by Diana Lloyd
Time. Was he being cruel by reminding her, or simply practical? It didn’t matter, she supposed, because whatever plans he had were going to be changed. He just didn’t know it, yet.
“Tell me about…” She let her voice trail off as she caught a glimpse of a grand manor rising up through the trees, revealing itself a little more as each turn of the wheel brought them closer. “Oh, Quin, it’s beautiful!” She leaned farther out the window to get a better look and heard him laugh.
“Hold on there.” He reached over from his mount and put a hand to her shoulder. “You’ll fall out. I don’t want to have to bring you in on a litter.”
She leaned back in the coach. “You never told me it was so beautiful.”
“You never asked.”
Lochwode House was made up of sturdy gray stone crowned with an elaborately carved speckled granite cornice. Facing the lake, the front of the house presented as a huge neat rectangle with more chimneys and windows than she could count properly from a moving carriage. It was exquisite in its symmetry, right down to the perfectly centered portico and split staircase. It was, apart from many of the other large structures she’d spied on their journey, a house built for fine living rather than defense. It hid behind no tall stone walls, and there were no guard towers marked by arrow-slits. There wasn’t even a moat.
This is my new home. The thought hit her hard, and she lost her breath for a moment. Temporary home, if she wasn’t very clever in the very near future. She plastered a falsely brave smile on her face and looked over to Quin. It was clear from his face that he was proud of the estate and that she found it pleasing. The white crushed marble that paved the approach to the house crackled and crunched under the coach’s wheels as they reached their final destination.
Staff members scurried around from the side of the house and formed a greeting line from coach to front stair. By the time Quin reached up to help her from the carriage, they’d settled into order waiting to greet her. As she placed her hand upon his arm, she noticed for the very first time that he wore a black band of mourning on his sleeve. Her hand recoiled involuntarily, and she looked to his face for an explanation. But his face might have been carved from the same stone as the house, and he did nothing more than take her hand and place it on his arm.
Not in front of the servants. Her mother’s voice echoed in her head. Never air family discord in front of the servants. He’d told her his wife and son had died, how foolish of her to never ask how long ago. A mistake she would remedy as soon as possible. Unable to bring herself to smile, she tried, instead, for a semblance of benign travel-weary contentment and forced her feet forward.
Shades of shock and suspicion were written across the servants’ faces as they stole glances at her before quickly shifting their eyes back to the gravel at their feet. Who among them, she wondered, had been asked not to let her out of their sight?
“I would like to introduce my bride and your new mistress, Lady Elsinore Cosgrove Graham, daughter of the Duke of Wallingford and now my baroness.”
Heads dipped, feet shuffled, and the entire countryside went dead silent. At least, it seemed that way to Elsinore. There was no applause, no congratulations, no anything. The silence stretched into awkwardness before one of the staff cleared his throat and stepped forward.
The throat clearing, which resonated like a thunderclap in the silence, jolted the rest of the staff into a smattering of applause and a few half-hearted sentiments of best wishes for the happy couple. The throat-clearer welcomed her with an elegantly executed bow.
“This is MacLean,” Quin said. “The house-steward.”
“Welcome to Lochwode House, my lady. On behalf of the entire staff, we are so very honored and pleased to meet you.” It was clear the man had chosen his words carefully, yet Elsinore sensed no malice or mockery behind them. He seemed a capable, trustworthy sort, much like her father’s butler, Watson. She decided that she liked him on sight.
A half-dozen footmen came next, each one claiming the name Ewan and looking so much like the other she’d never be able to tell them apart. They bowed in unison, and she stifled back a nervous giggle. Next came the maids, three girls who Quin introduced only as Mary, Peg, and Jenny. Three maids weren’t half enough for a house this size, and her mother would have an apoplexy at the thought of managing such a household. Where was the rest of the staff?
She greeted each one with a nod and a polite smile for those who offered one to her until at last she was introduced to the cook, Brigit. If there was a way for a curtsy to be rude, the cook had perfected the act. Unwilling to be cowed, Elsinore greeted the woman with a curt nod that she’d seen her mother use a thousand times. The kitchen, maids, and laundry staff, Quin explained, all reported to the cook in absence of a housekeeper.
An assortment of the cook’s relatives followed, who out of necessity or lack of recourse had also joined the household staff in some capacity. There were three nieces and a grandnephew. Charlie, the young nephew who functioned as the stable boy, openly gaped at Elsinore, forgetting to bow altogether until receiving a gentle nudge from Quin.
She dared to think the hardest part was over until they turned and ascended the steps to enter the house. There, above the lintel, hung a long-faded swag of black bombazine. This was a house of mourning. Elsinore stumbled on the top step.
“Steady on,” Quin whispered as he slid his arm around her waist.
Steady on? It was the worst of fortune for a new bride to enter a house of mourning under the blackened lintel. I am not superstitious, she told herself as she stepped forward. But as she reached the threshold, good fortune turned its back upon her once again. A puff of breeze swirled off the lake and across the courtyard, and the black bunting floated down from its perch and settled itself across their shoulders.
