Read Venture Untamed (The Venture Books) Online

Authors: R.H. Russell

Tags: #Fiction

Venture Untamed (The Venture Books) (8 page)

“Why don’t you just go back inside where you belong?” He turned his back on her and resumed chopping, harder and louder than before, drowning out the sound of her huffy departure. He’d rather die than complain to his master about his work. He tossed the wood into a wheelbarrow, shaking his head, as though to shake free all thoughts of Jade Fieldstone. But moments later a familiar voice interrupted him.

“Miss Jade said bring you this before you die of heat,” Bounty announced, holding out a large tin cup of water.

So much for trying to think about something else. Venture took it grouchily, asking, “She say anything else?”

Bounty nodded. “She said for me to help you move the wood. She seemed mad. You think I’m in trouble?”

“No,” Venture sighed after taking a long drink.

“How do you know?”
 

“Because she’s mad at me.”

“What’d you do?”

“Never mind.”

“Something bad?” The kid couldn’t keep the eager smile off his face.

“No.”

“If she’s mad at you, why’d she tell me to come help you?”

“I guess she’s not mad enough to want me dropping dead out here.”

“Were you about to drop dead?” Bounty asked, sounding almost hopeful.

“Do I look like I’m about to drop dead?”

“I don’t get it.”
 

“You don’t have to get it. Just stop yapping and help me get this wood in here.”

Bounty silently helped Venture load the wheelbarrow, but he wasn’t finished bothering Venture yet. With the wheelbarrow full, he clambered on top. He was a heavy boy, the result of too much of Mrs. Bright’s good cooking and too little work on Bounty’s part.

“Come on,” Bounty said. “I’ll bet you can’t push it.”

Venture took another long drink of water, all the while giving Bounty a warning look.

“Could you teach me to fight?” he asked in response to Venture’s silent threat of bodily harm.

“Why?”

Bounty shrugged.

“Well, who do you want to fight?”

“I don’t know. Just, anybody messes with me, I could fight them.”

“Who messes with you?”
 

“Nobody,” he admitted.

“How about this. Anybody messes with you, you come tell me, and we’ll figure things out.”

Bounty spewed a curse at him as thanks for the offer, and Venture’s already dark blue eyes turned to midnight. He grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow and hoisted it up as fast and hard as he could, flinging Bounty’s chubby body a good two feet up in the air before he fell to the ground with a crunch and was subsequently pummeled with firewood.

“Ow!” Bounty scowled up at him, and began to swear again, rubbing his elbow, looking shocked.
 

Bounty mouthed off to him weekly, at the least. And always before, Venture had dished out a lecture on how he would never get anywhere in life until he learned to watch his mouth, a warning about what would happen if Mistress Rose heard him talking like that, or, at the worst, he’d made some sort of empty threat involving a bar of soap. Unfortunately, the kid was too young for him to teach him a lesson with his fists.

Venture shoved several pieces of wood out of the way and stepped toward Bounty, surprised at himself, half wanting to laugh and half sorry. With one bloody hand he pulled the boy up by his dirty shirt collar and set him down a few feet clear of the mess.

“Anything broken?”

“No, dung-hole!”

“Good. Then you can take care of this.” No longer sorry at all, he gestured at the scattered wood, turned, and strode toward the house.

“What? Where’re you going?” Bounty protested in a high-pitched whine.

“Inside,” Vent said casually, without a backward glance. “Don’t fill the wheelbarrow too full. You won’t be able to push it.”
 

A stream of insults followed him as he left the outbuildings behind, but along with them came the gratifying
thunk, thunk, thunk
of firewood filling the groaning wheelbarrow.

Venture lifted his face to the still, cloudless sky. It must be getting close to supper time. He wondered what Mrs. Bright was making. Maybe she’d give him a nice bowl of cold water to soak his hands in. Maybe she’d even have some ice to spare.

He meandered through the gateless opening in the stone walls of the service courtyard and ducked under the rows of dishtowels and nightgowns standing on the clotheslines, stiff and dry in the windless heat. Lightning trotted hopefully behind as he passed the two large bake ovens and reached the little washroom connected to the kitchen at the back of the house.
 

“You stay here, girl. No dogs in the house. I’ll bring you something tasty after supper.”

