Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The flurry of activity took up most of the morning as servants and workmen carried trunks, baskets, and small pieces of furniture from Buckley Place to Primrose End. They filled Mrs. Buckley’s parlor, bedchamber, and dining room with the belongings that were hers.
By midafternoon, everything had settled.
The dust cloud from regular foot traffic fell to the ground again, and Mr. Wick’s men returned to the work within the east wing of the big house.
Platt had come over from Buckley Place to take the position of butler, and Mrs. Bates had joined them as Mrs. Buckley’s lady’s maid, but they had yet to hire anyone else.
Until Emma did so, the maids from the big house would share the duties, a situation they were likely none too pleased about.
Emma knew how distasteful that must feel and vowed to set the situation to rights as soon as possible.
She stood in the center of her new bedchamber at Primrose End, tucked into the far side of the upper floor where the roof slanted to one side.
It still smelled of fresh lumber from the repairs made to the windowsill, but Emma didn’t mind.
From her window, she could see the driveway and part of Buckley Place, with green hills and wild oak trees spreading out behind it.
She used to ride her horse among those hills, but it had been so long since she’d mounted a saddle, she didn’t know if she’d recall how to do it properly anymore.
A tiny bead of want sprouted in her chest. If she had accepted Mr. Lofton’s kindness, had embraced his possible advances, would that have led to a relationship?
To Emma becoming the mistress of her own household?
To children and a husband of her own? Her stomach contracted at the thought.
She did not love him, but to be taken out from beneath the gray cloud of responsibility and given the thing she had always desired…
A throat cleared in the doorway. Mrs. Bates waited patiently, her hands crossed over her chatelaine.
“You are to be the housekeeper as well?” Emma asked, eyeing the keys dangling from her waist.
“For the time being.”
“Is that an ambition of yours?”
Mrs. Bates hesitated. “It is not, but I can assist until Mrs. Buckley has found the servants she needs.”
“It is I who should take on the extra duties, Mrs. Bates.” Emma crossed toward her. “I should have begun hiring the additional servants earlier.”
“For a home this small we hardly need a housekeeper, Miss Darling. A maid or two will suffice, and a footman, perhaps. Between Platt and me, we can see to managing everything else. Cook is happy in the kitchen.”
“We’ll see about that when we host our first dinner party, I suppose.” They shared a smile. “Mrs. Buckley invited the captain to dine tomorrow evening. She is embracing her move.”
Mrs. Bates led her out of the room and down the corridor. “It is a good change, I think. Though I would have been happy without the dogs.”
“You?” Emma laughed, descending the stairs. “They’ve selected me their queen.”
“It could be worse. They could be the drooling type, like my neighbor had when I was a girl.” Mrs. Bates grinned.
Her graying hair was pulled back at the nape of her neck, strands of gray gleaming in the sunlight streaming through the open windows.
“I need to mend a sleeve, but I wanted to check on you.”
“The smaller house suits me well. How are you?” Some would consider the move a demotion in her work, but Emma knew how Mrs. Bates cared for Mrs. Buckley.
She glanced up, inhaling. “This little cottage will grow on me. I’d better start on that sleeve. I think I’ll work in the kitchen.”
“I have been working on a pair of mittens. Mind if I join you?”
“Not at all.”
Cook had found her rhythm, placing her things where she wanted them within the space, then moving some of them once she began working on dinner and realized where she would prefer them.
The dogs lay haphazardly before the large hearth, the fire blazing and emitting steady waves of heat.
Their brown and black coats gleamed against the orange light, long snouts draped over paws and across the cold floor as they dozed.
Emma chatted happily with Mrs. Bates while they sewed and knitted. They spoke of their childhoods and who taught them how to properly use a needle, though the objectives at the time had been vastly different—Emma for the purpose of embroidery accomplishments and Mrs. Bates more practical in nature.
The intimate room and small group of women made it possible for Emma to keep them company.
She would not have been able to sit in the grand kitchen of Buckley Place in such a manner.
Not only because of the way people always seemed to be bustling about, but because her presence seemed to make most of the other servants uncomfortable.
Mrs. Bates had always considered her a friend, though, and Cook did not mind her company.
If they acquired maids of the same mind, this home could mean different things for Emma—far more different than she perhaps realized.
It could have provided her a place within the household that felt more solid and substantial than she’d had in the last nine years.
Instead of feeling as though she floated between worlds, perhaps soon she would know her place—know precisely where she belonged.
It was so enticing, the hope that burgeoned within her, that Emma caught her breath.
