Year of Miracles, page 15
part #1 of Collected Stories of the Old Races Series
"The other?"
One corner of his expressive mouth crept upward. "The other catches the soul, I was going to say. But then I thought it might be too much."
"Two dozen cows, a dozen pigs and sheep, and a flock of chickens, and now you worry about too much?" Confidence restored by humor, Sarah made the smallest move toward the carriage, and Janx leapt to provide her support as she stepped in.
She could not speak, once within. The leather seats were finer than she'd ever touched, even knowing and trading with tanners. There was glass in the windows, large panes without leading. She couldn't begin to imagine the cost. And the road was smooth enough, but there was no jostle at all as the team of four turned and brought them back up the drive. Fingers clenched against the seat's edge, Sarah watched spring-green land grow into shaded woods before a turn in the road revealed a house larger than entire London blocks. Stairs as wide as her alleyway was long led to doors of impossible height, all of it reflected in a long pool stretching before the house. A squeak broke from Sarah's throat and Janx beamed, clearly pleased with himself.
"Do you like it?"
She nodded, finger pressed to her mouth. "How do I not know you, my lord? Is 'Janx' a prankster's name? Are you..." Imagination failed her: the king's oldest son was new to England and still barely more than a boy, even if he should for some reason choose to hide his name. "What is your family name, sir?"
"Nothing that would mean anything to you. I'm no one special, Sarah, but I do have outrageous amounts of money. When the opportunity arose to let these lands after the family who owns them fell on hard times, well." He gestured, taking in the landscape. "I could hardly refuse such a glorious setting, could I?"
Owning such an estate was difficult enough to imagine, but that, at least, might come through family and inheritance. Renting them meant incomprehensible wealth. Sarah swallowed, fingers still against her mouth, then dared a tiny smile behind them. "I didn't charge you enough for that meat."
"Not nearly enough, no." They were at the broad steps by then, and Janx waved the footman away a second time, offering Sarah his own hand after jumping free of the carriage. She hesitated in taking it and he curled his fingers, coaxing. "You're here. You might as well enjoy the day. And there's no one here to worry about your rank or your garb save you yourself."
Sarah, under her breath, said, "And the servants," but took his hand and climbed from the carriage. The house rose so high and solid that the clouds racing above made her dizzy as she looked upward. Janx put a hand in the small of her back, steadying her.
"I'll have them dismissed, if you wish."
Alarmed, Sarah took her gaze from the dazzling sky. "The clouds?"
Janx laughed and waved his hand again—he liked to take up space, make big gestures, and his clothes and cloak moved beautifully when he did. "The servants, Sarah. For the day only. I have no intention of running an estate this size by myself. Or at all."
Her shoulders dropped in relief. For a moment it hadn't seemed impossible that he might shoo away offending clouds. Nor, upon thought, did it seem beyond him to dismiss every servant for good as a thoughtless gesture of comfort to her, without ever understanding what that would do to their reputations and their families. "Let them be. I wouldn't want to spoil your cook's good work."
"She certainly isn't cooking it all. Which would you like for your meals today? Beef? Chicken? Lamb? Pork?"
Water rose in Sarah's mouth. "Beef is a rare enough treat, my lord."
"Beef it is. May I show you the house and grounds while she prepares it?"
This man got what he wanted far too easily, Sarah thought. The ease of wealth, and of charm: even as she thought he should be challenged, she had no real desire to ruin his fun herself. She did, though, ask, "Could I stop you?"
"With a word, my dear. With a word."
Curious, she looked up at him, fine and red-clad and as serious as she'd seen him, which did nothing to hide a twinkle in his green eyes. "You mean that, my lord." Half a question, and Janx stepped back to offer another of his theatrical bows.
"With all my heart. So: will you stop me?"
"Well, if she won't, I certainly will." Another man; another new and cultured voice. The humor fled from Janx's face for real, eyes flat and black and mouth thin for one bleak moment before the mirthful mask returned. This time, though, Sarah could see it was a mask; that beneath it, he was displeased with the new arrival.
