Page 58 of The Housekeeper's Secret

‘Mr Goddard wants you,’ Eliza said. ‘In the dining room. It’s about the wines for luncheon—you’d better hurry.’

She stood aside to let Thomas pass, but didn’t follow him out of the room. Instead, she came further in and leant against the table, crossing her arms. ‘Shouldn’t you be ready by now?’ she said, looking at Jem’s undershirt, and his braces hanging down; watching as he ran the razor along his cheek, cutting a clean path through the soap.

‘Mm-hmm.’

‘Anything I can do to help?’

He glanced at her. She’d changed into a black afternoon dress and best apron, with lace-edged flounces. She also seemed to have gone to some trouble with her overall appearance, though he couldn’t say how exactly (her hair, perhaps?), and the sour mood that had followed her around lately like bad weather seemed to have lifted.

‘Don’t think so, thanks.’

He expected her to leave then, but she didn’t. Nor did she take her eyes off him. There was something unsettling about it, as cloying as the cloud of lavender water that hung around her.

‘People are arriving already,’ she said. ‘In the park—have you seen? It’s strange, seeing them wandering about, laying out picnic blankets and what have you. Gatley’s sent Bert Oakley up from the garden to stand by the gravel, making sure no one messes it up before Sir Randolph and Lady Hyde get here.’ When Jem didn’t respond, she said, ‘The band’s arrived too. They’re tuning up. I can’t quite believe all this is right on our doorstep, can you? A hot supper and a real dance—usually we’re miles away from any goings-on.’

Jem wiped the blade clean and lifted his chin to shave beneath it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Eliza’s teeth catch at her bottom lip as she watched.

‘Do you like dancing?’ she said, her voice lower.

He shrugged. ‘In the right place, with the right music.’

And the right person.

‘Will you dance with me this evening?’

The words held a pleading note. He picked up a towel to wipe the soap residue away and was trying to formulate a polite answer that didn’t encourage her when a brisk knock at the door saved him the trouble.

‘Ah, Jem—’ Kate’s professional façade always made his blood surge. ‘The matches you asked for.’

He kept his face perfectly straight as she put a Bryant & May box on the table. It was their code. Bringing an item, pretending the other had asked for it, meant a message had been left in the Chinese vase on the scullery shelf.

Kate turned to Eliza. ‘I can’t think of any reason for you to be in here,’ she said with the cool hauteur that was so at odds with the private Kate he knew. ‘Sir Randolph and Lady Hyde will be arriving soon. Get back to where you should be and don’t give me any further cause to ban you from this afternoon’s celebrations.’

She left before Eliza could stutter an excuse, in a rustle of silk and a musical shimmer of silver. Eliza rolled her eyes sulkily as she went to the door. ‘So, will you? Dance with me?’ she prompted.

Jem reached for the shirt hanging on the cupboard door.

‘Ask me later.’

Eliza sighed. ‘I was hoping you’d ask me.’

After she’d gone, he felt a moment’s guilt at his lack of chivalry, but it dissolved even as he registered it. Fastening his shirt studs, he slipped out into the corridor and along to the scullery. The Chinese vase was on the shelf of the battered old dresser, placed unobtrusively amongst the other jugs, vases, and vessels for flower arrangements.

He paused, listening for footsteps and making sure no one was nearby before reaching inside. He should have taken the note to the relative safety of the footmen’s wardrobe, but he was too impatient. Turning his back to the door he read the pencilled writing, in capital letters that no one would recognise as hers, and smiled.

GAMEKEEPER’S COTTAGE. 9 O’CLOCK.

The newlyweds made their stately arrival in the motorcar at midday (greeted by the decidedly lacklustre cheers of the gathered locals), and by the time they had been served the five elaborate courses of Mrs Gatley’s luncheon, and the dishes had been cleared, the afternoon had advanced into a smoky autumn evening.

Downstairs Kate had supervised the washing and drying of china in the scullery, making sure that the maids weren’t too careless in their haste to join the festivities. Once every piece of Rockingham had been returned, clean and intact, to the china cupboard, she took pity on them and told them she would see to the coffee things from the drawing room herself.

She was in no hurry to join the crowds gathering in the park. According to Thomas, they had been arriving steadily all afternoon, but when Kate went up to Lady Hyde’s room with a jug of barley water at six o’clock, she was still surprised by the scene that greeted her through the window on the stairs: people milling about between the tents, chatting in groups, sitting on the ground around the temple. She could hear the thin notes of a fiddle drifting like smoke on the breeze.

She was in no hurry to join them at all, but still, her stomach gave a twist of anticipation at the evening ahead.

Lady Hyde had gone up half an hour ago to change. Soon Coldwell’s new mistress would accompany her husband as he went out to welcome everyone and get the evening’s celebrations officially underway, but when she knocked, Kate found the room in disarray. The rose-pink eiderdown was buried beneath heaps of garments, the floor littered with drifts of tissue paper from the open trunk at the foot of the bed.

‘Oh! It’s you—’ Miss Dunn stiffened. ‘I was expecting one of the maids.’

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