A Grave Matter

by Anna Lee Huber

  I arched a single eyebrow at him in chastisement. That room was frosted in ivory and lace, with ribbons and furbelows to match, and well he knew it.

  “No, the Evergreen Room will do nicely,” I informed Crabtree.

  Our stoic butler nodded and led Gage from the room.

  “Is that really appropriate?” Trevor hissed.

  “What do you mean? Your old bedchamber is really our only bachelor quarters. Unless you want to give up the master bedchamber? But won’t that be a little awkward?”

  Trevor scowled at me. “We still have Alana’s chamber . . .”

  “It’s pink,” I snapped, before he could add to that ludicrous statement. “Trevor, what is going on? Why are you acting this way?” He turned his head aside, but I continued on, wanting an answer. “And why do you care which bedchamber he sleeps in? He’ll be at the opposite end of the house from you, if that’s what bothers you, across the hall from . . . Ohhh,” I groaned in annoyance. “Is that why? Because he’ll be across the hall from me?”

  His gaze was sharp and angry. “Kiera, I’ve spent time in London. I know Mr. Gage’s reputation. He’s a rake.”

  I rolled my eyes and turned away. “He’s not a rake.”

  “Kiera, as a man, I think I know just a little bit more about these things than you do,” he declared, following me across the room.

  “Then you realize that some people’s reputations are unearned. That rumors are often false,” I shot back at him. After everything I’d been through, the scandal and the name-calling, I’d thought my brother would have learned to be a little slower to rush to judgment.

  I saw that he knew what I was referring to, but far from being chastened, his mouth set into even more mulish lines. “He has a history of dawdling with widows.”

  “And so, because I’m a widow, you think he wishes to dawdle with me?”

  “I know he does.”

  I had opened my mouth to respond, but the certainty in my brother’s voice startled me into silence.

  “I see the way he looks at you,” he persisted. “And it’s not innocent.”

  I felt a blush beginning to burn its way up into my cheeks, and hated that betrayal of my reaction to such a statement. “Gage has behaved nothing but honorably toward me.”

  Trevor’s eyes searched my own, the bright lapis lazuli color softening to a more muted hue. “That doesn’t mean I have to trust him.”

  “Trevor!” I protested.

  “No, Kiera,” he told me gently. “You may believe his intentions are good, but I have the right to withhold my confidence until he’s proven it to me.” He reached up to chuck me playfully under the chin, a gesture I’d hated as a child, but now accepted as the endearment it was. “I’m your brother. If I don’t look out for you, who will?”

  I sighed and reluctantly nodded. I knew he was right. I couldn’t force him to trust Gage, not when it had also taken me some time and persuasion to do so myself. Gage was not one for confidences, and he preferred to charm people and fool them into thinking they were close, when in actuality he’d shared next to nothing of his real self. He’d slowly begun to let me in, and as relieved and flattered as I was by that, I was also frustrated by his unhurried pace to do so. He was the most secretive person I’d ever met. Except for, perhaps, myself.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Monday dawned bright and nearly cloudless. The sun’s rays streamed through my bedchamber window as Bree threw back the drapes. I groaned and rolled to my side, while she persisted in humming some ditty she’d undoubtedly danced to at the ceilidh three nights past. Normally I didn’t hold my new maid’s perpetual cheerfulness against her, but this early in the morning, after another night of fitful slumber, I was a hairsbreadth away from snarling at her.

  Then I recalled the reason she was waking me so early. My heartbeat quickened in remembrance that Gage was in the bedchamber across the hall from mine. Though I’d half expected him to, he had not visited my chamber the previous evening. At least, not to my knowledge. And I’d been awake until after the clock struck three. I should have been relieved that he’d decided to follow the rules of propriety—and I was—but I would be lying if I didn’t admit I was also a little disappointed. Apparently, Gage was still able to keep me off my guard, even when that meant not appearing when I was prepared for him to do so.

  I pushed myself upright, scraping my wild hair back from my face. From his corner at the bottom of the bed, Earl Grey cracked open one golden eye to see what was happening and then settled back into slumber.

