Sukey was the first to break the next awkward bout of silence. “But she’s not,” she said, ostensibly to Mr. Bradshaw. “How could she be? She’s a servant, same as us.”
“His lordship said she was,” Mr. Bradshaw returned, as if Claire were not there amongst them, as if her personal life were any of their concern at all. “I see no reason his lordship would lie about such a thing.”
“Of course his lordship would wish to claim his child, no?” This from Monsieur Bissonet, who had abandoned his own dinner preparations in favor of this new prime morsel of gossip.
“She didn’t deny it,” Sukey observed. “Though why anyone would—”
“For God’s sake,” Claire bit off. “Of course I deny it.” Her fingers curled around the grip of the knife, wielding it like a weapon instead of a kitchen utensil.
“My lady,” Mr. Bradshaw said in a conciliatory tone, stepping closer.
“Mrs. Hotchkiss,” Claire shrilled. “I am a housekeeper. There is absolutely no proof that I am anything but that, and I will thank you not to gossip in my hearing.”
Carefully, Mr. Bradshaw approached. “Absence of evidence is not in itself proof,” he said. “His lordship wishes—”
“I don’t give a damn what his lordship wishes.” The brash statement coaxed a scandalized murmur from Sukey. “We are short too many hands for my taste, and it would be utterly inappropriate for me to heed such a request in any event.” The words left a sour taste in her mouth, as if they had clung to her tongue and rotted there. She had put too much time and effort into her position to have it usurped by an imaginary authority figure, the illusion of a lady who had existed only as a brief fragment of her past, in theory but never in practice.
“It would be even less appropriate,” Mr. Bradshaw ventured, “to have you serving in the kitchen, my lady.”
With a feral sound that would have horrified any society lady, Claire turned and thrust the knife’s grip into Mr. Bradshaw’s hand. “If you’re so concerned about it, Mr. Bradshaw,youmay chop the damned onions. ButIwill not stay here and listen to this—this nonsense!”
Mr. Bradshaw’s hand curled reflexively around the grip of the knife, and it dangled uselessly from his fingers as he stared at her, his jaw tight with strain. “Madam, I cannot in good conscience—”
Claire threw up her hands. “Do what you will,” she said. “Only leave me out of it. Sukey, remember the dinner rolls—I expect dinner to be servedpreciselyat seven.” She turned on Mr. Bradshaw once again. “For which I willnotbe present, and so you may inform his lordship!” And with that she swept out of the kitchen.
Automatically she headed for the stairs, climbing to the second floor and proceeding down the hall toward the nursery, where Matthew was no doubt being dressed for dinner. But she paused a few steps from the door, taking inventory of herself. Her fingers still reeked of onion; her hair was falling down from its pins. She was disheveled and perspiring from having spent half the day assisting with the laundering of linens. There were tiny blotches left by the combination of water and washing soda still flecking her skirts, and her arms ached from carting about the goods she’d had to purchase at market to replenish the kitchen stock. Her fingers tended toward cramping from the half dozen letters of reference she’d had to write.
Her shoulders slumped, and she pressed her fingers to her eyes—regretting the impulse when the onion juice still clinging to her fingers burned them.
Matthew did not want to see her anyway.
She turned about once again and went in search of some other task to accomplish, anything to keep her mind occupied. God knew there were any number of them going undone at present, and likely would be until additional staff could be hired to tend to them. There was simply no sense in turning her attention elsewhere.
∞∞∞
Claire had not appeared for dinner, and Gabriel wondered at his surprise of it. It had seemed to him a pacifying gesture, a step toward reconciliation—even a convenient method of restoring her to the good opinions of his staff. Though it had not precisely been his intention, he had caused trouble for her as certainly as if he’d snatched the reins of authority straight from her hands. And the truth was that he hadn’tcaredif his actions had blown back onto her, hadn’t permitted himself even the most minor consideration toward her. It had seemed to him now that the very least he could have done was to clear up the misconceptions that he had allowed to flourish.
The serving staff had been abnormally subdued at dinner, as if a pall of dread had settled over the house. Bradshaw had informed Gabriel of Claire’s refusal of his invitation in hushed tones, as if he feared his employer’s reaction. Matthew, too, had been quiet, picking at his meal and pushing his vegetables around his plate with the tines of his fork, his eyes flitting toward the servant’s passage as if expecting to catch sight of his mother there.
Matthew’s hopes had been disappointed—and even more so when Claire had failed to appear in the nursery to bid him good night. Gabriel had been uncomfortably aware that he had stolen this from her, too. Nevertheless, he had summoned up a smile for Matthew and assured him that he would send Claire up to him as soon as possible.
But when he quietly excused himself from the nursery, after the judicious application of Matthew’s bedtime rituals which were becoming more and more familiar with each passing day, locating Claire posed a problem. Though her official duties ended with the arrival of the dinner hour, she had not returned to her room—nor did any of the staff seem to know where she had gone.
Rather than running her to ground by a search of the house—which could have taken hours, given its size—and risk the not-insignificant chance of prying ears, he elected instead to wait for her within her room, to which she would surely return sooner or later.
But as the night wore on and the tallow candle he’d filched from her bedside drawer burned low, he was forced to admit thatsoonerhad certainly turned tomuch later. And before he knew it, he had dozed off, scrunched on her narrow, uncomfortable bed.
Some interminable time later, a fierce whisper pierced the fog of sleep that had enshrouded his mind. “My lord,” it came. And then again, more stridently, accompanied by a low thumping sound, and a jostling of the bed. “My lord!”
He came awake slowly, with an ache in his back and an unpleasant twinge in his neck. “Claire?” he muttered as he unfolded himself from the cramped mattress. “Where have you been?”
She held a fresh candle in her hand—the one he’d lit from among her meager store of them had guttered out—and she frowned at him with all due severity. The acrid scent of the tallow candle assailed his nose, and the flickering flame highlighted the shadows wreathing her eyes. He assumed it must be very late indeed.
“A number of household tasks required attention,” she said, drawing herself up as if bracing for a scene. “I have only a few hours left before the day begins. I would prefer to spend them sleeping this evening.”
Gabriel paused, one hand wrapped around the back of his neck in an effort to massage loose the tension that had settled there. It could not have been an easy day for her, so understaffed as the household was. Probably she had spent the whole evening seeing to the tasks that had gone undone by the maids who had resigned their positions. But she thought that he would press her for memories anyway, commandeering whatever hours remained between now and the dawning of a new day.
“What time is it?” he inquired, smothering a yawn in his hand. The pass of his palm over his face announced a prickle of stubble shadowing his jaw.
