Airborne - The Hanover Restoration (6 page)

I took some small satisfaction in the fact that the rest of the creature’s face—nose, mouth, and ears—were merely paint, the slightly askew drawings of an artist who should have stuck to mechanics. My guardian’s young apprentice perhaps?

Whirr . . . thud.
The blasted machine, having found the bed, was beginning to polish the bedposts.
Devil it!
I like machines. I love machines. But not a creature with a decidedly male face dressed in female garb, and not at half-five in the morning.

“Go away!” I ordered, adding irrationally, “And you can tell whoever sent you that I don’t appreciate the joke.”

The automaton continued its cleaning chores as if I didn’t exist.

No doubt I had Mrs. Biddle to thank for my early morning visitor. I retreated to my dressing room, shutting the door with a decided snap.

Fortunately, I had commissioned two corsets that laced up the front. They did nicely for daily dress if I was going no farther from home than Papa’s workshop. I dragged a chemise over my head, fastened the corset, and after opting for only one petticoat, I donned a gown that had not dyed well when the household was plunged into mourning. Its current charcoal color did not quite cover the rose sprigged muslin it used to be.

I told myself it was the perfect gown for exploring, but I had the nagging notion I was trying to encourage my guardian to look elsewhere for a bride.

Last night you thought Stonegrave Abbey worth the sacrifice!

This was morning. With the sun rising behind the trees and casting light into the Abbey’s dark corners, I was less certain.

I recalled the feel of him, the scent of him—the smell of machine oil and metal shavings that clung to him in spite of his elegant evening dress. The burns . . . his vulnerability. As odd as it seemed, I suspected Rochefort needed me. Though not for any romantic reason. Humans are not intended to go through life alone. Nonetheless, here we were, both of us, alone.

Insufficient excuse for marriage.

An then there was Mrs. Biddle. I suspected my guardian was not as alone as he seemed. Which would explain the housekeeper’s animosity, Rochefort’s over-reaction to my place at table, and an automaton invading my bedchamber at first light.

And yet Rochefort did not strike me as a rake. Eccentric, perhaps, but not a man who would take his housekeeper to bed. Nor did he seem the type of man who would dismiss his housekeeper for having ambitions above her station. A more innocent surmise that also fit the facts.

The latter explanation seemed most likely, I decided, perhaps naively. And found myself swung back to chatelaine of this great pile after less than five minutes of wavering. I stomped my feet into half-boots, pinned my night braid into a coil—Tillie could cope with its unruliness later. Opening the door to the bedchamber with caution, I peered into every corner of the room before I stepped out. The room sparkled. The automaton was gone.

The time was still well before any but the kitchen staff should be up.
And thank you, Mrs. Evangeline Biddle, for an automaton maid at dawn!
I tiptoed down the corridor and descended the graceful staircase to the front hall, where I paused, ears on the prick. Not a sound from the rooms around me, nor did any voices penetrate the green baize door that led to the partially underground kitchen area below.

Good. I needed the solitude. I needed to be alone under the sun’s dawning rays. The same sun that had shone through the smoke and fog of London. The same sky that became more blue with each mile Elbert traveled north, taking me away from the only home I had ever known. Araminta Galsworthy, child of town, not country.

I needed to explore, to see my new home without anyone by my side. I needed to
feel
this remarkably eccentric country house, breathe its essence. I needed to decide if I could spend my life here. With
him
.

Can one do that, all alone at six in the morning? I would have to. For if the answer was
no
, I must pack my carpet bag
, follow the tracks
to Tring
,
and
take Elbert back to London, where I did not lack friends.

All of whom could find themselves in a good deal of trouble if they hid me from my legal guardian.

Botheration!

I lifted the bar on the front door, opened it, and paused to examine the view from the top of a long flight of steps. A pebbled carriage drive stretched the full length of the Abbey front. To the left, the drive curved gradually toward a break in the treeline, evidently leading to Tring by an entirely different route than the small train that brought me here. There were no gardens on this side of the house, merely a slightly rolling expanse of green park framed in s
pring
-green trees.

