by Juliana Gray
“The boys from the village, they arrive in the morning,” came Giacomo’s doleful voice, echoing through a haze of dust motes. “Is always so.”
“And what the devil,” muttered Wallingford, following Finn into the stable, “does he mean by that?”
* * *
By the time Finn trooped back inside the castle with his friends, the dark-skied afternoon had already lowered into evening, and the rooms were hardly visible in the shadows.
“Hello!” he called out, hoping that by some miracle nobody would answer, that the whole disastrous episode of damned Lady Alexandra Morley and her damned party of female dilettantes had been nothing more than a particularly vivid hallucination. The morning’s events certainly seemed like a dream by now. He’d done the bulk of the labor in settling in the horses, as neither Wallingford nor Penhallow had touched a bucket in their lives, and no sooner had the three animals been safely stowed for the night than the baggage carts had arrived at last, requiring endless hauling and supervision and tedious repetition of orders in his inexpert Italian.
To their credit, the brothers Penhallow had pitched in without much complaint. They’d unloaded chests and carried machinery like a pair of overdressed drovers, cursing with cheerful specificity and offering a catalogue of incisive remarks on topics as far ranging as the excellence of Italian spring weather and the probable nature of Signore Rosseti’s parentage.
In fact, they were decidedly more talkative than Finn himself, whose mood grew blacker and blacker as he envisioned what was likely taking place in the Castel sant’Agata while he and his friends labored away in the stableyard—barricades going up, no doubt, and the entrances blocked. At the very least, the women would have claimed all the best bedrooms, leaving the men to shiver through the night on bare pallets down some wretched hallway until they crawled, defeated, out the door and down the mountain.
Ruthless creatures, ladies.
“I daresay they’re all abed by now,” said Wallingford, planting his feet on the flagstones and taking in the darkened hall. The baggage lay in a scrambled heap at the bottom of the staircase, almost indistinguishable in the shadows, and Finn contemplated with misery the prospect of hauling it all up to their quarters. Wherever those might be.
“D’you suppose there’s any dinner to be had?” asked Lord Roland, with unconscionable cheerfulness. “I don’t mean to raise any false hopes, but I believe I caught a whiff of something, an instant ago. Something edible,” he added quickly, since the scents they’d encountered during the past few hours had been of the sort to put one off one’s dinner entirely.
Wallingford started off down the opposite end of the hall, away from the courtyard entrance. “Kitchen’s likely at the back, though I expect the ladies have eaten anything lying about by now. Licked the damned crumbs off the floor, too, by God.”
Lord Roland set off after him, but Finn, after a few steps, paused and looked back at the chests. “Go along,” he called. “I’ll catch up in a moment.”
“Don’t be too long,” Wallingford tossed over his shoulder. “I shan’t be saving anything for you.”
Lord Roland’s voice echoed amicably from the end of the hall, “You’re an ass, Wallingford . . .”
Finn shook his head and turned to the chests. The very thought of food made his belly howl in desperation; his last meal had consisted of a hard lump of Parma cheese and an even harder husk of bread, wolfed down in haste along the rainy trek up the hillside. But he’d seen the cavalier way in which the baggage men had tossed the chests and trunks about, and if any of his instruments and gadgets had been broken, it might mean weeks of wasted work, waiting for replacements to arrive from London, or else finding a suitable machinist nearby.
No, he had to satisfy himself before dinner, before bed, or else he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
In the settling dark, he could hardly distinguish one box from another; they had been stacked against one another in reckless disorder, reeking of mildew and damp air. He stumbled about, running his hands along the various textures of leather and metal and canvas, searching for the familiar shapes of his own custom-made chests, designed to absorb the shocks of travel and weather and careless foreign drovers.
He found them at the back of the pile, larger and plainer than the rest. They’d been battered about, the leather a bit scuffed. Probably stained with rain, too, though the light was too dim to tell. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a little ring of keys, and felt through them until his fingers encountered the shape he sought.
