Engraved (A Private Collection)

by Fresina, Jayne

  Her eyes darted left to right as she grasped at this slippery new idea with fumbling fingers.

  “I understand perfectly if you were planning to retire, Mrs. Murray. You served my father for many years and you’re certainly entitled to a rest. If you would prefer I hire someone new…”

  “Certainly not, Mr. Adam!” A flush of color dappled her usually dour grey face. “I will stay, of course. It’s just quite a shock!”

  Yes, he thought, pleased. It would be “quite a shock” for many folk.

  His brothers had all gone, taking the other paintings from their father’s private collection. Harry and Luke wanted nothing more from the house and would never object to him staying there. He found himself suddenly in no haste to return to London. So why not?

  Glancing at the skeleton clock on the mantle, he smiled. As for Lina…she’d just have to get used to having him around for a while.

  “Will you be staying in the yellow bedroom, Mr. Adam? Only that was just a temporary arrangement, and if you prefer it, I can air out your father’s room. He hadn’t slept up there in the last few years for he didn’t want to manage the stairs, but it is the largest bedroom and has the best view of the park.”

  He nodded slowly. “Yes, please prepare that room. Oh and, Mrs. Murray, let’s see if we can hire one or two helping hands from the village, or even from Middleton, if we need look further.” Aware of the Blackwood reputation and of local superstition that the house was haunted, he suspected any effort to repopulate the staff might encounter problems.

  The old lady hesitated, hands clutching her apron. “What sort of helping hands will you require, Mr. Adam?” Her expression was peevish, lips drawn tight as a cat’s backside.

  She was lucky he’d outgrown practical jokes, or he’d be tempted to order a few, bosomy, giggling, young maids, which is clearly what she expected. However, Adam was not his father, whatever people thought of him.

  “What I require, Mrs. Murray, is a couple of strong, healthy, young lads to help me get this place in order.”

  Her lips parted.

  “And if you need help in the kitchen, please feel free to bring anyone in that suits. I’ll leave the female staff to your charge.”

  Her mind was slow to catch up. “Get this place in order, Mr. Adam?”

  “That’s right. We’re going to clean up the ivy, polish the windows, and trim the trees.” Knuckles pressed to his hips, he looked around slowly, like an emperor regarding his new palace. There was a lot of potential in the house. He’d spent the last few years planning and building new structures, but he was in the mood for a change. He wanted to see what he could do with his father’s house, wanted to make amends for the years of maltreatment. He would bring the old place back to life. “And on the first day of May, Mrs. Murray, we’re going to have a ball.”

  She tripped slightly, banging her elbow on the open door. “A ball, Mr. Adam?”

  There hadn’t been a May ball at The Grange since Adam was a boy. In the back of his mind he’d always harbored some resentment about that, suspecting the dances and parties were stopped because he was getting old enough to enjoy them. He had several memories of sneaking out of his bed to lie on the landing and peer down through the oak railings, watching his father, later his brothers, dancing with a never-ending stream of beautiful women. Then, suddenly, when he turned sixteen, there were no more evenings full of music, laughter, and glimmering candlelight. The others had all lost interest, it seemed.

  “It’s time this moldy, old house had a little life in it again, don’t you think?” Grabbing the startled housekeeper’s hands, he whirled her around while she sputtered away about the mud he’d traipsed in on his boots.

  “A new era has come to The Grange, Mrs. Murray,” he told her, as she spun away and knocked into the paneled wall. “And a new master.”

  “That’s all well and good, young Mr. Adam, but how you think we’re going to get this house ready for a ball in only a fortnight?”

  Chuckling, he shooed her out. “Time is pressing, then. Let’s not stand about talking. Let’s get it done. Haste, haste!”

  Grumbling under her breath, she scuttled out, leaving him laughing, the sound echoing around the walls of the old house, shaking the broken cobwebs and humming through the worm-holed joists.

  * * * *

  She heard it from Mary first.

  “They say Master Adam Blackwood is staying on at The Grange, ma’am. What do you think of that?”

