Etiquette With The Devil

by Rebecca Paula

  Mr. Ravensdale ascended higher and swooped toward Mr. Barnes, but Mr. Barnes had the advantage of his lanky length and, without mercy, stabbed Mr. Ravensdale at the base of his back until the sword bowed.

  “Another point for me,” Mr. Barnes declared.

  “You bloody bastard!” Mr. Ravensdale swung back with renewed vigor. The children giggled and whooped with glee to see their uncle under attack.

  Clara set down Grace. “Mr. Ravensdale!”

  He slipped and crashed to the floor at the sound of Clara’s voice, landing on his back before tossing his hands up in defeat, muttering curse after curse. Mrs. Gibbs came to stand next to Clara, hefting her hands to rest onto her wide hips, a vexed look furrowed at her thick brows.

  “Why, Miss Dawson,” Mr. Barnes exclaimed. He smiled as he shimmied down the length of the sheet. “I hope you had a pleasant stroll.”

  She chose to ignore the ever-charming Mr. Barnes and marched over to her employer, clearly winded from his fall. “I would like to know how this began,” she ordered from above him.

  “They started up here, Miss Clara,” Minnie tattled.

  “They tied the sheets into ropes and fenced with each other,” continued James. He grabbed his own makeshift sword and charged after Minnie through the upstairs hallway, banging into the abandoned furniture stacked this way and that.

  Lovely.

  This was as good a time as any to scold the children, but she held her tongue and waited for the biggest child of all to confess to his crimes.

  Mr. Barnes advanced toward her, swinging the sword, before stopping a few inches short of her face. “We felt we needed a challenge, Miss Dawson. Do you not agree that hanging off a two-story balcony with a deadly weapon is an excellent start?” He smiled at her again when she did not back away, then pivoted quickly and stabbed Mr. Ravensdale in the stomach with another chuckle. Mr. Barnes bowed and exited, escaping Clara’s deepening scowl.

  “Your language is too crude, Mr. Ravensdale,” she said.

  “Oh, we’ve heard him say much worse,” piped in James from over the railing.

  She held no doubt on that fact. Clara glared up at the two children, who quickly receded back into the hallway’s shadows.

  “I do not want to hear that language from anyone, especially when around the children.” She rested her hands on her hips and glared down with an arctic stare at Mr. Ravensdale. He opened his eyes, glazed over from his fall, and flashed a mischievous grin.

  “Yes, Dawson,” he answered like an apologizing schoolchild. “I will mind myself from now on, ma’am.”

  She raised an eyebrow at his mocking tone.

  Grace toddled over and mimicked Clara before pouncing on Mr. Ravensdale’s stomach. “Oomph,” he uttered with a groan. Clara smiled smugly.

  “I am disappointed, Mr. Ravensdale.”

  “As am I,” he said, springing up to his feet. He tossed a giggling Grace high into the air. “I didn’t win because of you.”

  Mr. Ravensdale handed Grace back to Clara with a blank face. He leaned closer, pulling the forgotten daisy tucked behind her ear and twirled it in his hands, looking at her with a raised brow. Her breath quickened as he leaned forward, matching her stare. “And I always win, Dawson.”

  He spun the daisy over Grace’s nose, until she grabbed it and he turned on his heels. “Follow me, Mrs. Gibbs,” he called over his shoulder. “I suppose you’re going to lecture me too.”

  *

  “You needn’t be minding yourself with the laundry, Miss Dawson,” Mrs. Gibbs said, hefting another overflowing basket into the kitchen. She deposited it onto the table with a “humph.”

  “Hmm,” Clara mumbled, staring outside into the courtyard through the kitchen’s leaded windows. A group of men messed about in the ivy that had grown thick and wild over the house’s stone facade opposite in the courtyard. For all the commotion, there was a surprising lack of progress. She focused back on dishes she was washing, elbow deep in cold, sudsy water, and smiled.

  “Dear?”

  Clara turned, wiping her hands over her apron.

  “You have the afternoon off and the children are with Molly. Go enjoy the sun and a moment of silence while you can.”