With a twist of his wrist, he slipped the key into the lock of the first chest. The tumblers clicked into place with a satisfyingly efficient clink, undamaged by the damp, and Finn opened the lid. The familiar mingled smell of metal and leather and oil rose up to greet him like an old friend, faithful and unchanged, endless blissful memories of tinkering and experimentation distilled into this clean musky scent he’d known since childhood. He ran his fingers over the bumps and ridges within. All tight and snug, the close-fitting felt wrappers undisturbed, the delicate bits of engine and instrumentation safe and sound at last.
A deep sigh of relief heaved under his ribs.
“Is that you, Mr. Burke?”
Finn jumped and whirled. His knee knocked over the chest and spilled the contents onto the floor with a god-awful metallic crash, followed by an equally catastrophic secondary crash, followed by a few solid clinks and then the lonely ring of a single machine part revolving to infinity on the stone floor.
“Oh dear,” Lady Morley said faintly. “I’m so terribly sorry.”
Ordinarily Phineas Burke was a solid man in a crisis. Kept his wits, reacted with cool efficiency, started putting things to rights almost before the disaster had finished unfolding. And in fact, as soon as the chest had struck the flagstones, Finn’s brain told him he ought to be dropping to his knees, attempting to recover the lost machinery and assess the damage.
His body did not obey, however. He stood frozen, contemplating the figure before him, wrapped in a dazed sense of déjà vu, as if the events of the previous night had returned like a recurring nightmare. This time she was holding a candle, and the light wavered between them, turning her skin to gold. “Lady Morley,” he said stupidly, “what the devil are you doing here?”
“Your . . . your things . . .” she said, equally dazed. “Let me . . . let me help you . . .” She sank to the floor and set her candle next to the dark pool of her skirts.
“No . . . quite all right . . . it’s nothing,” he said, and dropped down next to her to run his hands along the cold stone. “You’ve done enough already.” The words fell from his lips before he could think.
She straightened, still on her knees, and her voice turned hard. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Burke. I shouldn’t have startled you like that. I only came to tell you about the arrangements.”
“The arrangements.”
“For the . . .” She rose and made a motion with her arm. “For all this.”
He felt himself stiffening for battle. Damn it all, where was Wallingford? Finn hadn’t the faintest idea how to deal with women like this, imperious women who carried all before them. Always taking offense, always saying one thing and meaning another, always looking at one as if one’s nose were protruding through a garden hedge. “Yes, of course. And what do you propose?”
“The housekeeper tells me that the castle is divided rather neatly into . . .”
“The housekeeper?” Finn asked witlessly, because he had just discovered that at some point in the past few hours, Lady Morley had removed her jacket, and she stood now before him in her plain white shirtwaist, unbuttoned at the neck.
“Yes, a woman named Morini; she appeared directly after you left for the stables. She showed us about, and it seems that, for the time being, that is to say until Signore Rosseti can be found to set things right, our respective parties can take up residence in the castle’s two wings with very little . . . I say, Mr. Burke, are you attending me?”
“As I said, then, very little need for interaction between our two parties. Except at mealtimes, as I regret to say there is only one room suitable for dining.”
He realized she’d stopped talking. “Very well. I suppose that will do.”
“How generous of you,” she said. “I expect you’ll be equally grateful to hear we’ve been slaving like charwomen for hours, setting up the beds and finding your dinner.”
He cast about for something to say. “Are there no other servants, then?” he asked finally, trying not to let his eyes stray farther downward, to discover just how far the unbuttoning of her shirtwaist had progressed.
“What astonishing powers of deduction you have, Mr. Burke. I can well imagine how you lay those chaps at the Royal Society absolutely flat with your logic.”
He opened his mouth to form some suitably cutting riposte (When faced with a roomful of reasonable men, Lady Morley, instead of a single housekeeping shrew . . .), but then his eyes broke discipline at last and caught fatally in the center of her chest.