  Busy peeling potatoes, she replied, “Nothing at all. Why should it be of any significance to me what that young man does?” It came out rather sharply, and she immediately regretted her tone, for it made Mary look at her in that sly, beastly way. Too late, she let her temper get the better of her. And she’d almost sliced her finger off.

  Later that day, the news was confirmed by young Peter Dockley when he arrived to mend her back garden wall.

  “Mr. Blackwood hired me for some clearing work up at The Grange,” the lad chirped excitedly, more animated than she’d ever seen him. “If it goes well, he might keep me on for the grounds, like.”

  She told Peter she was very glad for him and he got on with his work, whistling joyously in tune with the birds. Then she went quickly inside and sat on the nearest kitchen chair, her heart skipping like a spring lamb. Despite the sun, it was cold, the warmth of the range a welcome caress on her hands, face, and feet. She needed summer to come, or spring to give up this lingering dampness. By now she should be accustomed to the wet English weather, but it still depressed her when too many days in a row were spoiled by a sudden shower, or when the clouds couldn’t seem to lift themselves any higher than the tops of the chestnut trees around the common.

  Something had to change so she could shake off this dreadful sense of doom and let life go on. Hell was taking a long while to thaw out and warm up again.

  Now the brat was staying.

  When she closed her eyes, she could still see Randolph’s clock with the glass doom cracked coated in white prickles of frost, a warning of trouble. Randolph always did like to “jam a spoke in the works” as he would say, and so he caused this mischief, even from the grave. He had showed his son her painting, laying it in Adam’s path like a challenge to his ego.

  Randolph had always teased that he read her mind, that he knew what she wanted better than she did.

  She should never have read the old man’s palm, but the moment she gazed at his unlined left hand, surprise had swept out of her before she could bite it back down. And then he’d told her, “You’ve come here to send me back where I belong, my beauty. I’ve been expecting you and I know you won’t be the only one. There are three of you, are there not? Witches always come in threes. Shakespeare knew that.”

  He was, of course, quite mad. It pleased him to think he was no ordinary man, but some sort of genius, other-worldly creature with powers beyond the reasoning of normal folk. The lack of lines on his palm, in his mind, led credence to his fantasy.

  “Yes, you old devil,” she’d laughed. “I’ll send you back to Hell. Pass me that toasting fork!”

  “Want to poke me back in my firebox, eh? Can’t have me wandering about in another realm unguarded.” Randolph had chuckled, teasing her. “Don’t worry. I’m wise to your tricks. All three of you. Pinch me, prick me with your witches pins. I’ll go when I’m ready and not before. You’ll have to keep an eye on me, won’t you, my beauty?” Then he leaned forward and tapped his finger to her nose. “Perhaps we’ll keep an eye on each other, for I’ve a sense you’re more trouble than I.”

  She left his house soon after that, marrying Dr. Phillips. But she never forgot his strange teasing. Trouble indeed! She was never any trouble. She’d watched all manner of wickedness going on around her and never participated.

  Until a few days ago when Randolph’s son returned and made her succumb to deeply denied yearning.

  It was their fault. Those damned Blackwoods. She was just an innocent, virtuous widow minding her own
business, never meaning any harm. No witch at all. Positively angelic.

  Until Adam.

  Staying.

  He hated that house and this quiet, drowsy village where everyone knew his business. Why would he stay?

  His father had definitely caused this mischief. Wherever he was now, he was laughing.

  Chapter Seven

  Unexpected guests arrived on Tuesday. Busy with the work around the house, he was hardly in a fit state to welcome his fiancée and her imperious aunt. But their grand barouche box swept up the gravel driveway that afternoon, and within a few seconds of the wheels braking, he heard Matilda’s voice.

  “Darling! Darling! We’re here! I had to come and surprise you.”

  She’d expected him back in London that weekend and was clearly too impatient, or too suspicious, to wait for his letter. There was a graspiness about Matilda Hawkesworth, but it hadn’t bothered him before. Today, for some reason, it did. Suddenly he was livid. What was she thinking to come to The Grange, turning up without warning?

