Кейси Майклс - The Butler Did It

MORGAN EYED the large tester bed longingly. But he was still more hungry than he was tired, so he contented himself with watching Riley build up the fire in the grate as he propped himself against the side of a wingback chair and sipped from the wineglass the footman had produced along with two bottles of his lordship’s finest wine.

It was good, being in the mansion again. It was even better that he’d dismissed Wycliff for the evening and could look forward to being blessedly alone.

“And there you go, m’lord,” Riley said as he stood up, wiping one hand against the other. “Surely that should keep you warm and toasty all the night long.”

Then he held out one rather grubby hand, palm up.

Morgan’s left eyebrow climbed his forehead as he looked at the outstretched hand. “Yes?” he asked, transferring his cool stare to the footman’s face. “I’m afraid I don’t read palms, Riley. But if you were to go to Bartholomew Fair, I’m convinced you’ll find any number of gypsies ready and willing to tell you that you’ll be rich as Croesus, any day now. What I can tell you, my good man, is that I will not be the one who bestows such wealth upon you.”

Riley snatched back his hand, putting both arms behind his back. “I’m that sorry, m’lord. It’s only being that, that is, it just sort of…happened.”

“Yes, I’m sure. Just as I’m convinced it won’t…just sort of happen again. Not to me, and most certainly not to any of my guests when they call here. If your service is exemplary, and the guest so chooses, he or she may decide to reward you, but that will be their decision, not yours. You may go now.”

Riley bowed and scraped and backed his way toward the door to the marquis’s dressing room, which had no other exit. It did have Wycliff, who was busily unpacking his lordship’s things, but even Morgan couldn’t wish Wycliff on Riley at the moment.

“That way, Riley,” Morgan corrected him, pointing toward the door to the hallway.

“Yes, m’lord, of course, m’lord. Sleep well, m’lord, and, well, um, welcome to London?”

“Thank you,” Morgan said, watching the footman fumble with the latch, and finally throw open the door…only to just as quickly slam it shut once more.

“Forgot something, have you?” Morgan asked, intrigued both by Riley’s action and the fact that the footman’s ruddy Irish complexion had done a remarkably swift shift to a rather sickly white.

“No, m’lord,” Riley said, opening the door once more, but a crack, and peeking out into the hallway. “It’s only your food coming, m’lord. I’ll…I’ll just go fetch it.”

“No, have Thornley come in, if you please. I want to apologize again for descending on him without notice.”

Riley shot him a look that had Morgan shaking his head. Were those tears in the boy’s eyes? “Oh, never mind,” he said, putting down his wineglass and heading for the door. “I hadn’t thought Thornley could inspire such fear in his staff. I’ll do it myself.”

As Riley looked on, his eyes so rounded they appeared capable of popping straight out of his head, Morgan threw open the door…to be presented with an empty hallway.

He stepped out and looked to his left, to his right, and saw a door closing at the very end of the hallway.

“My old rooms?” he asked himself, confused. “Has Thornley gotten past it at last? I haven’t resided there since I was a child, too small for that large bed in here.” He called Riley into the hallway. “Do you know why he’s gone in there?”

“No, m’lord,” Riley said, looking down at his toes where, the blessed saints be praised, inspiration appeared to be spending the evening. He’d wondered where it had been. He looked up again, grinning, and said, “Sometimes Mr. Thornley likes to take his ease in that bedchamber, m’lord, seein’ as how there ain’t nobody else to sleep there. It’s…it’s his back, m’lord. It sometimes pains him terrible, and he says the bedding in there is better than a mustard plaster.”

“So he’s gone to bed? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Oh, no, m’lord, I’d not be saying that,” Riley said, getting caught up in his lie. “It’s gathering up his belongings he’s doing, sure as check, ashamed as he’d be for you to know what he’s been about. Sleepin’ in the master’s bed? Tch, tch.”

Morgan considered this. “But…why would I have reason to go into those rooms?”

Riley rolled his eyes. “You know Mr. Thornley, m’lord. A real stickler he is, for what’s proper.”

“Proper, Riley, is that I get something to eat before my ribs start shaking hands with my backbone. Now, go get that tray.”

“Yes, m’lord. I’ll just be doing that, right now. You go sit yourself down, m’lord, rest your weary bones, and it’s right back I’ll be,” Riley said.

He watched until Morgan closed the door behind him, then headed, lickety-split, for the servant stairs, where he met Thornley, who was ascending the stairs with a duplicate to the tray now residing in Cliff Clifford’s bedchamber.

Crisis averted. Postponed. But not resolved.

“WE COULD TELL THEM there is a problem with the drains, and they’d die if they remained here,” Thornley said as his small staff sat behind the closed and locked door of his private quarters, out of earshot from the Westham servants who had arrived with the marquis.

It had been a long and sleepless night. A worried one, too.

“Can we do that? I don’t want to do that. Makes me look a poor housekeeper,” Mrs. Timon said, worrying at a thumbnail with her teeth. A splendid cook, Hazel Timon was tall, reed thin, and with a spotty complexion that would make it easy to believe she herself subsisted on stale bread and ditch water…and nail clippings.