It was worse than he’d dreamed. The unbuttoning continued unabated down her bosom, forming a daring gap in the white starched fabric, and her skin glowed lusciously beneath in the flickering candlelight. Worse, one panel—probably in the midst of her bed-making exertions, God help him—had pulled aside to reveal the curve of a gloriously generous breast, etched by the delicate lace of her snug-fitting corset.
Finn’s eyes shot back to Lady Morley’s face. “I . . . that is . . .” My dear Lady Morley, I beg to inform you that your left breast is quite nearly hanging out of your shirtwaist . . .
“Oh yes,” she said scornfully. “Most impressive.”
. . . That is to say, your right breast, since it is adjacent to my left hand, and we are naturally facing each other . . .
“Have you nothing to say at all, Mr. Burke?”
. . . You’re welcome, of course, to tuck your splendid mammary back in its rightful place, or else I should be more than happy to assist you with the adjustment . . .
She shifted the candle to her other hand, and as the light passed before her face he saw the drawn paleness of her skin, the violet smudges beneath her eyes.
“Well then,” she said, into his silence, “since your grateful thanks don’t appear to be forthcoming, I’ll lead the way into the dining room, such as it is.” She turned with a broad sweep of her skirts. “I do hope I don’t step on any of your things, Mr. Burke. If I detect any crunching beneath my feet, I’ll be sure to inform you at once.”
“You’re too kind, Lady Morley,” he choked out, following the bouncing motion of the candle as if it were a beacon. “And Lady Morley,” he ventured, as they passed from the great hall toward the mirthful sounds of a well-attended dinner table, “may I suggest that you attend to . . . that is . . . a very slight stain upon the fabric of your collar.”
He was going to murder Rosseti, he decided. If the man ever bothered to show up.
FIVE
Alexandra, about to launch a discussion of Aristophanes, found herself interrupted by a goat.
“Oh, I’m awfully sorry!” exclaimed Abigail, jumping from her chair to snatch at the scruffy beast’s leather collar. “No, no, dear. Not the curtain, if you please.”
“Most unappetizing,” sighed Alexandra.
Abigail looked up with an apologetic expression. “It’s milking time, you see. You’ve come to find me, haven’t you, you clever thing? Ouch,” she added, as the goat butted its granite head against her chin.
“Abigail, my dear.” Alexandra placed her finger in the crease of her book and closed the pages together. “I don’t mean to dampen your enthusiasm, but we did not travel a thousand miles to this . . . to this delightfully rustic outpost in order for you to milk goats. We came to study, to elevate our minds.”
“But the poor thing needs milking. Don’t you, darling? Yes? Oh, look, I say, that’s my petticoat . . .”
“I’m sure there are any number of . . . of goat . . . people . . . to perform the task. Or at least one or two.” Alexandra frowned at her sister, who circled about the goat in an awkward pas de deux, attempting to recover her petticoat from the creature’s surly jaws.
“But there aren’t, really. The men are all out sowing the vegetable fields, and poor Morini’s got her hands full with the cheese-making, and Maria and Francesca are turning the rooms out before the priest arrives tomorrow for the Easter blessing . . .”
Alexandra held up her hand. “Enough! I fail to see why . . .”
“Besides,” Abigail went on, freeing her petticoat at last and grasping the goat’s collar with authority, “I like milking goats.”
“But Aristophanes . . .”
“I’ve read the man already. Twice,” Abigail said, over her shoulder. “In the original Greek.”
Alexandra rose to her feet and called after her. “In which case you can perhaps lead our discussion . . .”
But Abigail was already gone, through the gap in the plastered wall by which the goat had exited a moment ago. A fresh gust of breeze filled the room in her wake, smelling of damp new grass and tilled earth, and Alexandra dropped to her seat with a sigh. “You weren’t much help,” she said, turning to where Lady Somerton occupied a rush-seated chair, her book lying open and forgotten in her lap.
“What’s that?” Her cousin raised her dark head.
Alexandra’s eyes rolled upward. “Exactly. Why is it,” she asked nobody in particular, “I’m the only one of us who takes this endeavor at all seriously?”
