Page 33 of The Cornish Inheritance

She returned the key to the floor by the bed and hurried into the nursery. Outside in the corridor, she heard Yves’s voice raised in complaint. “But I’d like to go outside and play for a while with Dash. He gets lonely down in the kitchens at night. I need to give him his supper.”

Bridget’s strident tones rose above his. “You know you ain’t allowed downstairs after you’ve et your supper, Master Yves. And that dog ain’t allowed up here, neither. Not at nights.”

What to do with the bag and the empty bottle?

“Miss Hawkins and Hester used to let him sleep on my bed.”

“And look where that got them. I need my job, and I’m not lettin’ you bring that smelly dog upstairs. That’s final.”

In his toy chest. She lifted the lid, moved some of his soldiers to one side, and slid the bag and bottle under them.

“Grandfather would let me have him up here.” The sound of a stamped foot. “One day this is all going to be mine, Bridget, and then you’ll be sorry.”

“That’s what you think,” Bridget snapped at him. “Now, get out of my way. I’ve all the work up here to do because that lazy girl, Patience, is downstairs eating her supper.”

Caroline, eyes widening at Bridget’s first remark, lowered the lid and drew in another deep breath in an effort to compose herself. She stepped out onto the corridor. “Yves, come back in here to play. I have to go down to dinner now. Bridget will look after you.”

Yves, who’d been standing halfway along the corridor facing Bridget down, gave an eloquent shrug of his shoulders and a deep sigh, the little dramatist he was. “All right. But tomorrow can I have Dash in the schoolroom with me?”

Caroline stalked past Bridget, who was giving her a suspicious stare. “We shall see. But right now, no arguing. Off you go with Bridget. Good night.”

*

Downstairs in thedrawing room, Nat’s mother was tapping her foot with impatience, something that irritated him no end.

Aunt Agnes, dressed as she might have done as a middle-aged woman forty years ago, perched in a stiffly upholstered chair beside the hearth. With her cheeks alarmingly rouged and permanently surprised eyebrows penciled in, she had an amused twinkle in the eyes she had fixed on her late nephew’s wife.

But the person who was most annoying Nat right now stood by the fireplace, one arm resting negligently on the mantelpiece, a confident smile on his face that made him look as though he owned the room. No, as though he thought he owned the room. Jan Trefusis, the land agent, who plainly felt as though his position was a sight higher than it actually was.

A heavy-set man of about forty, he had thick dark hair with only a hint of gray and a dark shadow of beard on his square jaw. He filled out every inch of his well-cut tailcoat and breeches in a way that might one day soon lead to fat. And his face matched this, being wide and coarse featured, with fleshy lips and heavy brows. He had a glass of whisky in his hand and had been holding forth, a tad ironically, on the merits of allowing governesses to eat with the family.

Which was one of the reasons Nat was having to fight to suppress a strong inclination to draw his cork. Planting him a facer and then throwing him out, perhaps without bothering to open the window first, seemed more attractive by the second.

Trefusis shut up at last, and Mrs. Treloar bestowed a forbidding glare on Hetty. “I don’t know why I allowed you and Nat to persuade me to invite Yves’s governess, of all people, to dine with us. She clearly has no manners whatsoever. If dinner is at six, I expect those who are to dine to be here by five minutes before the hour, at least. This is not good enough.”

Nat, standing by the window, remained silent, despite having earlier joined Hetty in her plan to invite Caroline to join them for dinner. He glanced sideways at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece whose minute hand was only just past the twelve.

Hetty must have also noticed. “It’s only one minute after six, Mama. And she was given very little time to dress, having been out all afternoon. Would you have wanted her to present herself all windblown and untidy in a day dress?”

Mrs. Treloar raised a sharp eyebrow, homing in with her usual acuity on the nub of what Hetty had just said. “Out?” Her voice rose. “Where has she been out to? And who was looking after the boy while she was out?”

Hetty had the grace to look guilty. Maybe Miss Fairfield had asked her not to say what she’d been up to. “Er, Yves went with her, Mama.”

Nat had been used to his mother’s rages from boyhood, but he’d forgotten about them, or time had diminished them for him. He was about to be treated to a reminder. “She took the boy out with her? How? Where to? What for?” Mrs. Treloar’s voice continued to rise with every utterance. Nat resisted the impulse to cover his ears. Trefusis watched the scene with a curl of satisfaction on his thick lips.

Aunt Agnes chuckled, sounding more than ever like an old witch.

Hetty shrank. “She wanted to go into Penzance to buy ribbons for the dress she’s to wear to the ball at Carlyon Court.” By contrast, her voice, usually so buoyant, diminished and trailed off at the end of the sentence. She studied her gloved hands as though they were the most interesting thing in the room.

Their mother swelled like a bullfrog about to sing. “And who gave her permission to take my nephew into Penzance?”

It was at this moment that Caroline entered the room. Nat made a smart bow to her, noticing that Trefusis did as well, his insolent gaze running over the curves of Caroline’s body and renewing Nat’s itch to plant him one on the nose. At least she looked a sight less dowdy than when he’d first seen her, dressed now in a presentable plain blue gown with a demure lace fichu concealing her neckline. Nothing remotely special about her, and yet an air of calm competence hung about her that was undeniably attractive. No. Wait. What was he thinking? Had he been away from women so long that he was harboring feelings for the hired help? Nat turned away to stare out of the window in the direction of the out-of-sight sea.

His mother kept going, unabashed by any pretense at manners, nor by the irony of having accused Miss Fairfield of lacking them. “Tell me, Miss Fairfield.” Her icy tones sliced through the air. “Who gave you leave to take my nephew into Penzance today?”

This was ridiculous. Why shouldn’t the woman take the boy out with her if she wanted to? Neither of them were prisoners here. He’d gone out enough as a boy, not that she’d known about many of his excursions. Well, very few of them, in truth.

“I did,” Nat said, without turning around. “I thought the boy should get some fresh air and a trip out would interest him.”

A stunned silence met this declaration, apart from another maniacal chuckle from Aunt Agnes. No doubt Miss Fairfield was wondering why he’d lied to his mother. God alone knew what his mother was thinking.

She turned her wrath on him with an ease born of years of getting her own way. “You should have consulted me first, Nathaniel. Supposing there’d been an accident? What then? Supposing there was disease in Penzance and the boy caught it and brought it back here?” That last was most probably more due to the worry that if Yves did bring back sickness he might share it about.

“The boy needs to take a few chances,” Nat said, smiling inwardly at his mother’s uncharacteristic concern for the child. Anyone would think she didn’t want anyone outside of Roskilly to set eyes on him. “If he’s to be made a man of, that is. And a trip in a pony cart to Penzance hardly constitutes a danger to man nor beast.” He turned around. “Now, shall we go into dinner?”