Etiquette With The Devil

by Rebecca Paula

  Bly walked down the tiled hallway, noting the previous dullness of it had been polished to a gleam. Bent over a metal bucket, illuminated by flickering candles on either side of the hallway, was the sleeping figure of Clara. A wet rag had fallen from her hand onto the floor next to her dress, another ghastly frock.

  She was too stubborn for her own good.

  Earlier in the day, she insisted upon airing out the future schoolroom, even after he chased her through the house demanding that she take an afternoon off. She insisted that things be brought to order for the sake of the children as she stretched precariously on a ladder, washing down dusty walls. Routine was the word she chose to hiss at him when he pressed her on the point. It was not a new concept. He had been an army man, after all. Still, the word from her lips was more like a punch than a reprimand.

  “Dawson,” he whispered. Bly waited, but she didn’t stir. With a pointed jab, he shoved his finger into her bony shoulder. Her lips parted and issued a soft sigh, but she didn’t wake.

  “Dawson,” Bly said again, his voice a deep rumble. His hand hovered above her shoulder, scared that if he were to touch her again, he would break her. Judging by the stillness of her features, she was lost deep in sleep.

  With an irritated sigh, he pushed aside his foolish fear and placed his hand on her shoulder. She stirred slightly, making a sleepy murmur as lush as a pluck of a sitar. Her eyes fluttered open—piercing gray. It felt as if she ran him through with a blade to his chest. Clara moved her lips as if to speak, but sleep won once more.

  “I should leave you here,” he said. “You could use a night of sleeping on the tile floor for your stubbornness.” He thought of the way the late afternoon sun had danced around her as she stood on the ladder, wagging her finger and wet rag at him. The ice in her eyes while the world burned around her. “You probably wouldn’t even feel the cold, would you, you icy creature?”

  He imagined her indignant outrage if she were awake and he smiled, wishing that she were awake to challenge him.

  “Well,” he spoke aloud once more, rising to his feet. The hallway rocked beneath him, his knees threatening to give. If he didn’t bring her to bed, he would soon be passed out beside her. Bly extinguished the candles and bent down. “I hope you don’t wake and hit me, you impertinent woman.”

  He lifted her into his arms, stilling as her body’s heat seared his skin. It felt as if he were picking up a hot iron, as if her weight in his arms branded him. His first reaction was to drop her as she nestled her head against his chest, a small smile playing at those beautiful pink lips. His second reaction, well…

  Bloody hell.

  He set Clara onto her bed off the nursery and slowly pulled the blankets over her as if he was covering up a secret. “I hope you don’t remember this. It won’t happen again,” he whispered. He looked down at her peaceful face, feeling the tinder of his heart flame with the birth of a small spark, giving life to a feeling he couldn’t identify. “It won’t happen again,” he repeated, more as a warning to himself, closing the door firmly behind him, leaving her alone in the dark room.

  *

  She had washed and polished what she could of Burton Hall, but if she had learned anything recently, it was that she could not outrun life. Sleep caught up with her eventually, and when she woke, Clara found herself not on the cold tile floor, but rather on the lumpy down mattress of her makeshift bed.

  The sun punched through the small window in her room adjacent to the nursery. She righted herself and pressed her fingers into her cheek, feeling an odd indentation. As she pulled her hand away, she spotted a button caught at the hem of her sleeve. She pried it loose from the tangled thread, sucking in her breath as it ripped the seam open further. Another row of stitches she would have to mend.

  The button lay in her palm, unassuming, yet its very existence on her person weighed upon her chest. She shut her eyes, the dream she had had the night before repeating over and over. The warmth pressed against her, the way she had floated, a touch so gentle…

  It was hogwash. Mr. Ravensdale should have left her as she lie.

  Furious, she bounced out of bed and opened the door to the nursery. The children were not yet stirring. She closed the door and quickly undressed, rummaging through her trunk for another badly butchered dress of hers. If she had half a brain in her head, she would have found something to color her hair before arriving, anything to alter her appearance. One couldn’t wear the dresses she now owned and expected to blend in. She had done a terrible job altering them, another sign of many that she was not meant to be a seamstress.

