Shipwrecked with the Captain

by Diane Gaston

  ‘My dear brother spares no expense with servants,’ Miss Attwood boasted. ‘He hires as many as he likes and tries to select footmen who are pleasant of face and all of a similar height and build.’

  Perhaps he would hire Cullen, too, then. Except he already had three footmen, a butler, a valet, two housemaids, a housekeeper, cook and two kitchen maids, as well as Miss Attwood’s lady’s maid. Where did they all sleep?

  Would there be room for Ella? If Ella agreed to come, that is.

  Miss Attwood began the tour of the house on the ground floor where Stonecroft had a respectable library and a fine dining room, as well as a sitting room and closets. The first floor had the impressive drawing room and bedrooms for Lord Stonecroft and his wife.

  ‘You will move into this bedchamber after you and Stonecroft are wed,’ Miss Attwood said, showing her the Lady’s room connected by a door to Lord Stonecroft’s.

  The second floor consisted of two other bedrooms, one for Miss Attwood and the other, the bedchamber where Claire would stay. Behind these two bedrooms were two rooms that were sparsely decorated.

  ‘These will be for the nursery and the governess,’ Miss Attwood told her.

  Claire had a flash of a table and three little girls seated around it, but the image disappeared before she could tell if it were memory or imagination. Of all of the rooms in the house, though, these two back rooms were the two in which she felt the greatest degree of comfort.

  * * *

  After the tour, Miss Attwood drank tea with Claire in the less formal sitting room on the ground floor.

  ‘Have I been in this house before?’ asked Claire. That might explain her reaction to the back rooms.

  ‘No, dear.’ Miss Attwood looked askance. ‘Do you really not remember where you have been?’

  Why would she feign what was so difficult for her?

  She tamped down her irritation. She must accept these people as they were if she was going to live here. ‘I remember places. Or I think I do. I knew Bath, but I have no memory of my ever having been in Bath.’

  ‘How very strange.’ Miss Attwood took a sip of her tea.

  ‘Will you tell me, please, a little of how I met Lord Stonecroft?’ Perhaps it would help spark some memory.

  ‘You do not remember?’

  Claire gritted her teeth. ‘No. I do not remember.’

  The older lady took another sip of her tea. ‘I do not know the details. He travelled to Ireland—Stonecroft has some property there. I believe your brother arranged the introduction. He met you at your brother’s country house. I was very happy to hear he’d decided to marry.’

  It simply was not possible that Claire had fallen in love with Stonecroft. He held absolutely no attraction for her. And she did not seem to interest him greatly either.

  How was she to marry this man?

  She must find some reason to marry him, because at this moment all she wanted to do was run out the door and return to Lucien.

  She felt her eyes sting and sipped her tea, blinking away tears.

  She placed her teacup down. ‘Tell me something of Lord Stonecroft. Why he wished to marry me.’

  Miss Attwood’s lips pursed. ‘Well, I believe he found you suitable.’

  She did not wish to set this lady against her. ‘I meant, why did he wish to marry at this time?’ This advanced age, she meant.

  Miss Attwood hid behind her teacup again, but when she put it down, she leaned forward. ‘I will tell you, only because it would pain my brother to have you ask him questions like this. I beg you will not ever speak to him about it.’

  Claire nodded.

  Miss Attwood spoke in a hushed tone. ‘My brother was married when he was quite young. In his twenties. Our parents were against the match because she had no fortune at all and brought no status to the union. They were able to keep the couple apart, but our father died unexpectedly. My brother was free to do as he wished and he married the girl. She was a sweet thing and he was totally besotted with her.’

  He’d married before. For love.

  Miss Attwood went on. ‘They tried to have children, but his wife could not carry babies. She lost several. Then finally she was able to carry one to term, but the birth was a terrible affair. Lasted two days and finally the baby was born, but did not live. And she died as well.’ Miss Attwood’s voice caught on these last words and she quickly took another sip of tea. ‘As you can imagine, Stonecroft was desolate.’ She cleared her throat. ‘That was nearly twenty-five years ago.’

