A Return of Devotion Page 12

  Unfortunately, she was not the only person determined to talk to Mr. Leighton this morning.

  “Lord Chemsford!” she called as she moved toward the sounds of construction, not knowing what she’d say when she got the man’s attention but needing to stop him nevertheless.

  He nearly jumped out of his boots before spinning about so fast he nearly fell over. “Mrs. Brightmoor,” he said in a tight, flat tone.

  “Have you had a chance to see all of the grounds?” Daphne almost groaned and dropped her head into her hands. Of course the man had seen the grounds. He went riding across them in the morning and spent yesterday afternoon walking about with the two men who were going to be designing new plans for the overgrown landscaping. Still, she needed him out of the house, just for a few moments, so she could talk to Mr. Leighton. She plunged ahead. “There’s an interesting grotto down by the lake.”

  He shook his head and opened his mouth before snapping it shut on a sigh. After shifting his weight to face her more squarely, he frowned. “I’ve seen as much of the grounds as I need to at the moment. When the new landscaping plans arrive, I shall walk them again so I can visualize the changes.”

  “Oh,” Daphne said, the overly bright smile she’d plastered onto her face falling a bit. She pushed her shoulders back and forced the corners of her mouth a little higher. “What can I do for you, then?”

  “I wasn’t seeking you out,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Daphne gulped. Her turning back into her meddlesome self after two days of perfectly dreadful servant decorum seemed to have inspired a bit of anger. This was yet another reason to be grateful most of the children she’d been raising were now in a comfortable home situation. She’d been able to teach them the skills for an eventual life of service, but she was obviously lacking the ability to demonstrate the necessary deference.

  If he would grant her a few more minutes of grace without dismissing her, she would return to being neither seen nor heard and pummeling her frustration out on her pillow every night. Just a few more minutes.

  The man sighed once more and seemed to deflate a bit as his frown slid from his face and his tone turned more congenial. “I am, however, seeking Mr. Leighton. If you’ll pardon me.”

  He blinked as he asked her pardon—she was rather taken aback by it as well—but then he shook his head and turned back toward the direction he’d been walking in the first place.

  “Mr. Leighton?” Daphne trotted forward, hand outstretched as if she’d have the nerve to grab the man’s coat in order to keep him in place. She pulled her fist to her chest to keep herself from making such a blunder. “What do you want with Mr. Leighton?”

  His lordship turned halfway back around, eyebrows lifted high. “What does it matter what I want with Mr. Leighton? The man works for me, or so I’ve heard, and I wish to speak to him.”

  “Of course.” Daphne scooted around him and put herself between the marquis and the parlor, nearly knocking over a bright orange vase on a spindly decorative table. “I’ll let him know you wish to see him directly.”

  “I’ll simply tell him myself.”

  He took a step forward and Daphne scampered backward until she was practically throwing herself across the door.

  “You don’t want to do that.”

  His gaze narrowed. “Whyever not, Mrs. Brightmoor?”

  Why not, why not, why not? Daphne bit her lip as she tried to think up a reason—any reason. At this point she’d take the most ridiculous one in the world but right then her thoughts were stuck on whether or not oranges had been named for the color or vice versa.

  “You’ll get dirty!” she cried out in sudden inspiration.

  His eyes closed briefly for a moment and then he tilted his head as if he couldn’t possibly have heard her correctly. “Dirty?”

  “Yes.” She nodded emphatically. “There’s an incredible amount of dust in the room. If you step in it, Morris will be brushing your jacket for the rest of the day.” Of course, this man was an aristocrat. He might not care if his valet had an incredibly arduous and avoidable task to add to his day.

  She cleared her throat. “And if Mr. Morris is brushing your jacket he can’t see to . . . to . . .” What did the efficient yet stuck-up and annoying valet do all day? “He won’t be able to set your dressing room to rights. Sarah and I are barely allowed in there, you know.”

