Chapter Five

S amuel Beauchamp, land agent and estate manager for Ysella's brother, Christopher, Viscount Ormonde, closed the accounts ledger on his desk and leaned back to stretch his aching back, rolling his shoulders to loosen his cramped muscles. Finished. After a long day spent poring over the books, everything added up with no mysterious amounts left unaccounted for. Kit would be pleased. One less thing to worry about with young Lady Ormonde so ill.

Sam's office lay towards the rear of Ormonde Abbey, a rambling pile of a house that was more like a rabbit warren than a stately home. As suggested by its name, it had spent its first four hundred years as a Catholic abbey but lost that status during Henry VIII's acquisitive Reformation. An ancestor of Kit's had been awarded the estate by good old Queen Elizabeth, Henry's daughter, for unspecified services to the crown that might well have included some privateering. Since then, each incumbent had added their own bit onto the house as and when they felt like it.

Sam rose to his feet and took the ledger to join its companions on the rack of shelves that occupied the whole of one side of his office. Records that went back to that initial gift of the estate and even encompassed a few records concerning its time as the foremost religious house in Wiltshire. The rows of books were dusty. He'd have to ask Mrs. Felton, the Abbey's housekeeper, to make sure the maids were more rigorous with their dusters. If they could avoid it, the lazy girls missed out this part of the house altogether.

He unhooked his topcoat from where he'd hung it earlier in the day, slung it over his arm, and picked up his beaver hat. Then, once through the heavy oak door, he closed and locked it behind himself. He kept a certain amount of ready cash in there and it wouldn't do to leave temptation in the way of any of the servants. They all seemed trustworthy, but you never knew.

The spartan, stone-flagged corridor that led to the servants' hall and kitchens lay empty, and Sam's booted footsteps echoed as he headed for the main part of the house where he hoped to find Kit. It had been three days now since the new young Lady Ormonde had given birth to her child, and Sam was as anxious as everyone else on the estate about her condition.

He found Kit in the oak-paneled library, standing by the blazing fire with a glass of whisky in his hand. Two liver and white spaniels and a black labrador sprawled on the rug at his feet, oblivious to the world. The two young men could not have been more different. Whereas Kit was tall, lean and dark, Sam, although equally tall, was more sturdily built with a mop of unruly sandy hair, a surfeit of freckles and candid gray eyes. Eyes that at this moment brimmed with concern for his friend and employer.

"Sam," Kit called, abandoning the fire and going to the table where the whisky decanter stood. "Did you manage to get it done?"

Sam nodded, accepting a half-full glass. "All done. But that's of no importance. What matters is her ladyship. I saw the doctor had been again. How is she now?"

Kit sucked in his lips. "Sleeping, at least. The doctor's coming back tomorrow. He hopes her fever will have broken by then. But she's very weak."

Sam downed half the whisky, the liquid leaving a trail of fire down his throat. "I'm sure he's right. She's a strong woman."

Kit nodded, brows meeting in a heavy frown. "I can only hope the doctor knows what he's doing. He leeched her again today, and afterwards she seemed so frail. She didn't want him to, but he insisted." He frowned further, shaking his head. "Perhaps I should have refused my permission."

Sam stayed silent. He knew as well as Kit did that an infection picked up during childbirth could be fatal. His own mother had died in just such circumstances. But that had been thirty years ago. Surely times had changed by now.

Kit paced to where one of the long, rain-spattered windows looked out over the formal gardens. "I sent for my mother when it became obvious how ill Morvoren is." He stared out at the wet garden. "She'll come as soon as she gets the message. She should be here tomorrow, I hope."

If she's in time . This thought hung unsaid between the two young men, neither of them wanting to put their doubts into words.

"And the child?" Sam asked, hardly daring to. The new heir had been born several weeks early and even a single man like him knew what that meant. Babies born early rarely survived, especially not when their mothers were taken ill.

Kit's mouth set. "Luckily for us, a woman on the estate gave birth on the same day as my wife. She's a strong young woman and it's her first child. She has plenty of milk for two. I've installed her in the nursery with both babies to feed. The child is thriving, so she tells me."

Sam heaved a silent sigh of relief. One thing to be grateful for, at least. "Would you like me to stay a while?"

Kit shook his head. "No. You go home and eat and rest. One of us needs to keep on top of things regarding the estate. I shan't be staying down here in the library. I'll go back up to Morvoren's room and sit with her for the night." He managed a drawn smile. "I only wanted to take my mind off everything for a while by making sure the accounts were tallied properly. I don't relish being left with time to think."

Sam nodded. "Don't concern yourself with the estate. You know I'll make sure that's running smoothly. You concentrate on Morvoren." He set his empty whisky glass down and going to the window, patted Kit's back with a touch of awkwardness. "Try not to worry too much."

Kit glanced sideways at him. "Impossible not to."

Leaving Kit in the library, Sam let himself out and departed via the back door of the house. One of the many back doors, as there seemed always to be a door to the outside wherever you went. Not exactly secure, which was why Sam always locked his office. Anyone could get in here really, if they wanted to.

Shouldering on his heavy topcoat, and putting on his beaver against the mizzling rain, he set off down the lane at the back of the house that led to the cluster of estate houses where his home lay. His was the largest, set within a stone walled garden and a little back from the laneway. He pushed open the gate and strode up the path towards the ivy-hung porch.

Mrs. Higgins, whose bat-like ears must have heard the front door open and close, called out from the kitchen. "Is that you, Mr. Beauchamp?"

Sam smiled to himself as he hung up his wet topcoat and hooked his hat onto its peg. "Who else would it be, Mrs. Higgins?" Wiping his muddy boots on the mat, he walked down the hall and into the enveloping warmth and delicious aromas of the kitchen. As spring had still not fully established itself this year, he'd been taking all his meals in there with his housekeeper.

