Etiquette With The Devil

by Rebecca Paula

“There are rules, and one doesn’t have dinner with servants or work alongside them. Order must be kept, and for that to happen, the line of master and servant must be drawn.” She spoke all of this with her thin wrist flicking through the air, her head held high as if she were the queen herself. “I expect you to adhere to that, or you may leave immediately. You’ll only further damage the family’s name if rumors were to get out.”

  Rumors of what, he wasn’t certain. “Don’t fret, Aunt,” he said, backing out of her new parlor, “I won’t blemish the halls of Burton Hall much longer.”

  Isaac had retired for the evening, refusing Lady Margaret’s request that he have a valet assist him in packing. Bly did not blame Isaac for leaving. He wanted to leave more than anything before the carriages arrived that morning. Then he knew it was time to leave and the strangest thing happened—he no longer wished for it. Not yet.

  But he would. It would be for the best. It was the plan, he told himself as he paced in the hallway outside the nursery, listening to Clara and the children.

  “Excellent job, James,” Clara said.

  Bly pressed against the doorway, watching as she rose and took a book out of the boy’s hand. “You will be fluent in Greek in no time,” she teased, waving the book in his direction. To Bly’s delight, the boy smiled at her praise. “Now, off to bed. Tomorrow is another day and we will all make an effort to be nice and to learn something new.”

  “Even to that dreadful woman who says my hair is a sin?” Minnie asked, as Clara shepherded her to bed. “What is a sin, Miss Clara?”

  “She is your elder,” Clara replied. “You must mind your manners and treat her with respect. I happen to be very envious of your beautiful hair. I believe Lady Margaret is, as well.”

  “You are?”

  Clara played with the girl’s strawberry locks, brushing them into a quick braid before dropping a kiss onto Minnie’s forehead. “Completely. Now close your eyes and go to bed, loves.”

  “And you, you little heathen, come here.” Clara picked up a fidgeting Grace from her crib. “You had a very exciting day. You saw horses and carriages and you met lots of new people.”

  “Pretty horses,” Grace agreed, nodding up and down.

  “Yes they were, love,” Clara whispered, drawing Grace’s head to her shoulder. She swayed back and forth, her hips softly moving underneath her skirts. When she began humming, Bly was lost.

  Watching her sing Grace to sleep stirred something inside he could not explain. Something primitive and raw. It served as a blatant reminder that Clara was a woman, not just a governess, and most certainly not just a friend. A woman he wanted.

  Bly entered the nursery and motioned for his niece, diverting his eyes from Clara. He could not bring himself to look at her just then. The warmth of Grace’s steady breath tickled his neck as the weight of her sleepy body rested against his chest. He brushed his hand over her crimson curls as he walked with her to the window.

  It was another cool autumn night, a season he had longed for secretly during his years of living in sweltering exotic locales. The weather never cooled in any of the lands he traversed—not the deserts of Africa, nor the deepest jungles of India, or the beaches of the South Pacific. The feeling struck him as odd, since he was certain he hated England.

  He inhaled the sweet smell of Grace’s hair—honey and cream—and watched as twilight washed over the park of Burton Hall. He saw the ghosts of himself and Walter running barefoot in the grass, filthy, and driving their nurses to the brink of insanity.

  He remembered his mother’s smile when he was younger, just a brief memory that darted through his mind from time to time.

  He couldn’t remember much else, nor did he wish to. The happier memories, strong enough to push away the darker ones—the ones of death and crying and madness—were few. The sound of his mother’s weeping, the image of her body floating in the pond—that, he remembered most now.

  He would leave, he decided, as Clara stood beside him. The tangled desire that had wrapped its away around his heart for her like the roots of a Banyan tree would fade with time. If not, there were cures for such ailments.

  Clara brushed her hand over Grace’s hair, smiling as the girl wiggled her tiny button nose.

  “Her father did that while he slept, too.” He placed Grace in her crib, and motioned for Clara to join him in the hall. “Are you the drinking type?” he asked, knowing that she was not. He wished to erase that familiar moment between them. He was not the image of a domestic man. He knew nothing of family.