  ‘How very sad,’ Claire said.

  ‘Yes,’ Miss Attwood agreed. ‘Very sad. Poor Stonecroft has never recovered, really, which is why you must never speak to him about this.’ Her voice turned severe.

  Because it made him remember? Some memories can be unbearable, Claire thought. But it was so much worse to have no memory at all.

  ‘You want to know why Stonecroft wishes to marry now?’ the older lady challenged.

  Claire stared at her.

  Miss Attwood did not wait for her reply. ‘He needs an heir. I convinced him so.’ She finished her tea and poured another cup. ‘Otherwise everything will go to his cousin’s son, who is a perfectly responsible young man, but much too distant a relation and Stonecroft’s cousin married an actress, you know, so the family is less than respectable.’

  So Stonecroft’s parents were not the only ones who considered one’s birth important.

  ‘But why did he choose me?’ she asked. ‘Surely there are many English ladies who would be honoured to be his wife.’

  ‘Indeed so,’ agreed Miss Attwood. ‘But he wanted someone whose family had no connection to his wife, nor any knowledge of her.’

  Nor any memory of her?

  The older lady leaned closer to Claire. ‘I hope you do not have any romantic notions, dear. Stonecroft will be good to you, but his heart will never be engaged. He’s made that perfectly clear.’

  Because he loved his wife so much, he has no more love to give to another?

  ‘I do not have romantic notions,’ None she could remember, that was.

  None except one unattainable one.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Claire finished her tea. ‘Might I retire to my room? I would love a rest.’ She had not done anything exerting, but she desperately wished to be alone.

  With her memories.

  ‘As you wish.’ Miss Attwood stood wearily and started to escort her to the door.

  Claire stopped her. ‘Please do not feel you have to accompany me if you would rather stay. I can find the room myself.’

  The older lady sat down again. ‘Thank you, dear.’

  Claire walked back to the hall and climbed the two flights of stairs to the bedchamber she must call hers.

  At least until she must move to the room next to Lord Stonecroft.

  She opened the door and a surprised Ella gave out a cry. ‘Oh, m’lady. You startled me so.’

  Claire rushed over to her, taking both Ella’s hands in hers and squeezing them. ‘I am so happy to see you, Ella! No one told me you had arrived.’

  ‘Yes, a little while ago.’ Ella smiled. ‘The housekeeper said I was to unpack your trunk.’

  Claire released her. ‘Did you meet the other servants?’

  ‘I think so. I suppose I will find out if I met all of them when I appear for a meal.’ Ella turned to the dressing room with its clothes press and cupboard. ‘I was putting everything in here. Will that do?’

  ‘Certainly.’ Claire watched her unpack the trunk with its lovely clothes purchased by Lucien. Her heart ached.

  ‘So,’ the outspoken Ella started asking as she lifted another dress from the trunk, ‘what is this Lord Stonecroft like?’

  Claire’s ache intensified. ‘He is older. Old enough to be my father, easily. But there is nothing to object to in him.’ Those
last words seemed to echo as she spoke them, as if she’d heard them from someone else’s mouth.

  ‘Old enough to be your father?’ Ella cried. ‘He must be ancient. Fifty? As old as fifty?’

  She shook the strange sensation away. ‘Quite as old as fifty.’

  ‘Did you remember him at all?’ Ella asked.

  ‘Not at all.’ The cold Bath stone with which the Crescent and the Circus were built was more familiar to her.

  ‘Are you going to marry him?’ the maid pressed.

  Claire’s hands rose in a futile gesture. ‘It is what I am supposed to do.’

  ‘Yes,’ mumbled Ella. ‘And I was supposed to marry some well-to-do merchant.’

  There was a knock on the door and it opened before Claire could acknowledge it.

  Miss Attwood walked in. ‘I was informed your maid had arrived.’

  Claire swallowed a retort about respecting her privacy. ‘Miss Attwood, may I present Miss Ella Kiley, my lady’s maid.’