  Lord Chemsford’s teeth clenched, bringing an even sharper line to his jaw. “I wish to speak to Mr. Leighton. If a bit of dust should land on my boot while I arrange this meeting, I assure you that Morris is more than capable of seeing to its removal.”

  Daphne threw away whatever modicum of pride remained within her—which honestly wasn’t much—and draped herself across the door to the parlor, drooping against one of the doorframes in a fashion dramatic enough to make anyone on Drury Lane wince. “I simply cannot, my lord. What if you were to track the dust all over my house? It’s only myself and Sarah here to do the cleaning.”

  “I’ll hire another maid.”

  “Not in the next hour.” Twenty minutes. All she needed was twenty minutes. And whatever time Mr. Leighton needed to stash Benedict away in a corner somewhere.

  She crossed her arms and tried to look imposing, remembering the way the housekeeper in her father’s London house had laid down the law about Daphne eating biscuits in bed. “If you’d like to hie off to Marlborough and hire one, I’ll let you in as soon as you return.”

  “You’ll let me in?”

  Perhaps that hadn’t been Daphne’s best choice of words.

  He looked from her to the door, behind which steady bursts of pounding kept the occupants oblivious to the scene at the door. “Just how do you know it’s dusty in there?”

  Daphne blinked. He believed her? He was giving her ridiculous claim merit? “I, er, uh, I delivered them refreshments earlier.”

  He looked her up and down. “You don’t look especially dirty. That’s the same dress you were wearing when you brought out my breakfast this morning.”

  “Yes, but you can’t see the dirt. That’s the beauty of patterned muslin. Hides everything.”

  She had no idea if that was true or not. Her wardrobe was a very dated and worn combination of clothing altered from her fourteen-year-old London wardrobe and dresses made from fabric Mrs. Lancaster had pushed on them over the years. She had six dresses now, and they held up well to the rigors of country life, but she’d maintained some of her old habits of personal cleanliness so she had no idea if the dresses held up to country dirt.

  “And patterned muslin doesn’t drop a speck of it as you move through the house?” He shook his head. “Washing day must be miserably difficult.”

  Drat the man. Why did he have to see the continuation of logic in everything? Couldn’t he, just once, take what she said as truth?

  They stood there, staring at each other for what seemed like hours but was probably no more than a few seconds.

  Finally, he clasped his hands behind his back and inclined his head. “What solution do you have for this problem, Mrs. Brightmoor?”

  “Solution? Me?” No one ever asked her for solutions. Her way of dealing with problems was to imagine them away.

  “Yes. Since you find my plan of walking into a room of the house I own in order to speak to a man I employ so abhorrent, I assume that means you can provide another one.”

  “Mr. Leighton can come to you. In the library.” It was perfect. She’d get her twenty minutes and then Mr. Leighton could give Benedict instructions to get out of the way while the older woodworker then kept the marquis occupied with their meeting.

  Lord Chemsford ran a hand over his jaw. “But won’t that—”

  “I’ll let him know.” Daphne opened the door behind her just enough to stick her head inside and let Mr. Leighton know to see Lord Chemsford in the library at his earliest convenience.

  The lanky man gave her a grin and a nod before hammering a nail into the dado rail Benedict was holding again
st the wall. For the past dozen years that room had been a bedchamber instead of a private parlor. Life had left a few more dings and dents than one would expect of a small sitting room.

  Daphne closed the door with a triumphant smile.

  “Won’t he bring dust into the house?”

  “Of course not,” Daphne said with an emphatic frown. “He knows to clean himself off first.”

  Not that he needed to. There were hardly enough woodchips in the room at the moment to merit a broom.

  Her stomach clenched. Desperation had turned her into a complete and total liar.

  “Very well,” Lord Chemsford said slowly. “I shall return to the library and await the arrival of a cleaned-off Mr. Leighton.”

  As he turned and left the room, Daphne took the first deep breath she’d taken in what felt like hours. What was that verse from Hosea? For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. She had a bad feeling that she was on the verge of seeing just how big a whirlwind this house could handle.