  Clara closed the door softly behind her. “No.”

  “It works remarkably well when one wants to forget a trying day.”

  “Have you had a trying day, friend?”

  Bly laughed out of sheer exhaustion, that uncomfortable clawing sensation poisoning his body and demanding its surrender. He swallowed, pushing past his discomfort to say, “We’ve had a trying day.”

  She nodded, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth in thought. “What are you fishing at, Mr. Ravensdale?”

  “Bly.”

  She shrugged.

  “I’m asking if you’ll escort me to the kitchen where we can have a proper meal without my damn aunt ranting. I lost my appetite when she opened her mouth over the dinner table and I know you weren’t given the opportunity to eat. Maybe we can enjoy a glass of claret together.”

  She raised an eyebrow at his request.

  “As friends,” he stressed.

  “I should retire for the evening.”

  “That would be wise,” he agreed, rocking back onto his heels.

  Clara’s hand remained on the doorknob, grounding her to her precious manners. Bly should not be asking and she should not agree, but he found himself asking nonetheless, and wishing she would.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The offer surprised Clara, but it was the sight of Bly in the nursery with Grace that tripped her curiosity enough to accept. He may have guessed correctly that she had fled to Burton Hall, but the same could be said of Bly as well. He was a haunted soul, always chasing something out of reach, though she did not know what. It lingered in his eyes and hid in the corners of his jaded smile.

  As she linked her arm through his, agreeing to his forward invitation, Clara was beginning to feel more than admiration for him. She could not name the emotion, only that it was insistent and somehow both pleasant and painful.

  Lady Margaret’s servants wasted no time in making their mark on the house. The makeshift camp kitchen of her arrival was a distant memory. Everything was shined and polished, organized and shelved in precise measure. The pantry was fully stocked. The sooty hearth behind the stove was scrubbed clean and the brass on the stove was polished to a brilliant shine. The second story butler’s pantry above the kitchen had organized serving ware and the brightness, she discovered, was moonlight streaming through a repaired solar window. Burton Hall had a proper kitchen once more.

  “They made quick work of turning the kitchen around,” he said.

  She sensed he was not fond of the army his aunt brought along. “It is in proper order now.” She rested against the table top, her ankle still throbbing from her fall earlier that morning.

  “I can’t find a damn thing.” He scoured the shelves, pulling pots down in an angry chaos of metallic thunder. He stoked the fire in the stove, slamming the door with his foot and removing a knife from the butcher’s block in a blur.

  He was fascinating to watch.

  Bly was a body set in constant motion, a force that knew no barrier, and he inevitably left the world changed in his wake. Even when he sat, he tapped his foot, scratched at his face, or puffed on a cigar like a locomotive. He paced insistently and ruffled his fingers through his hair habitually.

  Then there were the laugh lines around the outer corners of his eyes and lips, caused by years of jest, not necessarily from happiness. Bly always seemed to be making a mockery of the world and its subsequent opinion of his person. He dared everything in his p
ath to challenge him. That was how he lived his life—charging after it with an undying fierceness as if the flame within him would never extinguish. He stormed through the kitchen now, approaching the task of preparing dinner in the same way.

  “Do you think Cook will mind you fussing about in the kitchen?”

  Bly faced Clara, pulling the cork free from the claret bottle with his teeth—the savage. There was a large pop, and he spat the cork onto the counter. She watched as it bounced across the counter and tumbled to the floor.

  “Do you think I care?”

  She shook her head and laughed, feeling herself grow a little warm. He poured two glasses of claret and handed one to her before he began chopping vegetables. Each slice was perfectly uniform.

  “Get off your foot,” he said, as he ran the knife through a bunch of carrots. “You’ve been limping all day.”

  She was struck that he had noticed amidst all the chaos of the day. Clara attempted, with great awkwardness, to pull herself up onto the work surface, but her heavy skirts proved too much to lift up and she only succeeded in making a small squeak as she slid back to the floor.

