Read Online Sheri Cobb South by A Dead Bore - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: A Dead Bore
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Mr. Pickett delayed much longer, he would find very little evidence left to examine.
She glanced out the window once more. The stage had long since departed for its next stop, and the stable yard was now vacant but for a chambermaid beating a rug, a groom smoking a pipe, and two dogs dozing in the late afternoon sun. With a silent plea for Mr. Pickett to make haste, she pushed her empty teacup aside and abandoned her vigil for yet another day.
She arrived back at Hollingshead Place just in time to dress for dinner. After exchanging her gray walking dress and muddy half boots for the striped silk she had worn on the night of the fire, she rang for Rose to dress her hair.
“Oh!” she cried when that overzealous abigail drew the brush through her curls with more force than was strictly necessary. “Why not pull out a handful, while you are about it?”
“Oh, my! I’m ever so sorry, my lady,” said Rose, her guilty, frightened gaze meeting the viscountess’s in the mirror. “I didn’t mean to be so rough, ‘pon my word!”
Lady Fieldhurst, seeing the girl’s eyes rapidly filling with tears, heaved a sigh. “It is I who should beg your pardon, for being so cross.”
“ ‘Tis poor Mr. Danvers’s death what’s got everyone on edge, your ladyship,” said the maid sympathetically. “ ‘Tis the same in the servants’ hall.”
Mistress and maid turned their mutual attention back to the task at hand, Lady Fieldhurst surrendering her head without further complaint, and Rose plying her brush more gently. At length, her ladyship’s toilette was complete, and Rose was dismissed. She bobbed a curtsy and crossed the room to the service door, then turned back. “Oh, I almost forgot! Begging your pardon, my lady, but I was to tell you that your footman arrived from London today and will be waiting on you tonight at table.”
“My footman?” echoed Lady Fieldhurst in some confusion, but Rose had already bobbed another curtsy and disappeared through the service door.
The viscountess went downstairs in some bewilderment. What was Thomas doing here? It was possible, she supposed, that he had come north to convey Mr. Pickett’s regrets, although why Bow Street should favor such an expensive and time-consuming means of communication quite escaped her.
A still greater surprise was in store. When the dinner gong sounded and she accepted Sir Gerald’s escort to the dining room, she discovered that the footman who stood behind her chair was not Thomas at all, but a very tall young man in blue and silver Fieldhurst livery whose sleeves appeared to be about two inches too short. She blinked, mistrusting the evidence of her own eyes. Yes, his eyes were brown (as was his hair beneath its coating of white powder, she did not doubt) and the nose was slightly crooked, as if it had once been broken. He did not look at her, but stood rigidly erect at his post, staring straight ahead with the expressionless countenance of the well-trained servant. Indeed, he showed no signs of recognizing her at all until she had taken her seat and was in the act of spreading her napkin on her lap. When it slipped from her trembling fingers and fluttered to the floor, he was at her side in an instant. He stooped to retrieve the large square of linen, and when she glanced up at him, she was almost certain he winked.
The dinner that followed ranked among the longest meals of her life. Somehow she managed to resist the urge to stare at him over her shoulder; after all, one should take no more notice of one’s servants than one would of the furniture. To wheel about in one’s chair to address the footman would be completely outside the pale. Still, she was all too aware of his presence at her back, and of his white-gloved hands refilling her wineglass. It was with an effort that she dragged her attention back to the conversation at the table and found Sir Gerald posing a question.
“Did you find anything in our humble village to interest you, my
She glanced out the window once more. The stage had long since departed for its next stop, and the stable yard was now vacant but for a chambermaid beating a rug, a groom smoking a pipe, and two dogs dozing in the late afternoon sun. With a silent plea for Mr. Pickett to make haste, she pushed her empty teacup aside and abandoned her vigil for yet another day.
She arrived back at Hollingshead Place just in time to dress for dinner. After exchanging her gray walking dress and muddy half boots for the striped silk she had worn on the night of the fire, she rang for Rose to dress her hair.
“Oh!” she cried when that overzealous abigail drew the brush through her curls with more force than was strictly necessary. “Why not pull out a handful, while you are about it?”
“Oh, my! I’m ever so sorry, my lady,” said Rose, her guilty, frightened gaze meeting the viscountess’s in the mirror. “I didn’t mean to be so rough, ‘pon my word!”
Lady Fieldhurst, seeing the girl’s eyes rapidly filling with tears, heaved a sigh. “It is I who should beg your pardon, for being so cross.”
“ ‘Tis poor Mr. Danvers’s death what’s got everyone on edge, your ladyship,” said the maid sympathetically. “ ‘Tis the same in the servants’ hall.”
Mistress and maid turned their mutual attention back to the task at hand, Lady Fieldhurst surrendering her head without further complaint, and Rose plying her brush more gently. At length, her ladyship’s toilette was complete, and Rose was dismissed. She bobbed a curtsy and crossed the room to the service door, then turned back. “Oh, I almost forgot! Begging your pardon, my lady, but I was to tell you that your footman arrived from London today and will be waiting on you tonight at table.”
“My footman?” echoed Lady Fieldhurst in some confusion, but Rose had already bobbed another curtsy and disappeared through the service door.
The viscountess went downstairs in some bewilderment. What was Thomas doing here? It was possible, she supposed, that he had come north to convey Mr. Pickett’s regrets, although why Bow Street should favor such an expensive and time-consuming means of communication quite escaped her.
A still greater surprise was in store. When the dinner gong sounded and she accepted Sir Gerald’s escort to the dining room, she discovered that the footman who stood behind her chair was not Thomas at all, but a very tall young man in blue and silver Fieldhurst livery whose sleeves appeared to be about two inches too short. She blinked, mistrusting the evidence of her own eyes. Yes, his eyes were brown (as was his hair beneath its coating of white powder, she did not doubt) and the nose was slightly crooked, as if it had once been broken. He did not look at her, but stood rigidly erect at his post, staring straight ahead with the expressionless countenance of the well-trained servant. Indeed, he showed no signs of recognizing her at all until she had taken her seat and was in the act of spreading her napkin on her lap. When it slipped from her trembling fingers and fluttered to the floor, he was at her side in an instant. He stooped to retrieve the large square of linen, and when she glanced up at him, she was almost certain he winked.
The dinner that followed ranked among the longest meals of her life. Somehow she managed to resist the urge to stare at him over her shoulder; after all, one should take no more notice of one’s servants than one would of the furniture. To wheel about in one’s chair to address the footman would be completely outside the pale. Still, she was all too aware of his presence at her back, and of his white-gloved hands refilling her wineglass. It was with an effort that she dragged her attention back to the conversation at the table and found Sir Gerald posing a question.
“Did you find anything in our humble village to interest you, my
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