  Diving across the hall in a flurry of impractical, expensive lace, she kissed him on the cheek, making a slight mewling complaint at the dust on his clothes and face. Her aunt was just stepping over the threshold, causing a sudden darkening of the light, her frame filling the doorway. She was a big, square woman on small feet.

  “Lady Cheswick,” he murmured, “How good of you to bring Matilda all this way.”

  Twice before this he’d met the formidable woman. Disapproving of Adam Blackwood, she watched him with granite eyes, spoke over all his sentences, and had an irritating habit of sniffing everything before she ate or drank as if someone, probably him, might try to poison her.

  “I can’t say I was pleased to come,” she snapped. “But the dratted gell wouldn’t be settled otherwise.” She raised her head, sniffing at the air like an old, saggy-jowled hound. “I told her if she couldn’t trust you away in the country for five minutes, she shouldn’t think of marrying you.”

  “It wasn’t a matter of distrust, Aunt Muriel,” the girl exclaimed, flushing scarlet. “I just couldn’t bear to be without him. He was supposed to be back home by now and I was quite bereft.”

  Laughing uneasily, he led the two women into the morning room and yelled for Mrs. Murray.

  Lady Cheswick cringed, shooting a fierce, flinty glare over her shoulder. “Don’t you have a bell for the servants?”

  He confessed he did, but it was currently out of order and next on his list of things to fix.

  “Fix?” Matilda exclaimed, wrinkling her nose at the mustiness of the drawing room furnishings, clearly wondering where to sit in her expensive traveling gown. “Why would you fix this place up, darling? Isn’t it being sold off?”

  He cleared his throat. “I thought I might keep it.”

  Her aunt eyed him through a gleaming lorgnette. “The place is in disrepair. It will drain your resources, Blackwood.”

  It wasn’t his resources the old bat was thinking about, of course. She was thinking about her niece’s inheritance, which she already assumed to be his primary reason in marrying Matilda. Assumed correctly, as it turned out. At least, that was his plan, all carefully laid out, until a few days ago. He almost couldn’t recall now what he was thinking when he proposed marriage to Miss Hawkesworth in London. Out of habit, his fingers fumbled for the watch in his waistcoat pocket, until he remembered he’d lost it.

  He smiled brightly, throwing Lady Cheswick into another scowl. “I daresay I’ll manage. There’s a great deal of family history in these walls.”

  The old curmudgeon arched a strictly plucked eyebrow above her lorgnette, her feelings about Blackwood family history plainly written on her equally plain face. In her mind, the Blackwoods were new money and had no elegance, no class. She made no bones about telling him so on the first occasion they met.

  “I don’t like you, Blackwood,” she’d admitted freely over tea at the Savoy. “If Mattie hadn’t made her mind up before I even met you, I wouldn’t give her my blessing for this match. There’s only one thing in this world that matters to me, my niece’s happiness. I swore to my brother, God rest his soul, that I would look after his only child. Mattie, therefore, must have what she wants.” Then she added with a sigh, “I only hope she changes her mind before the wedding clothes are ordered. She might, of course. Your true colors may become apparent to her, even through the rosy spectacles currently blurring her vision.”

  He called out again for Mrs. Murray and had just turned toward the door, meaning to go in search the housekeeper, when he met her on her way in, leading another new arrival.

  Lina.

  He stopped abruptly, heart in his mouth.

  “Mrs. Phillips, sir,” the housekeeper announced, her words heavy with warning. Mrs. Murray had, of course, been the one to mop up the blood all those years ago, after his brothers hauled him home with a broken nose. Seated on her kitchen table, swinging his legs, calmly putting up with her fussing, he’d asked the housekeeper for the name of the beautiful woman with dark hair who lived in the old tithe cottage by the common, the one with honeysuckle around the door.

  “For pity’s sake, young Master Adam,” she’d mumbled as she dabbed his bloodied nose with a damp rag, “here you are in this state and all you can think about is a woman.” Then later he found out for himself, when the doctor arrived to inspect the wound. Glancing through the window, he’d seen her sitting in her husband’s cart, very still and straight, her eyes distantly surveying the lawns. She hadn’t come into the house, but waited there like a faithful hound for her master.

