The Peculiar Pink Toes of Lady Flora Page 15

  If necessary, however— if desperation struck and all other measures were lost— she must be practical and sell the necklace. This task she had set herself meant far more to her now than anything. It was her greatest attempt at true freedom, and Rosie Jackanapes would not concede defeat. Not ever.

  Eventually, if she proved to Malgrave that she could manage this place, make it function and prosper, he might be persuaded to sell it. Even though Darnley Abbey was part of the estate's trust, he clearly did not care about it. There were routes around most obstacles and, if he chose to, he could probably let it go. Just as easily as he once let her go.

  The Duke of Malgrave could do anything. If he wanted.

  * * * *

  Like the footsteps of angels, soft, morning light fell without pitter-patter through the boards of the barn roof and woke him slowly, a gentle, silent dance across his nerve endings.

  Surprising how comfortable a well-padded hay loft could be, he mused, opening his eyes. Had he slept for long? He felt well-rested, at peace with himself for once. Apart from that little spinning thing inside his chest: a pin-wheel of excitement and eagerness that turned faster as he woke.

  There was a time, of course, when he would have regarded the rising sun and felt its mellow caress with nothing more than a yawn, followed by the brisk tick tock of everything to be done that day. He most certainly would never have paused for any imaginings of ethereal footsteps, or mischievous anticipation for what the day ahead of him might hold. In the past his life had been predictable, following a pattern long laid out by those who came before.

  But in recent years he had learned to slow down, take a gentler pace, observe the beauty in nature and things he barely used to notice; to look beyond his straight and narrow path, and wonder where others led. Once a man had stepped out of his old boots and walked in those of another, he could not help but change his perspective on the world.

  As a certain young lady once lectured him with considerable cheek, One ought to wander off the path and experience new things. How can you enjoy a full life if you have felt only one emotion, tasted only one wine...? If you have always been saved from mistakes and never run barefoot through damp grass, you cannot know the true joys of living...

  The right words to answer her had escaped him. He knew nothing of romance and walking barefoot through damp grass. Another thing his schooling had neglected, and he had no examples to follow, nobody to guide him in these matters.

  Something else he must make a note to have Nicholas taught. The list he had begun in his head was growing, stretching onto another page.

  Propped up on one elbow, he listened. It must have been cockcrow that woke him and now a dog barked somewhere across the farm-yard. Life stirred. Best be on his way before they discovered an uninvited lodger in the barn. Leaping down from the loft, he pulled on his old coat and shook hay from his hair. He listened again as he approached the door and peered out, one arm stretched up against the old door frame.

  A female voice humming. There she came, a milkmaid emerging from the cow barn with a yoke across her shoulders and two filled buckets. When she saw him crossing the yard toward her, she stopped, her face startled.

  "Just a traveler passing through," he said quietly, raising both hands in surrender and then giving her a little bow. "Might I beg a sip, young maid?"

  She hesitated, looking toward the house.

  "Just a sip," he urged. "I have coins to pay. Please...I have come so far and have nothing to eat or drink."

  After another moment of cautious consideration, she set down her buckets and took a metal cup from a hook around her waist. "Be quick then." Her natural blush deepened to an even rosier hue. "I daresay one cup shan't be missed, but I don't want trouble with the master."

  He took the cup, dipped it into the bucket and drank thirstily.

  "You're a foreigner, sir," she said timidly.

  "I came from Italy." It was not exactly a lie, he reasoned. He had just come from there. Better that than answer other questions. Besides he liked this identity. It was easy, unattached to any title or estate or expectation. Or rumor. Or scandal. It was uncomplicated, simple; like his coat, a little shabby around the edges, well worn and comfortably lived in. "I seek the Lady Flora 'Artnell at Darnley Abbey. It is not far from 'ere?"

  "A few miles on to the east." She looked curious. "What do you do there? All you young men what come and go?"

  Young? He smiled inside. "I go to work for the lady. If she'll have me."

