Page 13 of Runaway Countess (Those Wild Whitbys #2)
Chapter Thirteen
J enny could hardly contain her amazement as the coach made its slow way into Whitby Manor.
The grounds were beautiful. Stately trees, some of them surely centuries old, spotted the lawn and bent their graceful limbs over the drive. Long, lush swathes of shimmering grass stretched out beneath them, inviting picnics and garden parties and all manner of sweet summertime leisure. In one direction there was a delightful little woodland, a glistening river in the other.
Then the carriage turned onto the main drive, and Jenny nearly fell from her perch on the rumble seat.
The house was –
No. This was not a house. It was a wonderland . A beautiful, rambling confection of ancient sandstone and bright glass windows that seemed to contain so many rooms it could have comfortably housed an army. There was a sweeping set of stone steps leading up to an enormous, polished oak door. To one side was an astonishing ornate glasshouse, full of gleaming exotic leaves and orange fruit. There was even a fountain, though the water was still.
There was Sebastian, standing beside his family and their rows of servants as they all waited to greet Lord Beeston, leaning back casually against one of the huge pillars topped with a carved stone wolf’s head that marked the front entrance. As though it were just another guest arriving, on another summer’s day. As though it were perfectly ordinary to welcome a friend to one’s home when one’s home was this .
Jenny felt dizzy.
Sebastian had been keeping his eye out for her. He ran down the steps when he caught sight of her, alone on the rumble seat, and offered her his hand to help her down.
One of the three young ladies standing with him – the tallest and most slender of the three – frowned after him, but nobody called him back.
Jenny hesitated. Could she take his hand – here, in front of everyone who knew him best? Someone would surely see what lay between them. Someone, surely, would know.
She felt as though a spark of lightning crackled from his hand to hers the moment before their fingers touched. Or perhaps the ground beneath the carriage lurched, ready to crack open and swallow her up as punishment for her deception.
It did not, of course. She steadied herself on his arm and stepped down from the rumble seat.
“I should not have left you,” Sebastian murmured, holding her hand a moment too long. “How was the journey? Are you – did he –?”
Jenny almost laughed. Did Sebastian really think Lord Beeston had discovered her identity and confined her to a servant’s position on the rumble seat as punishment?
“I have managed to remain unmarried,” she said, daring to flash him a quick smile. Sebastian groaned and shook his head, smiling back, despite himself. He let go of her hand and started back around the carriage to greet Lord Beeston.
“Wait,” said Jenny, stopping herself at the last moment from catching his arm. “Uncle Fitz – he’s looking for you.”
Sebastian’s eyes flared wide, but the footman had come around to open the doors, and there was no more time to discuss it. Sebastian waved into the carriage’s dark interior and gave a cheery whistle.
“Good morning, my lord! Will you take some tea before you give my father a flogging?”
There was a murmur inside that Jenny did not quite catch. Sebastian’s jaw went tight.
“Certainly.”
He nodded to Jenny and returned to his family. Instructions were given – a series of short, sharp hand gestures from Sebastian – and the line of servants turned and filed back into the house save for one footman. Sebastian’s father – a portly man leaning on a silver-topped cane – waved his hands in protest, but Sebastian cut him off with a glare.
Jenny took the opportunity to make a quick study of Sebastian’s family. She had been burning with curiosity to meet them. Having had so little experience of a happy family herself, she was always curious to think what other people’s families might be like, and Sebastian’s origins were a particular source of interest. She had been afraid that they might be the sort of people Aunt Fanny would sigh over. “Such elegant people,” she would mutter, whenever they passed a family on the streets of London whose acquaintance she craved. Always, always, the implication that Jenny was not elegant, and so could not be introduced.
She was relieved to see that, despite the finery of their home and the importance of their guest, the Whitby ladies were not so very elegant as to seem a different species from Jenny herself. Mrs Whitby, whose hand had not left her husband’s arm, was short and plump with a motherly attitude and a lorgnette clutched in one hand. The three Misses Whitby were unmistakeably Sebastian’s sisters. The family resemblance was plain, the same light eyes and straight noses, the same square chins softened to femininity in varying degrees. The tallest girl, Jenny thought, must be his twin, Cassandra. It was not that she particularly resembled him as much as the way her arms swung at her sides as though, like Sebastian, she could hardly bear to be still.
The other two young ladies looked rather as though they had been crying. Jenny’s heart gave a lurch.
That did not bode well for Sebastian’s hope that his father could repay the debt.
Sebastian ushered his family back into the house. Only when the drive was empty – though Jenny was certain that the house itself would have curious eyes looking from every one of those beautiful glass windows – did Sebastian signal the footmen to bring Lord Beeston inside.
