Chapter 10 #2
With a nod, Cormac set down the wheelbarrow he held and removed his hat as I fought to breathe. “I’m that sorry, Miss, but when ye didn’t stir at the rattle of the barrow, I thought ye might be lost in yer thoughts. Better a startle now than a scream when ye finally spied me, in my opinion.”
I nodded. I’d have afforded another the same luxury.
“In truth, I was lost.” I brought my hand to my heart, as if the gesture might steady my thundering pulse. “Away with my thoughts, that is.”
“This place does that to people,” Cormac said, taking hold of the wheelbarrow once more. “I’ll not be in yer hair. Only fertilizing, as the weather’s fine.”
“Oh, that’s quite all right. Mama thought it best if I took some air.
” Pursing my lips, I noticed he was dressed for labor—a good linen shirt paired with dark woolen knee breeches, darned stockings, and sturdy boots.
He looked more a tenant farmer than a footman.
Then again, I wouldn’t want to sully my good clothes if asked to ferry manure around.
“You’re delivering fertilizer to the gardener? ”
He smiled and pushed the wheelbarrow forward. “I’m the gardener, Miss.”
“But I thought you were the footman?”
“Gardener, footman, horse hand, goods negotiator, land agent, overseer. A jack of all trades, I suppose. Whatever her ladyship needs, I provide.”
“Oh.” My brows drew together of their own accord. I knew the staff was sparse—a third of what the Moore-Vandeleurs employed—but it seemed odd that Lady Catherine wouldn’t have need of separate people to fulfill the roles. He was only one man.
“Not many souls come this far afield to visit,” he offered. “Her ladyship trusts me with most of her affairs, and I’m paid three times the salary.”
A flush stained my cheeks, and I busied myself with finding a bench to perch upon. “I didn’t ask, Mr. O’Dea.”
“Ah,” he said, a wide smile lighting his face as he set down the barrow near the farthest flower bed, “but ye did.”
My eyes widened at that, and he chuckled.
“Ye wear yer thoughts on yer face, Maggie O’Shaughnessy.”
Maggie. Me. My own name. How long had it been since I was myself? My chest tightened. “It’s Wilhelmina now. Her ladyship wouldn’t like to hear me addressed as, well, myself.”
Pulling a short spade from the depths of the wheelbarrow, Cormac nodded before shoveling a measure of manure. “Apologies, Miss. I didn’t mean any offense.”
I watched as he spread the fertilizer and breathed deep to gather my thoughts. Maggie. When all this was over, could I ever be Maggie again? Could I ever face all that had happened without the guilt of knowing that I’d dishonored my family to survive?
“Reading, are ye?” Cormac called, and with a start, I realized I still held a book in my hand.
“Mama thought I could read aloud. But if that will bother you, I’d be glad to sit and admire the flowers.”
“What is it?” he asked, moving on to the next flower bed.
“Pardon?”
“The book. What is it?”
“Oh, um.” I hadn’t even looked when I’d grabbed it on my way out of the library. But now, I turned the leather-bound tome over, to read the title. “The Divine Comedy, Volumes One, Two, and Three.”
I glanced up, and Cormac stood frozen, his lips parted as he stared at me. “What?”
“Well …” He trailed off, then barked a laugh. “Not exactly light reading, that.”
“Oh?” I frowned, and opened the cover. “Is it not a comedy?”
“Certainly not.” With a shake of his head, he went back to shoveling. “Have ye not heard of Dante’s Inferno, then?”
“No.”
“That’d be volume one, and ’tis about a dead man navigating through the nine circles of Hell.”
“Oh. Well.” With a scrunch of my nose, I closed the book and placed it on the bench. “Not exactly the kind of thing I’d need to know for a meeting with the solicitors.”
“No, indeed.” With a grunt, Cormac took up the barrow once more and wheeled it closer.
“Besides, if it’s convincing them ye need, titled ladies might talk about novels—enough spare time for fiction and all that.
