The Heir to Evercrest Hall

by Andrea M. Theobald

“So, what are you, a parlor maid? Perhaps you are a chambermaid. If that is the case, I demand that you service my chamber at once.” His grin stretched to reveal more teeth. “And afterward you can service its occupant.”

  “I am just on my way to do some tasks.”

  “Working in the family areas?”

  “Yes, that is correct.”

  “Tell me, what it is that you are doing today?”

  “General jobs, you know, what one must do as a maid.”

  “No, I don’t know, but please explain to me what you are going to do, and where you are going to do it.” He clasped his hands before his abdomen, like a humble man of God, keen to hear his parishioner.

  My gulp struggle down my parched throat. “Ah…” Take your pick, Marie. There are at least one hundred rooms to choose from. “I am going to dust, err, the drawing room.” My voice gave away my excitement of remembering a room name. “Yes, it is the drawing-room that I must dust.”

  “Well, ahem, you have just passed the drawing room. It is near the beginning of the passage where you just came from.” He pointed, bringing his shoulders up to his ears, as if he were directing a silly child. “And for cleaning purposes, you need to bring your trolley, which you have not got!”

  “Oh dear, silly me, what was going through my mind?” I shook my head; he mimicked my movement too. “It is such a big house, one gets lost here. You see, I’m just getting used to the place, being a new worker and all.”

  “How wonderfully delightful this is.” He cocked his head to the side, still with his hands clasped before him. “It is just that,” he said, while shaking his head, “you are not very good at deception.” I swallowed hard, wishing for the floor to do the same to me. Tall-and-Lanky continued. “Dusting duties take place while the family and their visitors are slumbering; and well, now the family and visitors are very much wide awake, you should not be here.”

  “I am sorry. I’ll leave at once.”

  “Oh no, you won’t,” he commanded. “I want to spend a little time conversing with you. To get to know you”—his voice resumed back to jested normality—“to get to know my vicious attacker, the woman who scarred me for the rest of my days.”

  “What do you mean?” I cried. Marie, you threw rocks at his naked body, remember?

  “You know what I mean, you little wench.” He walked right up to me and stooped his gaunt face just inches away from mine, his fiery eyes burning with devilish desire. “I shall hold you accountable until you do something very special for me, something to appease my insatiable appetite.”

  “What is it you want me to do? Cook you something?”

  “No, you foolish girl, I’ve already breakfasted.” His voice lowered. “Meet me up in my bedchamber in approximately twenty minutes time. I shall leave the door slightly ajar for you to enter.”

  “But what is it you want me to do? I need to bring the tools of my trade.” Whatever could inflict the most damage with the least amount of effort!

  “My ignorant one, I desire to spend time with you, and then you can make up the bed afterward.” He moistened the corner of his mouth with his tongue.

  “All right then. Where is your chamber? I’m a new maid, remember?”

  He stepped forward and curled his long fingers on either side of my arms; his look of desire intensifying. “On the floor above, the left side of the passage, five doors down, where you will find the door as I described it…ajar.”

  I looked demurely into his eyes, as I often saw Jenny give to the boys—using lowered eyelashes and half-smile that always drove them wild. Nodding, the effect on Tall-and-Lanky was to a degree the same as Jenny’s boys, but he had a more subdued manner, like a man who expected something of a woman and always got what he wanted. Amazed at the power of my manipulative charm, the feeling of empowerment over a being of high status, I replied back with a soft, demure voice, “I’ll need to get everything over and done with quickly. I have a busy day ahead.”

  “I shall be lying with much anticipation on my bed, my pretty little thing, in all my splendid glory.” He touched my chin, making me cringe. “Do not be concerned when your eyes see the multitude of bruises covering my torso—the evidence of your attack—the pleasure of the flesh will dissipate the pain.”

  “I promise to make you feel all better.”

  The man rolled his tongue over his bottom lip, and gave me a wink before marching hurriedly in the direction of the rotunda this time.

  I barely had time to ruminate on my success at fooling the aristocrat when a tall form exited the drawing room. It was the butler, who gave me a look of contempt, but that did not unsettle me as I thought, Just the person I wish to speak with.

