Chapter Two
“T hat shall be all for today, Allegro,” Lady Riese said.
Apollo Allegro inclined his head politely and began to gather the neat stacks of paper into a file basket. Completed correspondence awaiting the viscount’s signature. Bills the viscountess had authorized him to pay. A pile of bills and correspondence that he’d been ordered to investigate further.
In theory, he was secretary to Lord Riese, the lady’s son, but the viscount had no interest in his lands and business affairs, and no head for them either. Oscar’s mother and Pol ran everything between them, Pol doing all the preparatory work and the management, Lady Riese making decisions.
Decisions that Oscar, Lord Riese, seldom overturned, except when his own interests were affected.
“About the dressmaker’s rent—” Pol began. Oscar had given him the order last night. Madame La Blanc’s rent—already double what it should be and due in less than a week—was to be doubled again. The dressmaker had already been told.
Lady Riese interrupted him. “My son has made up his mind,” she said.
Of course, Oscar had. The rutting villain wanted Madame’s seamstress. He probably had no idea that the girl was also Madame’s daughter. Pol made it his job to know everything there was to know about the people of the estate and the nearby village, the better to protect them from Lady Riese and her son.
Pol had no intention of sharing any of their secrets with his employers. Who were also his relatives, but a man didn’t choose his family. He tried another tack with the viscountess. “It will unsettle the other tenants, my lady.”
Lady Riese fixed him with her icy glare. “They will not question the viscount’s decision. Nor shall you. Remember your place, Allegro.”
Pol picked up his basket, bowed, and left the lady’s sitting room. He knew his place in the Riese household. Far beneath the viscountess and her children. Not quite a servant and certainly not part of the family. Required to be grateful for every bite of food and every thread of clothing.
He had been made aware of where he fitted in the Riese household from the first. He had arrived from Italy as a child of not quite ten to discover that the uncle to whom he had been sent after his mother’s death had also died.
Finding himself in the care of strangers after his mother’s death, missing his mother and the only home he had ever known, another death—and that of a stranger—was of little moment. In the face of his grief, the loss of his surname was no more than a blip. He still remembered the moment, though, when he ceased to be Apollo Riese and became Apollo Allegro.
“Your name is not Riese,” the viscountess had told him, her voice cold and harsh. “Your father never married your mother. You have some claim on us, for your father was my husband’s brother. You may stay as long as you obey orders and make yourself useful.”
Or, at least, those were her sentiments. He had been only nine years of age, and perhaps his memory of the exact words was faulty. What was certain was that he had been called Apollo Allegro from that time, and he had been sent to the housekeeper to be put to work.
From that moment, Pol cleaned pots in the kitchen, polished silver, and emptied chamber pots. He initially slept in a little nook off the kitchen, although later he was given a room upstairs, near the family. He obeyed orders and made himself useful.
It could have been worse. The estate’s steward, the housekeeper, and the butler remembered his father, and though they expected him to complete the tasks they gave him, they also made certain he had time to play, plenty to eat, and as much affection as they could provide without the viscountess noticing.
He grew up in the servants’ hall, progressing through roles and taking on more and more responsibility. Lessons also had to be fitted into his busy day, for his grandmother, Clara Lady Riese, as she was known, had insisted he have the education of a gentleman. Or, rather, all his other activities had to be fitted around the lessons that he shared with his cousin Oscar, who—despite being the same age as Pol—was already the Viscount Riese.
Oscar was a bully, a sneak, and not very smart. The first two were a problem. The last was an opportunity, and Pol soon found himself trading help with homework for immunity from mean tricks and nasty tattling. “Help” being another word for doing the homework for Oscar.
“I won’t need to know all of this stuff,” Oscar insisted. “You shall be my secretary, Polly, and will deal with all my correspondence and other rubbish of that nature.”
Sure enough, by the time of Pol’s first open rebellion when he was twenty, he was Oscar’s secretary and also his part-time house steward and assistant to the land steward. He was also the unofficial protector of his grandmother, who suffered chronic ill health and was living in the dower house attended by a companion, a devoted maid, and other servants.
Then the viscountess—Pol was not encouraged to call her “aunt”—decided Pol would justify the costs of his piano and harp lessons by becoming music teacher to Oscar’s little sister, who had been a baby when Pol first arrived at Riese Towers.
Pol said it was too much work on top of everything else he did, and if she wanted to give him another task, it was time he was paid for at least some of them.
“I have been providing you with bed and board since you were a small boy,” the viscountess had pointed out.
“I worked for my keep from the day I arrived,” he had retorted, and had listed all the positions that would have cost her wages if not for him. His heart had been pounding in his chest so hard he could not understand how she had failed to hear it, but years of standing up to Oscar and others had taught him the victory often went to the one who best feigned calm and determination.
“Out,” she had screeched. “Out you go, you ungrateful brat.”
“If you wish, my lady. But consider that I am only asking to be paid as Lord Riese’s secretary and Lady Amanda’s music teacher. If I leave, you will need to pay someone else. You will also need to hire a house steward and an assistant to the land steward.”
He had calculated she’d need to replace him with at least two people, plus the part time music teacher, and that she would not do it.
He had not actually intended to leave back then, six years ago. A decade of finding ways to work around the viscountess and her son had given him a set of skills essential to those who worked in their household and on their land. Besides, his grandmother needed him—not only was she ill, but she had also recently lost both her companion and her maid, and the replacements were strangers to her.
