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Perchance this was the finest room she’d ever been given and as the footman positioned her carpetbag and portmanteau upon a wooden bench, she breathed deep in joy. A small desk even sat in front of the sash window, the view obscured by the fall of dusk, and to the side was a simple wardrobe and a table with jug, pitcher and another lit lantern.
She could be content here.
“If you hear the wicked spectral scoundrel strolling at midnight,” Mrs Pugh cried, fingernails aloft, “’tis best to huddle beneath those blankets.”
“I understood that the wicked spectral scoundrel could lift mortal blankets with his spectral finger?”
Mrs Pugh glared.
Now that the warmth of the bedchamber fire was seeping into her bones, Isabelle took the time to study the housekeeper. She was nowhere near as ancient as she’d first appeared, for the relentless black took its toll, her skin pale as milk, but the lines that wrinkled her eyes were of a woman with five decades, not seven.
“My condolences on your loss of Mr Pugh.” Mayhap he’d died recently and the distressed woman was senseless with grief.
The housekeeper wrinkled her nose. “I’ll have you know my Mr Pugh is master stableman here and will be having his six o’clock ale about now. Unless the spectral groom has nabbed him, of course. Did I mention him? For ’tis true I haven’t seen Mr Pugh since noon as I’ve been rushed off my feet with all this house party fiddle-faddle.”
“Forgive me. I assumed…the black…”
She sniffed. “Never gets dirty, like, and the crest colours of the Llanedwyn earldom are black and red.” A purse of lips. “Black as in death, and red as in…blood,” she added, having rolled the R of red with abandon.
Isabelle tapped her foot.“Lady Elen stated I should dine in the schoolroom. What hour is usual?”
Some households were pleased to have you at their table; in some you were pleased to eat in the schoolroom.
“Six, so you’re late. Lady Elen mentioned you were French, although you don’t sound it much, but I hope you don’t expect any of that fancy fare?”
“I was more expecting eye of newt and toe of frog for dinner,Mrs Pugh.”
For a moment, the housekeeper’s lips threatened to curve. “Welsh stew it is then.” She soundlessly glided to the door but then gazed back. “Beware the quiet ones, won’t you, Miss Beaujeu?” And slithered out.
With a roll of eyes, Isabelle wandered to the window, but solely relentless rain whipped at the glass. The sea could not be far but its roar was smothered, and no stars would wish her well this stormy eve. Often, she imagined her mama and papa a part of the celestial arc – perhaps twinkling their delight at who she had become.
The independence she had found.
At seventeen, there’d been a proposal of marriage from a compatriot émigré, and she could’ve now been living in the lap of London luxury with her own servants and mayhap a babe or two. Only would she have had to turn a blind eye and forget what his family had done to her own, the lies told and the perfidious betrayal.
But Isabelle could never forget. And so here she was. A servant maybe, but clear of conscience, and she smiled, closing the curtains on the foul night.
Whilst unpacking her carpetbag, she heard muttering and shuffling from the adjacent room, but not wishing to intrude on her charge’s privacy quite so soon, she instead extracted her salve and set it upon the mantelpiece.
Even if the duke had not in fact bricked Mari up in the cellar as she’d foretold, it was quite possible he’d rapped her knuckles.
Three gowns came next, one brown and two dark grey, followed by two cream stays, five pairs of woollen stockings and two pairs of her beloved cherry-red garters that she’d purchased in a moment of sheer weakness.
At the bottom of her bag, safely enfolded upright in four plain handkerchiefs and three chemises, was a masculine silver cologne flask. Oblong, each side displayed an exquisite baroque-style panel of a plant in bold relief, its foliage lush and with a single stem supporting a burgeoning flower. Once, it had been part of an elegant service detoilette but it was the contents that were most precious to Isabelle.
A lone connection to her past.
She unscrewed the trefoil-decorated cap, removed the tight stopper and inhaled deeply.
A little fusty and faded with age, but still the unmistakable scent of clove and bergamot oil rose up and swathed her senses.
She’d lost so much; this was all she had left.
Most said ’twas not possible to hold on to remembrances of younger years – faint images and indistinct sounds. But scent? Isabelle remembered this.
Laughter and peace and the comfort of steadying hands. Of her papa, whose skin had effused the precious spice and citric fruit aroma. Of summers in Provence, the sunshine glinting in his hair…
Before it’d all gone to hell.