He opened the small wooden servants’ door and stepped through, remembering the day he’d first been able to reach the top of the frame with his fingertips. Another year, and he’d have to duck. The stone floor of the dim, windowless room was so invitingly cool, he yanked his boots off immediately just to feel it under his feet. He placed them under the iron hooks where the servants hung their extra clothes and aprons.

Around him were shelves of laundry and cleaning supplies and a table for folding and ironing. Inside a stone trough there was the water pump, and on a shelf above, fresh towels and soap—his favorite things to see at the end of a hard, hot day.

He pulled off his filthy, dripping shirt and scrubbed up, though the soap stung his hands and made him wince nearly to the point of tears. Then he pumped water over his head until it was thoroughly soaked, and toweled off just enough not to drip, so that he didn’t lose all of the cool wetness. He grabbed the clean shirt he’d hung on his hook early that morning and tugged it over his head as he stepped up into the open kitchen doorway. A curtain of stifling heat billowed at him as he entered.

“Mrs. Bright, have you got any—”

There was no plump, aproned woman humming over the supper pots. Instead there was Jade, sweating at the fire, a long wooden spoon held up to her lips.

“Miss.” Venture bowed, and he must have looked quite displeased to see her there, for Jade made an extra effort to seem not to care.

“Needs more salt, I think.” She tossed some in.
 

Jade kept her eyes on the pots, while he glanced from her to the washroom doorway, his internal debate made obvious by the uncomfortable, indecisive shifting of his feet. Would it be worth foregoing something that smelled absolutely delicious for supper, and settling for bread and cheese at home, just to avoid being stuck in the kitchen alone with Jade?

She turned to him with one hand on her hip, the other wielding the drippy spoon. “Well, Vent, aren’t you going to sit down?”

“Um, Miss, where’s Mrs. Bright?”

“She’ll be back in a minute, I’m sure. She’s teaching me how to make her wine sauce. I think I’ve almost got it, too,” Jade babbled with false cheerfulness, no longer looking at him.

“Oh. That’s good.”
 

Recently Jade had taken up cooking as a sort of hobby. Under Rose’s supervision, she’d begun taking her turn planning and supervising the meals several times a week, preparing to run her own household one day. Jade, however, wasn’t content to plan and delegate. She couldn’t seem to keep herself from dabbling in the actual work of meal preparation and even clean-up. In the face of Rose’s reprimands, she’d declared openly that she intended to learn to cook. Jade had convinced her father that it would be nice to cook for her husband herself sometimes. Hadn’t her own mother liked to do the same on occasion? But Venture doubted that Jade was in the habit of thinking about what sort of wife she’d like to be. More likely she was bored and lonely and preferred old Mrs. Bright to the girls of Society.

“You got done earlier than I expected today.”
 

“Bounty’s finishing up for me,” Venture mumbled.

“Bounty? Chopping wood?”

“No, no. I wouldn’t give that kid an ax. He’s just bringing it in.”

She turned to him abruptly, her exasperation breaking through her feigned calm. “For goodness sake, sit down!”

He sat, and he poured himself a cup of water from the pitcher on the table, and he watched her slender little figure standing nearly on tiptoe to peek over one large black pot into the other behind it. The spoon shook in her trembling fingers. Her shoulders shuddered. He’d made her cry. And that, he just could not take.

Quietly he rose, picked up a dishtowel, and rested his battered hands on her elbows. “Miss, are you all right?”

He nudged her gently toward him, but she would not move; she did not stop stirring.

He looked around the kitchen cautiously. Cupboards with painted sliding doors, shelves, and a large window lined the wall flanking the washroom door. On one end of the kitchen was a door to the pantry, from which the lower level, where store rooms and the quarters of the house servants lay, could also be reached. The door to the hallway, which lead to the dining room where the Fieldstones had their meals, was on the opposite end.

The fireplace, almost big enough for Venture to stand in, was at the end of the interior wall closest to the pantry. Pots and pans hung on the wall around it. On the other end of that wall were the long oaken table and benches where the servants ate.

He listened for a sound from the hall or the washroom. Hearing nothing, he took a deep breath. “Turn around. Look at me, please.
Jade
.”

When he said her name, she allowed him to turn her away from the fire.

