Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
" G o on then Dorcas, get the rugs out the back and make sure that you and the other girls give them a good beating. I don't want either the young master or young miss to be coughing or sneezing from the dust, do you? No, I didn't think so. And send word to cook that I will be down later to discuss the matter of the side of beef that we've been wanting to use for a while now. I won't be bringing to her ladyship no more accounts of new meat being purchased just because a couple of the girls like to take a bit of beef home to their families on the weekends. She worked out fast enough that there was something wrong happening and I know exactly what's causing it. Not under my nose, thank you. Off you go, lass, and be quick. Master will be home sooner or later and you know he likes to have things bustling.
"Yes, Mrs. Brooks," Dorcas said quickly, her tousled mousy hair sticking out of her cap in such a way that Mrs. Brooks, calamity to sloth, ruler of the below the stairs, wanted to reach out and fix it for her.
The girl sped off and for a moment there was peace. She had plenty to do, what with helping a new Lady of the House find her feet and keeping track of all that she might want seen to. And there was the children of course, poor mites. How they managed to always be such wan little ghosts and also always be under her feet when she needed them not to be she just didn't know.
Oh and the wailing in the night, the first time she had been certain that it was a ghost. Perhaps the spirit of the dead Earl bewailing the fate of his youngest son, though she'd most feared that it might be the old Countess, the mother of his lordship's father. She had been around long enough to meet the old crone, bent and rheumy with eyes so gone blind that they were white and even as a slip of a girl working as the new Countess's lady's maid, Eugenia Brooks had found the old woman terrifying.
She had been prone to roaming the halls in the night, blind fingers reaching ahead of her and white hair down her back like a cloak. If one were to meet her during her nightly roaming she would shriek and rush towards one, screaming about robbers even though one were a perfectly respectable maidservant.
Shooting awake in the middle of the night to that first long shriek from Kenneth had been like being swept back to her young 20 year old self, barely able to stand after escaping the clutches of a crazed old woman.
And tonight had not been much better. She had been hoping the wee things would settle a little now that they were bonding with her ladyship but Abigail had been in such hysterics that the lady was sleeping in there with them, half lying on Abigail's bed from where she had dropped off telling a story.
There was a bang down the hall and the familiar sound of boots stomping over the wooden floorboards. Master Cedric was home at last, perhaps he might be able to help her in getting Lady Louisa back to her rooms. She hated to wake the lady, but lying on the floor was no good for heart nor body.
Mrs. Brooks exited the room she was in and saw Cedric Pembroke go into the children's room with a stormy expression on his face before coming back out moments later, confused and a little lost.
"What is my wife doing in there asleep on the ground?" he asked, seeing her coming towards him. "She looks half dead. If I had wanted to marry a corpse, there are plenty in the cemetery. Perhaps you can explain to me what has worn her out."
Eugenia Brooks had grown into her late middle age serving the Pembroke family. She knew her worth, she knew her place and her loyalty would always be to the Earl of St Vincent. But in this moment, with his tone so sharp and his eyes so dark she knew exactly who she was supporting.
"And what else would you expect, my lord?" she said, as polite as can be so he would have to listen to her words, not her tone. "The lady spends her mornings going over the accounts and reading about what your other estates need in terms of servants or arrangements. She arranges the meals and she has as much correspondence as yourself to deal with, but she cannot rest even when her day is done for the children are always needing her. Miss Abigail had a nightmare so bad that she could not be left alone and this is not the first time. Your lady has too much to do. She is working herself to the bone getting her head around being a countess, but on top of that, my lord, she is doing the job of a paid Governess to those children."
"Mrs. Brooks," Lord St Vincent tried to interject, which Mrs. Brooks had learned was a thing she simply could not allow. Once a gentleman interjected one would not get to finish what one had been saying, and she had her piece and intended to finish saying it.
"She's a young lady, my lord, and she's never run a household before. It's a lot to handle, but on top of that she has the children to tend to. She's worn so thin I could read the newspaper through her, that I could. We might not always have agreed on things, but she works hard and she is a good woman. I respect her, Lord St Vincent, and I will not have you criticizing her."
There was a pregnant pause as they matched gazes. Mrs. Brooks knew well that should her master want, he could have her sacked for speaking this way to him and she would not be able to complain. Heavens, she knew his temper and his forceful personality. She knew how it fared for servants who did not respect him. But Mrs. Brooks was an honest woman who hated injustice and knew well that the boy she had seen grow into one of the most powerful men in the country needed a wife, and the wife he needed was the one in the nursery asleep.