In the distance to the right, I could see sheep grazing at a lower level, undoubtedly tucked up below a ha-ha. Wisps of fog hovered over them, making me wonder if there was a stream nearby. I made a half-hearted effort to find something wrong with the view, but couldn’t. My own private Regency Park lay before me, taunting me with scenic beauty surrounded by air so clean and fresh it nearly brought tears to my eyes.

Enough! Time to explore. A frustrating task, I soon discovered, as the ground floor of the old abbey was as stubbornly blank as the rear aspect. Was it built as a fortress? I wondered. Or were the windowless walls merely intended to shut out the outside world, leaving the monks with only an inward view—toward God or possibly something as mundane as a central courtyard? Perhaps they were an outgoing order, merry monks who brewed beer, healed the sick, and chanted plainsong with a right good will. I’d assume the latter, I decided, and shut out all thoughts of what happened to them when Henry VIII decided he had to marry Ann Boleyn, come Hell, the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, or Parliament.

With nothing more to see but stone and grass, I moved swiftly along the outer wall and soon rounded the far corner. Ah! Stretched out before me were the train tracks and the miniature locomotive that had brought me from Tring. It was housed in an open-sided
pavilion
at the rear of the house, though I noticed the tracks extended on into the park.

I turned toward Stonegrave Abbey’s other outbuildings, which loomed not more than twenty feet to the left of the engine house. Not just the obligatory stables but . . .? I frowned. If we were in London, I’d call the strange building a warehouse. Large, and of obviously new construction, it extended outward from the west side of the stables. Its windows were high off the ground, as if to provide light while keeping anyone from peeking in. A second workshop, I suspected. Just as Papa had needed space outside our house to build the final model of his locomotive, so Rochefort needed a larger space to build . . . what?

A man of secrets, my guardian. Which, instead of annoying me, enhanced his attraction.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement near the stables. I whirled away from studying Rochefort’s possible workshop and, across the space of fifty feet, confronted the sharp gaze of the boy from the underground workshop. Matt, was it? Matt . . . Black. Everything about his stance indicated he found me as oddly out of place as I found him.

Consigning my urge for solitude to the devil, I donned my invisible cloak of grand London lady and walked toward him, deliberation in each step. “Good morning, Mr. Black. You’re up early.” And then I smelled it—the acrid stench of charred wood and burned leather. I also saw the gaping hole where flames had soared into the hayloft and through the roof.

“You too, Miss,” Black returned, his thin face displaying neither welcome nor hostility.

“I suspect I have Mrs. Biddle to thank for being waked at five by an automaton determined to clean my room.”

Matt Black guffawed—there’s no other word for it. He slapped his thigh, laughter animating his face into the most human look I’d seen since I arrived at the Abbey. “Ah, I’m sorry, Miss,” he managed at last. “But to set Roberta on you your very first morning . . .” Once again, he went off into gales of laughter.

“I am aware Mrs. Biddle doesn’t like me,” I ventured, blatantly fishing for an explanation.

“Not by half she don’t,” Matt agreed. “And we call ’er Mrs. E,” he added, “and t’Cook, Mrs. H. To keep them apart, y’see.”

I nodded, hoping he would continue. And he did.

“Mrs. E’s been lording it over the Abbey since long afore I come here. Even old Soames is scared of ’er. Thinks the place is ’ers, she does. Don’t reckon she’s ’appy with the idea of having a mistress tellin’ ’er what t’do.”

He knew. This scrap of boy knew what I had not. What Mrs. Bid–Mrs. E knew. What Mrs. H knew. What everyone knew. But me. For that alone, I should consign my betrothed to the devil.

That old expression about cutting off one’s nose reared its ugly head. Would I truly give up all this because my father was ashamed to tell me he’d sold me for a steam locomotive? He’d probably thought he was doing what was best for me, arranging a splendid match, as fathers had been doing since humans walked the earth.