  “Good morning, m’lady,” Bree proclaimed brightly as she bustled across the chamber carrying a gown from my dressing room, which she laid over a chair.

  I mumbled my greeting in reply, unable as yet to bestir myself more.

  She carried over a tray filled with toast, jam, and chocolate—my normal morning repast—and set it across my lap. “It looks teh be a lovely day.”

  I nodded, still squinting at the brightness of the morning sun, and poured my chocolate into a cup. After taking a drink of the bittersweet liquid, I sighed, and settled back against my pillows to watch Bree move about the room, laying out my clothing for the day and tidying up what I had discarded the night before.

  When I had arrived at Blakelaw House seven weeks prior, I had selected Bree from the other housemaids to attend me as my lady’s maid mainly because she had seemed the least frightened by me. Her deep dimples and sparkling brown eyes had said she was not unsettled by me—or my macabre reputation—and her neat appearance and trim posture suggested she would be efficient and uncomplaining. And for the most part, I’d been right. She was cheerful and tolerant of my recent crankiness, but she was also bright and resourceful, two qualities I admired greatly.

  Things had not gone well with my previous maid, and though Lucy and I had parted amicably, I was still somewhat disillusioned by my discovery of her disloyalty, and hesitant to trust a new maid. Whether or not Bree understood the reason behind my reticent behavior, she seemed to accept it. As this was her first assignment to such a position, perhaps she didn’t know any better. But regardless, I was grateful for her forbearance.

  I was still uncertain whether I would ask her to come with me when I left Blakelaw House, but I felt the arrival of last night’s guest might swiftly help me to a decision. After all, Lucy’s behavior had caused me no qualms until we departed Gairloch, where she’d spent her entire life, and encountered the attractive, but treacherous, Donovan, a servant in the employ of the Dalmays. I couldn’t help but wonder about Bree’s reaction to Gage’s valet, Anderley. After all, the girl was quite young and pretty, with her strawberry blond curls, carefully tamed, and her sunny disposition, and I knew Anderley was not unattractive. His dark hair and eyes made quite a decent foil to his employer’s golden good looks.

  However, I could think of no way to introduce the subject without sounding suspicious, and had resolved to find a plausible excuse to ask her later when she unwittingly broached the topic herself.

  “You’re sure ye dinna wish to eat any more?” she asked, pointedly staring at the piece and a half of toast I had left on my plate.

  “I’m finished,” I replied, dabbing my face with a towel after washing it.

  Bree’s eyebrows briefly creased with concern and then straightened again as she moved to place the tray on the table near the door. I set the towel aside, lifted my nightgown over my head, and picked up my shift. By the time my head had emerged from the fine lawn fabric, Bree was there holding out my looser daytime corset, ready to help me fasten it.

  “Everyone belowstairs is excited aboot our visitors,” she remarked.

  I watched her in our reflection in the mirror, seeing her head bent over her task behind me. “Oh?”

  “’Til you arrived, Master St. Mawr had ne’er had any. And you bein’ his sister, ye arena’ really a guest. So this is the first they’ve seen in some time. Since I’ve worked here anyway.”

  I frowned, trying to recall whether I’d ever as
ked her before. “Remind me, how long have you been employed at Blakelaw House?”

  “Oh, goin’ on seven years noo.” She looked up in the mirror, catching my look of surprise, and grinned. “Aye,” she said, answering my unasked question whether she remembered me. “I worked in the kitchens when I first come. Barely fourteen, I was. And quiet as a mouse.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head in regret. “I don’t think I . . . Wait! Are you the girl our former cook was always railing at?”

  She nodded, flashing me another smile.

  “But . . . I thought her name was Marie.”

  “’Twas what Cook decided to call me. She said Bree was a stupid name.”

  “Then you’re the maid . . .” I stopped, but not before she realized what I was thinking of.

  “She beat with her rolling pin and almost crippled?” The sparkle in her eyes faded. “Aye. And if it weren’t for yer father, she probably woulda.”

