Secret Hearts Page 9

  “Perhaps you’re just too close to the subject matter,” Claire muttered, feeling terribly defensive, not to mention at a tremendous disadvantage.

  “I’m sure that’s it, Miss Montague.” He patted her hand in a brotherly fashion. “Are you feeling better now?”

  Claire decided it was past time she got herself in hand and began to perform the duties for which she was paid. Standing and clearing her throat, she declared, “Yes, thank you. I’m sorry for being so silly, Mr. Partington. Please allow me to pour tea.”

  “Thank you. That would be wonderful.”

  Dianthe wafted back to deposit herself in the armchair, and the three gentlemen settled themselves like sardines on the small sofa, the plump Mr. Oliphant in the middle. Claire handed out tea and cakes, then sat behind her desk, wondering how long she could keep up this dastardly deception and how, now that she’d begun to lie about it, she would ever be able to confess.

  Chapter 6

  Tom found it ironic that Claire Montague, while not as lovely as her friend, was the one who possessed the truly lyrical soul. Claire only spoke to add something meaningful to the conversation. Moreover, her little tidbits were insightful, elegantly rendered, and made him laugh. He’d always appreciated people who could make him laugh.

  The beautiful Dianthe, on the other hand, while splendid to look at, prattled an almost mind-numbing stream of drivel, and most of her stories seemed to revolve around herself. Not only that, but when she undertook to tell one of them she seemed to find it necessary to start from creation itself. By the time she got to the point, Tom invariably found himself yawning, if not itching to throttle the ultimate point out of her.

  Sipping his tea and glancing at his fellows, he discovered they did not suffer from his ennui. Undoubtedly, they were more accustomed to the type of idle social chit-chat he’d missed out on during his active life.

  He did notice Claire drumming her fingers on her desk once or twice. Both times, he caught her eye and she looked guilty until he winked and grinned. Then she smiled, and a little dimple peeked from beside her mouth. That silly dimple delighted him. He was finding more and more to admire about Claire Montague with each passing hour.

  He guessed the thing that attracted him the most was her practical nature. It didn’t hurt, either, that she seemed to be taking an active interest in his enterprises. He’d always hoped to find somebody with whom to share his enthusiasm.

  She didn’t have to be such a dowd, either. It looked to Tom as if she deliberately tried to make herself appear dull. During another of Dianthe’s boring stories, he studied Claire’s face. It was the hair, he decided, that did the most damage, and he began to plot ways in which to get her to try a more flattering hairstyle. She’d be quite charming if she loosened up a bit.

  Overall, he was pleased with how things seemed to be working out here at Partington Place. There was plenty of room for him to build stables and fence pastureland, and he could still keep a profitable farming operation going. Now all he had to do was make arrangements to get the horses delivered.

  He jerked to attention when he realized everybody was looking at him expectantly.

  “Don’t you think so, Mr. Partington?” Claire asked, her expression serious.

  He scanned their faces for clues to the question he was supposed to be answering. They didn’t tell him much. Except for Claire, their eyes seemed almost glazed. From that, he deduced it had been Dianthe who’d last held the floor.

  He decided there was no hope for it but to tell the truth. “I beg your pardon, ladies and gentlemen. I’m afraid my mind wandered off the subject for a moment.”

  Claire’s momentary expression of incredulity surprised him. He guessed she wasn’t used to anybody of the masculine gender not paying attention to Dianthe.

  “I merely asked if it would be appropriate for me to dance my new work, ‘In Praise of the Spotted Horse’ at the Artistic Evening, Mr. Partington,” Dianthe purred. She fluttered her lashes and smiled.

  “‘In Praise of the Spotted Horse’?”

  “Yes. I created the poem to honor your horses and would, of course, recite it as I dance.”

  “Oh.” Tom didn’t know what to say. After a moment’s pause, he told her so. She smiled as if he’d just handed her a compliment.

  “Dianthe is such a talented poet, Mr. Partington. Anybody would be flattered to be the subject of one of her verses.”

  Wondering if Claire was being deliberately ironic, he mumbled, “I’m sure the horses will be delighted, Miss Montague.” Encountering her blank stare, he guessed he couldn’t count satire as one of Claire’s manifold virtues. He admired the affection she seemed to have for a friend whose beauty put hers in the shade, but he wondered if Dianthe didn’t occasionally take advantage of her. ‘In Praise of the Spotted Horse’? Good God.

  Since everybody was still staring at him as if he held the answer to all the world’s questions, he said, “Er, that sounds like a great idea, Miss St. Sauvre.”

  Dianthe’s smile never wavered. Claire’s, on the other hand, burst upon her countenance like the sun after a storm, and Tom realized she’d been worried for her friend. He gave her an encouraging grin, wondering if she cared about all her friends so much. He could appreciate loyalty more than men who’d never seen duty in a war or had to depend on their fellows on the frontier as he had. But he did appreciate it. A lot. And he gave Claire Montague another point for her loyalty to Dianthe.