  Today she came into the house.

  Lina’s gaze traveled beyond him, to the chintz chairs and the two women now seated by the fire. He couldn’t detect any surprise. Her eyes were guarded, the shine dulled. Not knowing what to say to her immediately, he addressed Mrs. Murray with a request for tea and some of her “very good” scones. The housekeeper looked taken aback by any praise for her cooking and merely stared at his fine guests. He repeated his request and finally she backed out.

  Silence thickened as the remaining women stared in curiosity at one another, until Lina said softly, “I’ll just take that item then, Mr. Blackwood, and be on my way.”

  “Won’t you stay to tea?”

  “I really can’t stay, Mr. Blackwood. Thank you.”

  His fingers twitched at his sides, scraping at the cord pile of his hunting breeches. “As you wish.”

  Matilda and her aunt sat bolt upright, two bookends surveying the woman beside him with undisguised superiority. He’d never before realized Matilda’s resemblance to the old dragon, but now seeing them together, both ready to ward off the competition, it struck him harshly. In ten or fifteen years, Matilda would develop another chin or two and her eyes would sharpen into those same, mean pin-pricks.

  “Matilda, Lady Cheswick, this is Mrs. Phillips, from the village of East Lofton.” He paused, licking his lips. “Mrs. Phillips, may I introduce Miss Matilda Hawkesworth,” he hesitated again, “and her aunt, Lady Cheswick.”

  “East Lofton?” Matilda warbled. “Wasn’t that the pretty little place we passed through on the way here? The church was just delightful, and I said to my aunt what a perfect place for our wedding, Adam darling.” She exhaled sharply, a new idea taking hold. “If you’re going to do this place up, darling, we could have our reception here too. I haven’t found anywhere I like in London. Have I, Aunt Muriel? It’s all so common to have the same place one’s friends had. But this would be lovely and so very unusual.”

  Lady Cheswick, he noted, was coldly silent, her stern gaze surveying the muddied hem of Lina’s gown and petticoat.

  Finally he remembered the painting and broke in a little too loudly, “Mrs. Phillips, I’ll show you to my father’s library. I believe what you’re looking for is in there.”

  * * * *

  “I expected you to be gone by now,” she said quietly, following him into the library.

  “I’ve decided to
stay awhile.” He leaned his fists on the mantle and stared down at the empty hearth. “It won’t inconvenience you, I hope?”

  “Why would it? I don’t care what you do.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Of course not. You give me my painting back and we go our separate ways, remember?”

  He was getting married, then. Oh well, she shouldn’t be so surprised. He wasn’t the first young man to proclaim himself an eternal bachelor and then fall foul to conventional pressures. He must want children some day, she thought. Perhaps that was why he was ready to marry.

  Eager for something to look at other than him, she stared at the ugly skeleton clock, clicking and whirring away under its glass dome and wondered, as she often did, why people wanted to be reminded of time passing. There were practical reasons, certainly, but some people kept clocks in every room, even carried them on their person. As Adam did.

  Reaching into her purse, she brought out his pocket watch. “You left this behind.”

  His eyes widened then narrowed.

  “Didn’t you notice it missing?” she asked, bemused.

  “Of course. I didn’t realize I’d left it with you.” He strolled to her, took it from her hand, flipped the gold case open, and walked back to the hearth, checking the exact time against his father’s clock. He shut the lid with a snap.

  She sighed. He hadn’t even noticed the new engraving.

  “I see you’re busy, Mr. Blackwood, so I won’t linger. I’d like my painting now, please.”

  He barely let her finish the sentence. “What if I want you again?” Beneath the shoulders of his waistcoat and the rolled up sleeves of his stained shirt, she saw his muscles flex and then still. Like a wolf waiting to pounce. But he kept his head turned away, slightly bent as he studied his father’s clock. He had dust in his hair she realized. For a moment she’d thought him turning grey, turning into his father before her eyes. But it was just dust and dirt from the work around the house.