  "You came all that way just for her?"

  "I would have traveled farther, if the lady needed me."

  The girl regarded him with sorrowful eyes as he drank thirstily. "They do say the lady might be mad," she said. "They do say she sees the future."

  "Is that so?"

  "She runs about in a state of undress, barefoot. You should watch yourself, sir, for there is no telling what she might do next. And her friend, what comes by sometimes, buried all her enemies in a rose garden. Some of 'em while still living. When they meet, sir, 'tis like a coven of witches and the wicked laughter can be heard for miles. Who knows what spells those two get up to? The old man Grey says they plot together."

  "I see. I shall have to keep my wits about me then, shan't I? Who is Grey?"

  "The steward at Darnley. He says she won't be there long. He says she'll be out by the new year. Oh, sir, you should stay 'ere. Ask my master for work. He always needs an extra hand."

  "If Lady Flora turns me away I shall come back here then."

  She looked him up and down. "I wager, she won't turn you away."

  "Oh," he chuckled dourly, "you'd be surprised."

  Having thanked the maid and passed her a few coins, he was on his way again, climbing a gate and striding out into the lane, taking a good breath of the new day.

  Casting spells? He doubted it. That woman did not require magical intervention to cause her own peculiar brand of havoc. But there was something odd about her. He remembered thinking once, as he watched her in a room full of other young ladies, that she must somehow have been blown there or dropped like a seed from a bird's beak, a wildflower growing where she was not expected and disrupting the neat order of a well-tended flower bed.

  Resistant to being plucked, swaying in the wind to evade his grasp.

  Hmm. On the other hand perhaps she had already cast her spell upon him, long ago. She would not get the opportunity again, because he was prepared this time. He would catch her unawares, as she once caught him in a game of Blind Man's Bluff.

  Only Plumm knew he had returned to England and Maxim had every intention of keeping it that way for now. Until he'd had his fun. Then he must shave his beard, put on his tailored suit of clothes and get back to work, to all the business that required his attention, the solemn duties of his estate. Perhaps they would not weigh so heavily once he had got this matter out of his veins at last. Perhaps.

  First, before it was necessary to shake off this old coat, he would help the unsuspecting Lady Flora. This time, twenty years later, he would prove himself to have some worth in her eyes, because apparently she didn't think he could do anything for her. Other than provide cake.

  She'd learn differently now.

  Just a few days ago he received a letter from her, forwarded by Josias Radcliffe, to his lodgings in London.

  "...I would be grateful, signor, if you could cast your eye upon my specimens and see what might be done for them. I am assured of your skill and experience in these matters..."

  She still signed her name simply Flora, with big round vowels and a sweeping, curling tendril at the bottom of the 'F'. Casual and friendly, intimate even, it might be said. Definitely improper for a titled lady in a letter to a stranger. But how like her to write to him directly rather than rely on another person to communicate on her behalf.

  She never did like proxies. Or formalities.

  So in that way she had not changed much.

  The woman would be surprised, however, to see the differe
nce in him. Once she had roundly criticized him as very dull, ruthlessly tidy— as if there was anything wrong with that— and an unmitigated bore. Now he would prove her wrong. And perhaps, dare he think, a little sorry?

  He strode onward down the winding lane, noting his direction by the position of the rising sun, that little knot of anticipation tightening in his gut with every step, as if he was a young man again. Rejuvenated. Spirits brightened with hope for a new beginning.

  Flora Chelmsworth had left a disturbing blank page under her name in his recollections, and it must be completed at last or else he simply could not move forward with his life.

  Act Three

  Cornamusa Coperta

  and the Republic of Flora

  Chapter Thirteen

  "Somebody new comes! Look yonder."

  Flora was at the water pump in the yard when Grey shouted. Shading her eyes from the rising sun, she studied the figure as it advanced over the hill toward them, coming with the light. They were so far from civilization that it was rare to see strangers approach, especially with neither horse nor carriage.