  # # #

  Claire wasn’t entirely sure how she managed to get through the rest of the evening, but she couldn’t remember a time when she’d been so happy to retreat to her room.

  Dinner had seemed endless. The late Mr. Partington’s great dining table was not suited to intimate dinner parties, but Scruggs had rebelled at serving the meal in the breakfast room.

  “The young general deserves all the respect we can give him, Miss Montague,” Scruggs said stolidly. “He has guests this evening, and will wish to have them entertained with the deference due his stature.”

  “But Scruggs, truly, he tends to discount his own valorous reputation, and he doesn’t seem to appreciate all this formality. He’s even told me so.”

  Scruggs looked down his long nose at Claire. “It is an honor to be in the employ of the young general, Miss Montague, and until given specific instructions to the contrary, I shall continue to serve him with the esteem due his station.”

  She, Oliphant, Silver, and Tom, therefore, shared the gleaming mahogany table in the dining room. Candles did their best to illuminate the room, but it was a battle destined for failure. As the winter’s night was deep and heavy curtains had been drawn across the windows, obscuring any hint of moonglow and starshine, the lighting was poor at best.

  More than once, Claire saw Tom lean close to his plate and squint to determine exactly what it was he was going to be putting into his mouth. A candle flickered at each place, but so much table extended between the individual diners that to Claire’s fertile brain, it looked as if she were sitting with three disparate people, each seated at a point of an invisible cross.

  Candles in the wall sconces lit approximately a foot square of wall each. The darkness was so complete that the light never made it to the floor. Even Claire wondered how Scruggs managed to serve the meal without tripping. She guessed he’d had so much practice he could negotiate the room blindfolded.

  She wasn’t surprised when Tom, obviously vexed, asked at one point, “God bless it, can’t we get more light in here?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Claire had responded promptly. “I attempted to get Scruggs to bring in several lanterns, but he deemed them unfit for a formal dinner party.”

  “But this isn’t a formal dinner party. It’s a few friends dining together.”

  “I agree, Mr. Partington,” Claire said with a sigh. “But Scruggs is Scruggs, you know.”

  “Good grief.”

  “Actually, if you wouldn’t feel it beneath your dignity, you could even entertain small
parties such as this one in the breakfast room. It’s a delightful room and can be made to look quite elegant.”

  Tom goggled at her and she knew she’d phrased her question improperly. “Beneath my dignity? What are you talking about, Miss Montague?”

  She felt herself flush. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Partington. I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that Scruggs thought it would have been insulting if he had taken it upon himself to serve your guests in the breakfast room without a direct command from you.”

  Tom put a hand to his head as if Claire’s news had stunned him. Claire felt her eyes open wide.

  Wresting the knife from his adversary’s hand, Tom plunged it into the villain’s chest. Distraught at the violence so rudely displayed before Miss Abigail Faithgood, he put a hand to his noble brow. Miss Abigail Faithgood screamed, and a soft prayer left his lips that the delicate maiden would be spared further brutality.

  On the other hand, Claire thought sardonically, perhaps poor old Tom merely had a headache from Miss Abigail’s constant screeching. She really had to do something about that.

  Returning to the problem at hand, she said, “Perhaps if you were to speak to him, he would understand your desires in the matter.”

  Tom looked troubled. “But, Miss Montague, I really have no experience in dealing with servants, and quite honestly don’t want to learn. I had believed you to be the one who would take care of these little matters.”

  Her heart plummeted and he apparently discerned her distress. He hurried to add, “Not that I don’t think you’ve done a magnificent job here. You certainly have. I’ve seldom seen such a well-run household.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Jedediah, raising his wine glass to her in salute. At least, Claire was sure it was a wine glass. Since the object he lifted went beyond the range of his feeble candle, she wasn’t sure. For all she knew, it was his fork.

  “Thank you,” she said in a tiny voice.

  “But I don’t know the first thing about giving instructions to butlers.”

  “Maybe you should simply tell Scruggs that you expect him to take his orders from Miss Montague from now on, Tom,” Jedediah suggested.

  “Why, that’s brilliant, Mr. Silver!” Claire, beaming at Jedediah, realized by his utterly blank look that he didn’t appreciate his own profundity. “If Mr. Partington follows your advice, it could save me literally hundreds of hours.”

  “Good lord, is Scruggs that bad?”

  Now Claire felt guilty. “He’s not bad, Mr. Partington. He’s merely—merely—” Obstreperous was the word that popped into her head, but it seemed too harsh. She said instead, “Set in his ways.”