  No. Soon it was going to be over because she wasn’t going to have to do this on her own anymore. With her mouth set in a grim line, she opened the parlor door once more and stepped inside.

  Chapter thirteen

  William stalked away from the parlor, wondering how in the world he’d managed to lose control of that situation. He’d grown up knowing he was going to be the marquis, learning how to manage the people and the places that came beneath him because of that title, and generally trying to find the delicate balance between wielding power effectively and being a pompous clodpate.

  He had a sinking feeling he’d lost that balance just now.

  When faced with Mrs. Brightmoor’s desperate-looking smile, which was as obviously fake as a seaman’s wooden leg, he’d deigned to explain himself to her in an attempt to make her more comfortable. Given that her job was to see to the comfort and livability of his home, it was an unexpected concession.

  He didn’t want to dismiss her, though. She’d obviously given a great deal of care to the house and had been a solid employee from the looks of it. It was doubtful she had an excessive amount of savings. She might not even have anywhere to go. If she had, she likely would have found a less isolated position a long time ago.

  Still, he couldn’t have his housekeeper making him feel like a heel in his own home simply because he’d been seeking out another employee.

  As he strode through the breakfast room, a box on the sideboard caught his eye. He’d missed it the other day in his wanderings of the home, probably because it was so difficult to look at anything aside from the hideous gargoyles when he was in here. It bore a marked resemblance to the box in the saloon, though. The paper-filigree design on this one was a great deal more intricate, the loops and swirls of paper forming an image of this very house.

  He poked at it until he found how it opened, flipping a mechanism that made several trays swing out. As the other box had, this one cleverly provided a way to store multiple types of tea in accessible ways. Flipping the box revealed the B and S he knew he was going to find, along with the year. 1816.

  This year.

  William’s head snapped up as the parlor door opened. Footsteps moved to the saloon before the door clicked shut again.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Miss Daphne.”

  William frowned. Miss Daphne? An edge of Irish lilt curved around the name, making it sound soft and gentle. Yet, at the same time, it sounded common and approachable. Somehow Miss Daphne fit her better than the stuffy-sounding Mrs. Brightmoor. It was considerably easier to imagine a Miss Daphne throwing herself across a man’s path than a Mrs. Brightmoor.

  Of course, William didn’t have to imagine such a thing, did he?

  “I’ll explain everything,” Mrs. Brightmoor answered. “You can come downstairs and listen while I prepare a tray for your meeting. Perhaps if he’s eating he won’t rush you out of there.”

  Rush him out . . . ? An inkling of an idea began to form, and yet it was too incredibly farfetched to be true. Then again, Mrs. Brightmoor had proven capable of attempting the impossible.

  Was there a chance she’d been trying to keep him away from Mr. Leighton?

  If so, he had to admire her dedication and, to a point, her ingenuity, even though it was clear she didn’t think matters through before she acted upon them. Perhaps once William uncovered what she was trying to hide about Mr. Leighton, life could return to the way it had been the past couple of days.

  Peaceful. Quiet. With servants acting in the manner they were supposed to.

  He set the box aside and made his way down the stairs to the kitchens. It was time to put an end to his housekeeper’s scheming. Whatever she was worried about, he’d show her it was nothing. Or, if it was indeed something, he’d take care of it and then chide her for hiding it. If there actually was something bad about Mr. Leighton, and she and Mr. Banfield and everyone else he’d worked with had let it slide, William was going to show them all he knew how to wield the aristocratic power he’d inherited.

  Laughter met him at the bottom of the stairs, but it cut off as he walked into the kitchen.

  The cook stood at a table, removing meat from a skewer. Mrs. Brightmoor was placing a tea tray on the worktable while a man picked his way through a bowl full of biscuits. He was tall and lanky with a shock of wild, curly red hair beneath a plain brown cap.

  “Mr. Leighton, I presume?”

  The man looked up and his eyes widened as he took in William from head to toe. His gaze flitted from William to Mrs. Brightmoor, where it stayed for a moment or two before coming slowly back to William. “Yes, my lord.”

