Your post, my lord.”
Matthias glanced at the silver salver piled with envelopes, presented by Jasper as if it held the scrolls of Alexander the Great. Matthias looked away. "You know what to do with the invitations, Jasper."
Jasper didn't sigh, or grimace, but Matthias could feel his butler's disappointment. "My lord, there are several fine families within a few hours ride from Havensbeck who would be honored to have you at their table."
Fine families with suitable daughters. Matthias could hear the unsaid words vibrate through the room. He ignored them, even as he ignored the pile of post. Finally, Jasper fished out two letters from the heap of rich, creamy paper carrying blobs of wax with monograms and family crests pressed thereupon. These two missives, refreshingly free of ornate seals, came from a firm that oversaw his investments in London.
He set the letters aside to read later.
Jasper still stood by the desk, the salver in one hand, an opened letter in the other. Matthias looked up to see an odd expression on his butler's face. Not that Jasper would ever go so far as to smile, but there was something strange about him. "What are you reading?"
Instead of answering directly, Jasper began to read aloud.
"Dear my lord sir,
I am writing to you because you need a wife. I am needing a husband, so this is excellent news."
Oh, bother. Most women were more subtle, but every once in a while Matthias received a more, ahem, forthright offer from a person of the female persuasion.
"No more, please. God, I hate those letters."
Jasper gazed at the letter. "I rather like this one." He continued reading.
"I am comely and I have a nice smile. You will be happy to know that my gowns are getting tight in the bosom."
Matthias twitched irritably. Bosoms were the last thing on his mind. Although he recalled being very fond of them, once.
"I am very cheerful and I like to laugh. When the cow got out and ran through the garden with Aunt Sarah's bloomers on her horns, I laughed so hard that I had to sit down. I by chance sat upon the--"
Matthias looked up to see Jasper watching him.
"Do you wish me to stop, my lord?"
Matthias drew back. Damn it, he'd actually begun to be interested in that drivel! "Indeed I do. I believe I said as much."
Jasper nodded a bow as he flipped the letter back into its folds and tucked it into the stack of invitations. Matthias noticed that the paper of that peculiar offer was not fine, nor creamy, nor held an imprinted seal. In fact, it looked almost like butcher's paper, addressed in a smudged, blocky print.
No, thank you. He drew the line at women who could not use a quill properly.
Jasper took himself off at last and Matthias turned back to his reports of bushels and barrels. An image drifted across his mind's eye, a cow galloping clumsily about, a crown of lacy underthings flying like a banner from its blunted horns.
He didn't laugh, not quite.
I wonder what she sat on?
Outside his lordship's study, Jasper paused in the hallway to finish the letter.
"I by chance sat upon the sundial. I had to use a cushion at the dinner table for nearly a week.
If you would like to have a wife who can cook and bake and clean, I would like to have a husband who is a lord. I know a lot about tea and I am not afraid of dogs. Also I am a very good fisherman."
"Very good fisherman" was crossed out in heavy, blotted strokes. After it was written, "lady who fishes very well."
As he was alone in the hallway, Jasper allowed himself a real smile.
The closing clearly spelled out "Miss Bernadette Goodrich, the Vicarage of Green Dell, County Staffordshire" in the same blocky letters. There was no signature.
Jasper folded the letter once more and tapped it thoughtfully against the edge of the salver. Downriver. As head butler, Jasper took his duties very seriously. His lordship depended on him to take care of household matters, to see to the grounds and to keep things in good repair. When something in his purview was broken, Jasper had great power of discretion to fix it.
Fix it he would. Yes, indeed.
Bernie stared at her aunt and uncle across the breakfast table. "A holiday? In Haven?"
Beside her, Simon wriggled in his chair. She felt his pointy elbow in her side.
"Upriver!" he whispered loudly.
Bernie absently caught the offending elbow in a gentle but uncompromising grip as she waited for Uncle Isaiah to confirm Aunt Sarah's announcement.
He smiled benignly at her. "Wouldn't you like that, Bernadette? It was young John Barton who extended the invitation. He's vicar there now. He has asked us all to join him for the holiday celebrations at the manor of the lord of Havensbeck."
"Havensbeck!" Simon squeaked.
Bernie felt her belly flip. Visit his manor? Eat at his table?
Aunt Sarah nodded. "You remember John, don't you, Bernie? He was studying with Isaiah when you first arrived here. Such a likable young man."
Bernie blinked. Aunt Sarah, who refrained from being judgmental with all her might, for that would be a sin, also abstained from dropping praise. Ever.
She looked down at her polished plate. She'd eaten every scrap of her toast spread with drippings and her meager allotment of bacon, except for the piece she'd slipped to Simon while her aunt served her uncle.
Of course, she recalled John Barton. He'd been tall and thin and fervent at eighteen, all big hands and stumbling feet and burning belief in his mission to bring salvation to the straying flocks of the world, whether they wished it or not. At fourteen, she had found him admirable but not terribly approachable.
