my job to get everyone properly sorted, and what a job it is!” Fanny scanned the remaining people, which included only a few more men and a young boy. “I wouldn’t want to make any mistakes!”
Those last few went quickly and without incident, and then the gray-haired woman was in front of Fanny once more.
“Now, may I—”
“I’m so sorry,” Fanny said sincerely, and she even took the woman’s hand—that hand—in both of hers as she said it, giving it a reassuring pat. “But I can’t let you in, not this evening. You see, we only have so many beds available, and the ones reserved for females are all full already.”
“But I could sleep on—”
“Go back to your home, Mrs. Harvey.”
Mrs. Harvey? But wasn’t the stable boy…
“You’ll be safe there, I promise,” Fanny said. Then she added soothingly, “Someone will be along in the morning to fetch you, just as soon as I get this silly bed business sorted out. I’m sure I’ll be able to find one for you then.”
The duke thought the woman would fight Fanny, put up some resistance, but she simply removed her hand from Fanny’s and began walking away, into the night. Perhaps the fever in her made her too weak to fight.
“Oh!” Fanny called after her. Then she grabbed a heavy copper frying pan from the wall and hurried it over to the retreating woman. “Here you go, Mrs. Harvey!” She placed it in her hands. “Something to protect yourself with as you walk!”
A moment later, Fanny was back inside. And once inside, she shut the door firmly behind her and then bolted it.
“That frying pan won’t protect her, will it?” the duke asked, already knowing the answer. Fanny had no doubt given it to the woman so she’d have a false sense of safety, so perhaps she wouldn’t think to further resist being turned away.
“Of course not,” Fanny said.
“And we couldn’t save her?”
“Didn’t you see her hand? She’d been bitten.”
“Dr. Webb, after he turned into whatever he turned into, bit Mr. Young,” the duke said, figuring things out as he spoke the words aloud. “Lady Elizabeth stood reasonably close to both Parker and Dr. Webb, but she never caught it, whatever it is. But Mr. Young got bit and…”
He let the thought hang there.
“That’s what I figured,” Fanny said.
How smart she was! And not only that, she’d figured it out ahead of him.
“I couldn’t let her in here,” Fanny said, looking sad but resolved. “She’ll be dead by…whenever. And then, once she is, she’ll be one of them. I wish I could’ve saved her somehow, but—”
“You did the right thing, Fanny.”
He could see that she knew he was right. And he could also see that it didn’t help any.
Suddenly, Fanny smiled, surprising him.
How could she smile at a time like this?
But then he thought, if there was one thing he was learning about Fanny, it was that you couldn’t keep her down. Not for too long.
“Look at you,” she said, grinning.
“What?”
“In your rolled-up shirtsleeves and everything.”
Now that he thought about it, in his rolled-up shirtsleeves and open collar, he felt like a pirate! A swashbuckler!
No, more important than that, fo
r the first time in his life, he felt like a man.
“First you changed the sheets for an invalid earlier,” Fanny said. “Now this.”
“Yes, well, I…” He could feel the blush suffuse his face all the way to the tips of his jug ears.
He saw her gaze shift to one of those big appendages, no doubt drawn by their coloring.
“I like your ears,” she said, surprising him.
“What?” He felt self-conscious, both hands instinctively moving to cover those twin objects of so much of the scorn in his life.
“I like them. Your ears.”
“But I’ve always hated them.”
“Why? They’re so substantial, the way ears should be. Mine are so small, like little seashells.” She made a face.
He let his hands fall away from his own ears as he studied hers. She was right. They did look like little seashells, but she was wrong to make a face over them, for they were pretty ones at that.
“I’ve always thought,” she said, when he didn’t respond immediately, “that ears—everyone’s—are funny things, ridiculous really, the way they stick out the sides of people’s heads like an afterthought, slapped on at the last minute when someone realized they might be useful.”
“How extraordinary! You know, I’ve never thought about it like that, but I do believe you’re right.”
“Of course I am.”
Earlier, he’d complimented her hands, and now she’d complimented his ears. What a world this was turning out to be!
“Now,” Fanny said, “if you’re still inclined to help, let’s go upstairs and get everybody sorted. Who knows how long Mr. Wright will agree to ignore what he’s seen? And the more established they all are in the house, the harder it’ll be for anyone to get them out.”
Chapter
Forty-Four
When Fanny had left Will in the room earlier in the day, he’d sat down on his new bed, taking in his surroundings. It wasn’t a bad room, but there wasn’t much to it, nothing with which to occupy his mind. After leaving before, Fanny had quickly returned, pulling a book from somewhere in her skirts and giving it to him. She no doubt meant to do him a favor, and he supposed he liked reading as much as the next tenant farmer’s nephew, but he couldn’t do it all day, and soon he grew bored with the book, restless, too.
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