He grinned, and she grinned, and suddenly the very air seemed made of champagne.
“I also see you were given the bucket with the red handle, Mr. Redmond. That’s the best one.”
He glanced down at it, confused and a little flustered. “Then I insist you have it.”
Her eyes were dancing. “I’m jesting,” she told him gently. “But as it so happens, Idolike the red handle better, so I shall accept your kind offer, thank you.”
He was absurdly overjoyed to have something to give to her.
She lowered her bucket of water to the ground. He transferred the red-handled one into her outstretched hand.
That hairsbreadth of space between where their fingers almost-but-not-quite touched during this exchange hummed like the air before a thunderstorm.
He was gratified and fascinated when the color in her cheeks deepened.
“How did you come to be assigned to the churchyard, Miss Sylvaine, when all the other ladies are helping with the bits and bobs in the hall?”
She hesitated. Then her eyes lit conspiratorially. “I will confess something to you, Mr. Redmond. Mrs. Sneath thought it best that that Maria and I be given different committee assignments, as we’ve a tendency to make each other giggle, which causes everyone else to giggle, too, and this is apparently, I quote, ‘disruptive’.”
“Sodifficult to believe,” Isaiah commiserated somberly.
Her smile was brilliant. “Isn’t it? But it’s a fair point. I admire Mrs. Sneath very much, mind you. And as it so happens, I like it out here, even if there’s aslightpossibility that she invented this chore out of exasperation with the Sylvaine sisters. And Maria prefers to help with the inside decorations, and so all’s well that ends well. I welcome the opportunity to get better acquainted with Pennyroyal Green’s former citizens.”
She swept out a hand to indicate the Hawthornes and Tingles and Postlethwaites and all the other families who had called Pennyroyal Green home over the centuries slumbering beneath the sod. Most of the headstones were well-tended and tidy, kept so by family members; others were furred by lichen and moss and weeds. Church volunteers usually managed the maintenance, but it wasn’t always easy to keep it up. The street fair accompanying the town hall opening would attract people from villages all around, and Pennyroyal Green wanted to look its best.
“Have you ever cleaned moss from anything before, Miss Sylvaine?” Isaiah retrieved the rags from his coat pockets.
“Well, not as such. I’ve certainly worked a little in a garden before, as well as in a house. But we now havefivepeople in to do for us since we moved to Pennyroyal Green,” she told him happily. “Bess is in charge of the kitchen and housekeeping, and we’ve two maids of all work, and Thomas for the heavier chores, and little Dougal who helps with everything. He sleeps in the kitchen by the fire and helps turn the spit. He has the reddest hair I’ve ever seen.”
Isaiah didn’t know why he was charmed to his core by this recitation. A battalion of servants facilitated the Redmond’s existence—two dozen, at least. Fanchette’s family likely employed close to that many, too.
He imagined Fanchette would smile vaguely while gracefully backing away from Miss Sylvaine and her talk of five servants and a boy who sleeps in the kitchen. She had an uncanny skill for bestowing warmth in precisely calibrated degrees based on someone’s social rank.
“It’s a fine thing to have help,” he decided to say.
Miss Sylvaine cast a dry look up at him. “You’ve probably five hundred and sixty-two servants.”
“Five hundred and sixty-one. We recently had to let go one who failed to polish my scepter to my satisfaction.”
She smiled, looking surprised and pleased, as though he’d passed some sort of test, and he felt as though she’d pinned a medal to his chest.
“Well then, Mr. Redmond, since the vicar hasn’t yet appeared, why don’t we start here. I’ll do the weeds if you clean the marker.” She gestured to a furry green stone.
They both crouched and set to work.
He tried to look handsome and earnestly industrious as he scrubbed gently at the lichen and whisked it away with the little brush.
A pair of birds exchanged trills from somewhere above them in the trees. He was distantly aware of the wheels of a cart and hooves clattering on cobblestones beyond the churchyard fence, of a voice raised to call to a neighbor in greeting. If it wasn’t precisely bustling, the Pennyroyal Green main street wasn’t sleepy, either.
Presently his industry revealed the words on the headstone.
Eleanor McElroy
1682-1720
“Well.” Miss Sylvaine sounded pleased and reflective. “That’s not a lot of information. I don’t know of any McElroys in town. Do you?”
He shook his head. “Perhaps my parents would.”