  The voice was as stiff as the man. In fact, everyone in the room seemed to be stiff. Holding their breath. Watching. Waiting.

  Finally, the man grabbed the cap off his head with one hand and ran the other through the crop of curls that seemed to spring in every possible direction.

  Was it because the man was so obviously Irish? Did they think William would dismiss him because of it? He had to admit it was a possibility. There were plenty of men in his position who wouldn’t hesitate to do just that. It was rather admirable, really, that Mrs. Brightmoor was willing to risk losing her job so Mr. Leighton didn’t lose his.

  Perhaps William could right everything in his house by simply being welcoming and nice to the man. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Leighton. I was admiring your work in the saloon. I’m Lord Chemsford.”

  Mrs. Brightmoor coughed. “No relation.”

  William narrowed his gaze at the housekeeper, who was giving a great deal of attention to the perfect placement of an empty teapot in the center of the tray. The little blond cook across from her looked as if she were considering running the housekeeper through with the skewer.

  “Er, of no relation to whom?” William asked.

  That bright, ridiculous fake smile popped back on to Mrs. Brightmoor’s face. “Why, anyone Mr. Leighton would know. Small towns, remember? In Marlborough we like to know how, er, business connects to other people. Support the area, so to speak. I was just letting Mr. Leighton know that you’re new.”

  Cook stabbed the skewer back into the meat she’d just pulled from it.

  Perhaps his friendly greeting of Mr. Leighton wasn’t going to set everything on the path to normal. Unless this was normal. In which case he was glad he didn’t usually have a reason to visit the kitchens.

  William gave his attention back to the woodworker, who, in spite of the fact that he still hadn’t moved except to put his cap back atop his head, appeared the most levelheaded one in the room. “I’d like to discuss a desk.”

  “A desk?” the man asked.

  “A desk?” the housekeeper parroted.

  William didn’t look but the slap of skin on skin led him to believe that the cook might just have smacked her hand over Mrs. Brightmoor’s mouth.

  “Perhaps you’d like to come up to the library so we can discuss it?” William had phrased it as a question but he tu
rned back to the door without waiting for an answer.

  There was the rough sound of a clearing throat, and then heavy footsteps fell in behind him as he went up the stairs.

  William made a point of not looking back. He refused to give in to the curiosity that made him want to watch what his housekeeper would do next, like some fascinating country fair attraction.

  Once they were in the library, William sat behind the boring desk and offered Mr. Leighton the chair opposite. “You’ve done all the woodwork in the house?”

  The man nodded, adjusting the soft brown cap on his head, making red curls stick out in odd directions. He scratched at his chin beneath a scraggly beard that was as red as his curls. “For the past ten years.”

  William released a sigh of relief. If the man had been doing work around the place for ten years, more than likely he knew where the new items had come from. “I’ve come across some items in the house—intriguing items. They’re marked with a B and an S. Would you know about them?”

  “Came out of my shop.” Mr. Leighton’s gaze dropped, and he plucked at a rough patch on the leg of his trousers.

  “Excellent.” William would work his way up to getting more information about who the designer actually was. Making a small bit of progress felt like a massive accomplishment today. “I’d like a desk of similar design.”

  Mr. Leighton’s head came up, eyebrows drawn together and deep grooves across the bridge of his nose. “Similar to what?”

  “The chicken house, the tea boxes, the game table. I like the ingenuity and the use of space.”

  The man scratched his head beneath the cap. “I’ve got a design at my shop. It’s just a sketch on paper, but I can bring it to you. We haven’t built one yet, but the idea is sound.”

  Even better. “I’d like to see it tomorrow.”

  “Uh, yes.” The man shifted in the chair, as if it didn’t quite fit him correctly. “I’ll do that. I, uh, wouldn’t mind taking a look at it again, maybe working it a bit before bringing it in to you. Perhaps my apprentice and I could leave a bit early today so you aren’t delayed.”