A Brazen Curiosity, page 17
part #1 of Beatrice Hyde-Clare Series
“Yes, tomorrow, when I unmask Mr. Wilson and you’re forced to apologize for mocking my theory,” she explained confidently.
Kesgrave laughed, not at all perturbed by the prospect. “What a delightful imagination you have, Miss Hyde-Clare. It’s a wonder no man has seized the opportunity to take you to wife.”
But it wasn’t a great mystery at all, for she had none of the qualities men of their station considered necessary in a wife—beauty, wealth, position, poise—and she found as she replayed the statement in her head that she resented the ease with which he had been lulled into thoughtless cruelty.
Kesgrave immediately perceived the gravity of his misstep, and watching the expression of discomfort, then displeasure, overtake his face, she readily believed it had been an accident. His intention had not been to mock her unnatural state but to express sincere confusion over it.
Alas, it was not possible to do the latter without first calling attention to the former, and she simply wasn’t deft enough to pretend she did not feel the slight. Before the entire sentence had been uttered, she had recoiled as if from a blow.
“You must forgive me. I spoke thoughtlessly, heedlessly. I never meant to imply there was any reason you should be married. I am sincerely sorry. Truly, I would never imply that you should be anything other than what you are. What you are is delightful,” he said quickly, demonstrating that he was conversant not only with the concept of remorse but the notion of pity as well.
That would not do.
Oh, indeed not.
In agony over how she must appear to him—a lonely spinster still capable of feeling shame at her condition—Bea leaped to her feet, heading off whatever mortifying thing he planned to say next, and professed shock at noticing the lateness of the hour. It was just past two in the morning, she said with an almost comically exaggerated yawn, and she was exhausted from a long day of attaining information from unwitting houseguests. Furthermore, they were very fortunate nobody had discovered their wildly inappropriate meeting, but sleep was an unreliable enterprise and Flora or her aunt could awaken at any moment and decide to pay her a visit.
Naturally, she thanked him for dropping by, as she felt the discussion had been quite constructive for both of them, and if the brusque primness of her tone struck him as oddly formal for the situation, he was too polite to say it. Rather, he thanked her in return and bid her good night.
They both reached for the window at the same time, turning an already awkward moment into an excruciating one. Their fingers met along the bottom, and Bea jumped back as if burned by the contact. Her overly dramatic response made everything worse, and she stood several feet away while the duke opened the window, cursing her stupidity and missishness. Neither one was like her and she could attribute them only to the strangeness of the situation: the late hour, the informal setting, the convivial fire. Briefly, she’d forgotten who he was. Even as she was mocking him for his pedantry, she’d forgotten he was the Duke of Kesgrave—above her touch and several yards over her head.
That would not happen again.
She waited as Kesgrave climbed over the sill and settled onto the thick branch that knocked against her window. He turned around as if to speak, then, thinking better of it, offered a tepid smile and half-hearted wave. She acknowledged both gestures with an equally hesitant nod and swiftly closed the window. Because she wanted to stand there and watch every moment of his descent, she instead purposefully strode away, walking over to the fireplace to blow out the pair of candles she had lit when he arrived. Guided by the glow of the remaining candle, she found The Vicar of Wakefield on the floor where she had thrown it, next to the dressing room door, its spine slightly bent from the force of impact, and carried it to the bed. She placed the candle down on the table and opened the book to the spot where she’d left off. As utterly ridiculous as Mr. Goldsmith’s tale was, with its clandestine lords and extravagantly evil villains, it was somehow still more plausible than the story she had been unknowingly concocting in her head about the sad spinster and the handsome duke.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Although the scrambled eggs served for breakfast the next morning were at once runny and thick, Beatrice gushed over how perfectly they were prepared. Her fork perched on the edge of her plate, she examined Thurman, the footman who attended the sideboard and appeared to be only a few years older than she. If she had to guess, she would place him on the verge of turning thirty. By all accounts, he was an impressive specimen, with broad shoulders, elegant calves and a thick crop of hair under the powdered wig he was obliged to assume. Despite the positive impression he made, Bea could not divine if he was the same man who had held her chair out for dinner last night or carried in the pot of tea during Aunt Vera’s lecture yesterday. As fashionable as ever, the Skeffingtons had chosen their footmen on the basis of their appearance, ensuring they all presented as a matched set. Given that Thurman was six feet tall, Bea deduced that the other footmen were of equal height.