  Then again, it was hard enough remembering that in this small village she was known as Clara Dawson, not Clara Emsworth. Having to keep up with a new appearance might be too much in the wake of having to keep up with the barmy Ravensdales.

  Her working corset dug into her ribs in this dress, her garters were too loose, and the shoes she had purchased three years prior, too worn. She averted her eyes as she exited the door, then backed up, flipping the small mirror. Clara Dawson, the governess—what a sad woman she was, what an empty future awaited her.

  As it was still early yet, she didn’t check her movements. Clara bounded down the stairs, pins in her mouth as she twisted up her hair. She raced for the kitchen, flying toward the steaming kettle on the stove, desperate for a cup of tea and maybe a spoonful of sugar. It’d be a small delight to brace herself for another hectic day.

  “I didn’t know we had mirrors for floors,” Tilly said, coming through the door with a basket of vegetables from the garden. The beet greens were wilted, suggesting Tilly had been up and working for hours. The housekeeper clucked at Clara, smiling, then wiped the dirt smudged across her wide forehead. “You’ll have Burton Hall gleamed up in no time. Between you and the boy, it’s as if this place hasn’t been forgotten about. It’s good to see life back here in these halls.”

  Clara peeked over her shoulder, holding back a smile, and stiffened her shoulders. With a shaky hand, she shut the lid to the sugar dish, forgetting all about that second spoonful she was contemplating. “Just doing my part.”

  She walked to the open door overlooking the courtyard, overcome with the sight of golden yarrow in the garden bed along with the harebells, and a beautiful deep green bush with clusters of pure white flowers. The weeds were gone, the herbs for the kitchen planted in pin-straight rows, the loam freshly turned over. The air still smelled of damp, sweet earth.

  “I told you he worked wonders,” Tilly said, pulling a lifeless chicken out of her basket to pluck. “Ned is good to my girl. Couldn’t ask for a better husband for her.”

  Clara blew over her steeping cup of tea, inhaling the sweet sugar and bitter tea leaves. She could never explain the part she felt was missing her in her life, but it was constant. It came on as a child and was a soft, nagging type of pain that sat in the bottom of her belly, that pressed upon her chest, that made her fingers long for someone else to touch or hold. It was an emptiness that might have had another name if only she knew its cause.

  Ned and Molly strolled up the path to the courtyard, the morning sun bursting over the dark trees and gardens in the horizon. Molly skipped, then twirled from Ned’s fingertips, launching herself back into his arms as soon as she was free. Clara was certain she’d never see the straight-faced gardener smile, never mind laugh, but he did both as he doted upon his wife and bent down to whisper something into her ear.

  The pair stopped when they spotted Clara in the doorway. Molly muttered good morning, a blush heavy on her cheeks, before entering the kitchen.

  It was time that Clara started her day as well. She paused by the table as Tilly laid out the beets and carrots, the chicken resting in an old copper pot of water. “I found this on the way down this morning, Tilly. Maybe you can look for a match while mending?”

  Tilly took the button from Clara’s outstretched hand. “No need. It’s one of the boy’s buttons, no doubt.”

  Clara didn’t correct her for addr
essing the master of the house as a child, but she wished she were half as brave to do so. Mr. Ravensdale was to be as familiar to Clara as she was with the art of kissing. He was to remain an elusive concept that held no place in her life. A member of no permanence.

  And yet, as she snuck into the old music room for a few minutes at the piano, she was greeted by a strong waft of coffee and leather, and the master of the house himself.

  “Mr. Ravensdale,” she said, nodding. Her hand clutched onto the doorknob, her feet ready to run if only she could think of an excuse of where else she was needed immediately. But it was fruitless, even with his wide back turned to her while he examined the soundboard of the old baby grand piano.

  “Don’t run now, Dawson. I’m here because I need your help.”

