Mists of Moorhead Manor Read online

  Once again, Mrs. Linnell nodded, revealing a trace of a smile before she gave me directions to below stairs and exited the room. Was she about to deliver a stern list of rules and regulations or—was it possible?—something far more interesting, like gossip? Suspecting the latter, I chewed and swallowed with alacrity.

  Ten minutes later I was seated in a wooden chair in front of Mrs. Linnell’s deal desk in a small cozy room just off the kitchen. Cook, I discovered, was a rotund countrywoman of indeterminate years, with a face my mother used to describe as “plain as a platter.” But when I complimented her cooking, her eyes lit up and her smile split her face from ear to ear. Hopefully, I had just acquired a second friend at Moorhead Manor. If, that is, I could consider Mrs. Linnell a friend.

  At the moment, however, Mrs. Linnell’s angular features reflected what could only be described as uneasy thoughts. She huffed a breath, pursed her lips, paused, glanced upward as if in search of divine guidance. I had a horrid qualm she was going to dismiss me on the spot.

  “Please pardon me for being frank, Miss Ballantyne,” she said at last, “but we did not expect you to be such an–ah–attractive young woman. His lordship fears he may have lit a spark in a pile of tinder.”

  Oh, dear God, it was true. They were letting me go!

  “We fear not only for our young gentlemen’s reactions to you, but Lady Vanessa may be jealous of your vitality.”

  They couldn’t . . . they mustn’t . . .

  I fought back. “But you must have known I had to be strong to survive all those years of war.”

  “Of course, my dear, we counted on that. We simply never dreamed you would be beautiful. Strikingly so.”

  Oh.

  It was true, unfortunately. I had inherited hair the color of golden amber from my father and eyes the color of lapis lazuli. And from my mother a regularity of features that seemed pleasing to most eyes—a quality of beauty, I was told, that would not fade but last a lifetime. I knew myself to be fortunate. Never before had my looks been considered a detriment.

  The autocratic tendencies I inherited from my father suddenly surfaced. “For that you may blame the good Lord, not me,” I countered.

  “Indeed.” Mrs. Linnell continued to gaze at me in thoughtful silence. I stiffened my shoulders and firmed my lips over the further protests that welled up inside me. Perhaps my eyes revealed my anxiety, for she finally added, “We are not dismissing you, if that is what you are thinking. We merely wish you to know that your position here may be more difficult than either his lordship, or you, anticipated. We will do our best to protect you, but you must be on your guard, particularly when the young gentlemen come home.”

  I was so relieved I could only mumble, “Yes, ma’am,” and fight against the stinging tears lurking just behind my eyes.

  “That said,” Mrs. Linnell declared briskly, “there are other matters you should know.”

  My head was still reeling but I made an heroic effort to pay attention.

  “Lady Vanessa was injured in a fall from her horse, nigh on two years ago now. The doctor tells us she has feeling in her limbs and should be able to walk, but so far all efforts to get her to do so have failed.” The housekeeper shook her head. “Sometimes I think it’s all young Davy’s fault. Came to us from the home farm, now didn’t he? His family’s been on that land for generations, serving the Wetheringtons, so he seemed the right choice. But they’ve grown too close, I fear. He and my lady.”

  “But surely the earl should dismiss him.” A fine one you are to talk! my inner voice jeered.

  Mrs. Linnell bent her dignity long enough to roll her eyes. “Tried that, he did. Such hysterics you’ve never heard. We had to call the doctor to quiet her. In the end, it was keep young Davy or stand by while my lady went into a decline and likely died.”

  “Good heavens,” I murmured, truly shocked. And yet I’d liked him. In that tense, overheated room David Tremaine had provided a voice of reason.

  “There is more,” Mrs. Linnell declared after heaving a sigh. “You should know the earl never goes up to London. He used to take his place in the Lords most faithfully, but after Lady Hycliffe ran off, he doesn’t show his face more than a few miles from home. A terrible blow, it was—her gone off with a neighbor just back from India, a regular nabob he was, dazzling her with his charm, his tales of strange lands, and flaunting his wealth as if he was that old King Croesus himself.”

