Lady of Shame. Ann Lethbridge

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СКАЧАТЬ her inner fears did not show.

      It would have been so much better if they could have driven up to the door in a post chaise. More appropriate to her station. But they had no coin for such luxuries and, as Claire had learned these past eight years, what could not be cured must be endured. Instead they had taken the stage from London to Buxton and then accepted a ride in a farmer’s cart to Castonbury village. They had walked the rest of the way. To her surprise, the gatekeeper had let them pass on foot without question.

      Were they always so lax about visitors? Did they let just anyone pass? She glanced over her shoulder. No one following. Nor would there be. Ernie Pratt knew only the assumed name George had invented after his brush with the law. She hoped.

      Footsteps rustled behind them. Her heart leapt to her throat. She spun around, pushing Jane behind her.

      No one. There was no one there. Just leaves blowing across the park, tumbling across the gravel.

      ‘What is it?’ Jane asked.

      ‘Nothing,’ Claire said, relief filling her. ‘Nothing at all.’

      Yet still she picked up her pace. Hurrying towards the front door and safety.

      A quick swallow did nothing to ease the dryness in her throat as she looked up at stone Corinthian columns towering three stories above. A declaration of the Duke of Rothermere’s wealth and status. And his power.

      Once she had resented that power, now it felt like a lifeline.

      They passed beneath the arches hiding the ground floor rustic stonework and marched up to the black painted front door gleaming with brass fittings. The everyday door. Only for very special events did visitors climb the stairs to the grand entrance above.

      The lion’s head door knocker glared at her in disapproval. Her heart thundered. No. She was not fearful. Definitely not. Just filled with the anticipation of seeing her brother after so many years. She lifted the ring in the great jaws and let the knocker fall with a bang that echoed in the entrance hall beyond.

      No going back now. She was committed. For Jane’s sake. She smiled down at her daughter, who pressed tight up against her hip.

      The door opened. A young footman in red-and-gold livery looked down his nose at them. ‘’Tis at the wrong door, you are. Don’t you people know nothing? Servants’ entrance is round the back of the west pavilion.’ He pointed to the left. ‘That there large block at the end.’

      He slammed the door in their faces.

      Shocked speechless, she recoiled. Her heart gave a horrid little dip. The footman thought her a servant. She glanced down at herself and Jane. They were respectably, if shabbily, dressed; her widow’s weeds had seen better days, and her skirts were dusty, wrinkled from their travels.

      The doubts about their welcome attacked her anew. The seed of hope nurtured in her chest all the way from London shrivelled, sapping the strength that had sustained her once she had made up her mind to bury her pride and ask for help.

      Should she knock again and risk a more violent rejection? What if none of the family were home? No one to endorse her claim?

      ‘Why did he close the door?’ Jane asked, her voice weary.

      Why indeed. Might Crispin have left word she wasn’t to be admitted? She shivered. ‘I think he thought we were someone else.’

      Jane tugged at her skirt. ‘What shall we do?’

      She forced a confident smile. ‘Why, we will go around the back just as the nice man suggested.’ Perhaps there she would find a servant she knew. She retraced her steps back to the drive.

      ‘He wasn’t nice,’ Jane grumbled as they trudged along the walkway leading to the servants’ wing. ‘The farmer with the cart was nice. Why couldn’t we stay with him?’

      ‘Because he isn’t family.’

      Jane looked up at the house, her face full of doubt. ‘I want to go home.’

      ‘This is our home.’ Claire hoped the anxiety fluttering in her stomach wasn’t apparent in her voice. She quickened her pace, heading away from the block for family and guests, feeling very much like a stranger who didn’t belong.

      Another set of arches hid the kitchens and cellars and quarters for the staff. They stopped at a plain brown door. She squared her shoulders and rapped hard. This time she would not be turned away.

      It opened. A waft of warmth hit her face along with a delicious scent of cooking. She swayed as it washed over her and she heard Jane sniff with appreciation.

      A tall man in his mid-thirties wearing a chef’s white toque and a pristine white apron gazed at them down an aristocratic nose. At some point that haughty nose had been broken and badly set, resulting in a bump that only slightly ruined the elegant male beauty of hard angles and planes. Not English, she thought, taking in the olive cast to his complexion and jet hair.

      Onyx eyes fringed with black lashes too thick and long for a man swiftly roved her person. They took in her undecorated bonnet, her black bombazine skirts and her scuffed half-boots. She had the feeling he could see all the way to her plain worn shift with that piercing dark glance.

      Sympathy softened his harsh features. ‘Step inside, madame.’ His voice was deep and obviously foreign.

      Giddy with relief, she almost fell over the threshold.

      ‘Careful, madame.’ A muscular arm, hard beneath the fabric of his coat, caught her up.

      A thrill rippled through her body. A recognition of his male physical strength. Shocked, she pulled away.

      He released her and stepped back as if he, too, had felt something at the contact. He gestured her forward into what must be the scullery with its dingy whitewashed walls and a large lead-lined sink.

      ‘Sit,’ he said. ‘At the table.’ He pulled back a bench.

      Claire sank down, glad of the respite, while she gathered her wits. Jane hopped up beside her.

      ‘Mademoiselle Agnes,’ he called out. ‘Vite, allez.’

      A young woman in a mob cap ran in from the larger room beyond. The kitchen proper, no doubt.

      ‘Bring soup and bread,’ he ordered.

      The girl ducked her head and disappeared.

      ‘No, really,’ Claire managed, gathering her scattered wits. ‘I need to—’

      ‘It is fine, madame. No need to be anxious,’ he said. ‘You are hungry, non?’ he said, smiling at Jane.

      ‘Starving,’ the child replied with the honesty of youth.

      ‘You don’t understand,’ Claire said. ‘I need to speak to Mrs Stratton.’ She held her breath, hoping beyond hope that the housekeeper she’d known as a girl was still employed here.

      ‘She has no work. I am sorry, madame, all I am permitted is to offer you soup and send you on your way.’

      Permitted? СКАЧАТЬ