  As tempting as spending time outside alone sounded, she’d been troubled with horrible nightmares about Mr. Shaw these past two weeks. She preferred staying close to Burton Hall and the safety it led her to believe she possessed, however foolishly. “There is so much to be done, Mrs. Gibbs.”

  The older woman ambled over to the doors leading to the outside courtyard, throwing them open in one big push. “If you’re offering, I won’t turn you down.” She walked to the stove and put on the kettle. “But you can take a break from the washing. Your beautiful hands will prune up and everyone knows you can’t play the piano with hands like that.”

  Clara blinked back her surprise. She thought she had been quiet that morning as she’d played the old, hidden-away piano in the old music room.

  “You’ve a lovely way with those keys. I imagine its part of your fancy schooling.”

  “I learned to play a little,” Clara admitted. “What else may I help with, Mrs. Gibbs?”

  “La, child! You must call me Tilly. No need for formalities. Especially when the governess is sorting out the house like a maid.”

  There was no malice to her words. Even Clara recognized her efforts would raise eyebrows in polite society. She had one role, but her two weeks at Burton Hall had taught her there were many to be filled, just as Mr. Barnes had warned.

  “I’m helping where it is needed. The children have been through a great deal. I imagine it would be best if they can settle into their new home before their aunt arrives.”

  A fevered look washed over Tilly’s face before she turned to the whistling kettle and poured two cups of tea. “That woman belongs more with the hounds of hell than the likes of Burton Hall. It was cruel what she did to her poor sister, the selfish creature.”

  Clara leaned against the stone casing of the doorway, dragging in a deep breath of the late summer air. The lavender bonnets of the harebells, blown by the breeze, swayed in a merry dance by her feet in what once must have been a kitchen garden. Now it was overrun with weeds, seeded dill, and some wild flowers by the foot of the door.

  “Poor dears,” Tilly mumbled behind her at the stove. “The whole lot of them.”

  When Clara was a lady’s companion, she had many quiet afternoons like this spent in the pleasant sea air of Aldeburgh. It helped that her employer was an elderly recluse, never wishing to leave the confines of her bedroom. It left Clara the run of the house and the gardens besides the equally as old housekeeper and cook, who mostly remained in the kitchen. After spending the previous years at school dodging nasty rumors and teasing about her pedigree, Clara had enjoyed the relative peace she found at Hyclyffe House, even if she craved conversation.

  “Ho,” a voice roared from beyond the courtyard. Clara startled, knocking her head against the door jamb. Burton Hall was in a constant state of movement and noise, overrun with the unruly Ravensdales. She missed the sea.

  Mr. Ravensdale emerged over the crest of the hill, leading his horse to the stable with long, easy strides. A pair of dead stags bobbed lifeless over the gelding’s back who followed behind, no longer the wild horse they had secured in the village. A rifle rested against Mr. Ravensdale’s shoulder and once again, he was parading about in rolled-up shirtsleeves.

  His worn boots crunched over the pebbled drive. It was not polite to stare, but the very sight of him commanded her attention. He was frightful and magnificent all at once.

  “Here you are, dear,” Tilly said, brushing up beside her. Clara took the warm cup with a grateful smile. She realized as she turned back that the usual tug in her side had eased over the past week as she finally began to heal. A jagged broken bottle to the midsection wouldn’t prove fatal to her, or the hands that clutched at her throat. She was afraid to question someone about the wound on her head.
It never bled again, so perhaps Mr. Ravensdale’s method worked, though she would never admit that fact, especially not to him.

  “I can’t believe my eyes,” Tilly said on a long sigh. “I still see him running around in his knickerbockers raising hell in the nursery. His brother was always the quiet sort, but that boy there couldn’t sit still the day he arrived in this world.”

  Mr. Ravensdale bellowed again at the workers, his words carried off by the wind. He raised an arm and pointed at the chaotic tangles of ivy. Receiving a round of blank stares from the workers, he scaled the aged vines, wind ruffling his brunette locks as he climbed. Clara gasped as he stopped, hanging on with only when arm, and pulled a surprisingly large knife from his boot. She glanced nervously to her side before taking a sip of tea, noting the small smile at Tilly’s lips.