  After the butler had alerted a maid, who in turn had shown me the flight of servant stairs to the nursery—I had told a fib that my job was to dust up there—I reached the highest landing and took a turn down a narrow passage. An opened door halfway along revealed Millie, gazing outward from a window seat; she tried to settle a grumpy baby on her lap.

  Millie looked startled when I entered. “Maria, how did you know I was up here?”

  “I heard Mr. Stanley talking with Lady Charlotte. Don’t worry, they didn’t see me.”

  Millie smiled. “Seeing you are here, why don’t you help yourself to some tea.” She pointed to a table in the corner. “I sure could do with the company.”

  “What a beautiful baby!” I cooed, ignoring the offer of tea and taking a position on the opposite side of the window seat.

  “Yes, and he is a dead-ringer of the family too.” Millie looked tenderly down at the child, looking at the eyes and the golden-colored down of hair. It was hard to mistake the features of a Davenport set within the chubby face.

  “To think the father doesn’t bother to make an effort to see the child,” I remarked.

  “What makes you say that?” Millie’s voice was soft as she cradled the wide-eyed baby.

  “The mother is waiting for him to write back, but he can’t be bothered, even though he has a firstborn son,” I explained.

  Millie looked back at me fearfully. “You know it is his?”

  I nodded back at her.

  “Whatever you do,” she said, “do not tell him that this baby is now living in the house.”

  “I can hardly tell him a thing if he’s in Africa.” I had to laugh as I looked down on Ewan Davenport’s exact features. When I looked up at the perplexed expression on Millie’s face, I gasped, barely squeezing out the next words, “No, it can’t be!”

  “Yes, Maria.”

  “But the mother and…” Surely, the baby was not the result of a union between Charlotte and her nephew? I felt nauseous.

  “His mother,” replied Millie, looking lovingly into the gurgling face of her charge, “does not know what she is missing, eh, my little one?”

  “Charlotte and her nephew made that baby!” I struggled to come to terms with the thought of the immorality of such a union.

  “Maria! That is a careless thing to say.” Millie’s voice had risen sharply. “The mother is not Charlotte. And as to the answer of who the mother is, I do not know. All I know is that the child was born in London, otherwise all is very hush-hush.”

  “Oh, I see,” I murmured. The pain I felt now matched how I had felt the day that young Alby had abandoned me. How I had waited in a gentle warm morning breeze for two hours, for that shock of blond hair to poke up from the long grass at the stone wall; to be greeted with a friendly ritualistic slap on the back and his stupid, “Hello, old chap,” expression.

  “I hope Betty wasn’t a hard taskmaster toward you this morning,” said Millie, her voice soft again.

  “Betty? No, I haven’t seen her yet,” I said absentmindedly.

  “She must still be away sick. Have you spoken to any of the other staff?”

  “I ran into the butler, but he had a special errand to do up in the family accommodation wing.”

  “That’s odd. What’s old Gregory doing up there?”
r />   “Mister Davenport”—the baby’s father, I wanted to scream—“is probably in need of his services.”

  “But breakfast was served an hour ago! Mr. Albert never eats late. He is just like his father, being a stickler for time.”

  “Maybe there was a more urgent matter for Gregory to attend to.”

  Instantly, I forgot the previous upset. The real reason he’d gone upstairs triggered the urge to giggle. I looked at the room, the crib, and the wooden rocking horse, anywhere that wasn’t Millie’s intense stare. What stemmed the threat of laughter was the familiar charcoal sketch of two boys’ faces, one with dark hair and one with light, on the wall hanging opposite.

  Transfixed on the drawing, wondering why Alby hadn’t got rid of the gift I’d given him years ago, I said, “I suppose I’m not needed around here today.”

  “I would most appreciate it if you could take the laundry bucket downstairs. Carter, the head laundry maid, is the only one I give the bucket to, because she is one of the very few who knows of the baby. Goodness knows what would happen if everyone found out about you, eh?” She looked down at the baby and rubbed his tiny hand between her fingers.