  I had been married to Sir Anthony by then, but I had heard something of the incident, though none of the details. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s the one who stopped ’er. Heard the shrieks from his study and came doon teh find oot what all the racket was.” She finished with my corset and handed me my stockings. “He sent Cook packin’, and fetched the surgeon from Kelso for me.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I murmured, sinking down on the vanity bench, horrified that I hadn’t known she was the same girl.

  She brushed it aside. “No reason for that. Yer father didna ken what the ole harpy was doin’, and he sent her away as soon as he did. I canna blame ’im, or you, for what ye didna ken.”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  She shook her head and turned to pick up my nightgown where it lay on the bed, adding it to her pile of dirty garments by the door. I focused on my stockings and then rose to allow Bree to drop a warm, carnelian red woolen walking dress over my head. By the time she’d buttoned my gown up the back, any sign that the story she’d told had distressed her was wiped clean from her face. I had to admire her resolve and her resilience.

  I settled on the bench again so that she could run the brush through my unruly hair. It crackled with each pass through the thick tresses.

  “Tell me,” I said, deciding to take a chance. “What did you think of Mr. Anderley?” I reached out to pick up a bottle of floral-scented perfume my sister had sent me for Hogmanay. I rarely, if ever, wore fragrances, but I decided to dab some on my neck. It gave me something to do with my hands. “I’ve been told he’s rather vain and pompous,” I supplied when she remained silent. “And I was just curious how you found him.”

  I lifted my eyes to her reflection, just in time to see the grin of amusement that warmed her features.

  “Aye. I suppose you could call ’im that.” She proceeded to divide my hair into several sections and begin to plait each one.

  “But you wouldn’t?” I prodded, wondering at her reticence.

  “Well, I’d say it’s more likely his armor. Ye ken? The way he wishes teh be seen rather than seem vulnerable. It canna be easy enterin’ a strange household.”

  I studied Bree in the glass, realizing she had an amazing capacity for empathy. If she’d seen so quickly to the heart of Anderley in one evening, I wondered how much of my hidden pain she’d already guessed at.

  She must have sensed my unease, for she looked up from her task, meeting my eyes in the reflection of the mirror, before returning to my braid. “Everyone’s got their hurts. No matter who they are. It’s easy teh forget that when we’re no’ willin’ teh look too deep.”

  I stared down at the vanity, considering what she’d said while she finished styling my hair in a tight coronet. It was easy to assume that people were uncomplicated, that the face they showed the world was their true selves, but I knew, perhaps as well as anyone could, that this was not true. I did not share myself easily. I never had. And neither did Gage. Sometimes I thought that was part of the reason I was drawn to him. He intimately understood, in a way most people couldn’t, just why I was so reluctant to let others see the truth.

  Normally I was attuned to sense the sides of people that they would prefer to remain hidden, with a few notable and detrimental exceptions. It was what made me such a good portrait artist. I saw the truth behind the facades they so painstakingly erected. It was almost always the eyes that gave them away, even if only in the flicker of a fraction of a second. It was impossible for me to know the depth and breadth of their secrets, whether they were big or small, whether they hid them from others or just themselves, but I could see the truth of who they were, good or bad. And people didn’t always like it.

  However, since William’s death I’d grown out of practice, or perhaps just uncaring. I’d been so consumed by my grief, my worries, my fears that I’d blocked out everyone else, including my maid. And to some extent, my brother.

  It was no wonder he was so worried about me. I’d always been able to unerringly read him, but since my return to Blakelaw House, I hadn’t really bothered to try. I knew there were things that were troubling him, and they didn’t all revolve around me, but I hadn’t even made an effort to probe them. His pestering little sister hadn’t been pestering him. I could understand how unsettling that would be.

  Bree finished my hair, and as she’d already laid out my kid leather boots and gloves, she made ready to leave, but I stopped her. She faced me with her hands clasped before her, an uncertain expression on her face. It was perhaps the first time I’d seen her look unconfident, and I hastened to reassure her.

  “As I’m sure you know, it’s Handsel Day. And although I know it’s customary to give all the servants their gifts together, I wanted to give you yours here.”