For the sake of the St Vincent title and the family, she was willing to risk it all.
Cedric did not like being corrected, nor did he like the realization that he'd been entirely ignorant of something and so behaved like an entitled fool. It had never occurred to him to think about what all a lady did to manage a household and an estate before. He was so used to everything happening as and when it should that he had not stopped to think that somebody must be making it happen, and that it would take a lot of work to run a household as smoothly as this one.
"But who was doing all this before I brought her here?" was all he could think to ask. "Surely it doesn't all need her personal touch."
Mrs. Brooks pursed her lips. "Some of it was me, my lord. Some of it was the Dowager, or more properly her steward." Mrs. Brooks was a professional and so did not make a face, but he knew her well enough to see the face she was not making underneath it. "The rest were little things handed off to whoever knew best. The problem is, my lord, that she does have to oversee it all personally. Because she's the Countess. It wouldn't be right to have someone usurp her authority like that."
Cedric felt his mouth open a little, a sudden guilty understanding over taking him, when Mrs. Brooks continued. "And of course she has the children as well. Most ladies have a governess or two to help with that, on account of all the other work they have to do, and that's without the poor mites' struggles that see her sleeping on the floor in there."
"All right," Cedric broke in, raising his hands in defeat. "Enough Mrs. Brooks, I take your point. Louisa is to spend the next several days resting and while she does I'll set about finding a governess, how about that?"
Mrs. Brooks sniffed. "As you see fit, my lord."
Cedric looked at her wryly "Oh quite. Now if you'll excuse me I am to put my wife to bed. In an actual bed, so help us," and with that he turned back for the nursery and his unfortunately self-sacrificing wife. She could at least have had the good grace to make a performance out of it he thought, like other martyr types. That way I could stop her before she passed out on the floor. But no, she must thwart me in everything.
Louisa was laying where he'd left her, so fast asleep she didn't even wake when he lifted her into his arms. A few tendrils had escaped her lace cap, and there was something charming about the way they trailed across her face gone soft with sleep. That argumentative little mouth had relaxed, and while her cheeks were pale with exhaustion the lips were still a bright vibrant pink.
She's rather beautiful Cedric found himself thinking. I wonder why she was ever a wall flower to begin with? Rose suits her better. Then shook the thought away, baffled. That was far too much poetry for this hour of the night. Or ever. He'd never had a taste for it and there was no call to develop one now.
Though Cedric had hoped to be able to lay Louisa down and tuck her into bed without her waking, her natural instincts to thwart him must have risen up again because she began to stir and murmured his name sleepily.
"Hush now," he said, hearing the smile in his voice. "Go back to sleep."
"Can't sleep in my stays," she mumbled, starting to sit up. "It's uncomfy. The busk is pokey."
"Mhm, that's true. Probably shouldn't sleep in your dress either really," he agreed, manfully keeping himself from laughing. "Come on, I'll give you a hand."
Louisa made a small noise of assent and he helped her first out of the bed and then to step out of her gown as she stood wavering sleepily. "Here, turn around," Cedric said, "I'll unlace you."
He was half expecting Louisa to rise to this, chaff him about his past as a rake and how much experience he must have at removing other women's undergarments, but instead she placidly complied, swaying a little as he unlaced her with fingers not quite as practiced as they once were.
"There," he said, once the garment was loose enough for her to pluck out the long wooden busk and wriggle free. "I'll grab you a nightgown. Can't have you getting cold or scandalizing the maids."
Louisa hummed again, compliantly allowing him to dress and then tuck her into bed, pulling the covers up firmly to her chin. For a moment Cedric was seized with the ridiculous urge to kiss her forehead before shaking it off as too much time spent with the children. "Goodnight wife," he said instead, turning to leave.
To his surprise Louisa's soft hand reached out and grasped his "Thank you Cedric," she murmured, eyes heavy with sleep.
He couldn't help but chuckle "That's the politest you've ever been to me, you know?" and held back another laugh at the sleepy little frown that engendered.
"You're a very confusing man, Cedric Pembroke," she said, and the tired petulance on her face was adorable enough he gave in to his urge from early, and leaned down to drop a kiss on her forehead.
"No more than you, Louisa. No more than you."
It felt like it was late when Louisa stretched her hands across her soft silken sheets and blinked her eyes open slowly. No one was knocking on the door to tell her to wake and come to breakfast, no one had come in to provide her with options and choices and things that she simply must decide. No one had even come to ask her if she wasn't getting up to see to the menu and she knew well that Mrs. Brooks had very serious feelings about the menu and the time that it needed to be done.