He went ahead, and Jenny fell in with Nurse Thomas behind Lord Beeston and the footmen, keeping her head bowed. They made an odd, mournful sort of procession into the great house. She stole a few glances left and right as they entered the huge hallway, its intricate tiled floor overlaid with a thick Turkish rug. The staircase was wide enough that the footmen could stand side by side to carry Lord Beeston with room to spare, and ascend each step in unison to minimise the movement for him. Jenny had glimpses of polished oak bannisters, paper-hung walls, paintings depicting gorgeous country vistas or flamboyantly dressed Whitbys of ages past, and then they went through into what she assumed would be Lord Beeston’s bedroom but was not a bedroom at all, but a whole suite of rooms with a seating area and a writing desk and a whole room just for hanging up clothes, a privy, and a little cubby hole library filled with books, vases of hothouse flowers on every table, a fire crackling in every hearth.
The footmen helped Lord Beeston onto the armchair in the little drawing room, his injured leg propped up on a cushion. Jenny stood quietly beside Mrs Hughes in the corner, trying to keep her head down and remind herself that she was still a servant, and servants were not supposed to stare.
Mr Plum arrived last, carrying in a valise with great ceremony. He glanced around with a dissatisfied air and gave a little sniff.
“Plum,” said Beeston sharply. That was all he needed to say. Mr Plum gave a start and hauled the valise off into the wardrobe.
Beeston rested an elbow on the arm of his chair and lowered his head into his hand, but shot a glare up at Sebastian. “Fitzherbert Smythe has been on the hunt for you, Whitby. Mind telling me why?”
“Mr Smythe?” Sebastian’s back was ramrod straight. He turned away from Beeston to go to the sideboard, where a decanter and a few glasses were standing. When Sebastian turned back, holding the decanter, he was smiling blandly. “Miss Cartwright’s uncle? He wishes to tell us she is safe, no doubt.” His eyes flickered to Jenny, his face frozen in that picture of nonchalance. “He must be frantic to secure the match again.”
“No doubt,” said Beeston slowly. He took the glass Sebastian offered him and made a languid gesture towards Jenny with the other hand. She startled, realising a second later that he was only dismissing her.
“Charles,” said Sebastian to the footman who had helped carry Lord Beeston in, “show his lordship’s servants to their quarters.”
The footman bowed. Jenny would have given anything to be able to stay in the room and hear what was about to pass between Sebastian and Lord Beeston.
What did Lord Beeston really believe her uncle wanted? Had Sebastian’s father come up with the money he owed?
True servants presumably developed ways of finding out the things that piqued their interest. Mr Plum, for example, would only have to dally a little with hanging out Lord Beeston’s shirts to overhear it all. Jenny would not be receiving any information from him, and since she had only been a servant for a matter of days, she had no wiles to fall back upon.
She shot a last desperate glance at Sebastian as she followed the footmen from the room, but all she gained was the sight of a faint red flush creeping up his neck, as though even when he did not – would not – let himself meet her gaze, he felt it.
Charles the footman began chatting amicably with Nurse Thomas as they made their way down the servant’s staircase, which was cunningly concealed in a little alcove at the end of the corridor.
“I could never get used to a place like this,” Nurse Thomas was grumbling. “Rabbit warren, and no mistake!”
“Not to worry, Nurse. Straight up and down this staircase, that’s all you need to trouble yourself with. Kitchen’s at one end, his lordship two floors up.”
“Well, if you say so. A sight too many stairs, by my reckoning, though I doubt anyone will care to hear my opinion on it.”
The door opened again behind them. “Miss – Mrs Hughes?” Sebastian gave a cough.
Jenny had the horrible feeling he’d been about to say a completely different name.
Nurse Thomas turned around and gave her a piercing stare. She swallowed.
“Yes, Captain?”
Sebastian did not step through the door. “I know you are very pious, Nurse. You may make use of the family chapel between the hours of four and five this afternoon. If his lordship permits.”
He closed the door again. A slow flush built in Jenny’s cheeks. Nurse Thomas was still giving her that hard, suspicious stare.
“It is the anniversary of my father’s death,” said Jenny. It was not, but she thought her poor lost father would not mind the little lie. “I don’t usually work on this day. Captain Whitby agreed to make it a condition of my employment. That’s all.”
Nurse Thomas was not convinced, but the footman spoke up behind her.
“He’s a good soul, is our Captain Whitby. Jolly good soul. Oh, you should hear the stories Mrs Teasley, our cook, tells of him as a lad! A right rascal by all accounts, but he’d always take his punishment.”
“Gossip,” said Mrs Thomas dismissively, starting back down the stairs. Jenny permitted herself a small smile.
“I’ve no objection to hearing a little gossip, myself.”
“As long as it’s done by four o’clock, in time for your prayers,” said Mrs Thomas tartly. “Wouldn’t want to take Captain Whitby’s generosity for granted.”