Though, her ladyship isn’t one for novels herself.
Howld on there. I might have something.”
Setting down the barrow, I watched as Cormac hopped toward the gardener’s cottage, before being swallowed by the hydrangeas.
He certainly didn’t strike me as the novel-reading type.
Then again, neither was I. If only because I’d never read one before.
So far, Lady Catherine had me read pamphlets on housewifery and a few philosophical texts that I couldn’t decipher—all in the name of improving my speech and comprehension.
I glanced at the book I’d pilfered from the library and sighed. The nine circles of Hell didn’t seem at all appetizing.
“Here ye go.”
I looked up, and there was Cormac, book in hand.
“I picked it up in Hodges in Dublin on a trip for her ladyship,” he explained, holding it out as he approached. “A little less reality might be just what the doctor ordered, given what’s happening in the country.”
I smiled as I took the book, but Cormac’s gaze had shifted to Browne House.
“I suppose you’d argue we’re living in one of those circles of Hell,” I said.
He glanced at me. “Are we not?”
“Not here,” I replied. “Not within these walls, at least. We’re fed and sheltered,” I reminded him. He pursed his lips and shoved his hands in his pockets.
“There’s that.”
“What else is there?” I asked, turning my attention to the book. Its pages were bound in light brown leather, its title etched in silver script. “The Count of Monte Cristo? What’s this about, then?”
“Ah.” With a shrug, Cormac backtracked to the barrow and continued fertilizing. “Vengeance for a deed most foul.”
“And this is light reading?” I chuckled and opened the book.
“’Tis about a man who is betrayed by an aristocratic friend, for the crime of loving the same woman. And when he escapes the prison he’s sent to, he assumes the identity of a nobleman to enact his revenge.”
A chilled breeze ruffled the shawl at my throat. I’d had a bellyful of noblemen and aristocrats. Enough to last a lifetime. But was I not assuming the identity of a nobleman myself? Noblewoman, at least. “And you think I’ll enjoy it?”
“I hope ye do. ’Tisn’t the kind of romances the ladies of leisure might frequent. But it might be enough of an escape to help ye forget all ye’ve been through. At least, for a time.”
“Did you? Enjoy it, that is?”
He paused in his work and threw a smile over his shoulder. “I did. While reading, I was both prisoner and pirate, and relished the comeuppance at the end. But I won’t spoil it for ye. Is her ladyship teaching ye well?”
“Pardon?” I asked.
“Her ladyship,” he repeated, taking a moment to lean on the spade.
“We had a kind landlord that allowed the family’s tutor to teach the tenants’ children their letters, and I was lucky enough to be one of those children.
But it seems ye’ve caught on over-quick, so I thought her ladyship must be a great teacher. ”
“Oh, well, yes. I suppose she is.” No need to divulge my entire life’s story to a stranger. God knew, I didn’t want to get into details I’d prefer remain buried. “She’s been very kind. And evidence of her kindness continues to impress me.”
He nodded, then glanced away. “I hear she is. Kind, that is. If it weren’t for her, and this job, me mam and dad would have to take ship to the Americas. And me along with them.”
“You hear she’s kind? Sounds to me like saving your family is evidence enough of that.”
“Aye, well.” Puffing his cheeks, Cormac rubbed the nape of his neck. “There’s still something not quite right about this place. But her family is certainly kind, and I’ll never say a bad word about her ladyship.”
“You know them well? Her family?”
He turned, cocking his head to the side before forcing a smile to his face.
A ripple of recognition took hold as I held his gaze, but it flittered away as he shook his head.
“I suppose ye could say that. She’s a nobody, like you, and I.
A tenant farmer’s daughter, elevated by his lordship, may he rest in peace.
And now, she’s the best of landlords. The people here are lucky to have her, though most aren’t so fortunate.