Mrs. Higgins, in a floury apron and with all but a few strands of her graying hair caught up in a white mob cap, bent over the range to give the coals a rousting. "Not burnin' at all well today," she grumbled. "It's a wonder I managed to get the bread baked and the beef roasted." She swung to one side the large joint that had been hanging before the fire on a clockwork roasting jack and deftly unhooked it from the jack.

"Have I time to get more comfortable?" Sam asked, easing himself out of his navy tailcoat as he spoke. The heat in the kitchen was enough to make sweat spring out on his brow.

She nodded. "I needs a minute or two to get it all on the table." She went to the door that led into the scullery. "Jack! Come here, can't you? Drat it, where is that boy when you need him? Jack?"

Sam smiled to himself. He'd taken young Jack Deacon on as a favor to Kit, so the boy could bring some money in for his widowed mother and help with the upkeep of the rest of her children. The boy's father had died last autumn of what might only have been a chest infection, or could just as well have been consumption. Jack had begun work for Sam in the new year and was proving himself adept at performing vanishing acts just when he was needed. Much as his ne'er-do-well father had done when the rent on their cottage was due.

"I'll box your ears for you if you don't hurry up," Mrs. Higgins, who had no children of her own and secretly doted on Jack, shouted into the gloom of the scullery.

A rattling as of something falling sounded, and the boy emerged, a little tousle headed as though just roused from sleep. Sam suppressed a snort of laughter. He mustn't give the boy any hint that he found his behavior amusing.

"I was just in the glass house, a-weedin'," Jack said, rubbing a hand through his hair and making it stand up more than ever. Small and skinny for his age, which Sam knew to be fourteen, Jack had the look of a boy of eleven or twelve, with not a sign yet of whiskers on his chin or acne on his face. Wide and innocent brown eyes gave his face the look of a Botticelli cherub, which he most certainly was not. His appearance only served to conceal the amount of mischief he could get up to. His mother must be very glad he was off her hands now, as well as for the money Sam paid her for her son's services.

"Pull the master's boots off and make it quick," Mrs. Higgins said, adding her own large hand to his hair and giving it a second ruffling instead of the blow she'd threatened. "Dinner'll be on the table in a minute and he needs his old shoes to put on. Get a move on, now."

Jack moved crabwise across the kitchen flagstones to the table, via the stove where the old shoes Sam wore around the house had been put that morning to keep warm. Sam sat down in his highbacked chair in the corner and with a cheeky wink at his employer, Jack went down on one knee and proceeded to heave Sam's boots off.

"Put 'em where you won't forget to polish 'em after dinner," Mrs. Higgins scolded the boy as Sam slipped his stockinged feet into his comfortably worn old shoes. Lovely and warm. That was better.

Mrs. Higgins set the roast beef on the table and dinner began.

After a meal punctuated by Mrs. Higgins rebuking Jack's table manners, something she'd determined to take in hand with her usual zealousness, Sam retired with his port into his study, the only other room in his house where a fire was kept burning all day. But he had no work to do this evening, and instead, pulled his wing chair up to the fire and settled his feet, minus his old shoes, on the ornate fire surround. Just far enough away from the blaze not to burn his stockings.

He picked up his glass of port, took a sip, and stared into the flames.

Tomorrow would bring the dowager to their aid. Not that she'd be able to do anything, but her presence would provide support for Kit. Much needed support, especially if the worst, God forbid, happened. Sam had done his best for his old friend and employer, but a mother's help would be better.

He frowned into the flames as he considered what the dowager's return signaled for him.

Because with the dowager would come Ysella. She'd been gone from Ormonde Abbey now for two months, and Sam had only just been managing to stop thinking about her every five minutes. Part of him had been hoping she'd meet some lord in London and be married there, meaning he'd never have to see her again. But that was only the smallest, most sensible part of him. The rest of him longed to see her lovely face again, to hear her running footsteps and laughter in Ormonde's corridors, and perhaps ride out with her and Kit around the estate. This part of him couldn't stop thinking about her. It had been bad enough when she'd been in residence, but now she was gone, his mind refused to abandon the pictures that kept flashing into his head of what she might be doing now. Who she might be meeting, who would be dancing with her, who might be kissing her hand, or even her lips.

And now she would be home again, unmarried, as beautiful and naively charming as ever, only partway through her season. That small sensible part of him boiled with fury, but the rest of him, including his sore heart, soared with anticipation of her arrival.

He'd been half in love with Ysella now for several years. How could anyone who met her fail to be charmed by her? But it had been over the past year, since Morvoren had arrived at Ormonde, that his love had blossomed into hopeless obsession. Not that he could ever do anything about it. He was just the land agent, son of the last land agent whose father had been a simple tenant farmer. Nothing he could do would ever put him on par with his beloved Ysella. All he could do was admire her careless beauty from afar.

She was always kind to him, using him on occasion when she required help with something, such as the time she'd involved him in teaching Morvoren to dance. Kit had partnered Morvoren, and he, Sam, had partnered Ysella. Every moment of those dance sessions had imprinted on Sam's mind indelibly. The touch of Ysella's hand in his, the scent of her perfume, the joyful sound of her infectious laughter as Morvoren struggled with the steps. A memory to hold close to his heart and treasure during the long cold nights, of which there had been many. He could but dream.

He refilled his glass and sipped it slowly as the flames of the fire began to die down. He should call Jack to bring in more logs, but why bother? Tiredness crept over him. Tomorrow would bring Ysella, and he should get to bed. Heaving a deep sigh, he pushed himself out of his seat and set down his empty glass. Who knew what the future would bring?