  In spite of the thought that his lordship had been careless in his sowing of wild oats, I thought it unfair that he should be denied the knowledge that his child was under the same roof. I looked down into the face of the child, and when the baby’s stare fixated joyfully upon my own, I saw clearly the eyes of Alby.

  “He is beautiful,” I whispered. My heart felt like lead.

  Chapter Eleven

  The soiled nappies were exchanged for a concealed bag of clean ones stashed in a clean bucket, and with these I swiftly returned to Millie. When I entered the room, it was to be startled at the sight of a woman standing over Millie with a small white terrier cradled in her arms. She had pale blonde hair, done in ringlets, with a flattering figure behind the shape-defining dress of expensive, shiny fabric. Just as my aunt had said, the woman’s eyes lacked kindness as they regarded me with iciness.

  “Who are you? What are you doing up here?” The little white dog matched her growl.

  Before I could answer in defense, Millie came to my rescue. “This is Miss Smithers. She is the new staff member, my lady.”

  “I was waiting for you all morning,” Lady Charlotte said with a snarl.

  “I’m sorry, milady,” I replied to the growl of her unchecked dog. “I got lost and well…I was told to come up here by one of the maids.”

  The woman’s nostrils flared. “Oh well, seeing you have finally turned up, I shall put you to good use. But first and foremost, you are not to deliberate to anyone of the child’s existence.” The woman turned from me and looked at the boy child without the maternal twinkle that came naturally from female eyes. “The child will need to be bathed,” she commanded down at Millie. She turned back to me, and said, “Maid, go fetch warm water and bring up fresh toweling.” She hadn’t given me time to obey; with a flash of angry eyes, she yelled, “Well, what are you waiting for? Do as I command!”

  “Yes, milady!” I did a quick curtsey before making the descent into the very vicinity that only twenty minutes earlier I had planned to avoid. Lady Charlotte was mistaken in thinking I was the new nursemaid.

  On the first floor, close approaching the linen cupboard, I cautiously counted the doors to one side of the passage. The fifth door, as Tall-and-Lanky had described, was slightly ajar, unfortunately it was the room directly opposite the linen cupboard. Suddenly, my heart plummeted. I needed a key to access the towels and that would mean I’d have to return upstairs and face the wrath of the madam and her little dog again.

  I snuck quietly along, in the hope of finding Davenport in the sitting room at the end of the passage, for he would have a key to assist me. Suddenly, the door opposite the linen cupboard squeaked opened, and just as quickly I lunged for the closest door handle. Relieved, I found myself on the other side of it.

  There was an enormous unmade four-poster bed, and beyond the foot of it were dark velvet curtains being gently fanned by a morning breeze. A stream of sunlight from the opened french doors touched a wall of disordered book pillars. Interestingly, next to a set of interior doors, and beside a large bureau with opened books sprawled about, there stood an artist’s easel holding a picture of some strange-looking contraption. I looked about the walls. There were maps of different countries, and images of strange kinds of vehicles and devices, replacing the normal tapestries and oil paintings one would associate with aristocrats’ bedchambers. I was not mistaken for whose room this was; giving me sound reason to believe the people’s murmurings that Albert Davenport was a very peculiar man.

  My attention was drawn to a heated discussion outside in the passage. I hurried to the door and opened it slightly, to the voice of the butler apologizing profusely. Tall-and-Lanky rebuked the servant for entering his bedroom without his permission. My scheme had worked. When his door slammed shut, I chose to keep myself in Albert’s room until I felt safe to leave.

  At the French doors, there was the view of the shrubbery, and farther beyond, the old remnants of a castle where one crenulated tower poked menacingly from the treetops. It was not the view I concentrated on, instead I kept my ears strained for any sound of human life immediately outside. Once I plucked up the courage, I peered outside at the surrounds to see the balcony ran the full length of the entire wing, where several matching white table and chair settings were neatly placed. Aware that there was a gardener in the rose beds looking about, I ducked my head back indoors.