Lucky his lordship loved her and wed her, so she could care for them when he was gone. ”
I pressed my lips together as my brows knotted above narrowed eyes. A keening ache rose in my chest, a wail I swallowed down, down, ’til all that remained was the memory of promises made and the labor that followed.
My son.
Our son.
But Teddy hadn’t kept his promises to me—the daughter of a tenant farmer. And suddenly, her ladyship and I were the same. Two women promised the world—one living the life she’d hoped could be hers, the other a specter of what could have been, living a lie to appease the other.
“God bless her,” I murmured, making the sign of the cross. I didn’t fault her ladyship. Not a whit. But the rage that bubbled up my throat was sure to suffocate me if I let it. With a shake of my head, I cleared my throat. “What an incredibly fortuitous rise in station.”
“Maybe there’s truth to rumor, and it has something to do with whatever goes on in that attic.
” Cormac jerked a thumb toward the house, and I turned to follow its direction.
A large, round window on the upper floor.
“Have ye seen her that lives up there yet? The woman in white? The spirit? ’Tis why I don’t stay in the house. I prefer the gardener’s cottage.”
Laced with respectful fear, his words forced a cool sweat to my forehead. I stared at the window, an all-seeing gaze that crept over my skin, raising the little hairs of my arms. The silhouette of a person quickly ducked out of sight. Was Lady Catherine there? Watching?
If she was, she wouldn’t like to hear such silliness.
“Whatever do you mean?” I asked. “Are you alluding to the supposed haunting?”
A flicker of shadow darted across the window as Lady Catherine went about her business in the attic, and I shivered.
“Never mind. Nothing to worry about,” he replied.
It certainly didn’t sound like “nothing,” but part of me didn’t want to dig any further.
I had thought mayhap the spirit could be Wilhelmina herself, tethered here by the grief of her mother.
But when I thought of the account of a haunting in Lord Browne’s journal, that theory dissipated on the wind.
Wilhelmina was recently deceased, and Lord Browne had passed a long time since.
“Shall I read aloud?” I asked, averting my eyes from whatever stared down at us from the attic.
“Oh!” Cormac glanced at me, his eyes alight. “Would ye?”
I nodded and flipped the pages to the first chapter. “Marseilles: The Arrival. On the twenty-fourth of February, 1815, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde, signalled the three-master—”
But as I read, the crunch of shoes on gravel echoed through the garden, and I glanced toward the bower.
The blood froze in my veins as Lady Catherine’s black silk skirt came into view, followed by the lady herself.
Eyes wild, I sharply glanced at the attic window.
There wasn’t a hope on God’s green earth that she’d made it from the attic to the garden in less than a minute.
Which begged the question: Who had been watching? Or what?
“There you are, Wilhelmina. Ah, Mr. O’Dea,” called Lady Catherine. She strode forward, her face etched with worry. “I’m afraid I simply can’t work, given my fear that you’ve overextended yourself.”
With a frown of my own, I set down The Count of Monte Cristo and rose from my perch. “Th-the air is already working wonders,” I said, my eyes flitting toward the large window on the upper floor, brows drawing together as yet another shadow crossed from one side to the other.
“I’ve seen to the soothing herbs myself and would feel much better if you went to rest in your room.
” Lady Catherine said, running a hand over her immaculately styled hair.
She glanced at Cormac—who had gone back to his work—then pulled me aside.
“Are you certain you don’t wish me to call Dr. Brady? It would be no trouble at all.”
“No, thank you, Mama.” I shook my head, heart racing as I glanced back at the garden. The beautiful colors now seemed naught but dull parodies of the bright wonder I’d thought it not long ago. I feared what might visit with the incense, what buried memories might scratch toward the surface.
“Very well,” said Lady Catherine with a sigh. “Do let me know if you change your mind. Stress can wreak havoc on the health. But you needn’t worry. Your studying is going well, and we’ll get through this, you and I. Together. I promise you that.”
But I held no stock in promises.
Not anymore.