The Captain's Daughter, page 7
She had already seen him leave with one woman tonight. She did not need to hear about his past escapades too.
‘It means, Miss Carhart, you can be sleeping in your own bed tonight … unless you would rather be sleeping in mine?’ He was taunting her and from the sound of his tone it seemed he took a perverse pleasure in annoying her. She gave him a withering look to show him she would quite gladly slap him – if she could only reach him.
‘How on earth did I get myself in this situation?’ Janey muttered to herself, her footsteps echoing on the road.
‘It is not your fault.’ His tone had softened as if he felt a little sorry for her.
Janey marched on with determination in her step. She did not want his sympathy even though the evening had gone horribly wrong for her.
‘Mary turned the village hall clock back so you would leave late.’
Her steps slowed and she became wary.
‘Why would she do that? I thought we were becoming friends.’ She turned on him. ‘It’s all because of you. She likes you but you singled me out.’
‘I danced with you. I also danced with her,’ he said, logically.
‘She really likes you.’ Janey shook her head in disbelief that Mary could be so vengeful.
‘I’ve known Mary for years. Believe me, Mary likes no one but herself.’
Again silence fell between them. Janey’s steps were slowing. She was tired. She had walked the three miles to the village, danced many times and had another two miles to go; all this after a full day’s work. Another cool breeze travelled along the road and whipped her skirts around. Janey shivered. She felt defeated.
Daniel dismounted, startling her.
‘You are tired and you are ruining your boots.’
‘I left my pattens at the hall,’ she mumbled.
‘They are ridiculous things anyway. Can’t understand why you women still wear them. Get up and have a ride back to the manor.’ It was an order, not a request.
‘I can’t ride,’ she protested, but he ignored her and moved her by the shoulders to stand by the horse.
‘No time like the present to learn,’ he said. Bending down, he took hold of her leg and lifted her upwards.
She had no choice but to grab the horse’s mane and twist her body so she could sit side-saddle. She found herself looking down at him with a surprised look on her face and the warm body of a horse beneath her. She wasn’t sure what surprised her the most: to suddenly be on the back of a horse or to have Daniel Kellow’s hands beneath her skirt and touching her leg. It did not seem to have bothered him at all for he was getting ready to mount.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.
He raised an eyebrow at her as if he couldn’t quite believe she was asking him that.
‘If you think I’m walking you are quite wrong, Miss Carhart. Scoot over, I’m coming up.’
She did not move but scowled back.
‘You either scoot over or I’m sitting on you,’ he snapped and, with ease born from experience, he mounted and sat snugly behind her, her buttocks between his thighs, his right thigh touching the back of hers. She sat speechless as he wrapped his left arm around her waist, while his right held the reins. He eased his horse forward with a click of his tongue and a squeeze of his thighs.
As the horse walked she felt his warm chest against her back. She leaned forward to break the contact, hoping he would not notice, but he did. He firmly but gently pulled her back against him.
‘Don’t sit forward or she’ll think you want to gallop,’ he said, gruffly.
She did not sit forward again but sat stiffly keeping her eyes on the road.
‘You really haven’t ridden a horse before, have you?’
She shook her head.
‘Are you scared of horses … or is it me you’re scared of?’
Janey didn’t see the point of lying. ‘I think, at this very moment, I’m a little scared of both.’
‘Well, I might be able to help with one if not the other,’ he whispered into her ear.
She shivered involuntarily at the caress of his breath. To her relief he took it as a sign she was cold and wrapped his coat around her.
‘Just relax your body and let it move with the motion of the horse. It will be more comfortable for her to carry you if you are more fluid in your movements.’ Her body remained stiff. ‘Close your eyes and feel the movement,’ he said, softly.
Janey closed her eyes.
At first she was only aware of his body behind her, his strong warm arm about her waist and his hand on her right hip. She kept her eyes closed and soon she felt the gentle sway of the horse beneath and how his body also swayed as one with the animal. She started to sway too and she felt herself relax, her shoulders lowered and the tension she did not know she held flowed away from her. She was so tired and his warmth wrapped around her helped her to sink into the comfort and protection that surrounded her.
‘That’s much better,’ came his voice through the night, but Janey was lost in the swaying of their bodies as if they were in a ritual dance. She had never been so close to a man before, images of his thigh touching hers teased her mind and she could smell him, ale and soap with the fragrance of—
She felt Daniel gently remove something from her hair. She opened her eyes to find a fragile green leaf held gently between his fingers. She looked at it, but it was the soft caress of his breath on her cheek that held her attention. She realised how far she had relaxed against him and how close they both were. She sat up straight and this time he let her. It seemed Daniel also felt it was better that there was a little distance between them after all.
Silence descended and left them with their thoughts. Thoughts Janey would rather not dwell upon, so when Daniel’s husky voice attempted to strike up a conversation, she was glad of it. She suspected he was not a man for polite conversation so appreciated the effort it must have taken him.
‘Do you enjoy working at Bosvenna Manor?’
