Penny Jordan - Orphans from the Storm

There were some dusty glasses in the cupboard with the brandy so she snatched one up to take back to the master bedroom with her.

When she reached the landing she hesitated, suddenly unwilling to return to the master bedroom now that the master had come to himself, wishing heartily that the nurse might have arrived, and that she could leave the master in her hands.

She heard a sudden sound from the room—a heavy thud followed by a ripe curse. Forgetting her qualms, she rushed to the room, staring in disbelief at the man now standing beside the bed, swaying as he clung to the bedstead, his face drained of colour and his muscles corded with pain.

‘What are you doing?’ she protested. ‘You should not have left the bed.’

‘I hate to offend your womanly sensibilities, but I’m afraid I had to answer a call of nature,’ he said, glancing towards a now half-open door Marianne had not seen before, which led, she realised, to a bathroom. ‘And now, since I am up, and you, it seems, are intent on usurping the role of my housekeeper, perhaps you would be kind enough to change the bedlinen?’

He was far too weak to be standing up, and indeed looked as though he was about to collapse at any moment. On the other hand the bloodstained sheet did need to be removed.

Marianne glanced around the room, and then ran to drag a chair over to him, urging him to sit on it.

‘I’m afraid Mrs Micklehead has neglected the care of the linen cupboard,’ she told him. ‘I have, however, put some fresh sheets to warm. I shall go down and get them.’ She looked at him and added, ‘Would you like me to pour you a measure of brandy?’

‘Measure?’ He gave a harsh bark of laughter. ‘Much good that will do. But, aye—go on, then.’

Very carefully Marianne poured a small amount of the liquid into a glass, and then went over to him with it. When he tried to take it from her she shook her head firmly and told him strictly, ‘I shall hold it for you, sir. You have lost a great deal of blood and are likely to be weakened by it.’

‘Too weakened to hold a glass? Don’t think I haven’t guessed why you’re fussing around me,’ he warned her.

Immediately Marianne stiffened. Was it possible that he had discerned her secret?

‘You think to make yourself indispensable to me so that I will keep you on,’ he continued.

Relief leaked from her heart and into her veins.

‘That is not true,’ she told him, avoiding looking at him. ‘I am simply doing my Christian duty, that is all.’

‘Your Christian duty.’ His mouth twisted as though he had tasted something bitter. ‘Aye, well, I have had my craw stuffed full of that in my time. Cold charity that starves the flesh and the soul.’

Marianne’s hand trembled as she held the glass to his lips. His words had touched a raw nerve within her. She too had experienced that same cold charity, and still bore in her heart its scars. It would be so easy now to open that heart to him, but she must not.

So much that she had learned since coming to Bellfield was confusing and conflicting, and then there were her own unexpected and unwanted feelings. Feelings that a woman in her position, newly widowed and with a child had no right to have. She had felt them the first time he had looked at her.

Like an echo she could hear inside her heart she heard her own voice asking, ‘But how does one know that it is love?’ and another voice, sweet and faint, answering her softly.

Her body trembled. Her life had been filled with so much loss and pain that there had not been room for her to wonder about love.

And she must not think about it now either. Not here, or with this man above all men.

There was, after all, no need for her hands to tremble, she told herself sternly. What she was doing was no more than she had done for others many times over.

But they had not been like this man, an inner voice told her.

Engrossed in her thoughts, she gave a small gasp when suddenly his hand closed over hers, hard flesh, with calluses and strong fingers, tipping the glass so that he could drain its contents in one swallow.

Marianne tried not to let her hand shake beneath his, nor wrench it away before he had released her.

Already she could see a flush of colour seeping up along his jaw from the warmth of the brandy.

‘You must promise me that you will not move from here,’ she told him. ‘If you were to fall on that injury…’

‘Such concern for a stranger,’ he mocked her. ‘I do not trust you, Mrs Brown, and that is a fact. You are too good to be true.’

Fresh colour stormed Marianne’s face. She did not dare risk saying anything. Instead, she headed for the door and the kitchen.

The baby was sleeping peacefully. He would need feeding again soon. She might try him on a little oatmeal this time, now that his poor little stomach was no longer so shrunken.

Taking the sheets from the maiden she had set up in front of the range, she set off back for the master bedroom, thinking as she did so that surely the nurse and Charlie Postlethwaite should both arrive soon.

Marianne’s aunt had firmly believed that a mistress should know for herself the exact nature of any domestic task she asked of her servants, and had taught Marianne the same.

Quickly she removed the bloodstained sheet, noting as she did so the untidy fashion in which the bed had been made, and wrinkling her small straight nose in disapproval of such sloppiness.

Since the Master of Bellfield was now slumped in his chair with his eyes closed, it didn’t occur to her to look at him to see if he was watching her as she worked quickly and neatly to place a clean warmed sheet on the bed and tuck in the corners ‘hospital fashion’, the way she had been taught.

‘For one so small and young you have a great deal of assurance as to domestic matters, Mrs Brown.’

His words made her jump, but she still managed to reply. ‘It is the duty of a housekeeper to ensure that her employer’s house is maintained to the highest possible standard, sir.’ Then she added, ‘If you think you could bear it, it might be better if I were to bathe and bandage your leg whilst you are seated here, in order to spare the sheet and ensure that you can lie comfortably on clean sheets. I do not know if Mrs Micklehead used a laundry service, but I dare say there is an outhouse in the yard with a copper, where I can boil-wash—’

‘That won’t be necessary.’ He cut her off sharply. ‘There is enough gossip about me as it is, without folk saying that the Master of Bellfield can’t afford to get his linen laundered and must have his housekeeper labour over a copper, when all the world knows that that is the work of a laundress. When Charlie Postlethwaite gets here you can tell him to ask that uncle of his who runs the laundry to send someone up to collect whatever it is that needs washing.’

Marianne’s eyes widened. Did that mean that he intended to keep her on as his housekeeper? She didn’t dare ask, just in case her question provoked him to a denial of any such intention.

Instead she picked up a clean bowl and poured some water into it, then went to kneel down at his side.

Somehow her task felt much more intimate knowing that he was watching her. It was, of course, only because she was afraid of hurting him that her hands were trembling and she felt so breathless. Nothing more, she assured herself, as she dipped the cloth into the water and started to carefully wipe away the encrusted blood.

He didn’t say a word, but she knew he must be in pain because she could feel his thigh muscles tightening under her hand. With the wound being on the inside of his thigh the intimacy of their position was unavoidable.

‘Your hand shakes like that of a green girl who has never touched a man before,’ he told her roughly. ‘And yet you have had a husband.’