  ‘Kiley?’ Miss Attwood’s brows rose. ‘You are Irish, then?’

  Ella curtsied respectfully. ‘I am Irish, ma’am.’

  ‘Miss Attwood is Lord Stonecroft’s sister,’ Claire explained to Ella. ‘She runs his house for him.’

  Ella curtsied again. ‘Ma’am.’

  ‘She is very young for a lady’s maid,’ Miss Attwood said in disapproving tones.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Claire responded. ‘But I am well satisfied with her.’

  ‘Have you been told where you will sleep, girl?’ Miss Attwood asked.

  ‘In the attic, ma’am,’ Ella replied.

  ‘No!’ Claire broke in. ‘I want her to sleep in the dressing room here. There is plenty of room for a cot.’

  It jarred Claire to order anything to be as she wished it to be, but she could not allow Ella to be squeezed into the attic with all the other female servants.

  Miss Attwood’s brows rose. ‘If you insist, dear.’

  ‘I do.’ Claire nodded. ‘It is what I wish.’

  ‘Very well.’ Miss Attwood turned to leave, but stopped. ‘Dinner will be served at six. Stonecroft prefers country hours. And he prefers to dress for dinner.’

  ‘I understand.’

  After Miss Attwood left, Ella expelled a breath. ‘Whew! She makes me quake in my shoes.’

  ‘I have not yet taken her measure,’ Claire said. ‘She seems very kind one minute and somewhat intolerant the next.’

  Ella’s eyes widened. ‘I will watch out for her. And for the housekeeper. She is a dragon.’

  Ella’s forthrightness made Claire want to hug her, but she suspected an unguarded tongue could cause the girl trouble in this house.

  ‘Remember, you answer to me, not to the housekeeper,’ Claire told her. ‘You must tell me if you have any problems at all.’

  Ella laughed. ‘Do not fear, m’lady! I’ll tell you.’

  Claire smiled in return, so happy she was no longer alone.

  Claire went down to the drawing room before six o’clock to await dinner being announced. Both Lord Stonecroft and Miss Attwood were already there.

  Stonecroft rose as she entered. ‘Lady Rebecca,’ he said cordially. ‘May I offer you a glass of claret?’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said.

  She sat on the sofa where she’d sat before when she and Lucien had been in this room. Stonecroft handed her the claret and sat next to her, as she’d expected.

  ‘I hope you have settled in.’ His words were polite, but his tone flat.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ she responded.

  ‘And is all to your liking?’ he asked.

  ‘I am quite comfortable.’ Although she’d rather be dressed in men’s clothing mopping fish guts off the deck of a fishing boat.

  He turned to his sister and talked of the people he’d met with that day. The names meant nothing to Claire. The conversation swept over her.

  Dinner was announced and he escorted her to the dining room. Its formal table was set with three places. Stonecroft sat at the end and Claire and Miss Attwood adjacent to him. Miss Attwood asked him more about his afternoon meeting. Claire sat quietly and relived the meals she’d shared with Lucien, Cullen and Ella.

  Eventually Stonecroft noticed her. ‘There is an Assembly two days hence. Would you care to attend?’

  ‘If you desire me to,’ she responded.

  ‘You had only one trunk delivered,’ Miss Attwood said. ‘Was your ball gown among the dresses in that trunk?’

  ‘I have no ball gown.’ Claire gestured to her clothes. ‘This is my best dress. Will it do?’

  Miss Attwood’s brows shot up. ‘No, it will not do.’

  Stonecroft looked annoyed. ‘For God’s sake, get her what she needs, Honora. Have the bills sent to me.’

  ‘We cannot have a ball gown sewn in a day,’ his sister shot back.

  ‘Pay whatever they wish, but she should have decent clothes.’

  Claire glanced down at the beautiful dress she wore, the dress Lucien bought for her, the most beautiful dress she could remember ever wearing. She loved this dress.

  She straightened in her chair and glanced from one to the other. ‘You do realise that all my possessions, all my clothes, were lost in the shipwreck, do you not?’