‘Yes and no,’ she replied, sadly. ‘I am a lady’s maid and I enjoy working for Lady Brockenshaw but the staff do not like me. I don’t know why. I try to be friendly but it is as if they don’t trust me.’
‘Why should they trust you? A lady’s maid position is higher than the likes of Mary. Why would they believe you want to be their friend when you are their superior?’
‘I’m not their superior,’ Janey argued.
‘You are by rank, by education, by how you speak. The likes of Mary want to know where they are with people. When someone steps outside their given role it must be for a reason. They become suspicious as they would not do it themselves.’
‘So I should give up trying to be their friend?’
‘You should just be yourself and fulfil the role you have.’
‘You seem to know a lot about domestic service hierarchy,’ she grumbled. ‘Did you learn it from your scullery maid?’
‘Yes, among other things.’
Janey could only imagine what the other things were. She decided not to ask.
‘Why are you so different?’ Daniel asked. He sounded genuinely interested.
‘I’m not.’
‘Your speech, the way you carry yourself. You are not like the others.’
All her feelings of rejection came bubbling to the surface. She had the need to confide, unburden or purge herself of the full story she rarely told.
‘I come from Falmouth and until the age of thirteen I attended St Christopher’s School for Girls and had private tuition from my father when he was home. My father was the captain of a merchant ship. He was well respected and made a good living from it. We had a large house and I had a happy childhood, with strong family morals to anchor me.’ She waited for Daniel to say something. She would say no more unless he wished to hear it.
‘Go on,’ he coaxed from behind her.
‘One winter a scarlet fever epidemic hit the town. I heard my friend was ill and went to visit her. I wanted to give her my doll for comfort. My mother forbade me but I visited her anyway. It was a foolish thing to do. I didn’t understand what the consequences of my actions might be.’
‘What happened?’
Janey took a deep breath. ‘I brought the fever home with me. I fell ill and survived it. My mother and sisters did not.’
‘They all died?’
She nodded as she felt him wrap the coat a little tighter around her.
‘My sisters caught it from me and died first. Mother’s grief was all-consuming and weakened her. She fell ill with the fever too. It was not long before she also succumbed.’
‘And your father?’
‘He was away at sea at the time. Word reached him that his wife and daughters had died. He took the news badly. The last sighting of him was at the bow of his ship before he stepped over the side. I will never know if he took his own life because he thought he had lost all of his children or if I was not worth returning for.’
She blinked away the tears that always threatened to rise up when she thought of her family.
‘My uncle blamed me and was reluctant to take me in, so instead he secured me a post as a laundry maid with a family in Truro.’ She gave a soft hollow laugh. ‘At thirteen there is little for a girl to do but go into service, particularly if there is no one to offer them a roof over their heads. Since then I have felt that I just don’t fit in, wherever I am. I’m too educated for one class, too poor for the other. It’s not a nice feeling, not fitting in. It’s lonely.’
She bit her lip; she had said too much. She hardly knew him yet she had just spilled her life story to him as if she’d known him all her life. She shouldn’t have said so much. She abruptly changed the topic. ‘I’m sorry for insulting you at the hall tonight.’
‘I’ve been called worse, although you are the first to insult me to my face.’
She could well believe it. Only a fool would risk insulting Daniel Kellow to his face. She couldn’t help smiling.
‘That’s better,’ he said. She glanced around to find him looking down at her. The moonlight had cast its magic, softening his dark eyes even more as he held her gaze. She looked away.
‘I don’t usually go around insulting people. I’m just not used to being manhandled.’
‘I’m not sure I like my dancing being described as being manhandled,’ he teased.
‘It was too forward. I didn’t know you. It was …’ She struggled to find the right words. ‘… too intimate.’ She wriggled uncomfortably. He steadied her with a protective hand.
‘A woman likes to become acquainted first before such closeness.’ Janey was aware she was sounding a little pompous, but she was only telling the truth as she saw it.
‘I’ve had no complaints before,’ countered Daniel.
She could well believe it.
‘Then I must be different.’
The sound of his laughter surprised her.
‘You certainly are,’ he replied.
She tried again to explain. ‘A gentleman wouldn’t behave that way.’ She felt him tense behind her and the air became charged.
‘Gentlemen are not always what they seem.’
‘I’m not explaining myself very well. Mr Brockenshaw, for example, he wouldn’t just lift a woman up in public.’
‘It takes more than a title to make a man a gentleman.’ Daniel’s voice had once more become curt and she knew he had taken offence.
She tried to explain again. ‘It’s about etiquette, manners.’
‘I’d rather a man was true to himself than hide behind etiquette and manners.’
‘But we can’t all behave that way. Say what we want, behave how we want.’
‘Perhaps not, but perhaps we would be happier if we tried.’
Janey heard his challenge. He was accusing her of being someone she was not. Of trying to be the person she hoped the other staff or her uncle would love, instead of just being herself.
Her eyes began to smart. Daniel’s barb had hit home. He had spoken the truth although he knew it would hurt her. He had not liked being compared to James Brockenshaw and had retaliated. She was only trying to explain her reaction at the dance but somehow her meaning had got muddled and he took it as an insult. She had offended him. She wished she had not spoken.