“Undoubtedly, they are a marvel, these eggs,” she added as the footman refilled her aunt’s teacup. “I don’t know when I’ve ever had eggs that tasted so delicious before.”
Aunt Vera, who had been picking at the unappetizing serving on her own plate, looked at her niece as if she had a screw loose and chastised her for speaking with inappropriate enthusiasm. “They’re just eggs, my dear, and should be treated as such. Save your praise for suitable targets such as roast stubble goose and Oxford pudding.”
Bea ignored her aunt. “I say, Thurman, have the eggs always been this scrumptious or is that a recent innovation?”
“Always, I believe, miss,” he replied as Aunt Vera glared at her niece for conversing with a servant.
This was precisely the answer Bea was hoping for, and she smiled brightly. “Ah, so you’ve been in the Skeffingtons’ employ for a long time, then?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Have most of the staff been here for a long time as well?” she asked.
Her aunt, who had abandoned the runny eggs in favor of dry toast, choked on the bread. She coughed loudly in an attempt to clear her throat as she stared at her niece aghast at this sudden, bizarre turn in conversation. Concerned, Thurman topped off her teacup, which was nearly overflowing from the tea he’d added only a minute ago, while Bea waited for him to answer.
It was difficult to say if Aunt Vera or Thurman was more surprised by Bea’s continued interest. The latter, however, was the only one who spoke, saying that, yes, most of the staff had been with the household for several years.
“No recent additions, then?” Bea said.
“I wouldn’t say that, miss. One of the upper housemaids recently arrived and Lord Skeffington’s valet has been here only since July, and there’s a new assistant cook and a new groom just took up work in the stables this week.”
“A new assistant cook and groom?” she asked sharply. “How old are they?”
Aunt Vera stood up abruptly, as if poked violently by a needle, and grabbed Bea by the upper arm. “A letter from your uncle. How could I have forgotten! We received a letter from your uncle in the morning post and he had a question for you about Daisy. It’s vitally important that we answer it at once,” she said, turning to Thurman and apologizing for their sudden departure. Then she pulled her niece down the hallway, muttering under her breath, “And now I am excusing myself to the servants. I don’t know who was more embarrassed, me or the footman. No, that’s absurd. Of course I’m more embarrassed. What if Lady Skeffington had been present or Mrs. Otley? They would have believed I’d raised you with common manners. I did not. I raised you to be unexceptional. But what if it is my fault? I did not take you to enough house parties. For certain, you’ve been acting strangely almost since we arrived, interrogating Kesgrave in the drawing room and asking a newly minted widow about the setbacks she has suffered. Being in the proximity of a self-murder has had a corrosive effect on your mental abilities. Maybe it’s too much for you to bear. You always were such a wan child.”
By the time they reached the second floor, her aunt’s ramblings had descended into incoherence and her grip on Bea’s arm had loosened enough that she could climb the stairs independently. They bumped into Flora, however, in the hallway, and when the young lady inquired after the health of her mother, she set off another round of recriminations. Flora’s eyes widened in shock when she heard of her cousin’s behavior, which she immediately attributed to her hitherto unknown thwarted love affair rather than the nabob’s death.
“Think of all she has suffered in silence, Mama, the heartache and the loneliness, and now it has come pouring out in a great torrent,” Flora said as Aunt Vera led them into her room. “How dreadful to be reminded of it all. We must be patient and understanding with her.”
This display of compassion from her cousin was thoroughly without precedent and, shocked by the sympathy, Bea wrapped her arms around her in a hug, an act so out of character it convinced both her relatives that she had indeed been overcome by anguish and undone by grief.