He dabbed clumsily at her tears with the dishtowel. “I’m sorry, Jadie.” He lifted a lock of her hair, which was dangling dangerously close to the simmering wine sauce, and tucked it behind her shoulder. “I didn’t mean it. About this being where you belong . . .”

“I know. But you mean the rest.”

Venture’s shoulders sagged. It was the honorable thing, anybody would say so—to treat his mistress as his mistress. The right thing. So why did it seem so wrong every time he tried to do it?

“You’re right, Vent. I should grow up and stop putting you in such a difficult position.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yes, you did,” she insisted, her lower lip quivering again.

He hung his head, for he knew that in his own way, he had. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what the right thing is to do,” he whispered. Sometimes he just wished a voice from heaven would shout orders to him; then at least he would know whether he was in defiance of them or not.

She dumped the spoon into the sauce pot. “I just want my best friend back.”

“We’re not little kids anymore. Things can’t stay the same.”

“I know they can’t. But Vent, I miss you.”

He slid his arms around her and pulled her in. But nearby, the dining room door clattered, and Jade jumped back.

“Go!” she snatched the dishtowel from him and gave him a shove.

He ran for the washroom, grabbed his boots, and was going to leave and worry about putting them on later, but Mrs. Bright bustled into the kitchen, followed by Connie and Viney, one of the other servant girls.

“Miss, let’s have a taste of that sauce.” Mrs. Bright stopped mid-step. “Vent, is that you?”

How did she always know? He poked his head through the doorway, avoiding Jade’s eyes—avoiding all of their eyes. “Hey, Mrs. Bright. Just washing up before I head home. See you in the morning.”

“Home? Who’s home?”

“Justice,” he answered a little too quickly. He looked down as he slipped into his boots, to hide his eyes from Mrs. Bright. Already he felt the weight of the lie.

“Your brother? Today’s their anniversary. Last I heard he was planning to take Grace out for once. They aren’t fighting, are they?”
 

“No . . . I think her sister’s coming over for supper instead. I really better get going now. Bye.”

He snatched his dirty shirt and dashed out the back washroom door before Mrs. Bright could protest.

He was too hot and his hands pained him too much to give the dog a good chase, or even to throw a stick for her, but she followed him home just the same, while his heart thumped and his head throbbed with knotted thoughts, trying to sort things out.

Venture found Justice in the bedroom, standing over the wash basin, combing his hair.

“You’re not eating at the Big House tonight?”

Venture shook his head.

“You know I’m taking Grace out, right?” Justice set down the comb and adjusted his good shirt. “She’s taking the baby to her sister’s right now.”

Victory was nearly six months old, and Justice hadn’t taken Grace out since she was born. “Yeah, I know. I’ll just find myself something to eat.”
 

Venture headed for the hearth and cupboard in the adjoining room, which served as their sitting room and kitchen. Off this room was a little alcove into which Venture’s bed was built.
 

Justice followed him. “Hey, Vent, you want to come with us?”

“Grace doesn’t want to baby-sit me.”

Justice’s chiseled features softened. “Grace loves you.”
 

“So let’s keep it that way. You’re supposed to take her out. And not with your little brother.”

“You’re not so little anymore, and I’ve missed too much.”

Venture turned away and began rummaging in the cupboard. He’d prefer a fight with Justice to this kind of talk. But Justice let the silence hang there, until Venture had to give in and say, “Too much of what?”

“You being little.”
 

Venture raised his head up, glanced at his brother, then plunked a dented tin cup, plate, and knife on the table. “You’ve done exactly what Mom would’ve wanted you to do. And I’m doing fine. I got five years of tutoring. Who in our family could ever say that?”

“I know the Fieldstones have been good to you, and I’m thankful for that. But you’re my family. I don’t ever want you to feel like you’re not. Me getting married, having Tory, that didn’t change that.”

Venture took a step closer to Justice, thought about putting an arm around him, then shrugged instead. “I know that.”

Justice would always regret not being there at the worst of times. The unspoken guilt carved a line in his forehead that only ever appeared when he was talking to Venture about the past.
There was nothing you could have done
, Venture wanted to say.
Nothing anyone could have done
. But the words stuck in his throat, and a part of him, a part he’d tried to bury under reason, still popped up from under a heap of common sense and said that those words were not true at all, that someone could have done something, that he, Venture, could have done something.

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