So many men to change the shape of her life. So many educated voices and expensive clothes and deep rivalries. So many small moments, embedded forever in her memories. The world had smelled of blood and sorrow and regret when she met Janx.
It smelled of warm dust and sunshine and new grass the morning she met Eliseo Daisani.
He stood at the head of the stairway, made small by their enormous size and by the tall pillars and doors rising behind him. His hair and clothes were dark and conservative, but he came down the stairs with the same lightness of foot the red lord showed. He was swarthy and not handsome, certainly not by comparison to Janx, but he took Sarah's hand and kissed her inner wrist, shockingly intimate and with as little regard for propriety as the other man showed.
Sarah's heart knocked in her chest. Both men looked at her as though they'd heard it, and the small man smiled. "No wonder he was trying to keep you to himself. The honor is mine, Sarah Hopkins. I am Eliseo Daisani."
"I'm..." He knew her name already, and she could think of nothing else to say. She hadn't been flustered by meeting Janx, but then, he'd only spoken sweetly, not kissed her. Nor should he have, rank with blood as she'd been. Nor should this Eliseo Daisani have, either, of course, only that was a thought hard to keep in her head as a blush mounted her cheeks. She finally retrieved her hand and curtsied, still unable to speak.
Janx, less reserved, muttered, "What a pleasure to see you, Eli," in a tone that said it was not. Master Daisani's nostrils flared and he gave Janx a sour look.
"'Eli'? Really, Janx? Must you?"
"Yes," Janx said, after the appearance of all due thought on the matter. "Yes, I think this time I must. Eli."
A smile pulled at Sarah's mouth and she glanced down, trying to hide it, as Master Daisani turned to her with a sigh. "He's annoyed that I've come today. Oh, but we've amused you. That's something, I suppose."
"Eli," Sarah murmured to her shoes, "is a very nice name."
"Now see what you've done," Daisani said to Janx, but all the irritation had gone out of his voice. Sarah's smile widened and she glanced up again, hardly daring to rest her gaze on the smaller man. He was not Janx: not so handsome, and therefore somehow less alarming, despite the liberties he'd already taken. They should both be alarming, Sarah reminded herself. They were both far beyond her in birth, and in truth she could only end up damaged from their interest, but for the moment...
...for the moment, it was glorious. Oh, she should be wiser, but wisdom was for the old, and she was young. Nineteen summers, or maybe twenty. Old to be unmarried, but having taken over her father's business had kept her unwed. She didn't mind: children were a different kind of work, just as tiring, and had she been a wife and mother she never would have drawn Janx's eye.
Or Eli Daisani's.
A blush heated her cheeks again, but she squared her shoulders to make herself feel bold. She drew breath, but Janx spoke before she could: "May I make an outrageous offer, my dear?"
"More outrageous than meat to feed an army, overpayment and a carriage sent to get me at the gate?"
Janx cast his glance heavenward, thoughtful, then flashed a smile upward before nodding happily. "Much."
Sarah spread her hands in invitation, and Janx clapped his. "I've retained the entire staff from the owners of the estate. There are at least three ladies' maids desperate with boredom. Perhaps you would permit them to dress you for dinner?"
"All I have is what I wear, my lord." She brushed her palm over her skirt, certain Janx would have an answer to that, too.
His quick smile lit up his features yet again. "I may have also retained several wardrobes full of gowns. Surely something will fit you."
Peculiar emotion filled Sarah's chest. Neither offense nor anger, but some cousin to them, and to rue besides. "Am I a doll, my lord?"
Daisani hissed softly, admiration in his gaze when she glanced his way. Janx rocked on his heels, muttering, "A palpable hit," before shaking his head. "No, nor would I wish you to be one. I would, though, like you to see what I see in you, and I think only dramatic measures will accomplish that."
"And when you've made me pretty and dressed me in fine clothes, I'll still return to the slaughterfields, my lord, where they'll name me your whore and throw only rotten fruit if I'm lucky."
"You could stay," Janx said, and in those words hung the balance of her fate. She knew it, even in the moment. In the silence that weighed heavy in the air; in the stillness both men took on, and in the length between her own heartbeats, as if even they waited on her answer.