  Ivy rained down around the workers as he climbed higher, careless of the large blade in his hand.

  Clara had never met a man like him before. He was like a hero out of one of her silly novels, except he was impossible and rude, not to mention forever vulgar, and currently covered in blood and filth. She did not realize she was holding her breath until he descended and she gave a grateful exhale when his boots hit solid ground once more.

  “He’s grown to be a good man, no matter what anyone says,” Tilly said. She waved to him as he turned toward the house with the blade of his knife resting between his teeth. “If only his mother were alive to see him back at Burton Hall.”

  “He never speaks of—”

  Mr. Ravensdale ordered someone to take the horse away and strode toward the kitchen. Their eyes met and she felt the heat of a blush rise to her cheeks. She darted her eyes away, breaking their staring match, retreating to the piles of mending on the table.

  She wished to disappear but it was no use. His tall body shadowed the doorway. She could practically feel his gaze upon her. Clara stabbed the needle into Minnie’s torn dress hem and pulled it back through with a slight tremble to her fingers.

  “Come in, come in,” Tilly said, leading him about as if he were still a child clutching onto her apron strings. “You must be thirsty after a feat like that, you little devil.”

  “They’re idiots. Don’t know why I’m paying them when I end up doing the work. The ivy’s messed with the stone face. This damn house was going to crumble apart if I hadn’t come back.”

  “Mind your tongue, dear.”

  Clara kept her head down, focusing on sewing a straight line of stitches. She never excelled at embroidery. She was mindful as he took the seat opposite her at the end of the table—infinitely so as the kitchen’s scent of lye soap and tea leaves was overpowered by the smell of sweat, earth, and gunpowder.

  Mrs. Gibbs began laundry, chattering away as Mr. Ravensdale answered in kind until there was a brief pause. Clara didn’t trust herself to look up. She was certain to blush if his eyes met hers again.

  He drummed his fingers over the table in quick succession – tap, tap, tap, tap, tap—over and over until at last she did look up.

  “Ah, Dawson, didn’t see you there.” He raised an eyebrow as he continued his drumming.

  “Will you stop with that noise?”

  “Am I bothering you?” he drawled.

  Clara glanced back down at Minnie’s ripped hem. She refused to be baited into another verbal match with the man. There was work to do.

  Mrs. Gibbs cut in again, oblivious to Mr. Ravensdale acting like a tyrant toward the governess. Devil, indeed.

  “I thought you had the afternoon off,” he said, his voice low so only she could hear.

  Clara nodded, not offering an explanation for fear he would continue his torment.

  “So why are you mending, Dawson?”

  When she didn’t supply an answer, he threw his boots up onto the table, showering mud everywhere, his long legs crossed at the ankle.

  Clara set the dress onto the table, looking at the floor as she rose from her seat. She marched up and swatted his dirty boots off the table and reached for a rag from the counter top behind them, tossing it at his face. “We eat here.”

  “Will you join me for a walk in the gardens?” He tossed the rag down. “I could use a second opinion.” He grinned, and flicked a glance to her fidgeting hands. Nothing ever shook the man. Well, nothing besides his reunion with Tilly in front of the Bee and Thistle.

  “There is other work I must see to. Excuse me, Mrs. Gibbs.” Clara walked past Mr. Ravensdale and down the corridor, up the back stairwell to the first level of the house. The sound of his boots resounded behind her.

  “The point of having an afternoon off is that you are free not to work, Dawson.”

  She took a hard corner and started up the grand staircase in the foyer for the second floor. A schoolroom should be turned over so the children could begin their lessons. That was as good a place to start as any that afternoon. It was high time there was order in the house.

  He took two stairs at a time, erasing the distance she had put between them until he was at her heels.

  She spun around on the steps, crossing her arms in a hurry. Mr. Ravensdale stopped on the stair below. He did not move back, although that would have been the proper thing to do. She should have moved to put space between them, but she would not allow him to think he intimidated her, even if that was part truth.