  "On foot," she muttered. "Who could that be?"

  "Some crooked beggar looking for shelter and our food," the old man grumbled, indignant. "Or a villain out to slaughter us all and steal our bread. I daresay the rogue has heard yer a wayward mistress all alone and comes with wicked intentions. I'll chase 'im owt with the blunderbuss."

  "Indeed you shall not. The last time you aimed that thing you almost shot my dog."

  "But 'tis my job to protect Darnley."

  "God help us all then," she muttered under her breath. Flora was handy herself with a gun, which was fortunate since her steward couldn't hit a rabbit or a pigeon unless it was purely by chance. But Grey was very fond of his grandfather's blunderbuss and seemed to think that mere possession of it made him a formidable sentinel.

  Everybody, she supposed, had to have something that made them feel special and worthwhile.

  She looked again at the approaching stranger. It could be a man looking for work, she thought. He walked with a strong, healthy stride. Nothing crooked or beggarly about it. In fact, he appeared to be well made and broad in shoulder. A man of whom they could make good use. Perhaps Persey or Master Plumm had sent him. She dried her hands on her apron. "Leave this to me."

  "But the lady of the 'ouse, shouldn't—"

  "Kindly stop telling me what I should and shouldn't do. I know you are not yet accustomed to having a mistress here, and your poor wife, who bites her lip and quivers in anticipation of your every command, won't say boo to a goose, but if you cannot hold your tongue I shall cut it out."

  "I don't know why I stay to be talked to thus. You'll be sorry if I leave."

  "I would not miss you burning my toast every morning. I should like to awake without the acrid odor of cremated bread in my nostrils for once."

  "'Tis the woman's fault. She distracts me by quarreling. Gets in my way."

  "Just as her face gets in the way of your hand sometimes?"

  Grey clamped his gums shut with a mumble and scowled.

  "It is lucky for you that Martha will not admit to me how she got that bruise by her eye. But be wary. I am watching you."

  With supreme effort, he managed a "Yes, mistress."

  "Thank you. Now kindly go indoors and ask Martha to assemble some food for this weary stranger."

  Muttering under his breath about not having had his own breakfast yet, he shambled off to do her bidding. Flora quickly removed the headscarf with which she had tied back her hair while working. As Grey pointed out, she was, the current mistress of Darnley Abbey and ought to look as if she was in charge rather than a housemaid. She just did not care to have Grey telling her what to do. He was accustomed to ruling over his poor wife, who must once have been greatly misled and tricked into marrying the old grumbler, but he would not rule over Flora.

  The approaching man was sun-toasted with dark hair to his shoulders and a beard. His figure was tall, his stride long, his confident aura the sort that would fill a room as soon as he entered it and turn every head, but not in the same way as one of those loud gassy buffoons like Georgie Tarleton, who was all huffs and puffs and "what-ho". This stranger had a steadiness about him, a solid heft that could not be blown about in a draft. She had described him as "weary", simply because anybody who came along that road on foot so early in the morning surely ought to be, but now she saw that there was not much about him that drooped.

  He appeared foreign. Certainly, if he was local, Flora would have heard of such a man, even if she had never seen him about.

  "Is this the 'ouse of Lady Flora 'Artnell?" he shouted as he drew near, his heavy accent confirming her suspicion.

  "It is, sir."

  "Be please to take me to she."

  "Oh, she is me." She held her headscarf in both hands, and felt a slight tremor of flustered trepidation as his shadow crossed the yard and fell over her. "I mean to say, she is I." That didn't sound right either. "I am she." What the devil was the matter with her? Anyone would think she'd never seen a man before.

  His pace slowed until he finally came to a halt, keeping the distance of several feet between them. Dark, cloudy, deep set eyes regarded her with caution. "You...you are the lady that sent for Massimo?"

