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The scratching stopped, and a muttered oath broke the quiet.
Philip turned. “That is your fifth ‘damnation’ this morning,” he said. “I’m not surprised. You might spend your next five lifetimes explaining the shakta cults.”
She looked up. “If I talk about Kali, I ought to explain that she’s just one of the manifestations of Shiva’s wife. Everyone thinks the worst of Kali, yet she’s simply one element—like one personality trait among many. Personalities are not always consistent.”
“You want to defend her because you are partial to bloodthirsty females, miss.”
“She is the most important goddess for Calcutta,” Miss Cavencourt returned. “You know perfectly well the city’s original name was Kalikata. I can hardly ignore her. Besides, if I speak only of agreeable matters, the book will be boring.”
He shot her a smile. “Certainly it will – to those with a penchant for severed heads and ghastly vengeances.”
He moved to the worktable, which, in less than an hour, his employer had reduced to mind-numbing disorder. “You work too hard and take no rest. Once, I recollect, you sternly recommended exercise to me, miss. I think you ought heed your own advice.” He gestured towards the windows. “The wind is not nearly so sharp today. A walk will do you good.”
He listened patiently while she fussed that she could not afford to give up time now, when she very nearly had the thing in hand, and that, furthermore, she was quite well and didn’t need exercise – not to mention it was freezing out there.
Philip let her sputter on. When she had done explaining the error of his ways, and taken up her pen once more, he left the room.
A quarter of an hour later he returned, carrying a woolen cloak and scarf, a thick bonnet, gloves, and sturdy shoes. He had donned a dashing black, many-caped coat.
Miss Cavencourt looked at his coat and the heap of clothing in his arms and sighed. “I collect you mean to haul me out of doors, whether I will or no. I might have known, when I got not a whisper of argument. You are very managing.”
“And you are cross from spending too much time in one overheated room, with your nose stuck in a heap of papers,” he said disrespectfully.
“My nose, for your information –”
“Has a spot of ink upon it.” He produced a large, brilliantly white handkerchief.
Her butler having expressed a desire to tramp upon the moors, Amanda led him up a familiar though barely discernible path through the wood to the top of the slope. Away from the valley’s shelter, the wind blew fiercely, but the slow climb up the hill stirred her sluggish blood, and she found the cold exhilarating.
Amanda inhaled gratefully as they paused at the top to survey the surrounding scene. Occasional scatterings of stunted trees dotted a landscape composed mostly of furze and jagged rock. The land rose and fell roughly, divided by stone walls into large, irregular rectangles.
“Is it all yours?” he asked.
“It was. If it hadn’t been for Roderick, we’d have lost everything. Yet the acres we managed to keep are productive enough,” she said. “I could get by on the income, but Roderick wouldn’t hear of that. If he could, he’d have me living permanently in London in idle luxury.”
Mr. Brentick threw her a curious glance, then looked away again. “Still, you’ll want to spend time in town eventually, at least after you finish your book. I realise Society would be too distracting now.
“I’m not going to London.”
“Not even for the Season?”
“No,” she said firmly. “I want no more Seasons.”
“That’s a pity,” he said. “I rather fancy the challenge of managing a host of lazy, untrustworthy, city-bred domestics. These Yorkshire labourers are so very conscientious,” he complained.
“That is your fault, Mr. Brentick. I left all the hiring to you. There was no one to prevent your employing a pack of idlers and thieves if you liked. If you are bored, or lonely for company...”
“I am not bored, miss. I am learning that solitude and loneliness are not the same thing.”
It was disconcerting to discover that he seemed to recall every syllable she’d ever uttered to him. Equally disconcerting was his mention of London. He had a knack for coaxing people to do precisely as he wished. He changed others’ minds as easily as he changed the wine goblets at dinner. But not in this, Amanda hastily reassured herself. She would never again, for as long as she lived, spend another Season in London.
“You understand, then, how and where I acquired my taste for solitude,” she responded calmly. She made a sweeping movement with her hand.