  Mrs. Linnell’s indignation over the insult to her employer was clear, and I applauded her for it. But the scandal . . . The poor man. It was easy to see how he feared what might happen to a young woman in a house full of men.

  “I assure you, Mrs. Linnell, I am accustomed to dealing with young men. Otherwise, I could not have survived life with the cavalry, whose officers tend to be both dashing and importunate.”

  She sniffed. “Well, I can only hope so, miss. But surviving Lady Vanessa may be more difficult.”

  Unable to disagree with her on that point, I could only nod.

  She lifted the watch pinned to her bodice and exclaimed, “Lady Vanessa should be awake now, miss. And don’t be put off by Scruggs. She protects her charge like a lioness her cubs, but she’s a good sort beneath the gruff.” Mrs. Linnell tilted her head to one side, looking thoughtful. “Though ’tis possible sharing is not one of her virtues. She is accustomed to ruling the roost, now isn’t she?”

  “But what of Mr. Tremaine?”

  A snort from Mrs. Linnell. Ladylike, but nonetheless a snort. “Bides his time, does our Davy. You’d swear he never opens his mouth but, mark my words, he gets his way every time.”

  Our Davy. The local lad advanced “upstairs” at Moorhead Manor. I suspected Lady Vanessa wasn’t the only female with a soft spot for David Tremaine.

  “Off you go, child.” As I reached the door, she added, “God grant you the wisdom of Solomon.”

  Goosebumps rose on my arms as I crossed the kitchen and headed upstairs.

  A phalanx of faces awaited me in Lady Vanessa’s sitting room. Only three, but they multiplied in my imagination, bringing back dizzying remembrances of the first time I accompanied my mother to “tea” with the other officers’ wives in India. I was all of twelve, and my mother had decided it was high time for me to develop some social graces. I could still recall the horror of standing just inside the doorway, heart hammering, knees shaking, as every eye in the room fixed on me. For a moment this seemed no different.

  And then I remembered I was now eight years older, the last five of those years lived in the midst of a war. Compared to what I had experienced, Lady Vanessa and her two stalwart defenders were a mere bagatelle. I approached the trio, smiling cheerfully. “Good morning, Lady Vanessa, Miss Scruggs, Mr. Tremaine. I hope you slept well.” They continued to stare, unblinking.

  I had made no plan to ignore a curtsy, but as I walked forward, something kept my knees from bending. I was not, after all, the upstairs maid, or a stranger come paying a call. I was an employee, yes, but now a part of the household. A companion was not a servant constantly bobbing up and down every time she entered or left a room.

  At least that seemed to be the message my stiff knees wished to convey. I gulped and held out a book I had brought with me. “This is a delightful novel you may not have read, my lady, as it came out just this past year. Pride and Prejudice.” Keeping my smile pasted in place despite the three hostile faces, I added, “Is it unknown to you? If so, I should be most happy to read it to you.”

  A sudden animation crossed Lady Vanessa’s features but not the interest I had hoped for. “Tell me of London,” she commanded. “I was a month shy of my come-out when felled by this beastly accident. Tell me what it is like. Bond Street, Hyde Park, balls, routs”—she waved an imperious hand in my direction—“I want to know everything, simply everything.”

  I stood there, as crushed as if I’d been run over by a carriage. All my good intentions, my determined effort to perform my duties to the best of my ability up in smok
e. Her gushing had been quite deliberate. She knew quite well I did not move in ton circles.

  “I beg your pardon, my lady,” I managed from between gritted teeth, “but I fear I lived in London only a few weeks, and then very modestly with our regimental major and his wife in Bloomsbury. My experience of Bond Street was a single stroll as the major’s wife and I shopped for a present for her niece’s birthday. Though I admit we asked our hackney to drive along Park Lane before taking us home. We peasants so enjoy gawping at our betters.”

  A bark of laughter from Mr. Tremaine punctuated my little speech, which had grown a trifle testy. For a moment I wilted inside, as I heard my words and realized it was going to more difficult than I had thought to turn the daughter of the regiment into a humble companion.

  David Tremaine, still smiling, came out from behind Lady Vanessa’s chair, arranged a comfortable chair directly in front of Lady Vanessa, then waved me into it with a courtly flourish. No ordinary farmer’s son was Mr. David Tremaine. “Have you followed the drum all your life?” he asked.