  Bree instantly relaxed, and a very becoming flush of pleasure brightened her face as I handed her three packages. “Thank you, m’lady.”

  I felt an answering blush heat my cheeks as I indicated the largest of the three. “That contains two dresses I asked Miss Little to alter for you. She said she had your measurements, but if for any reason they don’t fit, she’ll fix them.” It was customary to give the servants a new uniform every year on Handsel Day, but as Bree was now a lady’s maid, she was allowed to wear cast-off gowns from her employer and other finer apparel. I hoped the two dresses I’d selected and asked our seamstress to alter would suit her.

  Bree beamed with happiness, and I urged her to open the other two packages, hoping she would like them just as well. One was a package of scented soaps, as I’d noticed how much mine seemed to please her when she helped me to wash my hair. The other was a set of hairpins with small, finely worked metal flowers on the ends. I had seen them in a shop in Kelso and immediately decided they would be perfect for Bree’s curls.

  She gasped at the sight of them, and I knew I’d chosen well.

  Once I’d ushered the joyful girl out of my room, who insisted she could juggle her presents, my breakfast tray, and the laundry all at once, I joined my brother downstairs. He arched his eyebrows at my bright smile, but I ignored him, unwilling to let anything spoil Bree’s infectious cheer.

  We passed out gifts to the remainder of the staff, and then Trevor told them they would have the remainder of the day to do as they wished. The coachman and footman who would accompany us to Dryburgh Abbey were promised they would receive an extra day off sometime that week.

  Gage, who had viewed the ceremony from the doorway of the drawing room, waited until the three of us were inside the carriage before asking about Handsel Day.

  “It falls on the first Monday of the new year, and is when the Scots prefer to give their presents to each other,” Trevor explained. “As most of our servants are Scottish, and perhaps, more importantly, Mother was Scottish, it’s always been the tradition we follow at Blakelaw House.”

  “So you don’t celebrate Christmas or Boxing Day?” he asked, naming the holidays on which Englishmen usually gave each other gifts.

  “Not in the way most English do. Though we
do attend church service and enjoy a nice dinner.” Our father had been English, after all, and we did live on the English side of the Border, arbitrary as that was much of the time.

  The Border region was almost a country unto its own—had always been, even during the time of the Border reivers—and Scots and English mixed freely. Because of the tales that had been handed down through the ages about the fierce Border Marches, outsiders often assumed there were nasty ongoing feuds between Scots and English along the boundary between the countries. But more often than not, a Borderer would side with his neighbor—no matter which country he was from—than some distant government in London so far to the south or Edinburgh to the north. Now, that wasn’t to say there weren’t still feuds between rival clans, but they, as often as not, pitted Scot versus Scot, or English versus English, as English versus Scot.

  It would be almost impossible for an outsider like Gage to understand the strange dichotomy of concord and rivalry that made up the backbone of the Borders. Most of the people who populated it were descendants of those who had suffered through centuries of war and pillaging and reiving. It had taken a stubborn, hardy disposition to survive, and their descendants were understandably no different. They had their own traditions, their own way of doing things, and woe to those who tried to stand in the way.

  This was something it would behoove us to remember as we made our inquiries, especially as Gage was an outsider, and a Londoner, at that.

  CHAPTER TEN

  When we arrived, Dryburgh Abbey was already awash with midmorning light. The stones where Dodd had died were scrubbed clean, though I suspected Willie had rubbed his hands raw in doing so. I huddled deeper in my fur-lined cloak as we paused at the spot on our way into the abbey, wondering where the young caretaker was on this cold morning. I could feel Gage’s eyes on me as I explained the location’s significance, but as we passed through the west door, he was distracted by the late Lord Buchan’s yawning grave.

  I’d asked the current earl not to fill it in on the chance that Gage was able to uncover something that the rest of us had missed. He circled the plot and bent down to examine a few things while Trevor and I stood by watching. I shifted closer to the headstone, a red smudge on the marble having caught my eye, and when I turned back, it was to find Gage actually climbing down into the grave.