  Bly turned, placing his hands around her waist, and lifted her onto the work surface without a word. He hesitated for a moment, looking rather dazed with his hands on her.

  She closed her eyes and let out a soft breath as the ghost of his hand prints radiated heat around her middle and spread throughout her body.

  “How’d you hurt it?” he asked, still close.

  “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

  His fist gently knocked against her chin, drawing her eyes open, drawing her closer to his torso—always drawing her closer, like the surf to the shore. “You are always fine, aren’t you, Clara? Even when the world turns against you.”

  She forced out a laugh, ignoring how thoroughly he had pinpointed the cause of her discomfort.

  The rough pads of his fingers skirted over the line of her chin before his touch was gone completely, and he sank to the floor in front of her. “If you’ll allow me, I can help.”

  The lacing on her corset was suddenly too tight. “It’s not necessary, I’m—”

  “Fine,” he finished, his eyebrow quirked at her. “Hit me if you wish, then.”

  Before she could question why, he placed her foot against his bent knee. Then both of his hands slowly hiked up her skirts until her ankle was revealed.

  “Please.” The breath in her throat burned, as did her lungs. She winced as his fingers applied more pressure against her foot.

  “You have a bad sprain.”

  “And what do you know of medicine?” she asked, torn between clobbering him over the head with her fist and melting back against the work surface. “This isn’t appropriate. I can manage.”

  “I’ve had to manage for myself a long time, often well away from medical care. Call it life experience.” Bly eased off her slipper and cupped her heel, turning her foot to the right. A sharp, ragged breath escaped her lips. “I’ll ring for the doctor if you’d like, but something tells me you’ll complain against that as well.”

  “There is no—”

  His fingers pressed into her foot as if he were playing a chord on the piano. She issued another sigh with the soft cadence of pressure. His touch was gentler than she had expected. It was equally as confusing, as well.

  “Limp along if you like, but you should be staying off of this for a few days.” He stretched, grabbing a clean rag from the work surface, then removed his knife from his boot. With a quick upright motion, the rag was torn into two long and narrow pieces.

  Clara drew her foot back, staring down at him and his knife, at a man she should not be allowing to touch her person…so freely.

  “Afraid of my knife?” he asked, his devilish grin returning. When she didn’t supply an answer, he sheathed it back into his boot and he held her foot once more, his touch gentle and tentative.

  Clara could have sworn his fingers trembled as he secured one end around her stocking before wrapping the length over the ragged end. He wound the cloth around her foot and ankle until the pressure somehow erased the sharp ache she had been nursing all day as she limped along.

  “This will help keep down the swelling.” He spoke to her foot, his voice low. “And help with the pain, as well.”

  She nodded to the top of his head, her thanks trapped somewhere inside her chest, for surely that was why her heart had suddenly picked up its pace, why she felt as if she were floating rather than alone in the kitchen with her employer. His hands tenderly knotted fabric around her sprained ankle as if she were made of glass. She reached her hand out, wishing to comb it through his hair or place it upon his shoulder. She wished to touch him, to ground herself in the silence that ballooned around them and dragged her further into her spiraling thoughts of Bly. Of his kindness. Of the way her body hummed because of his touch.

  Bly slipped on her shoe, then stood, backing away, his eyes focused over her shoulder.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  His eyes met hers briefly before he gave a curt nod and turned, focusing his attention once more on chopping vegetables.

  With each slice, she felt her body flush at the reminder of his hands upon her. “Where did you learn to cook?” Clara asked. It would be best to focus on the present and not to get swept up in silly daydreams.

  “I was in the military for a time. Now I’m something of an antiquarian.” He ran the blade through the last of the carrots and swiped them to the side of the old butcher block top. “I spend a lot of my time away from what others consider civilization and fend for myself.”

  “So you collect antiques for museums?” The thought of Bly working hand in hand with the country’s museums was rather funny. She doubted he had ever stepped foot into one. For that matter, neither had she.