“Yes, the place broods and yearns before us, dark and mute. It does not distract us with pretty, idle chatter. Yet in its own unassuming way, it is treacherous.” He glanced round and smiled at her. “For instance, if we remain much longer, mesmerised by the romantically moody landscape, you will freeze into a solid block.”
He took her hand to help her down the steep, rough incline, only to release it as soon as the way became easier. Another mile’s walk brought them into a corner of the dale sheltered from the winds’ force by rocks and a stand of scarred trees.
After investigating the rough boulders, Mr. Brentick selected a suitable resting place. He withdrew from his pockets two flasks and two linen-wrapped bundles. Then he removed his coat and, quite deaf to Amanda’s protests, spread it out for her to sit upon. The flasks, she discovered, contained cider. In the bundles nestled neat slices of cheese and thick hunks of freshly baked bread.
“You think of everything,” she said.
“I was concerned you might faint of hunger on the way back. While you are fashionably slender, miss, I could not view with equanimity the prospect of carrying you home over nearly four miles of rough terrain.”
Amanda hastily averted her gaze, and the warmth blossoming in her face subsided.
They dawdled over their meal with the easy camaraderie they’d enjoyed aboard ship, and had only recently revived during the weeks of working together in the library. Not until she’d consumed the last crumbs of bread and cheese did Amanda realise how probing his questions had become. She glanced up warily when he asked where she’d played as a child.
“Not here,” she said quickly. “I seldom ventured so far from the house, except when Roderick was home. He and I rode here often. While he was at school, though, I had to keep within the garden bounds.”
“That was wise. If you fell and hurt yourself, you might not be found for hours. I only wondered who your playmates were. You must have had to travel a good distance to visit one another.”
She snapped the cap of her flask back into place. “Roderick was here,” she said tightly. “He spent every holiday at home.”
Mentally she braced herself to deflect the inevitable questions, but none came. Mr. Brentick merely nodded, and neatly gathered up the remnants of their picnic. As they turned homeward, the conversation turned as well, she found with rel
ief. They spoke of Kali.
One day in late November, Philip accompanied his employer and Mrs. Gales to York. Miss Cavencourt had business at the bank, she said. He fully understood she meant to visit her statue, though she’d never once uttered a word about the Laughing Princess.
While entertaining small hope she’d actually take it home with her, Philip was prepared, in the event she did, to relieve her of it. As usual, he’d devised a foolproof plan for doing so without arousing suspicion.
The plan dropped into his mental ashbin when, after half an hour, his employer left the bank empty-handed.
Nevertheless, not a glimmer of frustration ruffled his polite demeanour as, like a lowly footman, he followed her down the street and on to the bookseller’s. There he awaited the summons to carry her parcels. Miss Cavencourt spent as much on books as other ladies did on bonnets.
Philip stood by the door, his hands clasped at his back, his countenance blank and incurious as he gazed upon the passing scene. Miss Cavencourt’s general factotum did not wear livery. This doubtless explained why more than one passing lady required more than a fleeting glance to ascertain that the fellow by the bookshop door was a mere servant. Some continued gazing, even after settling this matter to their satisfaction. The butler, however, very properly reserved his acknowledging nods for females of the lower orders, who rewarded him with blushes and an occasional giggle.
He’d been amusing himself in this fashion for twenty minutes when a gentleman stopped nearby to glance into the shop window. He was as tall as Philip, his build a degree broader, yet trim and athletic. The hair beneath the elegant beaver was black, and the visage dark and rugged. Philip guessed the man’s age at near forty, though the dissolute eyes and mouth may have added a few years.
Though Philip kept his eyes fixed, ostensibly, upon the street, he was aware of the stranger’s scrutiny moving to him. At that moment, a signal flashed to Philip’s brain, eliciting a response common among the lower species when a rival male trespasses territorial boundaries. His heartbeat quickened and his muscles tensed for battle.
