‘I will do it.’ Later. After he’d rested. ‘Go on to your other tasks.’ He suspected there were many.
‘I will say goodbye, then,’ she said.
He was reluctant to part from her, but bowed and walked directly to the butler’s room. Once there he removed his topcoat and sank into the upholstered chair, placing his feet up on the nearby stool.
He closed his eyes and felt a fog in his head from the fever and the exertion. He did not need her company. He did not deserve it.
He shifted in the chair. He’d keep to himself. He could do that. It was only ten days.
* * *
Lucas rested that day and the next. All traces of his fever had gone by that second day and there was nothing reminding Lucas of being unwell but an occasional cough. He’d been blessed with a strong constitution and always bounced back quickly from any illness or injury.
As agreed, Lucas had been left to care for himself, merely needing to visit the kitchen when hungry and carry his food back to the butler’s room. He would have done very well in the village inn—Miss Wallace’s sacrifice had been totally unnecessary, but he’d made his bargain with her and, unless she freed him from it, he would honour her wishes.
* * *
Upon waking this third day, Lucas felt restless. The four walls of the butler’s room were closing in on him and the prospect of further inactivity was intolerable. His window looked out on to the yard and, from what he could tell, it seemed to be a fine sunny day. It almost made him believe in hope.
He picked up his breakfast tray and carried it back to the kitchen.
Cook looked up as he appeared in the doorway.
‘Another excellent meal, Mrs MacNeal.’ The woman always looked so harried. He felt sorry for her. ‘Where shall I put the tray?’
‘Ah, Mr Lucas.’ She gave him a tense smile as she chopped bright orange carrots, tossing the pieces into a brass pot. She inclined her head. ‘In the scullery.’
He carried the tray to the scullery, which was laden with dishes needing to be washed. He returned to the kitchen and asked, ‘Where is the scullery maid?’ He’d become used to seeing the young girl there.
‘Evie is helping Mrs Cross today.’ The cook wiped her brow with the back of her hand. ‘Mrs Cross told me I must wash the dishes today, but I dinnae ken how or when!’
Lucas shrugged. ‘I’ll wash your dishes for you.’
He might as well do something useful.
Mrs MacNeal gaped at him. ‘You, sir?’
‘Why not?’ He felt too well to still be contagious.
‘Do you know how?’ she asked sceptically.
‘I’ve been around kitchens before, Mrs MacNeal.’ As a boy he’d loved to hang around the kitchen—all the better to be given extra treats. ‘I can manage it.’
She waved a hand. ‘Well, put on an apron and go to it, then.’
Lucas washed, dried and put away every dish. As soon as he finished, the footman who’d cleaned his clothes brought more from the family’s breakfast.
The young man stumbled back a step on seeing Lucas in his apron.
Lucas could not help but be amused. ‘I thought I might help.’ He smiled.
The footman blinked. ‘Are you not fevered, then?’
‘Well recovered,’ Lucas assured him. ‘I must stay for another week, so I might as well work.’ He nodded to the man. ‘I am John Lucas.’
The young man’s forehead furrowed. ‘I know that, sir.’
Cook called over to them, ‘He wants to know your name, Robert.’ She shook her head in dismay.
‘Aye.’ The footman turned back to Lucas. ‘I am Robert.’
Lucas nodded again.
‘Back to work, Robert,’ Mrs MacNeal cried, ‘before Mrs Cross finds you still.’
Robert hurried out.
Lucas finished this latest round of dishes and Cook thanked him profusely. He returned to the butler’s room, but it felt more confining than ever. He stood at the window and put on the butler’s battered hat. The sun still shone and the sky was a clear azure. He spun around and walked out of the room again.
He stopped by the kitchen. ‘Mrs MacNeal, if Miss Wallace thinks I’ve absconded again, explain that I am merely taking a turn in the garden.’
‘I will. I will.’ Cook looked up. ‘Do not make yourself ill again, Mr Lucas.’
He knew himself. The fever would not return. ‘No fear of that.’
He made his way to the servants’ door and stepped outside, lifting his face to the sun and filling his lungs with the clean, fresh air. Off to the right was the kitchen garden, where one of the maids appeared to be tending the plants. He walked towards her.
As he came near, the maid looked up.
‘Miss Wallace!’ he said in surprise.
She wore an apron over her dress and a wide-brimmed straw hat. She held a hoe in her hands.
‘Mr Lucas, what are you doing?’ Her tone was suspicious.
He walked closer, holding up his hands. ‘I assure you, I am well. Completely recovered. But do not fear. I am not escaping. I simply wished to take a walk.’
She peered at him a long time as if assessing his health for herself.
He’d not seen her since his attempted departure. She looked like a vision from some bucolic painting, tilling the soil.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked. But what he really meant was, Why are you working in the garden like a labourer?
She lowered her gaze and stabbed the earth with her hoe. ‘Oh, I am turning the earth to ready it for autumn planting.’
A baron’s daughter? ‘Why you, Miss Wallace? Do you have no gardeners?’
She blinked and could not quite meet his eyes. ‘There is only Kinley, but he cannot do it all.’ She raised her head and lifted her chin. ‘And we must have food, must we not?’
‘What about your footmen? Can they not help?’ Robert was a strong young man.
She attacked the ground again. ‘Robert and Erwin are proud of being footmen. It would be beneath them to work in the garden.’
He tilted his head. ‘But not beneath the baron’s daughter?’
Her face flushed. ‘I do not mind the work.’
‘Your brother, then.’ Niven had seemed an energetic youth.
‘Niven is not at home. He is visiting a friend.’
That seemed quite frivolous when there was so much to be done at home—most of it falling to Miss Wallace. Or, rather, most she took upon herself. It bothered Lucas to see her performing such hard labour. And it bothered him that her plight affected him at all.
It was none of his affair, he told himself.
‘I will leave you to it, then.’ He turned away and walked a few steps, but turned back to her, inclining his head towards a pond he’d glimpsed in the distance. ‘I thought I might walk to that pond.’
She stopped hoeing. ‘Are you certain you feel well enough?’
‘You need not worry about me, Miss Wallace.’
She had enough worries on her shoulders.