  “That’s a kind way of saying what I do.”

  Clara leaned forward, her weight resting on her arms as she sat on the counter, her head tipped to one side. She shouldn’t want the answers to her questions, but she found herself asking all the same. “Then what would you say you do exactly?”

  “I chart the world. I discover the unknown,” he said, his back still to Clara.

  Discovering the unknown.

  What a romantic notion to be able to set off in the world with no destination. Clara hadn’t known the destination of her life, but it had never proved fruitful. She went from an attic to being an outcast at a boarding school in London, then the lonely companion to an elderly recluse. Besides standing on the beach by Hyclffye House, she had never decided her journey—fate had had a hand in that. And now she sat in a darkened kitchen, trying her best not to be spooked by the shadows that edged around the room like a spider web.

  She was stuck in Yorkshire, at Burton Hall, as well.

  “It must be wonderful to have such adventure in your life.”

  His shoulders sagged as he held out a bean pod toward her. “I find and claim items for the highest bidder, Clara. I’m nothing more than a thief.”

  The bean pod snapped between her teeth, its crispness sprayed into her mouth, bright and fresh. “That does take some of the romance out of it, I suppose.”

  He gave a deep, throaty laugh, smiling at her before he turned around once more. She enjoyed the way his shoulders moved beneath the linen of his shirt while he cooked for her.

  That small drumming beat within returned. Clara tried to block the troublesome voice that had taunted her since earlier that morning; he would be leaving soon. Maybe he would make his goodbyes tomorrow, as Barnes had suddenly today. Maybe it would be at the end of the week, or perhaps in another two weeks. Either way, he was leaving.

  “You have no idea how well the Chancellor of Germany pays for a relic buried at the heart of a dangerous country. There are those who’d say there’s a great deal of romance in the payday he offered.”

  She had never paid much attention to it before, but his accent was muddled. It was the world’s orphan, unclaimed,
yet cluttered by years of never knowing the confines of remaining within one country’s borders.

  “It is not proper to discuss matters of money.”

  Why could she never enjoy a moment with Bly without correcting him on his lack of manners? She wished she could keep her mouth shut. Certainly, he would not find himself enamored with a governess who always nagged. She dropped her head into her hands, certain that she had just made another error in being a friend to Bly. That is, if that was what she was doing there in the kitchen. Clara did not trust that that was the sole reason she allowed herself to be alone with her employer.

  “You help balance the ledgers, and just yesterday we spoke of budget matters for repairs. Are you really going to insist on what’s proper?”

  Clara swung her feet back and forth, eying her glass of claret judiciously. She never had cause before to contemplate drinking such wicked spirits. All she did know was that by doing so, she would be breaking another rule. She was beginning to break them at an alarming rate while in the company of Bly Ravensdale.

  “Everyone’s gone to bed,” he insisted when she did not answer. “You’re free to be yourself around me. I’m in no position to judge if you happen to forget your bloody rules for a moment.”

  This was a terrible idea. She should get up and retire to her new room and unpack her few belongings. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to apologize either.”

  Clara gazed down into the full glass of claret, contemplating a string of excuses so she could make her escape.

  “Is there something wrong with your drink? You’re supposed to drink it, not stare at it.”

  “No,” she said with a nervous laugh. Nothing was wrong with that. It was only how she felt around Bly that was wrong.

  “I was under the impression that nothing frightened you.”

  That couldn’t be further from the truth. She was afraid of everything. Fear drove her to Burton Hall. Fear kept her from exploring the feeling she harbored for Mr. Ravensdale. Fear reminded her she was no one.

  Clara wrapped her fingers around the stem of the glass a little tighter as his eyes remained fixed on hers. She thought to confess she was afraid of everything, including him—especially how he made her feel as though she were caught between flying and disappearing. Bly was transforming from an irritating man to something of a human being. Heaven help her if she discovered the man had a heart in that broad chest of his. There were certainly times when she wondered.