  “Sir?”

  She shut her eyes, cursing herself for calling him that. Yes, it was proper. Yes, it was how a governess should address her master. Etiquette secured her a spot in this world, even if it was at the bottom of the heap. If she acted as she did privately, then she would be no better than the actress mother of hers who abandoned Clara as a babe in the country.

  He knocked the lip prop down and shut the piano. “We spoke about what you should call me.” Mr. Ravensdale turned slowly, not subtle in taking in her appearance this morning. “And we must find you some more dresses.”

  She drew back, stepping into the hallway, her hand tightened around her teacup. “You should have no concern as to my clothing. These are serviceable dresses.” Clara was glad she hadn’t nipped a corner of fresh bread Tilly had baked, her stomach was now somewhere in her throat. She wished he would allow her to fade into the darkness of Burton Hall, allow her to be but a background to his life instead of constantly pushing her forward, toward the light.

  “Whatever you wish, Dawson.” He laughed before taking a sip of his coffee from a chipped mug. “This piano needs to be tuned.” He tapped the top of the lid three times, then set off, waving for her to follow after. “As I mentioned, I need your help.”

  Mr. Ravensdale must have gleaned perverse pleasure from making Clara chase after him and his ridiculous stride. She gripped her skirts and raised them above her ankles to give her more freedom. Clara was doing well until he began taking the stairs two at a time once more. At that, she let go of her skirts and huffed, refusing to give chase.

  “Can’t keep up, Dawson?” He stopped, tilting his head to the side as he smiled. Not an honest smile, but one that felt expected, as if he were playing a role.

  Clara stopped too, the darkness of the house wrapping around him during his ascent, half-shadowed, half in light. Judging by his unshaven jaw and bloodshot eyes, she suspected he’d spent another sleepless night at Burton Hall. She often heard him roaming about the house during the late hours, especially the nursery. He checked on the children often and once, from behind her door, she heard him roughly sing to a fussy Grace.

  She didn’t respond. There was nothing to say. She shrugged and took a few more steps, expecting him to continue. Mr. Ravensdale stayed still, as if waiting for her.

  “I expect your bed was preferable to the floor?” His voice was gravely. The span of three steps that separated them seemed far less, as if he had just closed her up in tiny box with her in one corner and him in the other.

  Clara gaped at his boldness, flinching as she caught herself staring at his shoulders, wondering what it had felt like resting against him. “I was doing my job,” she answered firmly. She tugged at the too-short sleeves of her sludge-colored dress and walked around him.

  “And I thought I had been doing mine,” he said behind her.

  *

  Clara climbing the stairway before him made one thing abundantly clear: He should never have touched her, should never have allowed himself the pleasure of having her body pressed against his, however innocently.

  Even behind the opium last evening, she had stirred something within him that wouldn’t quiet now. Hours later and his body still burned, his fingers itching to touch her and hold her, and his mouth eager to discover the pleasure that surely rested upon those beautiful lips.

  She had condemned him, and she hadn’t even been awake.

  He swallowed another bitter mouthful of coffee and followed after her, silent. Even in a dress that looked as if she had been dragged through a pig pen, the woman was alluring.

  She hummed, waiting at the top of the stairs as he took a hard left and pulled open a dusty navy curtain, then fumbled through the keys in his hand to find a match for the ancient door lock.

  “After you,” he said, waving her through into the old abandoned wing of the house. And because he needed her to hate him, he added, “Dawson,” just for spite.

  She hedged by the doorway, testing her worn boot over the soft wood of the rotten floors. “Maybe you should go first, unless you’re planning on getting rid of me.”

  “Is that a joke?” He laughed, dropping the curtain behind them.

  “Of course not. I’m quite serious.”