Which will you regret more? Hajnal's voice asked, and Sarah heard herself say, "You will buy me a home in London. Something sensible, not an estate. You will put money into a lender's hands for me and me alone. Enough for a year or two, more if I'm careful. And when you cast me away, those things will both be mine, and you will never return to claim interest on them. Because if I stay, even for a night, and let you make me fine, then I can never go back to what I was without endless jeers and perhaps danger, and I will have some manner of surety set aside before I do that."
Janx's eyes were bright. "And how do you know I'll do those things if I promise them today? I might lie to you."
Sarah shrugged. "It's no loss to me to return home now and wait on the papers and the lender. This is your game, my lord, not mine."
"Go on," Daisani said to Janx. "Lie to her. Let me promise her what she requires instead. I already own the house to suit." He turned to Sarah, expression serious. "Stone built and near the city wall, but within it. There are modest grounds and a small staff. All yours, Sarah Hopkins. The banker I will have to speak with tomorrow, but the account can be opened and filled by dinnertime."
"That's not fair," Janx protested. "I only have this estate. Sarah, I would hardly lie to you—"
"I told you to invest in houses, Janx. How am I to blame if you never listen? Miss Hopkins, you are a clever woman and drive a solid bargain. Will you accept your requirements from me?"
She had known. Deep inside, she'd known when she made the terms, that Janx would agree. Not that Daisani would; that churned surprise inside her, though it wasn't so hard to understand. They were friends, the sort who couldn't get on without each other and showed it through unending arguments and rivalries. She knew other men—and women—like that, though none nearly so immoderate as these two. She didn't matter so much, not to them. It was the winning that mattered, and somehow she had fallen into their sights as a prize.
Men had always seen women as prizes. There were worse by far to be sought after than two gentlemen, and the promise of a better life lay before her no matter how else it might end. "You'll have to teach me to speak," she said softly. Anyone could learn a noble accent, Alban had said. Not me, she'd answered, but that, it seemed, had been yesterday.
"To speak," Janx said before Daisani could. "To dress, to dance, to charm, to arms! Does this mean you accept our offer?"
Our offer. They hadn't planned it this way: that much Sarah was sure of. But she was sure, too, that they knew and accepted each other too well to not take advantage of the other's generosity.
She said, "I accept," and delight blossomed on both men's faces.
Three determined maids, a shining brass tub, and more hot water than Sarah had ever seen did what she had been unable to: removed the stains and stenches of the slaughterfields from every part of her body. She had never been bathed before, not by someone else, and never so thoroughly. They were efficient but brutal, and Sarah felt bruised and raw when they took her from the tub, her skin bright red. Tangles of hair stuck to the tub's sides, and more came out, turning to rat's nests as all three women took a part of her head and worked first wide, then fine, toothed combs through her hair. She was pulled this way and that, their fists against her head to reduce the yank. When she was dizzy from the pulling, she held up her hands, pleading for a pause, and they slowed, then stopped. Sarah pushed her fingers against her skull carefully, trying not to undo their work, and asked, "What are your names?"
The girls looked at one another, and the oldest of them shrugged. "Colleen, miss."
Laughter caught her off guard. "All of you?"
"It's what the mistress called us. She don't care beyond that we're Irish, so that's what she called us."
"Well, I'm not the mistress, so you are...?"
They were Rose and Mary and Bridget, and they were less grim in their duties after that. A fourth girl, younger than the ladies' maids, knocked at the door and entered with watered wine, cheese, meats, and a message Janx had clearly made her memorize: "So that you don't perish, my lady, whilst you're made even lovelier than you are by nature."
Sarah protested, "I'm nobody's lady," but knew it as a lie even as she spoke. It amused Janx to elevate her, and so to the servants she was a lady, whether her voice and hands showed it or not. These ones would hold their tongues, at least within earshot, about what they thought, because they would be grateful to the ginger lord for keeping them on when the family lost the means to maintain the estate. They would bow and curtsey to Sarah, and so by their ends, she was what they named her: lady. Lady from the slaughterfields, she thought, but forbore to object a second time.
