“Are you planning to knit us all wool caps?” He laughed.
“You’ll be glad if I do, my lord.” Wells watched her add another line:needles, 6 and 8 size.It gave him a thought.
“With your permission I shall send to London for new underclothes, having now your measurements. Though I daresay you’ll not need many as I intend to keep you mostly underdressed.” He slid the blade neatly down his cheek as he watched her ears pink. “However, a few choice items”—hepaused his cut-throat midair—“are always a nice addition to a woman’s wardrobe.” He added to himself almost, “I know just the London shop.”
He saw her leaveunderclothesoff the list, though he insisted she writeMadame LeBrecht’sat the top of the page.
“Let me see.” He put down his blade to sit on the bed and review what she’d just written, one hand lazily trailing the length of her bare back. “If you would like another shilling and three towards your debt, I advise you now dress and bake me another three loaves, Charles. No, make it four.”
“That will be one and eight pence, my lord.”
He smirked and rose to wash his face. “I’m glad you’ve a good head on your shoulders. I will visit this Mrs. Jenkins today for your sourdough starter and send Cuthbert into town with your list. But right now I’ve a stonemason to start in on repairs, so have a loaf ready for me when I return.” He reached to pinch her thigh.
“Ow!” she yelped, to which he grabbed the list from her hands before he grabbed her face, bending down to give her a firm, commanding kiss.
Wells whispered in her ear, “Once you are healed, Fox, we will finish what we started. And I promise you will like it, Charles, if only you will let yourself.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
That morning, Charles baked four more loaves for Lord Wellesley and scrambled herself two eggs. For the first time in forever she was not hungry. Dressed in his lordship’s clothes, she’d also held her head high when his men had entered the kitchen and commented on her appearance. And she would continue to hold her head high, for if she were to be housekeeper here at Almsdale she’d need to command these brutes—unless Wells shipped them back to London and hired himself some competent Cumbrians instead. Charles would see about recommendingthatto his lordship forthwith.
She left out three loaves for the horde and hid the fourth high upon the butter shelf for Lord Wellesley. And then she decided to use some of that butter to bake his lordship scones. She needed to remain in his good graces, especially after yesterday’s rough punishment and this morning’s fresh embarrassment. She was still mortified by her own behavior—and his—yet made herself focus on baking, not sexual congress.
In no time she’d pulled out a hot pan, letting it cool before she hid the scones with his lordship’s loaf. And then it was time to explore.
Charles wished to determine the lay of the house, to discover what she’d be up against as housekeeper, and she could tell straightaway the work would be monumental. The Abbey had lain empty far too long—for as long as its fields had lain fallow. Room after room she entered had things amiss: shattered panes of glass with birds’ nests in the rafters, or else a colony of roosting bats. The drapery was mildewed and musty while layers of dust and cobwebs covered furniture, the pieces half buried under sheets. Even the walls were grimy; anything and everything she touched felt unclean. Like the mouse prints she found scattered across tables and floors, she, too, left tracks in each dust-riddled room she entered.
Yet the Abbey remained glorious despite its disrepair, its environs spacious and grand, the woodwork of finest quality and each mantelpiece in every room astoundingly unique. She roamed from space to space, amazed. She imagined the house as it had been long ago, ancestral home to Allendale Duchy. No wonder his lordship wished to rebuild and renovate; underneath the years of neglect the Abbey remained a jewel.
One room in particular left her breathless with awe—a room of sea and light, the wall of south facing windows allowing in more sky than imaginable, letting in all of Cumberland itself. The walls were covered with seashells of every art and dimension carefully fit into whorls and patterns to form cresting, rolling waves unlike anything she’d ever seen. Who had commissioned this magical room and why? She walked its four corners, fingers tracing the bumpy shells along the walls, then looked up at the ceiling’s dark blue sky to discern constellations painted in proportion to their locations, bits of sparkling quartz embedded in the center of each star. She imagined she stood on a ship, navigating the ocean. She imagined herself an explorer, a sea captain, spyglass in hand.
Charles closed her eyes and breathed.