The gatehouse at the entrance of the road to the manor came into view but Daniel steered his horse off the road and into the woods.
‘We’ll cut through here and enter the gardens at the back of the house. I can tie the horse up under the trees while we make our way across the grounds. It will be dark inside so listen to my instructions so you can find your way around the house without a candle.’
Without waiting for a reply he explained how he had made his way through the house at night as a seventeen-year-old boy.
She listened quietly until they came to the edge of the wood. Then he helped her down from the horse. His manner was businesslike and although he was not rough, any gentleness he had shown earlier had gone. She felt that the sooner he got rid of her, the sooner he could be off to his bed for the night.
He firmly grabbed her hand and led her to the dairy window. She watched as he pushed each corner of the metal frame in turn until he heard the latch inside work loose. It dropped off its peg at the base and the window opened. For the first time Janey noticed that the window’s middle catch halfway up the frame had long since been broken.
Janey slipped Daniel’s coat from around her shoulders and handed it back to him. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered as he quickly put it back on.
Then he waved her closer and once again he reached down under her skirts and lifted her up to enter the window.
Here Daniel had made a mistake. He had assumed Janey would know how to climb through a window and expected her to have put one leg through when he lifted her. What he had failed to realise was that there was not much call for a captain’s daughter to climb through windows. She lay stranded on the granite sill, her top half through the window and her bottom at the level of his face. As much as she appreciated his help, a view of her bottom was not part of the deal.
In her haste to move forward, Janey kicked with her legs and felt one foot connect with Daniel’s face with a sickening thud. She twisted to look behind her to find him holding his jaw. He glared back at her and did not appear to appreciate her whispered apology. He grabbed both her legs to stop them moving.
‘I’m going to lift you through,’ he ground out and the next thing she knew her hips were lifted clear of the sill and thrust forward. She slowly slid over the worktop and onto the cold slate floor like a seal pup sliding off a rock.
Daniel looked through the window and appeared relieved when she stood up, unharmed. She was in.
‘Remember to shut the window when I go,’ he whispered. He reached into the back of his trouser waistband and held out her patten shoes.
‘You had them all the time?’ she whispered, confused.
‘Would you have got on the horse if I had given them to you?’ he asked.
They looked at each other with a measured stare. Feelings of distrust and hurt pride emanating from both sides.
She looked in her reticule. ‘I have something for you,’ she said, changing the subject, and taking something out she reached towards him with a closed hand.
‘I don’t want your money, Miss Carhart. You may not consider me gentlemanly enough for you, but I’m not so low as to expect payment for helping you.’
Before she could respond he closed the window in her face and marched angrily away, rubbing his jaw. Janey, frustrated that he did not give her an opportunity to explain, lifted herself on tiptoe to watch him striding across the yard into the gardens beyond, his body eventually swallowed up by the shadows of the trees. She looked down and slowly opened her hand. There, sitting in her palm, lay Daniel’s button.
The atmosphere in the room was cold as the ill-fitting windows allowed cool air to circulate, which was advantageous for a dairy. As instructed by Daniel, Janey unlaced her boots and carried them in her left hand whilst under her arm she carried her pattens. Her right hand she used to guide her way. She remembered his instructions as clearly as if he spoke them at her side as she walked. ‘Use the smells emanating from the pantries to guide you through the kitchen wing,’ he had said. ‘Avoid the creaking floorboards on the left of the stairs.’ ‘Be careful when opening the door near the servants’ stairs, it jams.’ ‘Count the window recesses to guide you in the dark.’ Finally she arrived at the servants’ quarters.
Her trailing fingers counted the doors until she came to her own, reached down, turned the handle and slipped inside. She found her candle and lit it, breathing a sigh of relief to see her familiar things about her. She was safe at last and undetected.
She lifted her candle and took it to the mirror that hung from a nail on the wall. The candlelight cast shadows that danced around the room but her image remained clear. She had never seen herself so untidy before. Always neat in appearance, the woman who stared back at her looked dishevelled and rosy-cheeked. Yet there was something else different about her reflection that unnerved her. Her eyes sparkled with a fervour of excitement that she had not seen before. Janey did not know this woman and it frightened her. She blew out the candle and her reflection disappeared in the darkness.
Snuggling down into her bed, Janey thought she would be too tired to relive the night’s events. Yet, as she waited for sleep her mind replayed images in her head, which would later tease her subconscious and meddle with her dreams. She smiled as she remembered the feel of Daniel’s body against her own. The warmth of him, the smell of him was firmly etched in her mind. She touched her lips with her fingertips as she finally recognised the fragrance of the soap he used. She smiled. ‘Sandalwood,’ she whispered to herself as sleep finally arrived to claim her. ‘Daniel smelt of sandalwood and he smelt so good.’
Daniel waited in the shadows of the grounds beneath her attic room window, which still glowed from the soft light of a single candle. He pulled his coat tighter about him feeling the chill of the night for the first time. Only moments ago he had Janey wrapped within its folds and now he felt the loss of the woman he barely knew.