  Good lord, this must be the Italian grape expert. "Oh, I...didn't know to expect you." He had not replied to her letter and she would never have imagined him to arrive on foot, all alone, in a dirty old coat, with so little fanfare.

  "I come as you asked. I, Massimo the Magnificent, came to save your vines. All will be well now I am 'ere. You weep sad, womanly tears no more, for Massimo is come to put right the wrongs."

  Oh, wonderful. A chest thumper. As he stood before her with his open great coat gently wafting in the breeze, one hand gripping the rope handle of a tattered sack over his shoulder, she was momentarily speechless. A giant, man-sized falcon landing in her yard could not have set her heart into a more startled, echoing thump.

  He looked around. "You 'ave no other laborers to work 'ere? Or are they all..." He gestured with one hand pressed to the side of his face. "Riposo? Those lazy, bastard Englishmens!"

  She stared, fumbling again with her headscarf. "My workers generally rise early, as do I, sir, but since the bulk of the harvest is over for this year I have let them go. I cannot afford to keep them on all year, sadly." Might as well be honest, she thought. Would not want him to think her in possession of a fat money purse, although from the state of her today, in this old frock, he could be in no danger of that misconception. "In fact, I can offer you very little for your assistance here. I was hoping you would write back to me and give some idea of the cost. I did not mean to bring you all the way out here without discussing those terms."

  His gaze swept slowly from her toes to her hair. Something seemed to amuse him. "You are smaller than I...picture. In my mind."

  She frowned. "Does it matter?" What on earth did her size have to do with anything?

  His right eyebrow quirked and he rubbed his beard with one hand as he considered her. They might have been negotiating at a market stall, where they were at cross-purposes regarding the wares on sale. "I do not know this yet."

  "You do not know yet?"

  "A small woman can be much trouble for a man."

  "How so?"

  "Little packages," he said, his voice deep and low, rumbling like the hooves of warhorses over the far horizon, "can hold most danger."

  "I really don't see what—"

  "She can have the claws of a tigress and the bite of a mad dog. A small, angry, mad dog. They are the worst. The small ones. Noisy. Nippy." He gestured with his snapping fingers, close to her nose. "Yappy."

  She stepped back. "Why would I bite you, sir? Besides you appear strong enough to defend yourself."

  "Oh, I am not soft. But I have parts that are tender, eh? Parts I would like to keep buono stato."

  She stared. "Pardon?"

  "My vital
parts," he added with a sigh. "That is where short, angry, discontented women bite Massimo, for it is all they can reach."

  Had she wandered into a comic opera? "I have no interest in your parts, those that are vital or —as is most often the case in a high percentage of males— those that are trivial, Master…?"

  "Massimo. All women 'ave interest in Massimo's parts. This is why he prefers to work for a man." He finally set down his large sack and looked around the yard. "Where is your 'usband? I talk with 'im perhaps. He make more sense."

  "There is no husband here," she replied briskly. "So if you don't like the idea of working for a woman, you'd better take your precious parts and leave now."

  "But if there is no master,"— eyes opened wide, he scratched his head— "who is in charge?"

  "I am in charge. I am in control." He had better know that from the start too. "I give the orders."

  Lips pursed, he shook his head, still eyeing her doubtfully. "No woman give Massimo the orders."

  She frowned. "I am the mistress of Darnley Abbey. Regardless of my physical size and gender, you will follow my instructions as a hired member of staff. If I hire you."

  He took a step closer. "Excuse, signora, my English very bad. You mean to say, Massimo work for you and not a man?"

  "I do not know how much plainer I can say it. The letter you received was from me, was it not? Apparently you misunderstood."

  "I thought you were instructed to send this letter. By your man."

  "Then you thought wrongly. I am both the mistress and the master here. Nobody instructs me."

  "But women change their minds. They do not know what they want. Too much with the back and the forth." He gestured with one arm, waving it from left to right, rolling his eyes. "Back and the forth. This leaves Massimo—" he curled his hand into a fist and thumped his chest, "—frustrated."