She did, though, cough on the watered wine when Rose and Bridget laid out the dress she was to wear. Pale yellow, a springtime color, and more fabric to it than in both her own dresses combined. The waist was narrow and long, and the shoulders were completely bare. Rose set a lightweight wrap inside the open shoulders and made a small apologetic movement. "This might do you best, my lady. You've strong shoulders for a..."
For a noblewoman, Sarah finished, but was no more likely to say it aloud than Rose was. There would be no pretending her frame, built through years of hard work, could mimic one of the delicate ladies of the court.
"For a woman," Rose said with determination, as if she'd meant to say it all along. "You'd best not eat anymore. The corsets will be tight. We'll finish your hair, mistress, before we dress you, so please sit back down..."
"Leave it simple," Bridget ordered. "Her ladyship don't need a peacock's feathers. Not like the mistress," she said, far more slyly than she should. Sarah laughed even as she wondered if the maid would have spoken so if Sarah's accent had been more like Janx's and less like Bridget's own.
The springtime sun had moved past the high mark in the sky before they were finished, and that, Sarah thought, was simple. She could breathe more easily in the corsets than she expected—Bridget made another sly comment about the mistress's aging waistline—but when they brought her to a mirror, she still looked behind herself for the woman reflected there. All three maids stood behind her, hands clenched in their own skirts and barely-disguised delight brightening their faces. They were visible enough in the mirror—real glass, not polished metal—and Sarah looked back, barely understanding that the fourth woman there, the one prominent in the reflection, was her.
There was no sign of the slaughterfield's daughter in the mirror. A young noblewoman stood there instead, dark brown hair drawn back and held with pearls. Her eyes were very large and very green, and her skin less marred by sun than she'd expected. More pearls were at her throat, three short strings that made her neck look long. The wrap poking up from under the shoulder trim softened the breadth of her shoulders, and the long narrow waist gave her a height she'd never aspired to. Wide satin skirts fell in beautiful ripples over artificially wide hips and brushed the floor: Sarah had refused the tall boxy shoes on the certainty of never being able to walk in them. She wore slippers instead, their color just a shade or two darker than her gown.
"His lordship will be agog," Mary said with satisfaction, and they released Sarah from their clutches.
His lordship was agog.
Flatteringly so, both men, not just Janx. They stood when Sarah, dry-mouthed with nerves, silently entered the hall they occupied, and neither of them spoke until she twitched with worried anticipation. Then Janx took two quick steps forward, his hands extended toward her. She took them—hers were clammy and his cool and soft—and he bowed, kissing the knuckles of each hand. The maids had tried giving her rings to wear, but her hands were larger and rougher than their mistress's, and so her fingers were bare. Clean. Impossibly clean, for a butcher's daughter, but bare.
"Am I right?" Janx murmured over her hands. "Do you see now what I saw in the market?"
Sarah wet her lips, unable to answer with more than a stiff nod. Janx straightened, looking unutterably pleased with himself, and that loosened some of her worry into a shy smile. "You are a gem," Janx murmured. "A rare bloom set to unfurl its petals. An unparalleled beauty. You—"
"You look lovely," Daisani said dryly, and Sarah blushed. Janx's mouth flattened and he threw Daisani a dark look, one which the smaller man ignored as he, too, came to kiss Sarah's knuckles. "Janx," he told her, "sometimes doesn't know when to stop. Restraint isn't a word in his vocabulary. Will you join us for supper?"
Sarah pressed a hand to her stomach, flattened by the strong corset. "I'm not sure I can eat, in this."
"Well," Janx said, all wide-eyed innocence, "we could remove it for you."
Panic lurched Sarah's heart into a race, the hand over her stomach pressing harder against a rise of sickness. The cost of all this was certain, but she had thought it might be longer in coming. Had thought this game of theirs might play out more slowly, so she might have time to accustom herself to the idea of whoring. They were polite men, clean and wealthy, and there would be—this she believed—a house and security, after. There were far worse fates for a slaughterfield's daughter. But she had thought it might come on her more slowly.