“I beg your pardon,” Lilibet said, rearranging her book. “I take it all very seriously. Where were we? Why, where’s Abigail gone?”
“Abigail’s busy with her damned goats and cheeses and whatnot, and you’re mooning over Penhallow, and . . .”
“Mooning! Over Penhallow!”
“. . . and we’re reduced to this . . . this ramshackle little room for our discussions . . .” Alexandra waved her hand to encompass the groaning wooden beams, the yellowed plaster crumbling from the walls, the tendril of wisteria curling luxuriously downward from a wide crack in the ceiling.
“It’s a lovely room,” said Lilibet. “It catches all the daytime sun.”
“That’s because there are holes in the roof!” Alexandra thrust a finger in the direction of one particularly offensive example. “And the walls!”
“The holes hardly matter, now that the weather’s turned.”
“That’s not the point!”
Lilibet shrugged her white cotton shoulders. “Would you rather we meet in the hall? Or the dining room?”
Alexandra tossed her book atop the small wooden table next to her chair. “I don’t see why the men were allowed the library. There are no holes in the library walls.”
“But it’s dark and faces north. And it’s in their wing.” Lilibet closed her book, with a little too much eagerness. “That was your idea, don’t you recall? Separate wings.”
“I thought they’d be gone in a fortnight.” She rose from her chair and strode to the entirely superfluous window. The hillside rolled away before her, ancient terraced fields shooting up with the eager new green of cornstalks and grapevines, down to the red-roofed village nestled in the valley below. To her left, she could see the local men in the vegetable gardens, bending and straightening as they tucked the seeds into the newly turned soil; to her right loomed the opposite wing of the castle, where Wallingford and Penhallow and Burke had entrenched their belongings in the few habitable rooms, stubbornly refusing to admit defeat.
“Of course it was an excellent idea,” Lilibet said. “Reasonable and equitable, and saves us the awkwardness of meeting them, except at mealtimes.”
Alexandra turned from the window with a little smile. “Oh, terribly awkward, isn’t it? Terribly awkward that poor old Penhallow is as desperately in love with you as before.”
A blush rose up in Lilibet’s elegant cheeks. “That’s not true. He hardly speaks to
me at all.”
“Could there be more damning proof than that? Oh, come now.” Alexandra crossed her arms, enjoying the sight of Lilibet’s confusion. “Don’t be maidenly.”
Lilibet rose to her feet, book clutched between her fingers. “You shouldn’t speak of such things. You shouldn’t accuse me like that.”
“Accuse you?” Alexandra started. “Accuse you of what?”
“He’s nothing to me. I’d never . . . I have a husband, Alex!”
“Good God! Darling, of course I didn’t mean . . .” Alexandra stepped forward and took Lilibet’s shoulders. “I only meant that he admires you. Of course he does. You’re frightfully admirable.”
“I am not.” Lilibet returned Alexandra’s gaze with serene blue eyes. “I am not admirable. If I were admirable, I’d have stayed in England.”
“He’s a beast, Lilibet. A beast.”
Lilibet spoke quietly. “Yes, he is. But he’s also the father of my child.”
She stepped away, the book still clasped in her hands, and left the room.
Alexandra made a movement to follow her, but then some force seemed to press against her limbs, stilling the impulse. She turned again to the window.
A cloud, scudding past the sun, cast the broad panorama in shadow. The men in the garden had stopped work and were passing around a large brown jug, from which each took a long and thirsty draw. Alexandra watched them idly, their easy movements and familiar gestures, and it occurred to her that they’d probably known one another since childhood. Had tilled these fields as their fathers had, and their grandfathers. Had eked existence from this dramatic patch of landscape all their lives, with hard work and simple reward, knowing nothing of rates of return and company shares and the bitter shock of retrenchment.
A movement caught her eye, from the other side of the scene before her: a figure striking forth across the crest of the vineyard terrace with giant, purposeful strides. She knew who it was, of course, even before the sun, slipping at last from behind the covering cloud, lit his bare head in an explosion of burnished red gold.