  I crossed to the bureau with its books gaping up at me with strange symbols and diagrams. Much of the writings were in foreign language, any that were in English were incomprehensible gobbledygook; not like the standard King James Bible affair I read each night. Obviously, the writers of these books were in the same twisted mindset as the resident—all steadfast in their madness, just as Albert had been in boyhood, still refusing to let go of his dream of flying like a bird in the sky.

  There was a small pad with a blank page and beside it lay numerous pens of varying shaped tips; instruments I had never had the pleasure of using in my life. I picked up one of the pens and gingerly applied it to the paper. Delighted at how the ink came out uniformly at a light pressure, I experimented some more, depressing the pen more heavily to thicken the ink and add depth to the image’s definition. Before I knew it, I had created a forget-me-not flower chain frame about the paper.

  It was odd that he wasn’t in his bedchamber since he was supposedly ill, yet if he bowled through the door right now, I didn’t care. In the meantime, my heart pounded at the temptation of continuing with my inspiration. I could not fight the urge to stop, and again I returned the pen nib to the starch-white area in the middle of the page until I was satisfied with the image. How appropriate! Looking up at me was a young-faced Alby. Instead of sticking around for the mysteriously disappeared occupant to return, I chose to risk it and fetch the key off Millie. To my relief, I did not have to confront Lady Charlotte or bump into Tall-and-Lanky as I hastily completed my errands.

  Millie carefully poured the hot water after the cold into the baby bath. While she gauged the temperature using her elbow, she explained how babies were extremely sensitive to the slightest temperature change. She lowered the baby into the bath. For a moment, he let out a small cry, but Millie tenderly smiled down, and said, “There you go, my little angel, all ready for your swim.” The baby coo-cooed a reply as he kicked his little chubby legs, which made the shallow water splash upward. Millie laughed. “You are just like your daddy. He loves the water too.”

  “He certainly does,” I murmured, with the image of his father down at the river and as naked as his little son was now.

  Charlotte had demanded I live in a room up in the nursery, so I could take care of the baby during the night. At seven o’clock in the morning, she said, the driver, Johnson, would pick me up along with enough of my belongings to live in the big house indefinitely. Mill
ie had winked, saying Charlotte would never know I was an imposter, because she would personally deal with the other matter of the real nursemaid, should the other matter finally arrive. Prior to my departure for home, having just one more errand to do, I took downstairs another bucket of soiled nappies in exchange for clean ones. I asked Carter, the laundry maid, if his lordship was still ill; her response was an affirmative nod. However, I could not resist the urge to ask her if he slept in another bedchamber apart from his own. I received a baffled look and a terse reply, “What kind of silly question is that? Of course he sleeps in his own bed!”

  “Huh, and he has a cheek to call me a liar!” I was safely out of earshot from the house and deliberately bypassing the driveway in favor of the tree park nearby.

  I came to a halt halfway through the trees, certain I heard the sound of thudding coming along from the house. Quickly, I darted behind a thickset tree trunk and squatted. Sure enough, there were three riders in all their magnificent glory departing for a night of dancing, riding like free spirits. The galloping slowed to a canter, and as the three leveled to where I hid, I heard their crude jest and loud raucous laughing about the women they would be encountering this evening at the Dorchester’s.

  Thanks to an informative Millie, these men had proper names—there was Lord Harrison Wilson-Goldsmith, who had inherited a grand estate, along with his infirm stepmother; there was Podgy, known as Lord Lyon McKenzie, the youngest son of an earl, and an exceptionally bright solicitor; and last and very least, my supposed rendezvous, Tall-and-Lanky, also known as Mr. Hans Roxburgh, who was the eldest son of an abundantly rich sea merchant. I did not move until I had given the trio time and great distance so as not to notice who I was should anyone look over their shoulders.

  We dined heartily on a celebratory meal of roast meat and vegetables. Distributed at the table was the usual lively banter of sharing each one’s anecdotes of the day; however, there was only one reluctant to share their story, and I could see everyone waited for the juicy riveting-to-the-seat morsels from the newest of employees at the big house. My better judgment was to remain quiet, and when it quickly came to my recital of day’s events, I said, “I did a bit of dusting, a bit of sweeping, nothing that I don’t do here.”