“Is everything all right, Miss Darling?” Mrs. Bates asked.
“Please, I’ve asked you to call me Emma.”
“Old habits,” she cited, her well-lined eyes moving over Emma’s face with a modicum of concern. “You seem worried.”
“The opposite, in fact.”
The lady’s maid smiled. “Not to be presumptuous, but I would like to know more. Or if this has to do with any one person in particular,” she said with feeling.
“Who could you possibly mean? Mrs. Buckley?”
“Heavens, no. A gentleman.”
Emma scoffed. “The days of gentlemen callers are long behind me.”
“Speaks as though she’s an old maid,” Cook called, cackling.
Emma’s cheeks warmed. “At eight-and-twenty, I feel justified in admitting that my youth is well and truly in the past. What has put this notion in your head, anyway?” She squeezed the knitting needles between her fingers, thinking of the conversations she’d had with Owen, the times she’d been seen speaking alone with him, the way her heart jumped when he walked in a room.
No one here likely remembered how she had once been held in particular esteem throughout the county. Her engagement to their local baron, Lord Gifford, had been well touted. But it was so long ago, surely it overshadowed any lingering knowledge of her romance with the Buckleys’ penniless nephew.
Mrs. Bates had been here, then. But if she recalled Emma’s heartsick entrance to the Buckley household while her parents were sick with smallpox, she graciously did not mention it now.
“Mr. Lofton, of course,” Mrs. Bates said, her eyes glittering with amusement. “I heard the man was seen prowling about the house in search of you.”
“Mr. Lofton is a kind, dependable man.” Emma’s blush deepened. “But even if I was considering taking on a husband, I could not leave Mrs. Buckley just yet. You know this.”
“Of course.”
“Mr. Lofton was out for a ride yesterday and spoke with Captain Buckley and me briefly, but it was not a conversation of any great length, and he did not seek me out independently.”
Mrs. Bates lowered her sewing. “That was not what I referred to. He was seen here again today.”
“Today?”
Platt walked through the doorway, his crisp jacket buttoned primly over a plain waistcoat and white cravat. He was young for a butler, hardly above forty. His receding hairline made for a large forehead, thick eyebrows sitting low over his eyes, which narrowed on Emma.
“Is there something we can do for you, Mr. Platt?” she asked.
“There was a delivery for Mrs. Buckley. She has no use for it, though, so she directed the men to put it in your chamber.”
An unsettled, knowing feeling pooled in Emma’s gut. She lowered her knitting, wrapping the half-finished mitten around the needles and tucking the whole of them into her work basket.
He watched her warily. “Mrs. Buckley asked that you be surprised, Miss Darling, but I thought you might like to be warned.”
“Thank you, Mr. Platt. I do appreciate that.” Emma slid her basket over her arm. “I enjoyed working beside you ladies today. Perhaps we can do so again soon.”
“Any time you’d like, Miss,” Cook said, rolling out a lump of dough, her cheeks mottled and a faint sheen on her forehead. Emma knew she would return for the warmth of the room if nothing else—both in temperature and how she was received by the mistress of the kitchen.
Her chest swelled with gratitude. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Bates spoke quietly as she left the kitchen. They were discussing the mysterious gift, undoubtedly, for Platt hadn’t followed her up the stairs.
Emma pushed open her bedroom door. A dressing table of dark cherry wood, freshly polished and smelling of oil, was pressed into the corner, the mirror tilted slightly upward to reflect her frown.
A matching seat was tucked beneath it and one long drawer adorned the front.
Emma ran her fingers over the ornately carved flowers bracketing the corners. It was exquisite.
It was a gift.
How could Mr. Lofton not understand that she would feel an obligation toward him? That she would think of him and the wife he’d lost every day when she looked at this piece of furniture? It was inappropriate, writhing in her belly like a snake.
And yet, she couldn’t fight the subtle wave of longing threatening to rise within her. Despite the logic, it was nice to have been thought of. Mr. Lofton was a friend. He had always been quick to make her laugh. He sought her out to share a kind word. He ensured she was comfortable.
Emma pulled out the seat and lowered herself, looking in the mirror and studying the furrow of her brow. Had she missed the signs that had stacked before her like a perfectly plain pile of ledgers?
If this act of kindness was nothing more than that, she had nothing to concern herself with.
If Mr. Lofton was attempting to make his intentions known to her, she would need to find a way to return the dressing table.
She appreciated his friendship and liked him excessively, but she did not love him.
Emma had given her heart away long ago, and try as she might, it could not be redirected. She could not love anyone but Owen.