He flattered himself that even Amanda, spoilt though she was, would be worse if he was not there.
Lady Riese sulked for weeks and then gave in.
Ever since that time, Pol had been saving every penny he did not have to spend on essentials. He had enough to support himself and Gran while he looked for a position. Soon, he would take Gran and her attendants and move away. Or perhaps just Gran. Pol did not trust the nurse, whom Lady Riese had hired since Gran had become so ill and confused.
Amanda would leave for her first Season in a few weeks. Lady Riese and her son would accompany Amanda to London and Pol would be left to run the estate. Once the weather was fine enough to be safe for Gran, he would seize his opportunity—he and Gran could be far away before the Rieses knew he was gone.
Meanwhile, he needed to deal with these papers and meet with the land steward. After that, he had a music lesson to deliver.
*
Bessie did not attract much interest at the market. She was nearly ten years old and would not be in milk until she had been successfully bred and had given birth to the resulting calf, which meant no milk for at least nine months.
The first person to make an offer said he would pay two pounds, for he could get that much value out of her hide and her bones. “Not much value in the meat,” he opined. “It might be fit for the dogs.”
Jackie was horrified. “She has many useful years yet,” she insisted. She could not sell her old friend to be made into handbags, dog food and glue.
She received three more offers in the next two hours, and all of them were insultingly low. “A good cow might fetch as much as twenty pounds,” she told one man, indignantly, after he’d suggested that he could take Bessie away if she’d accept ten shillings.
“Aye, lad,” the man agreed. “A good cow. But that’s not what you have to sell now, is it?”
By the middle of the afternoon, Jackie was tired, hungry, thirsty, and discouraged. She hated the thought that she might have to take Bessie home and admit she had failed. Finally, a fifth buyer approached. Humbly, and without much hope. Poorly dressed and bent with age, she did not look like a buyer, but as she examined Bessie with gentle touches and soft murmurings, Jackie found herself warming to the woman.
“You’ve allowed her to dry off,” the woman commented.
“She calved two years ago, and gave good quantities of milk for twenty months,” Jackie explained. “We thought we would breed her again after we sold the calf, a lovely little heifer.” She shrugged. “It was not possible.” Though Civerton was not on Riese land, many people from the estate and the village came here for market. It would not be wise to explain that she and her mother were being victimized.
The woman asked about the quantities of milk and how well she behaved at the milking stool. “She seems sweet natured,” she commented.
“She is,” Jackie assured her. “She has a very sweet nature. Do you want her for yourself, Mistress?”
“I do. To join my little herd. I cannot pay much, mind. I’ll have to feed her for nearly a year before I get anything back. Ten shillings, lad. What do you say?”
“I’ve been offered two pounds,” Jackie said, honestly.
The old woman examined Bessie with narrowed eyes. “I could not go to two pounds,” she said. “You should take it, lad.”
“It was a knacker,” Jackie explained. “I couldn’t sell dear Bessie to a knacker.”
“No,” the old woman agreed. “It would be a great shame. I shall tell you what, young man. I will give you one pound and a packet of my never-fail heavy crop beans. Come up like magic, they do and taste delicious. I don’t give them to just anyone, mind. But I do like a boy who wants a good home for his cow.”
A pound. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was a better offer than any but the one from the knacker. “I’ll take it,” Jackie said.
It was on the walk home that Jackie had her idea. A pound wasn’t enough to pay the rent, but it was the entrance fee to the Crown and Pumpkin’s gambling night, which was on tonight. Yes, and Jack Le Gume had one pound of stake money hidden in a hollow oak just outside the village. Jackie had planned to give it to Maman with the price paid for Bessie, but even two pounds, with the two pounds they had already saved, would fall short of what was needed.
But what if she could double her stake? Or better? Riese was one of the habitues at the Crown and Pumpkin. How fitting it would be if his losses paid the extortionate rent he was demanding. Yes. Jack Le Gume would certainly be visiting the Crown and Pumpkin tonight.
First, she needed to face her mother and admit that all she’d received for the cow was a package of bean seeds. Maman was as upset as Jackie expected.
“Bean seeds? Jacqueline, how could you! You foolish, foolish girl. Even a few shillings would have been better than that!”
Almost, Jackie confessed to having the pound, but she clung to the picture she’d imagined—Maman’s face tomorrow morning, when Jackie showered her with money and admitted she had withheld the pound the woman had paid in the interests of multiplying it.
It would all be worth it.
Maman snatched the little package of bean seeds from Jackie’s hand, strode across the room, slammed the window open, and threw the seeds—package and all—out the window. “That for your bean seeds. Do you think we shall be here to see them grow? Or will have any ground to grow them in after that scoundrel Riese throws us out? Do you not understand what he has planned for you, you foolish child? Out. Get out now and find some work to do. Clean a few more horse stalls. Wash dishes at the inn. We need money, Jacqueline.”
Poor Maman. She always got angry when she was upset. Perhaps Jackie should tell her about the pound, and how she planned to make more money. “It is not quite as bad as it seems, Maman…”
But Maman interrupted her. “You are just like your father. It was the same with him. Always, something would come along to save us. He was certain of it. Always. And always the same. He would gamble away our last coins and things would be worse. Get out of my sight, Jacqueline. I do not wish to see you.”
Jackie left.