  “I have. Except for a few months between India and the Peninsula, I have spent little time in England. I was, in fact, born in a house on the outskirts of Lahore.”

  “Merciful heavens!” Miss Scruggs exclaimed. “Are you a heathen?”

  “Don’t be absurd,” Lady Vanessa snapped, much to my astonishment. “The British Army maintains proper standards, wherever it may be. Is that not correct, Miss Ballantyne?”

  “Indeed,” I replied faintly, still surprised by the unexpected support. “I had an Indian ayah, of course, but I assure you we English take our culture with us wherever we may be.” Far too much so, Papa always said, but this wasn’t the moment to add anything controversial to an already tense atmosphere.

  “Then you may tell me about India,” Lady Vanessa announced with all the imperiousness of a queen. “For I am sick to death of Devon.”

  I intercepted a swift sympathetic glance from Mr. Tremaine—oddly enough, aimed at me instead of Vanessa—and I settled down to recounting some of the many wonderful, terrifying, and intriguing moments from my years in a world so different from her own.

  Perhaps, just perhaps, I might be able to maintain my position at Moorhead Manor, after all.

  Chapter Four

  Through some fortuitous miracle—divine intervention?—my life settled into a far smoother routine than I had dared anticipate. Perhaps it was the strong common sense and powerful influence of Mr. Tremaine, combined with my hard-earned adaptability, but tensions in Lady Vanessa’s apartments eased to tolerable, and we began to set a pattern for our daily interaction. I even managed—after only three days of suffering wilting temperatures—to drop a hint to Mr. Tremaine that the army in Spain had discovered the debilitating effects of heat. And that I truly believed Lady Vanessa would be better served by less coal in the grate and by breathing fresh seabreezes, available by simply opening a window.

  He gave me a long look, his dark eyes questioning, and then he nodded. That was all it took. He did not consult Lady Vanessa or Miss Scruggs. He simply laid less coal on the fire and ignored his employer’s protests when, on a particularly fine day, he opened the casement windows, tying them in place so only an inch of space separated the two sides.

  Clever, very clever, was “our Davy.” And, I thought rather too smugly, so was I. There was also a certain warmth in suspecting I had found yet another friend at Moorhead Manor.

  Each day I read a chapter of Pride and Prejudice out loud. We talked of India, of life in Portugal and Spain. I touched on the hardships as well as the brighter moments, though carefully avoiding the horrors I could never speak of to anyone. Once or twice, I felt that Mr. Tremaine was steering my words in that dark direction—perhaps believing tales of persons worse off than herself would take Lady Vanessa’s mind off her own woes—but I could not do it.

  I did, however, enjoy looking at her sketchbook. Her portraits of the residents of Moorhead Manor were sharply delineated, sometimes almost to the point of caricature. The flowers she reproduced from the bouquets brought to her room were so perfectly detailed they might have illustrated a botanical text. And her embroidery put me to shame. Upon discovering my ineptitude, she gleefully determined to torture me by giving me lessons for an hour after the lunch we shared each day in her sitting room.

  In return, I admitted to my one and only talent, a repertoire of songs, mostly simple songs of the people I had acquired over the years. Lady Vanessa seemed more calm when I sang, so music also became part of our daily routine.

  And then there were the quiet moments when we sat by her window and looked out at the gardens and beyond to the rolling hills that marked the beginning of Exmoor. Though frequently obscured by mist, it was beautiful country, offering myriad shades of green, yellow, and gold, backed by pure blue sky dotted with scudding white clouds. Lady Vanessa had sketched every aspect of the view from the windows of her corner room, and I made a mental note to use her need for fresh material for her drawings to prod her downstairs and out the door. But that time had not yet come. A scant fortnight’s acquaintance did not give me leave to upset my lady’s ingrained habits. Or her fears.