Quin snatched it away, but not before the entire staff saw them at the doorway draped in weather-worn black mourning as they stepped across the threshold as man and wife.
“Steady on,” Quin repeated, draping his arm across her trembling shoulders. “I asked that it be removed, but in all the commotion of our arrival it must have been overlooked.”
“How long?” she whispered. “How long since…”
“A year since my parents, but only three months since my son.”
“I’m so sorry, Quin. I didn’t know. I should have asked.” Three months? But, wait, when had his wife died? Odd he hadn’t mentioned her. Did he think hearing the other woman’s name would be too upsetting?
“I don’t like speaking of it. I was glad you didn’t ask, because then I needn’t think about it.” He steered her through the house, going through the motions of giving her a tour. Still in shock, she walked stiffly, mechanically, not noticing the rooms through which they passed.
“You should have told me,” she finally managed, as they made their way into the relative privacy of his office and away from the servants. “I might have convinced my father to release you from your offer if we’d only known you were still in mourning.”
“You made me feel alive again. I’m afraid that is my only excuse.”
“And you wanted to use me to replace the child you lost.” It was a cruel observation, but not untrue.
“He cannot be replaced.” Quin’s voice held a twinge of anger. “What man doesn’t want a son? Am I unreasonable for wanting that which every other man hopes for?”
“You should have told me.”
“I thought I made myself quite clear on our wedding day. Did I not explain to you what sort of arrangement I offered?”
“After the wedding. Only after.”
“Your reputation was in shreds, I had no choice.”
“You had all the choices, Quin.” She might have said more, but they were interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Come.” Quin left her side and walked to the far side of his desk.
“Begging your pardon, my lord. Your correspondence.” MacLean held out a neatly wrapped bundle of letters. “I was about to h
ave it sent off to London when we got word you’d be returning.”
“Just place them on my desk.”
MacLean set the bundle down and hesitated, glancing nervously at Elsinore. “There’s also a note, my lord.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded square of paper.
“When?” Quin took the note, unfolded the paper, and frowned at the words written there.
“Just this morning, my lord.”
Quin frowned again and shoved the note into his coat pocket. “Send Peggy in, will you?”
“As you wish, my lord.”
“I have some catching up to do,” he said to Elsinore, gesturing to the stack of letters. “I’ll have one of the maids show you around above stairs if you don’t mind. Some estate matters simply will not wait. We’ll talk again after supper.”
“Yes, we will.” When he came to her tonight she would ask him everything. There was nowhere for him to run, no excuse he could now make.
“Milady?” Elsinore spun around to find one of the trio of maids she’d met earlier looking at her with concern. Fiddlesticks. She must have been scowling like an abbess.
“Peg, please show your new mistress above stairs. Have her trunks been unpacked?”
“Most of them, milord. There were a great many of them.”
“Do what you can to make sure she is comfortable this evening.” Quin turned to Elsinore and nodded a dismissal.
Outrage bubbled up inside her, but she managed to keep it in check. Never in front of the servants, her mother’s voice echoed in her head. She followed as the maid led her from the room.
“Would you care to take some tea first, milady?”
“Nothing for now, thank you. I’d like to see my room straight away.” She’d asked it so hopefully, Elsinore was tempted to accept. But she didn’t want tea, she wanted to unpack and settle in.
Peg’s face went pinched for just a second, and she glanced at the hallway as if she was considering escape. “This way, milady,” she said at last. Elsinore followed the now sullen Peg up the left side of the grand double staircase that mirrored the one at the entrance to the house.
“There are currently eight bedchambers on this level along with two sitting rooms. There used to be more, but the master had two converted into bathing chambers. Right inside the house,” Peg added with equal measures of awe and disgust.
“If you might show me to my rooms first, I would like to ensure all my things have arrived and begin supervising the rest of the unpacking.”
“The master directed that your things be placed in his room for the time being.” Peg stopped short in the hallway and stared down at her feet as she spoke. “There were so many trunks, we had to store most of them in his sitting room.”
“Why were they not placed in my bedchamber?”
“The rooms for the lady of the house are being renovated, milady.” Peg offered this while still looking at the floor.
“Excellent. I’d like to see them.” It was a small consolation that there might still be time for her to make her mark upon the rooms and have them designed to her liking.
“You cannot.”
“Cannot?”
“The doors are kept locked, milady, and I don’t have a key.”
“Who does have the key?”
“Since Mrs. Menzies walked off… I mean, since the housekeeper departed, Cook keeps all the keys to the bedchambers.”
Walked off? That might explain the lack of servants. It was yet another question she would have for Quin. “If you might retrieve the key, Peg, I’d like to see the room now.”
“Yes, milady.” The response was offered only after an uncomfortable hesitation.
Without a proper housekeeper and their previous lady of the house deceased, perhaps Quin’s staff had grown a bit complacent. Still, they hadn’t expected a new mistress, and Elsinore would allow them a few days to adjust to the idea. God knew she was going to need several days herself.
