Luke shook his head and thanked heaven he was wearing a long greatcoat to conceal how eagerly his body ignored his stern orders not to want the housekeeper as he turned his gaze away from the now empty windows and silently cursed himself for being such a fool.
‘Who was that, Papa?’ Eve asked.
‘Whom do you mean?’ he asked stiffly, like a schoolboy caught out in a blatant lie, he decided, as he wondered what sort of blundering beast the wretched woman would turn him into next.
‘The lady at the window.’
‘A maid on the alert for mourners?’
‘She looked more like the housekeeper, although if so she looked very young for such a responsible role.’
‘She is,’ Luke replied grimly. ‘She must have been in the schoolroom when she met Wheaton.’
‘Who on earth is Wheaton? The January air seems to have addled your brain instead of sharpening it as you claimed it would when you left us to count church spires and grey mares while you rode most of the way here, Papa.’
‘I thought you two had enough schemes to hatch out for who was to do what and when after we got here to keep you occupied for a sennight.’
‘Slander; we’re not at all managing, are we, Bran?’ Eve quizzed her diminutive one time-nurse and now ladies’ maid.
‘Even if we was, we’d be well and truly talked to a standstill by now,’ Eve’s unlikely personal dragon answered with a sharp look that told Luke she understood his latest battle of wills with Chloe Wheaton even if his innocent daughter didn’t.
‘Well, now we’re here you will have too many people to talk to rather than too few,’ he warned as they climbed the shallow steps.
The hatchment over the door was a stark reminder why they were here and Luke felt the wrongness of this place without the lady who had loved and lived here for so long to bid him welcome. He sighed and told himself the next few days would pass and life would go relentlessly on, whatever he had to say about it.
* * *
‘Miss Winterley is with his lordship,’ Chloe remarked as she turned from the window and only wished she dared avoid the master of the house a little longer.
‘No doubt she had to plague Master Luke something relentless to make that happen. Very protective he is; a good father and a fine man, whatever that stepmother of his says.’
‘I imagine he takes little very notice of her,’ Chloe said absently.
Having been on the wrong end of his protective nature herself, ten years of enduring his distrust stung more sharply than it should. He was probably surprised she hadn’t run off with Virginia’s jewellery or the housekeeping money long ago.
‘That woman made the poor lad’s life a misery. I can’t understand to this day why Mr Oswald married her. Mr Oakham overheard her telling Mr James to do all he could to blacken Mr Luke’s name now the family are here to put the “old besom in her grave”, as the nasty-minded old crow put it. Lady Virginia wouldn’t have her over the threshold if she was alive to say her nay, but Master Luke was always too kind-hearted for his own good and no doubt he’ll let her stay.’
‘I’m sure Mrs Winterley will behave herself now his lordship is here, whatever she might say to her son. She seems in awe of Lord Farenze and I’ve heard he controls her purse strings.’
‘Then I hope he gives her short shrift one day; she deserves no better.’
‘I don’t want any more tension and upset, so please don’t put something noxious in her soup, Cully. She might never leave if she fancied herself too ill to travel and think how awful it might be if she once got her feet under the table.’
‘She’ll leave fast enough if I put a purge in her coffee, and good riddance.’
‘No, wait out the week and most of the mourners will go home and leave you all in peace,’ Chloe urged, trying not to wonder where she would be by then.
‘I suppose so,’ Culdrose agreed reluctantly, ‘but it’s hard to stay silent when we loved her ladyship dearly. I won’t have her name blackened now she’s not here to stand up for herself.’
‘Nobody would do so at her funeral. It would be disrespectful and heartless.’
Culdrose sniffed loudly; ‘I still caught the woman sneaking about her ladyship’s boudoir yesterday. Searching through her letters and personal things she was as if she had every right to do what she liked here. It’s as well we locked Lady Virginia’s treasures away in the strongroom after Oakham caught that Miss Carbottle taking her ladyship’s diamond brooch as a keepsake, or so she said. Keepsake indeed, she’s no better than a jackdaw.’
‘She does have a habit of taking anything pretty or shiny that’s lying about. Her sister always brings it back, but I’m glad you spared her the embarrassment. Now I must go down and greet Miss Winterley as she is the new mistress of the house. Promise you won’t make things worse between Mrs Winterley and the staff than they already are though, Cully?’
‘You know it’s my way to let my feelings out with them I trust to keep their counsel, so I don’t say aught I shouldn’t in front of the quality. Miss Eve being mistress of this house until his lordship marries again won’t go down well with Mrs Winterley though, you mark my words.’
‘So noted,’ Chloe said and went downstairs to do her duty.
Stupid to feel as if a knife had been stabbed in her heart at mention of Lord Farenze remarrying, as he must to beget an heir. Best not to think where she would go next until the mourners left either. Lord Farenze wouldn’t keep her on and she couldn’t stay even if he wanted her to, but there was a deal of work before she could walk away with her last duty to her late mistress done.
* * *
Luke signalled at the waiting footman to close the doors behind them against the icy easterly wind and missed Virginia’s imperious command to come on in do, lest she expire in the howling gale he was letting in.
‘Thank you, Oakham,’ he said, seeing the butler had set chairs near the blazing fire and offered hot toddies to Eve and Bran to stave off the cold. ‘I would wish you a good day, but we both know there is no such thing right now.’
‘Indeed not, my lord,’ the elderly manservant replied with a sad shake of his head that said more than words.
Even over the mild stir of activity Luke caught the sound of Mrs Wheaton’s inky skirts and disapproving petticoats as she descended the grand staircase and tried to pretend neither of them were really here. So, she steeled herself to meet the new master of the house, did she? Luke admired her courage even as he wished it would fail her and his senses sprang to attention. Even in buttoned-up mourning array she was hauntingly lovely, but close to she looked even more drawn and weary. Feelings that seemed far more dangerous than simple desire kicked him in the gut and he wished her a hundred miles away more fervently than ever.
‘Good day, Mrs Wheaton,’ he greeted her woodenly. ‘Please show my daughter and her maid to their rooms, then see their luggage is sent up.’
‘Good afternoon, my lord; Miss Winterley,’ she replied with an almost respectful curtsey in his direction.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Wheaton,’ Eve said with a smile that seemed to relax the stubborn woman’s air of tightly wound tension. ‘I’ve heard so much about you. Great-Aunt Virginia was always full of your daughter’s quaint sayings and doings when she was a babe and she sounds a bright and lively girl now she’s at school.’
‘By