  He towered over her, her eyes level to his chest. A slight opening of his bloodstained shirt revealed a bronze patch of skin. The sight of it made her uneasy. She took a nervous swallow and tilted her head back to look up at him.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?” she snapped. Perhaps if she kicked him in the knee, he would leave her alone.

  “Why are you working on your afternoon off?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I suppose you’ve noticed the condition of the house.”

  “I don’t see what that has to do with you refusing to take time for yourself.”

  She would never understand why he could not remain still. Even now, he raised his dirty hand and ruffled his hair.

  “There is much to do.” His sigh deflated the tension between them.

  At least in part. She found herself studying his face, the small details she shouldn’t be allowed to observe. His scars, his lips—those eyes—were his secrets to bear. She had no right in learning them.

  “Yes.” When he didn’t add anything more, Clara glanced over her shoulder. “Excuse me.” She darted up the remaining stairs in search of a proper schoolroom as the front door crashed open below and Mr. Barnes bellowed hello. The children had been settled for two weeks now. It was time for routine, and to begin their learning. She had had quite enough of allowing them free reign of the house.

  “Come meet your new steward, Ravensdale,” Mr. Barnes yelled from below.

  “Yes, Barnes.”

  Clara stopped as she turned the corner.

  She slumped against the wall, relieved for Mr. Barnes’s distraction. She could breathe once more.

  “Take the afternoon off.” Mr. Ravensdale’s whisper curled around her, even from several feet away from the stairs. Clara gasped, her hand clutching at her chest to study her racing heart. The low rumble of his laugh echoed in the hallway until it faded under the sound of his thunderous decent down the stairs.

  Irritating man.

  Cleaning the prospective schoolroom suddenly seemed like the only way she would like to spend the afternoon. Then there was mending to finish, walls to wash. She would task herself with as many things as she could simply to spite him.

  *

  Bly was anxious to return to India. If he found one more item in need of repair at Burton Hall or received another letter denying his request for services, he would—

  Well, he didn’t know what he’d do exactly, and it was that thought that unsettled him most. All he knew was fueled by the instinct that saw him to this very chair—to survive, and to keep moving.

  He stared into his empty highball glass in lethargic defeat, remnants of another day
scattered around him—the piling up of empty whiskey bottles, heaps of correspondence, and smudged ink stains on his calloused hands. He heaved a sigh as the gossamer wisps of opium danced around him, the pipe still clutched in his hand. The numbness finally quieted his ever-moving limbs, blissful.

  Bly cradled his head into his hands, his fingers slowly tapping against his skull until those too stilled. He was tired, though he hated to admit that fact. Admitting as much meant life was strangling the drive out of him. He was tired down to his very soul—if he had one. He attempted to stack a playing card on another on top of the open ledger in front of him, but they both collapsed. His reflexes were much like the molasses Tilly used to bake his favorite cake earlier today.

  The tiredness had set upon him some months ago in Ceylon. He had taken one step, then another, before resting his body against a stone ornament at the ruins at Anuradhapura. He had sunk down to the clay earth and stared down at the stagnant pool of green water feeling much the same. An object in motion that had suddenly come to rest. Since then, he had lost his brother and his sister-in-law to typhoid, and been charged with the livelihoods of three children and a small exotic menagerie. There was no time to rest.

  Besides, what did he know of family?

  Bly shared a heartless laugh with the lonely darkness of his makeshift office. He pushed away from the desk and staggered to his feet, drifting forward through the hall until he stood on the landing of the grand staircase in the foyer, gawking up at the ghost of the family portrait, long since removed and marked only by a box of vibrant wallpaper. He hadn’t looked upon it since he was a boy, but he felt it there all the same. His family’s eyes were still filled with condemnation toward him. There was still the uncomfortable distance his father kept from his mother in the painting. Those sad eyes of hers. That firm hand of his father he knew all too well wrapped tightly over his shoulder.

  To hell with that portrait and his godforsaken family.

  Burton Hall wasn’t haunted, but since returning, his spirit certainly was.

  He shook his head clear and clutched the railing, pulling himself up the stairs one laborious step at time, as if his boots had been weighted with concrete blocks. He was about to turn the corner once he reached the second floor for his quarters, until a faint glow at the end hallway caught his eye.