Bernie was all for salvation, but she was of the opinion that, if let be, the flocks would likely exercise a little self-restraint of their own. Most people simply wanted enough coal on their hearth and enough food for their children. She much preferred Uncle Isaiah's kindly, uplifting sermons. He made people remember that being good was good for everyone, that kindness begat kindness and generosity of spirit could be infectious.
Mr. Barton may have mellowed, she reminded herself. He would be in his mid-twenties and had finished his studies and his curacy under another vicar before being ordained. He would have seen more of the world, and the world was a great teacher. She was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, friend of the family that he was.
There was no other reason she was eager to go upriver to Haven. None whatsoever.
Once permission had been granted to host the holiday festivities in the manor proper, the entire staff of Havensbeck had lost their minds.
At least, that is how it seemed to Matthias. Every room he passed, every hall he traversed contained some madness of the housekeeping kind. Apparently, entertaining a few hundred people for a single meal required that every square inch of Havensbeck be unfolded, aired, swept, polished, turned inside out and upside down. Chaos reigned and Matthias found himself helpless against the tide of revolution.
"Pardon me, my lord, but I'll be needin' to dust that." Before he'd fully planted his arse in a chair.
"If you're finished with your tea, my lord, I'll just be clearing it away." Before he'd taken a single sip.
"Apologies, m'lord, but you can't go in just now. The maids are waxing that floor."
"It's my study! There won't be any guests visiting my study!" Grumbling was met with cheerful and insincere regret, and he found himself shuffled off into another room, and yet another, until Jasper finally suggested that his lordship had some overdue business with the solicitor in the village and wasn't it a fine day for a ride?
Matthias, knowing full well he was being ousted, took up the excuse to leave and allowed himself to be stuffed into his greatcoat. In mere minutes, he found himself thrust from his own house. His stallion, Perseus, stood saddled and ready in the center of the snowy drive.
The day was brilliantly clear, with blue skies and sunlight shimmering on the heavy blanket of snow. The drifts on either side were high, but the lane to the village had been compacted neatly by the many carts that had delivered to Havensbeck in the last few days. Grousing to himself about the cost of all those supplies could not keep the cheering glory of the bright winter day from affecting him. By the time he reached the village common, he found his mood somewhat less gloomy.
Blast it, he hated it when Jasper was right!
Bernie squirmed in her seat. The long carriage ride from Green Dell to Haven had been wearing for Simon, and even more so for the adults accompanying him. He was a sweet boy and always eager to please, but six slow hours was difficult for an active child.
Immediately upon arrival at the inn in Haven, before the bags were even fully down, Bernie whisked her brother out of sight of her weary uncle and visibly frazzled aunt.
A good run around the village, that's what they needed. To be honest, Bernie was no more used to sitting still for that long. In the course of her duties, she had become accustomed to constant action and long walks.
Aunt Sarah waved them off gratefully as she entered the inn with her husband. Uncle Isaiah leaned heavily on his walking stick, ashen with fatigue. Bernie felt bad about leaving them until she noted that the innkeeper's wife had taken an instant motherly interest in her newest guests.
Running would be improper. Walking so briskly that it might as well be a running pace was merely efficient. And if she danced into a skipping step occasionally, it was only to keep up with Simon, who fled the carriage and the inn as if they were on fire.
"Come along, Bernie! I want to see!"
See what, she could not imagine. Anything at all, she supposed, other than Green Dell. A different baker, a different smithy, even a different tree would be a significant novelty over the village he'd not left once since the age of two.
Bernie remembered London. Mostly her memories of the city itself were a blur of sooty buildings and crowded walks, but she'd been to Regent's Park many times and once she had accompanied her parents to Brighton and seen the sea. Yet even she embraced the giddy feeling of visiting a new village. New faces, new shop fronts, new signs above them.
Haven was more prosperous than Green Dell, that much was obvious at once. The women looked less work worn, the men more satisfied with themselves.
When they passed the vicarage, the residence attached to the Haven church, Bernie looked curiously through the iron gate. There were piles of cut lumber and stacks of stones waiting next to the small stable, covered with canvas tarpaulins and ready to make the improvements to the living quarters of Haven's new vicar. Even before the proposed changes, she could see that solid stone house was larger and finer than their own.
What a difference it made, having one's landowner in residence. The farms around Green Dell belonged to an elderly count whom Bernie had never seen. Beleaguered by generations of debt, the man could not sell the estate, nor would anyone let it, not in the condition it stood now. So the old hall sat empty and crumbling and there was no one to turn to when a field flooded or a sickness swept through the sheep herds.
When she turned away from the vicarage gate, Bernie realized that she'd lost Simon. Again.
Excellent. No one could chastise her for running now.
Mr. Eston Wermer, solicitor, accountant, investment manager and Havensbeck's foremost defender against the drift of entropy, was a narrow fellow with hands beginning to twist with age and a back bending under the weight of it. His most distinguishing feature was a full head of shocking white hair. His office was on the story above the bookshop with a view of the village square.