She lay down in the center of the room—gingerly as her bottom still smarted—in order to stare better at the magnificent ceiling. The sun streaked in and caught the air she’d disturbed, making the room shimmer with stardust. A breeze from outside rattled the windows, as if sails on a ship, and she smiled to herself, stretching her arms wide in delight, laughing out loud. It was magical this room, and she did not want to leave it. She’d start here as housekeeper and wipe every shell, shine every pane of glass and mirror, until every surface sparkled. She would polish the room’s brass sconces, filling each with tallow candles, then return some night to lie here again, in an ocean of moonlight.
For the first time in a long time, Charles felt possibility within reach. She could do this. She could be both housekeeper and mistress to a man she barely knew and trusted even less. She would serve Lord Wellesley that he might serve her, too. This—he—was her life now, however unlikely and unexpected, however unwelcome even. She gazed at the room about her once more, closed her eyes, and inhaled another breath.
***
From a corner of the doorway Wells stood in hiding, watching his mistress. When he’d not found her in the kitchen he’d simply followed her footprints on their dusty path about the Abbey. Yet he’d stopped short of announcing himself, loath to interrupt, because he’d not seen Charles so happy and relaxed as this, not even under his competent male touch.Thatwas but a physical release, while this . . . This was unadulterated joy. She was radiant. He watched her caress the shell walls and grab at sunbeams filtered through dust clouds. It made him smile to see his Fox so enchanted with a room he’d adored since childhood.
He backed away from the door and quietly made his way downstairs. He didn’t want her to know he’d seen her. It had been a private moment, and he knew how precious such moments were. He’d not take that from her. There would be other moments to enjoy her. Plenty, he hoped, as he smiled to himself, feeling more content with his choice to come to Cumberland.
He’d been wise to leave London. He could feel it in his bones.
Charles eventually left the sea room, having decided that was what she’d call it, and continued her tour about the Abbey, finding huge oil paintings that would also need cleaning—careful cleaning at that. She got lost at one point and arrived at a dead end, following short stairs to a heavy oak door she struggled to push open wide enough to slip inside. It was a turret of sorts, the round room affording wonderful views of the fells, with circular walls hugged by benches of deep red upholstery—in need of airing and repairing, of course. It had an oriental feel to it, this room, the brocade wall tapestries sumptuous in their patterns. She brushed off sections, finding birds and fruit and flowers embroidered into twisting, twining vines. She marveled yet again at the craftsmanship of such work, wondering who had stitched these long ago, when with a WHOOSH and a BANG the thick door suddenly slammed shut, making her breath catch and her heart pound.
She quickly realized the wind had pulled the door shut and went to push it open but could not. She pushed again. She pulled this time. Charles rattled and jiggled and worked at the latch until she beat the door with her fist in frustration, yelpingwith pain as the skin of her knuckles cracked. She panicked to imagine herself trapped. How could this door nowbeso stuck?
Charles attempted to clear her mind. She would sit and think a moment. A door did not lock itself, a person locked it, or in this case, the wind had. She began to work at the mechanism, jiggling whatever lay inside in hopes the latch might spring free. It did not. She pushed again at the door, throwing all her weight at it, groaning for effort, yet still it would not budge. And no one knew where she was.
Bloody hell, she swore to herself, thinking Lord Wellesley would be furious if she did not return. He’d assume she’d run off and then stop sending her family food, leaving them to starve and her to slowly decay in this tower, withering away.
No,she exhaled. She was being ridiculous. She was not going to die in this turret. And if he were as stubborn as she thought him, Lord Wellesley would go looking for her if only to drag her back for punishment. Charles began pounding on the door, shouting at the top of her lungs, “Help! Someone! Anyone!Help!”
She pounded and shouted for what felt like an eternity, yet still no one came. She slumped against the dusty red upholstery, wanting to weep. To have gone from such highs to such lows again in this place . . . Could she not for once enjoy a moment’s peace before life turned on her again?Bloody, blasted hell! She jumped up again to pound at the door and shout at the top of her?—
The door miraculously opened, Cuthbert’s red face peering in at her in shock. He managed to slide the door halfway open as he nearly tumbled inside, straight into Charles, for she’d thrown herself into his arms, hugging him in such relief he had to gruffly extricate himself from her grasp.