As lovely as the moment between cousins was, Bea wished it to be over so she could find out more about the new groom and assistant cook. Aunt Vera, however, had no intention of letting her impaired niece walk around the manor alone, and she kept her by her side as she read the letter from Uncle Horace, who actually did want to know where the leash for Daisy was kept, as the terrier had lately taken to chasing birds regardless of the order to heel. Flora, who was not fond of pets, suggested the dog be sent to the country once and for all. Bea could not tell if she was using “the country” as a euphemism or not.
She finally managed to contrive an escape at noon, when Lady Skeffington sent a note inviting the ladies to have tea in the drawing room with the Otleys before the grieving pair took their departure. Bea announced that such a diversion sounded delightful and darted off to retrieve from her room a going-away present for Emily before her aunt could object. At once, she raced down the hall and the stairs, almost tripping over Mr. Skeffington in her haste to inspect the assistant cook.
“Oh, I’m sorry. So sorry,” she said breathlessly, her movements slowing but not stopping as she stepped around the surprised young man. “Do excuse me. So clumsy.”
As soon as she was out of his sight, her pace picked up again and before she knew it she found herself flying past the drawing room door to the dining room. Not surprisingly, Lady Skeffington hadn’t included the kitchens in the tour she conducted when her guests had arrived, but Bea knew they had to be somewhere nearby, for the food always arrived hot.
In the dining room, she followed a curving corridor at the far end to a staircase that led down to the main cooking room, which was large and surprisingly modern, with its high ceiling and ventilation shaft. The once white walls showed years of use with nicks, stains and black soot that spread from the top of the hearth like a creeping rash. In the fire, four chickens rotated on a spit turned by one of the kitchen maids, a girl about Beatrice’s age with blond hair and cheeks made flush from the heat. Another maid, younger and darker, sat at the large table in the middle of the floor chopping carrots. Both women jumped when Bea entered, the maid at the table rising so quickly to her feet that her chair toppled behind her.
Bea hastened over to help straighten the chair, then halted midstride for fear of embarrassing the girl further. Having already disturbed their peace with her sudden appearance in their private domain, she didn’t want to exacerbate the transgression by being overly solicitous. Uncertain, she stood in the middle of the floor and cursed her imprudent behavior. She had been so determined to free herself from Aunt Vera’s clutches, she hadn’t devised a plan for when she finally obtained her goal.
“The eggs!” Bea announced.
A loud thump filled the room as the girl returned the heavy chair to its upright position.
“Yes, miss,” the maid operating the spit said.
Although it was obvious the young woman had no idea what their sudden visitor was talking about, she knew enough to agree. It was, Bea thought with growing discomfort, always the safest thing to do when dealing with gentry. She was being humored by the kitchen staff, a treatment that was as humiliating as it was deserved.
Bea took a deep breath and ordered her thoughts. Then she calmly explained how much she’d enjoyed the eggs during breakfast. “Indeed, all the food has been wonderful.”
“Thank you, miss,” the girl said, sketching a curtsy as she grasped the back of the chair.
“I don’t know when I’ve ever eaten so well or been treated so elegantly as I have at Lakeview. Because everything is so wonderful, I wanted to pay my compliments to the cook, if that is possible. Actually, I’m aware of how busy he is, what with a houseful of guests to feed and the dinner meal to be prepared, which I can see you are working on now. Perhaps I could express my appreciation to his assistant. As I said, I will be brief.”
At that moment, a harried man as tall as he was wide entered the room wearing a splattered apron and waving a cleaver. “Chop, you miscreant, chop!” he said to the girl standing near the table. At once, the maid by the hearth resumed turning the spit, her arm moving twice as fast as if to make up for lost time. Growling with impatience, he turned his attention to Bea and opened his mouth as if to issue another order. Realizing she did not report to him or indeed anyone belowstairs, he abruptly shut his mouth and came to a halt. He was immediately jostled by another man, smaller and narrower, who had been following him, sight unseen, and had not anticipated the sudden stop. The cleaver slipped from the large man’s hand and landed less than an inch from his shadow’s foot.