"My lord! Why did not you send for me to come to Havensbeck? It is not fitting for you to clamber up my stairs!"
Matthias didn't bother to remind Wermer that he climbed more stairs at Havensbeck Manor before breakfast than comprised the short flight above the bookseller's.
Wermer took Matthias's greatcoat and gloves, hat and scarf. It didn't help much, for the room was oppressively warm. Wermer must have noticed Matthias's deepening flush, for he moved to the large window and pushed one half of the glass outward on its hinges. Matthias nodded in gratitude and promptly took up a position near the fresh air.
In his turn, Wermer tugged his own scarf more snugly around his neck. "My apologies, my lord. I cannot suffer the chill the way I used to."
Matthias waved a hand, already losing interest in the temperature. "Tell me, Wermer. What have you discovered about that farm tenant? Was I correct in my guess that Fulton is withholding illegally?"
Wermer cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. "No, my lord. On closer questioning, I discovered that the farm had recently come under the management of the original tenant's sons. According to one rather severely annoyed wife, the three young men have squabbled so extensively over one particularly excellent field that they neglected all the others."
Matthias nodded encouragingly, but all he could think was, three sons? A wealth greater than any land.
"I took the liberty of giving all three fellows a sound scolding and promised them that they would lose their tenancy if they did not see to their plantings more conscientiously this coming spring!"
"Yes, yes, very good. Your efforts are most appreciated. And the old farmer, Fulton. What happened to him? I had not heard of any deaths in the village."
"No, my lord. Old Fulton resides by the fire, too frail for farming. Do not worry over him, my lord. His daughters-in-law dote on him fiercely."
"Siiiimonnn!"
Marianna?
Matthias flinched. Wermer gazed at him curiously. No ghostly presence invaded the room. Am I losing my sanity?
"Simon, where are you?"
No, the source of the call lay outside the room, out in the square. Matthias found himself at the window, looking for the caller, his heart pounding. Which was a bit insane, now that he thought about it. After all, Simon was a common name and the woman only sounded a little like Marianna.
Yet he could not keep his eyes from searching for a dark-haired, slender lady who favored blue silk and smiled as if she held a secret. Behind him, Wermer said something. Matthias ignored him.
A boy ran across his field of vision. He was a skinny lad of less than ten years, with a too-large knitted hat tugged down over his ears and booted feet skidding on the snow-packed cobbles.
The child waved a stick like a wooden sword in his mitten paw. He slewed to a stop to give challenge to a cart horse tied outside the dry goods shop.
"En garde, you despicable dragon!"
The cart horse slid a contemptuous glance at the brave knight, then went back to nosing the small pile of hay that had been dropped at his post.
"Simon, that horse works for his living. He has no time to play with you."
Matthias looked up quickly at that musical voice, but the young woman walking across the square was nothing at all like Marianna. He could not see her face well in the shadows of her bonnet, but her figure was fuller and her bulky canvas coat fit her ill. She looked like a farmer's daughter come to the village to gawk over the lengths of ribbon in the milliner's shop.
Still, she had a very nice voice.
Young Simon turned to her. "Bernie, do horses get bored?"
To Matthias's surprise, the young woman stopped and tilted her head as she considered the harnessed animal with apparent seriousness. "I would imagine that were I a horse, I should rather like to be bored. Horses are skittish and fearful sometimes, so for one to be bored, he would need to feel so very safe for so very long that he had actually forgotten what it was like to be afraid."
An interesting thought. Matthias frowned at the horse.
The boy eyed the oblivious animal with new curiosity. "And then they would get bored?"
Matthias found himself waiting for her answer. The girl had to be sister, not mother, for the child had called her by a family nickname.
She nodded decisively. "Yes, then they would get bored."
Now that he'd established that the girl with the nice voice was nothing like his Marianna, he found himself fascinated by the child. His own Simon would be a bit older than this lad. Would his little man have been so awkward, with oversized, scuffling feet and odd, curious questions?
Matthias tried to recall what he had been like at that age. The door of his recollection opened stiffly, creaking with disuse. For so long, his memory had swirled ceaselessly around a few precious years and one awful night. It took an effort to reach back through the continuum of his own existence to recall the lad he'd been at ten.
Quiet. A little bookish. Mad about stories of faraway lands and strange peoples. Good on horseback, but yes, constantly tripping over his suddenly large feet.
And a good seventeen years away from meeting a girl with a teasing smile and eyes like blue glass before a candle flame. It startled Matthias to think of his life before Marianna, before Simon, before that awful Christmas Eve.
I had twenty-four years before. Happy years, full of friends and adventure, with not a dull moment or second of wistful melancholy. For a single, fierce instant he longed with all that was left of his soul for that other Matthias, that whole, unbroken young self.
Then shame doused him, like an icicle dripping down the back of his neck. He straightened, pulling his hands back from the sill and turning sharply away. He would have to abandon his wife and son, to leave them to their end, unremembered and unmourned, to be that man again.
Besides, he wasn't sure he even recalled how.