Seven
Lavender: Thursday
Lavender carried an array of breakfast dishes to the schoolroom. The boys were already at their worktable, poring over the drawings they’d copied from the engravings on the pendulum clock.
Apparently frustrated with the lack of results, they immediately abandoned their project in exchange for food.
Since Lord Fortescue wasn’t about, she felt brave enough to examine the odd drawings while they ate.
There had been a message in Latin inside the pendulums. She assumed the boys had translated it since one of the papers had English words she recognized.
She tried to sound them out, but they didn’t appear to make a great deal of sense.
She liked the sketches better. “Zigzags, like a lady’s ruff! And this looks like a pleat. Was the earl designing clothes?”
Oliver frowned, and carrying his jam-smeared toast, joined her at the worktable. “Pleat?”
Lavender pointed at the crude sketch. “It’s only my fancy. I see designs in everything.”
Davy was busy scooping up eggs with his toast. The more talkative of the two, he wrinkled his wide brow. “Designs? Not geometry?”
“Well, I don’t know geometry. I only know embroidery and things like darts and pleats that make your clothes fit properly.”
“Earls don’t know dresses,” Davy said through a mouthful of bread. He didn’t express scorn, like most males when she tried to talk with them. He just seemed to be pondering the problem.
“Gentlemen peruse pattern books, just like ladies,” she asserted. “They like fancy waistcoats and buttons and tailoring to suit their physiques. In the earl’s time, they wore frills and designed their own waistcoats.”
“Books,” Oliver said with decision. He looked at her hopefully. “Library.”
Oh my, she had never consulted the library for her designs. It seemed a ridiculous quest now. But if Lord Fortescue must sit with his brother. . . The rest of them must keep his active students occupied. “I shall ask Minerva what she might have about patterns and designs.”
Thea entered in time to hear the last of this conversation. “The ladies have knitting patterns. Furniture fabrics have designs. What are we creating?”
“Jewel map,” Oliver said in satisfaction. “Books.”
“I believe your tutor insists on complete sentences,” Thea admonished.
Thinking Thea a far better teacher than herself, Lavender picked up her tray and prepared to leave.
Her cousin halted her. “Fort needs relief from nursing duty for a while. If you’ll stay with the patient, I’ll stay with the boys.”
Alarmed, Lavender froze. “It’s most improper. A lady doesn’t—”
Thea gestured impatiently. “Weston is unconscious. Just keep a cool cloth on his head. Meera will be here shortly. If he starts thrashing about, shout. I’ll wake one of the men.”
Thea was a proper, London-bred lady, an heiress, but she was also behaving improperly with Arnaud. Lavender wasn’t naive enough to take her cousin’s word as gospel, but she was practical enough to recognize the difficulty of their situation.
Reluctantly, she abandoned the tray and crossed the hall to the sick room.
Dark curl dangling in the middle of his forehead, Lord Fortescue stirred wearily at her entrance, throwing back the blanket covering him in the room’s lone chair. “The boys?”
“Still solving puzzles. Thea is with them. She says you are to take a break while I sit and wait for Meera.” With his cravat undone and jaw unshaven, he looked more scoundrel than a duke’s son, and Lavender dared to add, “You must eat, and I don’t need to be carrying trays for everyone.”
He sleepily rubbed his bristled jaw and pushed out of the chair. “I cannot thank you enough for everything you are doing. I know you are needed in the sewing room. Is there aught I can do for you while I’m out there?”
Shave, so he didn’t look so. . . human? The pale noble on the bed, possibly dying, gave evidence they were all equal on some level.
If she was stuck in here with Lord Fortescue and his noble brother, perhaps she could think of them as she did Hunt and Arnaud.
“The boys want books on patterns and designs. We were talking about clothes and fabric designs. I can’t explain better than that. ”
He grimaced and tried to straighten his rumpled clothing. “That’s helping me, not you, but I’ll send a message to Minerva. Anything else?”
She considered it. He obviously needed assistance with the earl and the boys.
If she were to help, her sewing tasks had to be limited to what she could carry in her basket.
“If you can send another message to Kate, she needs to take charge of the sewing room. One of her assistants can watch the shop. And ask her to send back my sewing basket.” She hadn’t intended to do more than deliver food this morning.
Then, abruptly recalling events at the inn, she asked with alarm, “Should I close the shop? Is there any danger to my clerks?”
He looked grim. “I cannot know the answer to that. I will make inquiries. Perhaps ask Kate what she recommends?’’
Kale loved the shop as much as Lavender did. She nodded. “Thank you. I would never have believed anyone would deliberately harm another, until—” She gestured helplessly. Being drugged, bound, and vulnerable a few months ago had made her fearful.
Still looking grim, he nodded understanding. “If my brother wakes, feel free to abandon him. This is beyond generous of you.”
He departed before she could summon a reply. She should abandon an ill patient once he woke? Why?
She wished she had her sewing basket. Unaccustomed to idleness, she paced the elaborate room, admiring the dusty parquet floor.
As a sliver of sunlight peeked through the moth-eaten draperies and crawled across the wall, she noticed the faded murals.
Perhaps Arnaud or one of his artist friends might touch them up someday.
She pulled back the floor-length brocade drapery.
The courtyard where the kitchen staff grew herbs and vegetables was ragged and nearly empty at this time of year.
The roses bordering the wall had only one or two fading blooms. In the dim morning light, she glimpsed one of the captain’s hounds sniffing animal trails.
She thought there might be a guard by the gate, smoking a cigar.
Would Fort have thought to pay in cigars as well as coin?
It seemed outlandish for a mere tutor, but a duke’s son—knew excess.
A groan had her spinning around. She was supposed to be applying cold compresses to a fevered brow. . .
When she gingerly replaced the cloth, the patient opened his eyes. It was hard to remember he was the heir to a dukedom when his eyes reflected such pain.
“Fort?” The word appeared to take effort.
“Gone to fetch breakfast. He’s been up all night watching over you.” She rather enjoyed speaking to an earl as if he were a toddler. He couldn’t have her cast out. She loved owning some of the roof over her head.
Apparently accepting that, he closed his eyes again. “Keep Huntley away.”
The captain! Why? What. . .
But their aristocratic patient was unconscious again, leaving her terrified and dithering.