Page 42 of The Housekeeper's Secret

‘Jesus, Kate…’ He wanted to be angry that she could think he would betray her, but his conscience wouldn’t let him. What he’d considered doing was just as bad. ‘I understand, and you have my word. I won’t ever speak of what you told me, and no one will ever know what happened, I swear.’ His hands moved to cover hers. ‘I could tell you that I wish it hadn’t happened, but that wouldn’t be true. All I can do is assure you that it won’t happen again. I can promise to stay away from you, if that’s what you want. I’m a footman, you’re the housekeeper…’ From the depths of his self-loathing he summoned a broken smile. ‘I know my place.’

She gave an odd laugh, which caught in her throat and became a sob. Taking the sheet from him, she bundled it roughly and set it aside. ‘Since when has it mattered what we want?’

‘It matters to me. What you want matters to me.’ He caught her by the shoulders and held her firmly. ‘Look at me, Kate… Do you want me to leave? Because if you do, just say the word… I’ll go.’

He hadn’t planned to say it. As soon as the words were out, he felt light-headed. Panicky. Everything he’d worked towards… everything he’d been through… in her hands now. Her eyes were huge and haunted as they held his, searching them. The moment quivered into an eternity. He heard her exhale and felt her rigid body yield so their faces were inches apart. And then she was tearing her gaze from his and pulling away. Shaking out her skirts and smoothing the chains of her chatelaine, squaring her shoulders.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m sure that won’t be necessary.’ She moved so the table was a barrier between them, and her voice became clipped and frosty again. ‘You know how difficult it is to replace staff, and we can’t afford to be a footman down with a wedding celebration to organise. I hope we can both conduct ourselves in a professional manner.’

His legs felt weak. He wanted to stagger outside and take in great gulps of air, but he stayed where he was and said nothing as, with precise, practiced movements she finished folding the sheet and held it against her body like a shield. ‘You’re very charming, Jem, but I’m not some… swoony housemaid.’ Her smile was withering. ‘I’m sure I’ll be able to resist you.’

And then she left, slipping out of his sight behind the curtains of linen, so he could only hear the tap of her footsteps and the musical chime of her keys.

It had been a dangerous gamble. He was lucky to have got away with it.

So why did it feel like he’d lost?

Kate had dreaded the return of the servants. Everything in her shrank from the prospect of brisk normality resuming, of having to reassemble the shattered fragments of her professional mask and take up the reins of responsibility again. She wanted nothing more than to keep to the solitude of her parlour and wait for the fit of madness that had seized her to pass. She still felt shaky and fragile, and the ten days they had been away felt like ten years.

But in the end, she felt relief when the cart came clattering under the archway as the heat began to subside on another oppressive day. Voices rang around the kitchen yard as they all jumped down from the wagon, hauling boxes and dragging wicker hampers across the cobbles.

‘Home sweet home,’ said Eliza sourly, setting her box down in the kitchen passage and looking around with an air of disdain. ‘I swear it’s got even dingier since we’ve been away.’

‘It looks the same to me.’ Thomas beamed, coming in behind her. ‘Sounds the same too. Listen—’

He rested the box he was carrying on top of the one she had just put down and cupped a hand round his ear. Eliza gave an impatient shrug. ‘I can’t hear anything.’

‘Exactly. No traffic. No bells. No racket from the street. No Mr-blessed-Dewhurst on my case. Heaven.’

The strange, suspended time was over, the spell broken.

Keen for any comparisons with the London cook to be favourable, Mrs Gatley had spent the day preparing what was, by Coldwell standards, an extravagant tea of pork pie, cold roast chicken, and a strawberry tart. When the luggage had been unloaded and carried upstairs, they took their usual places at the table in the servants’ hall with Mr Goddard at its head saying grace and carving the meat.

Although he’d been cynical about it, his role in the village coronation festivities seemed to have revived the old butler’s spirits somewhat. He wasn’t convivial exactly, but he responded to Thomas’s polite enquiry about the tree-planting ceremony with a (rather too detailed) description of the event and didn’t reprimand the girls when their voices tumbled over one another, describing the mob of servants in the Portman Square basement, the airless attic bedrooms, the excitement of getting out for an hour on the morning of coronation day to catch a glimpse of the procession and the spectacle of the flag-festooned streets.

‘The kitchen is half the size of ours, but they’ve got a fancy stove, heated by gas,’ Susan said excitedly. ‘You can adjust the temperature as easy as anything—Mrs Gatley would give her right arm for something like that. They’ve got no stillroom though,’ she added loyally.

‘Why would they need one?’ Eliza snapped. ‘All the things we spend our lives slaving to make, they can have delivered, and a lot more besides. Walter says—’

‘Here we go,’ muttered Abigail. ‘Walter says…’

Eliza threw her a look and went on doggedly. ‘Walter says that Sir Randolph’s looking to hire a foreign chef from one of the big hotels, so he can have all those fancy continental pastries and the like here.’

‘Yes, well, you don’t want to believe half of what Walter says,’ Thomas grunted, helping himself to another slice of pork pie. ‘Why would Sir Randolph want to do that? Nowt wrong with Mrs Gatley’s English pastries if you ask me.’

Kate let the conversation swirl around her. The food on her plate was untouched, and she felt that if she tried to swallow she would choke. She was painfully aware of Jem to her right, half-hidden by Joseph (who seemed to have filled out and grown two inches). She watched his hands as he buttered a piece of bread but noticed he didn’t eat much either.

‘I don’t see why a foreign chef wouldn’t come here,’ Abigail was saying. ‘Sir Henry wasn’t one for modern ways, but Sir Randolph’s a different kettle of fish…’

Was he finding it as difficult as she was? This pretence that everything was as it had been? She’d tried to be firm earlier, to leave no room for doubt, but was he still feeling the same pull towards her as she was to him? The same sensation that, although the room was full again, the voices of the others were somehow muted and distant and they were alone together.

‘… I heard Mr Dewhurst talking to Mrs Bryant about interviewing chauffeurs, so he must have bought a motorcar. And I never thought I’d see the day when there were bathrooms at Coldwell, neither,’ Susan was saying. ‘Are they finished?’

It took Kate a moment to realise the question was directed at her.

‘Oh—yes. Almost.’ Jolted out of her thoughts, she felt the creep of colour into her cheeks. ‘Lady Hyde’s is almost ready. The bath has been installed and—’

Abigail gave a moan of envy. ‘I couldn’t half do with trying it out. I’m that hot and sticky after the journey… Just imagine, lying back in water right up to your chin…’

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