Deanna Raybourn - Night of a Thousand Stars

I gave him a look of grudging admiration. “I’m torn. I don’t know whether to be outraged that you spied upon me or flattered that you cared enough to do it.”

His smile was wistful. “I always cared, child. I cared enough to give you a chance at an ordinary life. And if you think that wasn’t a sacrifice of my own heart’s blood, then you’re not half as clever as I think you are.”

His eyes were oddly bright and I looked away for a moment. I looked back when he had cleared his throat and recovered himself. “I’m surprised you found me clever from my school reports. The mistresses were far more eloquent on the subject of my behaviour.”

“No, your marks were frightful except in languages. Looking solely at those I might have been forgiven for thinking you were slightly backwards. It was those reports of your behaviour that intrigued me, particularly the modest acts of theft and arson.”

“But those were necessary!” I protested. “I broke into the science master’s room to free the rabbits he’d bought for dissection. And the fire was only a very small one. I knew if the music mistress saw her desk on fire, she’d reveal where she’d hidden the money they accused the kitchen maid of stealing.”

He clucked his tongue. “Impetuous. Instinctive. Audacious. These are March traits, child. We’ve been living by them for the past six hundred years. There have been epic poems written about our oddities, and more than one king of England has had cause to be grateful for them. And now you are one of us.”

I gave a little shiver as if a goose had walked over my grave. “Rather a lot to live up to.”

He shrugged. “I should think you would find that consoling. You have an ancestor who eloped with her footman, another who rode his horse into Parliament, a great-grandmother who used to dance with a scooped-out pumpkin on her head because she found it cool and refreshing. And those are the ones I can talk about in polite company,” he added with a twinkle. “Don’t be put off by your legacy, Poppy. Embrace it. Follow your own star, wherever it leads, child.”

“Follow my own star,” I said slowly. “Yes, I think I will.”

The only question was, where?

* * *

The next day I had my answer. I had gone to the pantry to try yet again to help George with the washing up, determinedly cheerful in the face of his resistance.

“You will come to like me,” I promised him.

“I have my doubts,” he replied shortly. I put out a hand to wipe a glass, and he flicked the glass cloth sharply at my fingers. “Leave that be.”

“I could read to you while you work,” I offered. I picked up the book he had stashed on a shelf in the pantry— Northanger Abbey .

I sighed. “It’s not Austen’s best, you know.”

He snatched the book from my hand. “It’s Austen and that’s good enough for me.”

He replaced the book lovingly on the shelf, and I took it down again. “Very well. I apologise. But why do you like it so much? Don’t you find Catherine Morland appallingly naïve?”

“It seems to be a common failing in young ladies,” he said, giving me a dark look.

I burst out laughing. “Oh, George. You do say the nicest things.” I flipped to where he had carefully marked his place. He had almost reached the end of the first chapter. I cleared my throat and read aloud. “‘But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.’”

I looked up, giving George a thoughtful look. “Do you suppose that’s true, George? Do you think when a young lady is supposed to be a heroine, her hero will appear?”

“Certainly,” he said, polishing an invisible spot from one of the glasses. “If Miss Austen says it, it must be true. But not all young ladies are meant to be heroines,” he added pointedly.

“That’s very hurtful, George,” I told him. I turned back to the book. I read the next paragraph, then slowed as I came to these words, “‘...if adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.’” I looked up again. “‘She must seek them abroad,’” I repeated slowly.

George kept on with his polishing, but he flicked me a glance. “An excellent idea. You should go abroad.”

I smiled in spite of him. “Why are you so eager to get rid of me, George? Surely it’s not that much extra work to scrape a few more carrots for dinner. And I’ve seen Masterman doing heaps of things for you, so it’s clearly just me you don’t like. Why can’t we be friends?”

I turned up the smile, giving him my most winsome look. He turned and put down the glass, folding the cloth carefully.

“I’ll not have you hurt him,” he said plainly.

I blinked. “George, what on earth are you talking about?”

“I’ll not have you hurt Mr. Plum.”

I felt my throat tighten with anger. “The very idea! I have no intention of hurting Father at all. I can’t believe you would even suggest such a thing.”

“I don’t say as you would mean to do it,” he allowed. “But things happen. He’ll get used to you if you stay on here. And then you’ll go away and it will break his heart. I don’t think he could stand that again.”

My anger ebbed. I had not considered what a wrench it must have been for him when Mother took me away. “You’ve been a good friend to him, George.”

George scowled. “I’m his manservant, and don’t be forgetting that, for I’m not. But I’ll not have him hurt again. His heart isn’t what it was. He has spells with it. Not serious,” he said, noticing my start of alarm. “But he needs calm and we’ve had that here. That was when he moved down to the country and left London for good. He keeps regular hours here and paints. And there’s no more detective work.”

“Detective work? George, what are you talking about?”

“Your father’s work in London. He was part of your uncle’s private inquiry agency. Among other things.”

I blinked. “But that was decades ago! Uncle Brisbane and Aunt Julia gave that all up well before I was born.”

George snorted. “Publicly, they did. But privately, they carried on just as they had. And your father was a part of it. They did government work, and if it weren’t for them, we’d have had a war with Germany twenty years earlier than we did.”

“George, are you seriously asking me to believe that my family were involved in some sort of global espionage?”

He shrugged. “You haven’t read all of your auntie’s memoirs yet, have you? Believe what you like, miss. It matters nought to me. But the work was demanding. They had friends killed, and your father had a close shave or two, I don’t mind telling you. That’s how he met me, in fact, and no, I’ll not tell you the story, but I will say your father saved my life, he did, and I’ll serve him until the end of mine. But all of that is behind him. He’s got a pleasant way down here, just his painting and his garden. He’s right old, miss, and he’s not got many years left. I mean to see they’re peaceful ones.”

“Of course,” I said automatically. There was a pang in my heart when he said Father hadn’t many years left, and I thought of how drastically my little drama must have upset Father’s routine. “I’ll do everything I can to make certain he’s not upset,” I promised. “And I will find something to do with myself. I won’t make him regret having me here. You have my word, George.”

He gave me a grudging nod and turned back to his washing up.

I thought of the ruby ring nestled in my underclothes upstairs and took a deep breath. “I’ll go to London. I have a few things I ought to attend to, and I’ll take Masterman. She’s looking peaky from all this country air.”