Once and Always
Page 88

“You don’t understand—his lordship specifically said he was staying at home because her ladyship wished for him to do so!”
“Now, that is encouraging, Mr. Franklin!” Northrup leaned back, casting a cautious glance around to make certain no one was near enough to overhear, then said, “I believe the reason for her ladyship’s request may lie in a particular article in the Gazette that she saw this morning, which led her to believe that his lordship was possibly entertaining a certain lady of a certain class—an opera dancer, I believe.”
O’Malley pulled his ear from the wall, rushed to the side door of the salon, and sprinted down the back hall that was used by the servants to carry refreshments to the salon from the kitchen. “She’s done it!” he crowed triumphantly to the kitchen servants as he burst into the room.
Mrs. Craddock straightened from her task of rolling out pastry dough, so eager to hear what he had to say that she ignored the fact that he snatched an apple from her work-table. “What has she done?”
O’Malley leaned against the wall and helped himself to a large bite of the juicy apple, waving the uneaten portion in the air for emphasis as he spoke. “She gave his lordship what-for, that’s what! I heard it all from Franklin and Northrup. Her ladyship read in the paper that his lordship was with Miss Sybil, and her ladyship told Lord Fielding to stay home where he belongs. He’s goin‘ t’do it, too. I told the lot of you the lass could handle the master. Knew it as soon as she told me she was Irish! But she’s a true lady, too,” he added loyally. “All gentle-like and smiling.”
“She’s been a sad lady these last days, poor thing,” Mrs. Craddock said, still looking a little worried. “She scarcely eats when he isn’t here, and I’ve made all her favorites. She always thanks me so politely, too. It’s enough to make a body weep. I can’t think why he isn’t in her bed at night where he belongs. . . .”
O’Malley shook his head glumly. “He hasn’t been there since their weddin‘ night. Ruth says she’s certain-sure of it. And her ladyship ain’t sleeping in his bed neither, because the upstairs maids are keeping an eye on his chambers, and there’s never more than one pillow on his bed with a crease in it.” In morose silence, he finished his apple and reached for another, but this time Mrs. Craddock whacked his hand with her towel. “Snop snitching my apples, Daniel, they’re for a pie I’m makin’ for dessert.” A sudden smile flickered across her kindly features. “No, go ahead and take the apples. I’ve decided to make something else for them tonight. Something more festive than a pie.”
The youngest scullery maid, a homely, buxom girl of about sixteen, piped up, “One of the laundry maids was tellin‘ me about a certain powder you can put in a man’s wine that gets him into the mood for having a woman, if his manhood’s what’s causin’ the problem. The laundry maids all think mebbe his lordship ought to have a little speck o‘ that powder—just to help things along.”
The kitchen servants all murmured agreement, but O’Malley exclaimed derisively, “Lord, girl! Where do you get such ideas? His lordship don’t need them powders, and you can tell everyone in the laundry I said so! Why, John coachman’s nose runs year-round from a permanent chill he got while spendin‘ nearly every night last winter waitin’ atop the coach, out in the elements, for his lordship to leave Miss Hawthorne’s bed. Miss Hawthorne,” he finished informatively, “was his ladybird afore Miss Sybil.”
“Was he with Miss Sybil last night?” Mrs. Craddock asked, already measuring out flour for her “festive” dessert. “Or was that just newspaper talk?”
O’Malley’s cheerful face sobered. “He was there, right enough. I heerd it from one of the grooms. Course, we don’t know fer shure that anythin‘ happened whilst he was there. Mebbe he was payin’ her off.”
Mrs. Craddock sent him a weak, unconvinced smile. “Well, at least he’s stayin‘ home for supper with his wife tonight. That’s a good start.”
O’Malley nodded agreement and headed off to share his latest news with the groom who’d provided him with the master’s exact whereabouts last night.
Which was why, of the 140 people at Wakefield Park, only Victoria was surprised when Jason strolled into the dining room that night to join her for supper.
“You’re staying home tonight?” she burst out in amazed relief as he sat down at the head of the table.
He sent her a measuring look. “I was under the distinct impression that was what you wanted me to do.”
“Well, I did,” Victoria admitted, wondering if she looked her best in the emerald green gown she was wearing and wishing he wasn’t so far away from her at the opposite end of the long table. “Only I didn’t really expect you to do it. That is—” She broke off as O’Malley turned from the sideboard, carrying a tray with two sparkling crystal glasses filled with wine. It was nearly impossible to carry on a conversation with Jason so far away, both emotionally and physically.
She sighed as O’Malley headed straight toward her, an odd, determined gleam in his eye. “Your wine, my lady,” he said and swept a glass from the tray, plunking it on the table with a queer, exaggerated flourish that inevitably tipped the glass and spilled wine all over the linen tablecloth in front of her place.
“O’Malley—!” Northrup bit out from his station near the sideboard where he routinely supervised the serving of meals.
O’Malley sent him a look of ignorant innocence and made a great fuss of pulling back Lady Victoria’s chair, helping her to stand, and guiding her down to Jason’s end of the table. “There now, my lady,” he said, positively emanating anxious contrition as he pulled out the chair on Jason’s immediate right. “I’ll have more wine for ye in a trice. Then I’ll clean up that mess down there. Smells awful, it does, spilled wine. Best to stay far away from it. Can’t think how I came to spill yer wine thataway,” he added, whisking up a linen napkin and placing it across Victoria’s lap. “Me arm’s been painin‘ me of late and that’s prob’ly what did it. Nothin’ serious fer ye to worry ‘bout—just an old bone what was broken years ago.”
Victoria straightened her skirts and looked at him with a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry your arm pains you, Mr. O’Malley.”