“Mrs. Timon, you’re biting again,” Thornley said, pointing a finger at her nasty habit.

“And she’s snuffling again,” Mrs. Timon shot back, folding her hands in her lap as she glared at Claramae, who had been intermittently crying into her apron the whole of the night long.

Riley leaned over to put a comforting arm around the young maid, allowing his hand to drift just a bit too low over her shoulder, which earned him a sharp slap from the girl just as his fingertips were beginning to find the foray interesting.

“No, no, no, we can’t have this,” Thornley said, clapping his hands to bring everyone back to attention. “Quarreling amongst ourselves aids nothing. Think, people. What else can we do?”

“I’d make up some breakfast,” Mrs. Timon offered, “excepting for that Gassie fella took over my kitchens.”

“Gas-ton, Mrs. Timon,” Thornley said absently, staring at the list he’d made during the darkest and least imaginative portions of the night.

The plague. Discarded as too deadly. And where was one to find a plague cart when one needed one? Worse, who would volunteer to play corpse?

Measles? Too spotty by half and, besides, Thornley’s memory had told him that his lordship had contracted the measles as a child, so covering Claramae in red spots wouldn’t have the man haring back to Westham.

A fire in the kitchens? Mrs. Timon would have his liver and lights, and if it got out of hand, half of London could go up in flames. Their situation was desperate, but not dire enough to risk another Great Fire.

What was left?

Thornley’s mind kept coming to the same conclusion.

“We…we could tell ’em the truth, give ’em their money back, and ask ’em very kindly to take themselves off,” Claramae offered weakly, then blew her nose in her apron.

Just what Thornley had been thinking, which was a worriment, if the simple-headed Claramae thought it a good idea.

An expensive silence settled over the room.

Mrs. Timon thought about the locked box in the bottom of her closet. She was a year short of having enough to lease a small cottage by the sea, complete with hiring a local girl as servant of all work, and never cooking another thing for another person. She’d eat twigs before she’d stand over another stove in August.

Riley wondered where and how he’d come up with his share, as he hadn’t saved so much as a bent penny, preferring to wager everything each year on such hopefully money-tripling pursuits as bearbaiting, cockfights, and the occasional dice game in his favorite pub.

Claramae, author of the idea, sat quietly and didn’t think at all, which was all right, because she really wasn’t very good at it anyway.

Which left Thornley.

“I suppose we could. We were overly ambitious in the first place, I realize now. And, as it’s nearly gone seven, and we have had no other idea, I suppose we’ll have to resort to the truth. Come along,” he said, getting to his feet. “The Clifford ladies and the rest will be rising shortly, as is their custom. We must speak to them before they ring for their morning chocolate and alert the other servants to their presence. We’ll also begin with them simply because there are more of them.”

“Yes, but the money…?” Mrs. Timon asked, shuffling her carpet-slippered feet as she followed Thornley.

“As this entire idea was mine, I will be responsible for all remunerations, Mrs. Timon,” Thornley said gamely.

“Yes, but who will pay them?” Riley asked worriedly, trailing along behind, dragging Claramae with him.

EMMA HEARD THE KNOCKING on her bedchamber door, but chose to ignore it. She didn’t want her morning chocolate. She didn’t want morning, as she’d not slept well, a nagging feeling that something might be wrong in the mansion keeping her awake, alert for any sound.

The sound now, however—whispers mixed with whimpering—could not be ignored, so she kicked back the covers and padded to the door of the bedchamber and put her ear to the door.

“Claramae, I said knock and enter. As a man, obviously I can’t go in there, not with Miss Clifford possibly still not dressed for the day.”

“But I don’t…I don’t want to.”

“Stand back, the lot of you. I’ll do it.”

“Riley, stifle yourself.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sakes, I’ll do it.”

Emma jumped back as the latch depressed, and barely missed having the tip of her nose nipped off as the door swung inward and Mrs. Timon stepped inside…followed by a widely grinning Riley, who took no more than two swaggering, arms-waving steps before a long, black-clad arm appeared, grabbed the footman by the collar of his livery and yanked him back out again.

“Miss Clifford?”

“Yes?” Emma said, stepping out from behind the door. “Is something wrong, Mrs. Timon?”

“Well, miss, you could maybe say that, miss…can I fetch your dressing gown?”

Emma frowned at the woman, then retreated to the chair beside her bed, snatched up her dressing gown and slipped into it. “Better, Mrs. Timon?” she asked, tying the sash tightly around her waist.

“Yes, miss, thank you, miss,” Mrs. Timon said. “Your slippers?”

What on earth? Emma located her slippers and put them on.

“Thank you, miss. That should do it,” the cook cum housekeeper cum obscure visitor said, then opened the door once more.

In trooped Riley, still grinning (but no longer swaggering), followed by Thornley, who had his chin lifted so high his only view of the bedchamber could have been the painted ceiling, and Claramae, whose chin could not be lower as she, in turn, inspected the floor.

Emma sat down on the pink-and-white-striped slipper chair, tossed the long, fat single braid over her shoulder and folded her hands in her lap.

She’d been right. Something was wrong.

Her mother had tackled Thornley in the hallways and made a complete cake of herself.