Oh she was tired, but deliciously. The tired that came from hard work and having rested well, being languid abed later than one should and at the very brink of a wonderful dream.
Perhaps a dream like the previous evening?
She was almost certain that it had actually happened which might be stranger than it being a dream. Cedric had been so gentle, so kind. She thought perhaps he had tucked her into her bed, helped her to be comfortable, got rid of the busk that had been digging into her.
It had been soft and gentle in a way that had plucked at her heart and she wasn't sure if she wanted to believe that it had really happened and be in danger of being disappointed when nothing had changed, or decide that it was a dream and enjoy the memory.
"My lady?" Ellis knocked very softly on the door, a noise that would never have woken her if she had still been asleep.
"I am awake, Ellis," Louisa called, and the girl slipped into the room, looking a little pleased and a little awkward at once. "What time is it? It must be later than breakfast surely, I can see the sun on the drapes."
"Indeed, my lady, it is full noon and the family is at luncheon! I was asked to see if you had awoken yet but we were absolutely not allowed to wake you ourselves, my lady. Forgive me but his lordship told us we simply couldn't disturb you and you needed your sleep." Ellis smiled a little at this, like the idea of Cedric demanding his wife be allowed to sleep was a delight to her.
"Oh my," Louisa sat upright. "But there was so much to do today - the menu?"
"Mrs. Brooks."
"The accounts for Darlington Hall?"
"His lordship said he would look it over and bring it to you only if he had to."
"What about -"
"My lady," Ellis crossed her arms. "Can I put out your day dress and help you change for lunch?"
Louisa nodded mutely. It had been so long since she had woken with no immediate pressing matters to attend to that she was fully dressed and on her way into the dining room before she could think of a single thing more to ask Ellis. What on earth had happened last night?
Upon entering the room the family ate in, a smaller and more friendly version to the long hall that parties were to held in, Louisa was delighted to see Abigail and Kenneth sat eating next to their uncle.
"And then - Uncle Cedric this is important - even though she used to be a fish she wasn't a fish anymore, she had legs!"
"Did she indeed?" Cedric asked seriously, winking at Louisa and making her hide a smile. "I cannot understand why someone would want to exchange being a fish for a person."
"She was in love," Kenneth said with his large solemn eyes staring at his uncle as though he was imparting the secrets of the world. "It's always because they're in love in stories, you know."
"Yes, didn't you know that, Cedric?" Louisa asked, taking her seat at the other end of the table. "What do you think, children, should we invite your uncle to spend more story time with us?"
Kenneth cheered and Abigail smiled at her, a little less obviously enthusiastic but pleased. It was so lovely to see the way that they were opening up again, like carefully blooming flowers daring to open after a thaw.
"I am pleased to continue my education in the matter of stories," Cedric said, smiling at the children. "Louisa, I have instructed Mrs. Brooks to invite some applicants for the position of governess for the children. I shall need your approval of the final choice before we hire her."
Perhaps, Louisa thought, she hadn't woken up at all. This was so new, so completely unexpected that she choked a little on her coffee and had to dab at her lips and cough for a full minute while Abigail patted her arm and Kenneth shouted, 'Don't CHOKE Aunt Lady!' in her ear.
"We are also expected at an evening party at the De Westerfall estate in a few days, so you will need to send out for further gowns. Do not hesitate to spend what is needed to ensure that you have what you want," Cedric was continuing when Louisa held up her hand.
"My lord, please, one thing at a time! Whyever have you hired a governess when I am here for the children?"
Cedric winked then at the children and they both giggled behind their hands as though they were part of some fine conspiracy. "We have discussed it as a family, have we not children? And it is very important that you remember that you are not a governess, you are my wife. Your role is to be part of the family, not one of the servants."
"Yes," Kenneth said. "You are Aunt Lady and you need to get rest so you can tell one ten hundred five stories more to us!"
"We will be good for the governess, Lady Louisa," Abigail added. "I promise."
Louisa flushed a little. She loved taking care of the children but it had been hard lately to keep on top of all the things that she was expected to do. Oh this was truly a relief, this was going to help so much!
She looked to Cedric to smile her thanks at him and found that he was already looking at her, an expression in his eyes that she had not seen before and the softest smile on his lips. A smile that was not for charm or to distract or tease, just a smile, a real one. Then the moment was gone and he looked away quickly.
Oh, she thought, feeling her cheeks flare so hot that she feared she must be glowing. Oh I want him to look at me again. I don't want him to stop.