  Stonecroft merely looked down at his food.

  Miss Attwood appeared contrite. ‘Of course, dear. We had not taken that into consideration.’

  They all ate in silence for a while until Stonecroft spoke again. ‘I have an engagement tonight. I will be home late.’

  Miss Attwood asked who he would see and the two of them again spoke about people Claire did not know. Or, rather, people she might have once known, but could not remember. Claire contented herself with remembering the second-hand shop and trying on dress after dress and seeing which met Lucien’s approval. What a lovely memory.

  When dinner was done, Stonecroft excused himself and left the room. Claire and Miss Attwood sat for a time in the small sitting room for yet another cup of tea.

  * * *

  The next morning Claire rose early, but Ella was already awake and full of information.

  ‘Breakfast is served in the small drawing room at eight o’clock,’ Ella told her. ‘But apparently Miss Attwood doesn’t rise until ten and then she eats in her room.’

  ‘Do you think I am expected to eat at eight?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, I think you might do as you wish, but the servants are all trying to figure out if you are going to create lots more work for them or not,’ she responded. ‘I’ve told them how agreeable you are, but they don’t believe a word I say, because I am Irish.’

  Claire bit her lip. ‘I hope they will not be unkind to you.’

  Ella smiled. ‘I’ll manage it.’

  ‘I suppose I should appear at breakfast at the appointed time.’ Claire had already washed and donned her shift.

  Ella helped her with her corset, petticoat and her sprigged-muslin day dress.

  ‘Just dress my hair plainly,’ Claire said.

  ‘Not too plain,’ Ella insisted.

  So she wound up with curls around her face.

  She wore the pearl pendant Lucien had purchased for her, fingering the cool smoothness of the pearl and remembering when he insisted upon buying it for her.

  When Ella declared her ready, she stood and eyed the Kashmir shawl, wanting to wrap herself in it and the memories it evoked, but instead she chose a lighter one they’d purchased at the second-hand shop.

  She walked out of the room, but instead of heading for the stairs, she paused, looking at the doors to the two unused rooms. She stepped to the one that would be the nursery and opened the door. She could almost hear little girls laughing.

  There would be a table and chairs and children seated at the table writing on slates or reading books
. Had she dreamed this? It did not seem any more real than an invented story, but the image had come a second time.

  She closed her eyes and tried to see herself in the vision, but nothing came.

  She turned and walked back to the hallway and down the two flights of stairs.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said to the footman attending the hall.

  He bowed. ‘Good morning, m’lady.’

  Would she ever feel right about being bowed to?

  ‘Breakfast will be in the back sitting room,’ he added helpfully.

  As she had known from Ella. ‘Thank you.’

  When she reached the sitting room another footman bowed and opened the door for her.

  A table had been set up in the middle of the room and a sideboard was filled with food. Lord Stonecroft glanced up from his newspaper. He stood, watching her every move as she approached the table as if to check she was all in one piece.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ she said.

  ‘You are up early,’ he responded.

  ‘I tend to rise early.’

  He gestured to the sideboard. ‘Shall I prepare you a plate?’ His tone was unenthusiastic.

  ‘Please sit and continue reading your paper.’ She went to the sideboard. ‘I will serve myself.’

  The footman who had attended the door now stood at the ready to place the food on her plate for her.

  She chose some toasted bread and slices of ham and cheese and sat opposite Lord Stonecroft. The footman poured her some tea.

  Stonecroft was still watching her.

  It made her heart race in anxiety, but she did not wish her nerves to show.

  She lifted her chin. ‘Am I not dressed properly, my lord? You keep staring.’

  He quickly looked down at his food, but his gaze rose again. ‘Your dress is out of fashion, but you look well in it.’

  ‘I thank you for the compliment.’ Such as it was. She spread some butter on her bread.

  She’d told Stonecroft and his sister that she’d lost everything in the shipwreck. Had he no interest in how she had any clothes at all to wear?