Matt was regarding me with wise eyes, almost as if he could guess what I was thinking. “Soames?” I asked.

“The Guv’s secretary, man of business—whatever you want to call ’im. Soames sees the Guv gets whatever he wants, from iron bars to roof tiles to more sheep. Little weasel of a man, but ’e gets things done.”

“But he doesn’t dine with the family?”

“Some nights ’e and Drummond and t’Guv are thick as thieves, but I reckon ’e don’t think it proper with a lady present.”

Oh. Obviously my arrival was making unwelcome changes for more than Mrs. E. I thrust the thought aside for later examination. “Tell me about the fire,” I said. “Are the horses all right?”

“Got all the ’orses out, we did, though the Guv burned ’is ’ands. Fierce brave, ’e was, Miss.”

“Do you know how it started?”

Matt’s animated features dropped into a scowl. “Aye, we know ’ow it started,” he growled. “Set it was, by some bastard what wanted us all fightin’ the flames while ’e sneaked into t’—” He broke off, obviously appalled by saying something he shouldn’t. “Sorry, Miss. Best y’ask the Guv what happened.”

“Of course,” I murmured, my head once again whirling with possibilities. A spy set on discovering an inventor’s secrets was not new to me. But setting fire to a stables, endangering the horses as well as those who fought the blaze? That was heinous. I would indeed ask Rochefort about it.

I recalled with some chagrin that he had promised to tell me about the fire last night, and it was I who had run away like a frightened child. Only to creep back, using the excuse of Mrs. Jenkins’s salve . . .

Not an excuse! Rochefort’s burns needed my help. Just call me Little Miss Goody Two Shoes.

Sarcasm does not compensate for missishness
, my inner voice mocked.

“You want a look?” Matt Black asked. “No farther than the door now,” he added as I moved swiftly toward the gaping double doors of the stable.

I wrinkled my nose, peering into the gloom. The damage seemed to be confined to the rear of the stables, where another broad door was open, letting in the light while allowing smoke to escape.

“The ’orses’ll stay in the paddock ’til all’s right and tight.”

“Thank you, Mr. Black.”

“Call me Matt, Miss. Only Mrs. E calls me Black, and let me tell you, I don’t like it by ’alf.”

“Then thank you, Matt. I believe it’s time I went looking for some breakfast.”

He flashed a smile and turned back toward the stables. But as I started to walk along the old abbey’s rear wall, he called to me. But softly, his voice drifting on the early morning breeze. “Watch your step, Miss. And what you eat. She’s a witch, Mrs. E. Y’ can’t be too careful.”

I paused, took a deep breath, but did not turn around. I waved a hand to Matt, indicating I’d heard his words. And then, with determination in each step, I continued my exploration of Stonegrave Abbey, returning to the house through the formal gardens I had seen from my window, carefully by-passing the entrance Drummond had shown me yesterday and a rear door to the kitchen, marked by a very fine kitchen garden, redolent with herbs of every description.

I completed by circumnavigation of the Abbey by once again pausing at the top of the front steps, appreciating the changes in a landscape now glowing under a fine spring sun just rising over the treetops. Surely anyone under the rank of duke would be impressed. And to a girl fresh from the heart of London . . . a miracle, a veritable miracle. For all its oddities, Stonegrave Abbey held an appeal I could not deny.

Not the least of which was its master.

Chapter 5

I made my way back into the house without encountering Mrs E. But when I found the dining room, it was apparent the kitchen staff was up and about, for the sideboard was resplendent with an array of dishes hidden beneath rounded silver covers. After inspecting each one, and wrinkling my nose at one or two, I selected gammon, eggs, toast, and jam. I set my plate at the same place I’d sat the night before, then inspected the two beverage pots. A smile spread over my face as I recognized the wondrous odor of coffee wafting from one of the spouts. Although I drank tea, like a proper Englishwoman, from noon ’til night, both Papa and I had a decided preference for coffee to start our day.