Page 74 of Exile's Return
‘Are you Lucas? Your mistress summons you.’
Daniel looked up from the bowl of excellent stew that the pretty kitchen maid had set before him. The same girl leaned on the table, watching him as he ate. It took some effort to keep his eyes on the stew and not on the creamy white breasts that spilled from the girl’s tightly laced bodice. In another time and place, he would not have hesitated to follow the path down that the girl wished to lead him.
The interruption came as a relief and he rose to his feet, knocking the stool over in his haste.
‘My mistress?’
The maid frowned. ‘Aye, Mistress Fletcher. Says you are to come and collect her boots for cleaning.’
‘Thank you for the food…err…Ellie,’ he addressed the kitchen maid, who rose languidly to her feet, with ill-disguised disappointment written in her downturned mouth.
He turned back to Sarah. ‘Where will I find my mistress?’
She frowned. ‘They’ve put her in the old part o’ the house,’ she said.
‘You’d best take me up to her,’ he said. ‘I’d get myself lost in these corridors.’
Sarah smiled, the gesture lifting her plain features. ‘Aye, it has its secrets, this house. Come with me. I’ll show you.’
‘Thank you…’ Daniel cocked an enquiring eyebrow.
‘Sarah Truscott,’ the girl said, a slight flush colouring her cheeks.
Truscott?He wondered if she was kin to the woman Agnes placed so much trust in.
‘She used to be mistress here, you know,’ Sarah continued as they climbed the servants’ stairs.
‘Is that so?’ Daniel said. ‘You were here in the days of the late Earl?’
She nodded. ‘When the Colonel came they kept me because I’ve skills in the still room.’
The stairs wound up through the ancient walls of the original castle. As they wended their way upward, Sarah pointed to the doors they passed. ‘Through there is the Great Hall,’ she said. ‘That’s part of the old house and this door,’ she stopped and opened the snug-fitting door, ‘puts you on the gallery. We go this way.’
They crossed the wide gallery, from which an elegant staircase descended into the entrance hall. Leah Turner waited for them at the head of the stairs.
As Sarah curtsied, Daniel bowed obsequiously.
‘Aren’t you Mistress Fletcher’s man?’ Leah addressed Daniel.
‘Dan’l Lucas, ma’am. I do serve Mistress Fletcher.’
‘What are you doing up here?’
‘My mistress summoned me, ma’am.’
‘There is no need for you to attend upon her. Sarah can see to her needs.’
Daniel regarded the woman. Was she deliberately keeping him apart from Agnes?
‘Mistress Sarah has her own responsibilities, ma’am. Mistress Fletcher would think it strange if I abandoned my duties. She’s not a prisoner here.’ The slight note of enquiry in his voice caused Leah Turner to stiffen.
‘And where did Mistress Fletcher find you, Lucas?’
‘London, ma’am.’
Leah opened her mouth to say something but thought better of it. She swept past them, her stiff skirts crackling her unspoken disapproval.
Sarah grabbed his arm and hustled him away through a maze of corridors to another set of ancient stairs leading to a gloomy passage, lit only by thin, high windows. A soldier lounged on a stool outside a door. He looked up at their approach, hauling himself to his feet.