Bea, her heart lurching from fear to relief, felt almost weak at the knees at the thought of her visit ending with the amputation of some poor servant’s toes. Aunt Vera would never recover.
Determined not to extend her stay any longer than necessary, she immediately explained her purpose to the large man, who turned out to be the cook himself. At her first expression of admiration, his impatience disappeared entirely and he insisted Beatrice sit down and tell him exactly what she liked best. She started with the eggs, of course, as they had played such a pivotal part in the ruse and then painstakingly listed all the dishes she could remember eating. The ones she retained the clearest memory of were the plates she had imagined throwing at Kesgrave.
The cook delighted in her appreciation and sought her opinion on specific details such as the level of salt in the turtle soup. Was it not perhaps a pinch heavy on the hand? She promptly assured him it was not, a response that earned a satisfied harrumph from the fellow who had narrowly escaped a painful encounter with the cleaver. He, upon further investigation, turned out to be the new assistant cook, an apprentice whose grasp of the subtle advantages of salt still proved to be imperfect.
“You’re the assistant cook?” Bea asked, unable to hide her disappointment.
Fortunately, he did not notice and proudly proclaimed himself to be a chef in training.
He was all wrong, of course: young, slim build, tall.
Having confirmed that Mr. Wilson had not infiltrated the house via the kitchens, she endeavored to excuse herself from the company, insisting that she had held up their meal preparation for far too long. Although the cook insisted otherwise, the two maids agreed with vigorous nods of their head, and Bea, seeing no other way to end the conversation, requested some recipes to give to her own cook at Welldale House. Perceiving now that the true purpose of her flattery was to hoodwink him out of his most-prized recipes, the cook rose stiffly from the table, bid her good day and stalked out of the room. His assistant grabbed the cleaver from where it still lay on the floor and dashed after him. The girl at the table smothered a smile as she redoubled her efforts with the carrots.
Eager to investigate her next suspect, Bea thanked the maids for their hospitality, and as she climbed the stairs back to the ground floor, she resolved to provide tips to all the staff even if it meant handing over every cent she had with her, a rather inconsiderable sum that would not stretch beyond mere gesture.
The dining room was deserted when she emerged from the corridor, and she walked cautiously through the house, dodging fellow guests and relatives by hiding in doorways. Despite a close call with her cousin Russell, whose pursuit of Emily continued unabated, she made it to the front door undetected and followed the walk to the right of the gardens. The path led to the stables, a pair of long brick buildings encircling a courtyard and neighboring coach house.
She could hear the gentle whinny of horses as she entered the first building, which had accommodations for six horses and currently housed two. She murmured softly to them as she walked briskly past to inspect the harness room, which was empty. In the second structure, she found three more horses and a trio of stalls well in need of mucking out. Shaking her head at the smell, she progressed to the washing box and then the feed room. Neither was occupied.
Outside again, she walked around the buildings to the stable yard, where a groom was exercising a large black horse in the enclosure. Was it the new groom Thurman had mentioned? His build seemed about right, as he had a portly frame and stood only as tall as the horse’s hind quarters. She could not see his face, as his back was to her, and his hair was covered by a cap. Nevertheless, she decided he could not be Mr. Wilson, as his control over the animal was impressive and he seemed quite familiar and comfortable with him. If he were new to the property and not truly a groom, he would display a less confident hand.
He would, however, be able to answer a few questions about the newly hired groom, but even as she considered gaining his attention, she realized it was not a wise idea. If she thought causing the assistant cook to lose most of his toes to a cleaver accident was untenable, then distracting the head groom into an accident in which he was trampled underfoot and possibly paralyzed for the rest of his life was intolerable.
Far better, she thought, to find a stableboy who could, at worst, injure his wrist in a shoveling mishap or something equally minor.