After Peg scurried off, Elsinore strolled down the hall admiring the portraits that hung there. If these were family portraits, which she guessed they were, Quin had come from a long line of handsome men. She searched their faces for traces of him. He had his mother’s eyes, but his smile—his signature smirk—she didn’t find until she reached the end of the hall. There it was. A grandfather perhaps, his father’s father if she had to guess. Whoever it was, he was kitted out in full Scottish glory standing afore a hillside dotted with fat, fluffy sheep.
“I’m sorry, milady,” Peg said, interrupting her thoughts. “Cook says the key to the baroness’s bedchamber has been misplaced.”
“Surely the house-steward has one?”
“No, milady. He has no keys for above stairs, only for below stairs and storage.”
“Then Cook is just going to have to find it, now isn’t she?” The simple answer irritated her, but she tried to hide it. There was no point in snapping at Peg; she’d have to speak to the cook herself. “Show me to the master’s rooms, then.”
Quin’s room was modern elegant simplicity, and almost completely filled with her trunks. The footmen, to their credit, had arranged them with a thought to creating walking paths from door to fireplace, fireplace to bed, and bed to dressing table. But they had completely blocked off the door that connected to the adjoining room. The baroness’s chambers, her chambers, were made completely inaccessible.
Peeling off her bonnet and redingote and throwing them over the back of an armchair, Elsinore quickly divided the trunks into those containing clothing that needed to be unpacked and those containing fabrics, trims, and linens that were not immediately essential. The clothing cupboard was quickly filled, and she directed that Peg put the out of season and more impractical clothing items in the cupboards of any unused bedrooms.
But clearing the doorway had done her no good, as the door connecting the two rooms was as tightly locked as the door from the hallway. When she had Peg busy smoothing out gowns, folding underthings, and matching up slippers, Elsinore slipped away to find the cook to ask about the wayward key to her bedchamber.
The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was clean and modern. The hearth was wide and deep with two separate bread ovens off to the sides. Two long wooden preparation tables took up a good portion of the room with large crockery stored on the shelves underneath. Cooking pots of all shapes and sizes hung from iron hooks strung from a frame suspended over the tables. Rather than wood, the floor was paved with a gray-green slate that echoed the countryside. Open shelving lined the walls with colorful serving platters and teapots. It was a homey, welcoming place overseen by an unwelcoming guardian.
“Brigit,” Elsinore addressed the older woman who’d managed to feign ignorance of her presence in the room. “Peg tells me that you have the key to the baroness’s bedchambers.”
“Ah-yup.” The woman barely looked up from the dough she was kneading.
Ah-yup? Was this yet another Scottish noise she’d have to learn?
There was an uncomfortably long pause before Brigit added, “M’lady.”
“Am I to take it that is an affirmative response?” Elsinore took a deep breath. She was prepared for this, she reminded herself. As she exhaled, she thought of her mother. Be the lady you were born to be, she heard her mother’s voice in her head. “I should like the key to the baroness’s bedchambers.”
She clamped her mouth shut before she began explaining why. Her mother had always said that one did not owe a servant a reason for any request, no matter how unreasonable it might appear to be. If Brigit insisted on acting the put-upon servant, Elsinore was not above treating her like one. One of them would break eventually, and she knew it would not be her.
“I cannae do that, m’lady.” Elsinore waited for an explanation, but the cook went back to her kneading with renewed vigor.
“I don’t mean to get into the habit of asking twice.” It was a line she’d heard her mother use to good effect, and she hoped it would work here. “Produce the key, and I will rel
ieve you of the responsibility for it.”
“Dinna say I wouldna, said I couldna do it.” Brigit punched at the glob of dough a few more times. “That key’s gone missing, m’lady.”
“What do you mean missing? If there is no key, the lock needs to be replaced. Surely a footman or two could force the door?”
“Most likely one of the workmen pocketed it by mistake. He’ll return it when he comes across it next. You’ll have to take up a broken door with his lordship.”
“That is precisely what I will do. And while I’m sure Lord Graham has appreciated your extra services, I’ll be hiring a proper housekeeper soon enough, and she will take over the running of the household.” It was the only threat Elsinore had at her immediate disposal.
“Suit yerself, m’lady.”
Elsinore turned and left the kitchen before she could say anything she would later regret. Tangling with the kitchen staff so soon would earn her more than a few burned dinners and runny soufflés. She would add it to the list of things she needed to address with Quin once she got him alone.
The sound of raised voices and running footsteps sounded from below as she made her way back up the stairs. One of the footmen ran to the top of the stairs and made a breathless bow. “Begging your pardon, milady, but Peg is needed to pass a water bucket. There’s a fire in the stables, and she and the others are to come quickly.”
Elsinore and Peg both ran with the footman down the steps, but the footman stopped at the last step and turned to Elsinore. “You’re to stay here, milady. The master says that he wants his new bride safe indoors.”
“But I can help,” she said as she attempted to push past him.
“I’m not to let you leave, milady. Please.”
The poor man sounded close to desperate, and Elsinore realized that every minute she argued with him was a minute’s worth of help wasted in saving the stables. “Go,” she said finally, waving him on.