  My “half-day,” I’d been informed by Mrs. Linnell, would be Thursday afternoons—the time appointed for Lady Vanessa’s weekly visit from Dr. Biggs—and my services would not be needed. On the day I first experienced those glorious hours of freedom, I was torn by indecision. The cliffs or the stables? As leery as I was of the ocean, it fascinated me. The danger called to me—not only the precipitous drop from the rocky cliffs but the surging power of the surf, whose booming crashes against the rocks could clearly be heard from my bedchamber window. But I had grown up with horses, horses, horses, and the men who rode them as if they were one entity. And right there, in the midst of recalling glorious moments of the cavalry on parade, I was hit by the sick anguish of hearing the barrage of pistol shots when our men had been forced to slaughter their mounts because there was not room enough on the ships sent to evacuate us from Corunna and they could not be left for the use of the French.

  A half hour of my half-day squandered as I sat on my bed, fighting nausea, combating memories I had ruthlessly banished, hoping never to encounter them again. Yet in the end, I chose the stables. And did not regret it. Clearly, the Earl of Hycliffe had a fine eye for horseflesh. One chestnut stallion, an Arabian, captured my attention.

  “Zeus, Lord Exmere’s beast,” I was told by Dobbins, the stablemaster. Ah. I associated the name with the face Lady Vanessa had captured in her sketchbook. Lord Hycliffe’s elder son and heir. Tossing curls, laughing eyes, a devil-may-care expression that could be the model for every care-for-nobody young nobleman in England. The perfect frivol, who lived for any shallow pursuit that might alleviate the boredom of being young, titled, wealthy, and having nothing better to do with his time.

  But if Lord Exmere could ride Zeus . . . perhaps the viscount had at least one virtue.

  Before my second half-day, I was summoned to the earl’s study, where I dutifully made my report. I did not add that under the circumstances I considered anything short of blood pooling on his daughter’s carpet to be progress. He merely nodded, as if nothing I had to say was new to him. Very likely it was not.

  “I hear you have been visiting the stables,” he said.

  “Yes, my lord. Your horses are of superior stock, and I am enjoying making their acquaintance. There is even enough time for me to visit them while my lady takes her daily nap.”

  “Would you care to ride? I understand you have developed a fondness for old Bess, and goodness knows she grows fat from too little exercise.”

  The unimaginatively named Bess had been his wife’s horse, Dobbins told me, and the thought of the earl offering her to me fair took my breath away. The stablemaster had also informed me that Lady Vanessa’s horse had suffered a broken leg and been put down immediately after her fall. Except for a mare kept for stud, all the other horses in the earl’s stables were
stallions or geldings, untrained to a ladies’ saddle.

  “My lord . . . truly?” I whispered, eyes wide.

  “Truly,” he responded with the smile he so seldom exercised. “I will see that Dobbins polishes up the sidesaddle.”

  Freedom! Freedom to explore. To once again feel the wind on my face, experience the glory of seeing the world from a height, the power of four strong legs pounding the earth beneath me . . .

  But I would be alone. No Papa, no Mama, no regiment. Just myself and my memories.

  The next step in grieving, I acknowledged. I would ride alone and learn to consider it normal. And I would be grateful for this favor. After all, the earl could have thought, My daughter’s companion ride my wife’s horse? Absurd!

  “Thank you, my lord.” I dropped a deep curtsy and returned to my duties. I could scarcely wait for my next half-day.

  Thursday afternoons, however, were not my only opportunity for freedom. Miss Scruggs was as firm a believer in a rigid schedule as the females who ruled a traditional English nursery. Lady Vanessa napped from two to four every afternoon, which gave me two blessed hours to do as I pleased. One day, when the sky was only slightly overcast and the mists trapped in some underground lair—or so my imagination fancied—I made my way down the lane to where the coach had dropped me at the side of the road.

  Oh. My. On the morning after my arrival, I discovered my room looked out over rolling lawn and occasional stubby trees to the vast expanse of the ocean. But up close it was almost overpowering. The distance from the coaching road to the cliffs was a good forty or fifty yards, but I inched forward, testing the ground with each step. The cliffs might look as if they were made of solid rock, but both Mrs. Linnell and Allard, the butler, had warned me they were treacherous and not to go too near the edge. But curiosity got the better of me, the boom of the surf luring me on until, at last, I could see the waves crashing against an irregular barricade of jagged rocks at the base of the cliffs.