  He wasn’t sure himself if the floor would hold them, but he needed a crate of papers he remembered his father spoke often of. They detailed the estate, bank information, the crop history of the land and the tenants. That information was all oddly missing from the ledgers, which were filled with only household expenses and debts down in his office. After combing through those, his father not only abandoned Burton Hall, but left Bly’s mother behind, a peasant. He wouldn’t see that happen to his nieces and nephew.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “To the old housekeeper’s room. There is a crate of papers there that we may need.”

  “You need me to escort you to find a box of papers?”

  “Nothing is ever that simple.”

  He swatted away the cobwebs, taking in the slow decay of the house with each step. The once-polished herringbone floors not only suffered water damage, but so did the caving ceilings and rippled plastered walls. Must and dirt filled the air, stagnant and full of a slow death that left Bly unsettled. This was the family’s legacy, and it had been abandoned to rot.

  He peeked over his shoulder at Clara following behind, her hands clenched at her sides, her head held high. He had to give her more credit. She might be a small thing, but she sure tried her hardest to bluff to the world that she was brave. If only he could break through that tough exterior and discover the true reason she was here at Burton Hall, the truth behind that nasty cut on her scalp, and if he was right, the injury on her side that she had been favoring since arriving.

  They stopped at an old oak door with a fragile-look porcelain door knob. He tried to open it, but the handle in his hand wobbled precariously as if it were to break off, and the hinges wouldn’t give. He looked down to her questioning glace, her hands folded primly in front of her, then he shoved his shoulder into the door. The door gave way enough for them to squeeze through, despite the large crash that echoed on the other side.

  Ebony-stained furniture, some elaborately carved, was stacked high to the ceiling. A gilded sofa sat rotting beneath a filthy window, shredded by mice judging by the nests within the frame. With each step, the pair stirred up years of dust, and the air grew thick and gray.

  “This house a damn mine field,” Bly muttered to himself. The sharp slap against a covered bureau behind did not seem like much of a coincidence. Clara Dawson, governess and prude.

  Bly wound through the narrow paths of stacks, tossing things out of his way. He had spent enough of his life searching for relics, but the ones that clogged this room weren’t priceless, they were ghosts. Ghosts of his grandmother’s drowning, of his father’s twisted sense of responsibility, of his mother’s own suicide. He shoved a sideboard out of the way, tipping it over. “This room is a trash heap.”

  Tucked away in a corner, and wedged under an unused baby cot from his childhood nursery, stood a wooden crate, covered with a thick layer of dust.

  “Here.” He kicked the side of the crate.

  Clara co
ughed as she brushed against another piece of covered furniture, dust blooming out around her.

  “You can clean this room too if you find it so appalling.”

  “The children need a proper home. Washing the floors and sorting out a school room doesn’t hurt you at all, but it will certainly aide with their adjusting to England.”

  Another set down, another reminder of how impossible this woman was. Bly shrugged, then dragged out the crate so they could both sort through it. He tried to pry it open, but it wouldn’t slide. He kicked it next, grinning when it budged a sliver. When he attempted a second time, he wasn’t so successful.

  “Why couldn’t Mr. Barnes help you with this task? You don’t seem to need me at all.”

  That couldn’t be further from the truth. He wanted to kiss that furrowed brow of hers, prop her up on the crate and teach her all sorts of improper things that involved fingers and flesh and far less clothing.

  Need was relative, and the distance between their understandings was as wide and deep as the Himalayan range.

  Clara shook her hand, then flapped her arms. “Well, are you going to open it or stare at me, Mr. Ravensdale?”

  He tried again with both his arms, but it remained shut.

  “Go on,” she prodded, not hiding her satisfied smile.

  He tried once more for the sake of his manhood, but found to his disappointment that the damn lid still wouldn’t budge.

  “I wish to ask you about something.” She shifted on her feet, the tips of her worn boots peeking out from beneath the stiff cotton of her dress. “That is, I plan on opening the schoolroom tomorrow…”

  “You push on that end and I will pull at mine.”

  “Very well,” she answered primly. Clara bent forward, her lovely hands resting over the rough wood of the crate. “Both Lady Minnie and the earl need a schedule.”