Senara sighed. It was a transformation she’d witnessed countless times with the staff at Cliffenwelle—they all had it perfected. Their own feelings neatly buttoned. Their own lives folded away. Their own identities traded in for starched aprons and pressed livery. Half the time even their names were checked at the door like an umbrella and something simple like Alice or Sally or Abigail picked up instead.
She’d witnessed it countless times, but never in this house. And it made Mam frown as surely as it made Senara sigh.
Beth gave her friend an elbow to the ribs, and Lady Emily stepped forward, looking everywhere but at Tommie. “No, no. I don’t need anything, there’s nothing to apologize for. Or rather . . .” She made a face, as though she’d tasted something sour, and then forced her gaze to Tommie.
Senara planted a hand on her hip. Was it really so difficult to look upon her own maid? With Tommie as sweet and bright as a jar of the strawberry preserves that she loved?
“I’ve a question, but you mustn’t feel put upon to answer. It’s about my brother.”
Tommie went stiff as a tombstone. “Beg pardon.”
Emily’s eyes squeezed shut. “I’m bumbling this.”
Which was more than Beth had the patience for. She huffed and gave Tommie a warm smile. “It’s like this, Briggs. We all know he’s a cad, and worse—a criminal, at least in his associations if not outright in his dealings. But quite possibly in both. And I have a feeling you and every other employee of the Scofields know it. Am I right?”
Pale as a ghost, Tommie said nothing. But her silence said plenty, as did the knuckles gone white as she gripped the workbench.
Even Lady Emily must have noticed. She’d opened her eyes again, and her face went fierce. It transformed her instantly from pampered miss to the sort of girl who could live out a legend in one of Beth’s favorite tales. “We’re going to stop him. He’s going to answer for all he’s done.”
Beth’s smile flashed again, this time with pride at the lady, before turning to Tommie again. “But we need to know what he’s about. There’s no chance Em’s parents will tell us anything. . . .”
But not a thing went on in a master’s house that the servants didn’t know about. Senara studied Tommie’s profile. They were asking her—all the Scofield employees—to take a risk. The question was whether it was one they’d deem worth it. Whether there was any benefit to them.
Apparently, Tommie thought there was. “What do you need me to do?”
Beth and Lady Emily seemed to think it the right question. They tumbled over each other in their answers, asking for letters or telegrams and for friendships to be leveraged.
Senara bunched the towel into her fist and then tossed it onto the counter and stepped between them, a hand held up.
Emily blinked in surprise. But Beth knew well what the raised hand meant. She fell silent, yes, but also tilted her head to the side and looked Senara in the eye, waiting.
Senara lifted her brows. “She’ll need a guarantee. Security. A promise that if this goes awry and they’re caught scuttling around behind the masters’ back and end up sacked or, worse, facing charges, someone’s going to step in to protect them.”
Lady Emily looked as though she might faint dead away, and even Beth frowned, perplexed. Clearly neither of them had thought this fully through.
Good thing they’d invited Senara into their adventures, for sure.
“I’ll offer it.”
The two young ladies jumped and spun, making room as Lord Sheridan, still bruised and puffy, stepped into the kitchen. He looked Tommie straight in the eye. “Anyone whose employ is terminated over this will have a position at Sheridan Castle. Or regardless, if they just want to leave. And I’ll offer protection to anyone if there are charges. Well, I mean . . .” He grinned, though it looked as if the action hurt, and waved a hand. “Don’t anyone go maiming or stealing or murdering willy-nilly. But you know.”
It was good enough for Tommie. “I’ll wire Dandy straightaway.”
Senara exchanged a bare smile with Beth. Her young friend may still have an argument with his lordship over her mother’s trinket box. But he clearly wasn’t as bad as she’d been ready to believe.
11
30 JULY 1906
Sheridan might not have been as chock-full of virtues as some—Ainsley—would hope, but patience he had in abundance. And over the last two weeks, he’d had plenty of chances to put it to use.
While the others expressed frustration in the fact that Scofield had vanished again, Sheridan had used the time to send scads of notes to mutual acquaintances, and replies had begun trickling in. Their group here had gone out on multiple expeditions to Gugh, trying to determine what had drawn him there, but Sheridan wasn’t put off by the lack of ready answers. He was well accustomed to spending weeks or months at an excavation, removing the earth layer by careful layer in search of whatever could be found.
Discovery would not be rushed. And moved on no one’s schedule.
Besides, all this uneventful time gave the post a chance to bring a reply from Briggs’s friends too.
And for Sheridan’s bruises to fade a bit.
All well and good until the rain began nearly a week ago and hadn’t let up. He had no particular problem with rain—either in working in it or in cozying up with a book by the fire instead. But Telford had been pacing the library like a caged tiger for the last three days, grousing about the minuscule size of the house again. Ainsley and Collins were heard bickering over whose turn it was to slosh along the street in search of a newspaper, and even Tremayne, who Sheridan had yet to see in anything but a pleasant mood, had grown sullen.
That one he could explain easily enough—the rain had kept Libby from making the sail from St. Mary’s, and apparently five days without his lady love were not to be borne.
Beth sank down beside Sheridan on the sofa. Actually beside him. Of her own free will. And not at the other end either but on the space directly beside his. With a delightful little smirk on her face.
He’d only make her beg for four more months. He’d tell Tremayne to book the church. A Christmas wedding should do.
She even leaned closer to his side, her glance flicking between her sulking brother and irritably-pacing Telford. “I know what Ollie’s problem is—but I can’t think Telford misses his sister so keenly. You’d think neither of them has lived in England more than a month the way they’re reacting to a little rain.”
Sheridan chuckled and turned a page in his book on the Druid sites identified in the Lake District. It was sorely incomplete and had some of the most ridiculous theories espoused in it. “Telly is very much like Abbie’s pug. All posturing and ferocity until the first splash of rain on his nose, then back inside he runs. Might muss his hair, you know.”
The smirk turned fully to him. “Telly or the pug?”
“Yes.” He tried to read the next paragraph—some absurd theory about the circle of standing stones at Castlerigg that made him question whether the author had ever even been there—but gave up after a moment. She was near enough that he could smell the scent of her soap. And her hair looked as soft as silk. And when she snorted a laugh at his joke, her eyes positively danced with the very light of heaven.