  “And do you think something as simple as my telling him to take orders from you would solve the problem?”

  “Absolutely. You see, Scruggs is used to looking upon you as something of an ideal of perfection—as indeed we all are—and he believes your gallantry and heroism deserve only the finest. Scruggs is, I am afraid, inclined to consider any relaxation in the rules of the conventional protocol he learned in his youth as a rank indignity.”

  “Good Lord.”

  Since the topic of their discussion entered the room at that moment, conversation stopped.

  Scruggs looked particularly ghoulish as he came through the door, backlit by candle glow from the pantry. He bore a tray of Mrs. Philpott’s floating island desserts and stood in the doorway for a moment, probably to get his bearings before attempting to serve them.

  The dinner seemed interminable, and Claire excused herself as soon as politely possible from after-dinner tea and brandy in the parlor. Her head aching, she sank onto the chair in front of her vanity table and propped her chin in her cupped hands.

  “What have I done?” she asked her reflection, which did not offer an opinion on the matter. Nor did it give her any hints on how to undo the tangle of lies in which she’d enmeshed herself. Feeling like a fly caught in a spider’s web, she crawled into her bed and prayed for guidance.

  # # #

  Tom felt wonderful when he awoke the morning after what might be considered his first real, albeit small, dinner party in his new home. In spite of the lousy lighting, he believed everybody had enjoyed themselves. And after Claire had left them in the parlor and he’d broken out some of Uncle Gordo’s Havana cigars and French brandy, the conversation had become very mellow indeed.

  At first it had circled around his plans for Partington Place and his ambition to establish an Appaloosa horse-breeding ranch. Naturally, other topics arose. Even more naturally, since there were only the three men were present, Miss Dianthe St. Sauvre’s name was mentioned.

  As he sat back in his chair and listened to Oliphant and Jedediah, it became clear to him that those two gentlemen had yet to see past the ethereally lovely Dianthe’s exterior to discover the equally ethereal intellect inside. Shaking his head, Tom had listened to them extolling her virtues in language that would have done Tom’s nemesis, Clarence McTeague, proud.

  Well, a dim-witted, decorative female might do for either one of these gentlemen, but Tom Partington required a good deal more than beauty in a lady. Or anybody else, for that matter. Especially if that body were to become a partner of his.

  Claire Montague, now, there was a lady of an entirely different stamp. She seemed equally at home with the insipid Dianthe as with the razor-sharp Jedediah Silver. Why, she was up to anything and anybody, and Tom appreciated that quality in an ally. Even if she did like those damned silly books.

  He was chuckling when he made his way into the breakfast room, where he discovered Claire and Scruggs in an animated discussion. At least it was animated on Claire’s part; Scruggs was stiff as a cold marble statue. The door didn’t so much as swish, its hinges were so well-oiled, so neither of them realized he had joined them.

  “I shall go into Pyrite Springs today, Scruggs, and purchase lanterns more fitting to the dining room’s elegance. You simply can’t expect diners to eat in the dark. It’s stupid and really not fair. Why, the gentlemen couldn’t even find their plates last night.” Claire’s voice was sharp. Tom got the impression she’d lost her temper some time ago, and he grinned. He enjoyed seeing her proper demeanor ruffled occasionally.

  “The late Mr. Partington did not care for lanterns, Miss Montague, believing they conveyed an inelegant atmosphere and one not conducive to artistic conversation. Besides,” he added as if to put the cap on the conversation, “lamps smoke.”

  “That’s ridiculous and you know it, Scruggs. Why, I’ve seen perfectly beautiful lamps, and if you use the right oil and open them properly, they won’t smoke. I believe I’ve even seen lantern holders crafted from scrolled metal that are positively works of art.”

  Scruggs looked as rebellious as a cold marble moose could look until he spotted Tom. Then he snapped to attention like a precisely disciplined soldier. Strolling away from his vantage point at the door, Tom smiled at both parties.

  “I think Miss Montague’s right, Scruggs,” he said casually, and watched Scruggs’s mouth tighten. “We need more light in that room if we’re going to eat in there very often. Lanterns sound like the right idea to me, until I can get the place piped for gas.”

  “How wonderful, Mr. Partington! Do you really plan to install gas?”

  Claire looked ecstatic, and that pleased Tom. “Indeed I do. I’m all for the modern conveniences.”

  Something that sounded like a groan emanated from Scruggs, drawing Tom’s attention to his gloomy butler. The poor man already looked like he’d sustained a punishing emotional blow, but Tom, never one to shrink from necessity, decided he’d better land the knock-out punch right now. Maybe Scruggs would have recovered by dinnertime tonight.

  “Since I’ve got lots of other things to see to, Scruggs, I want you to take your instruction from Miss Montague. You can consider her as my voice in the running of the household from now on.” With one of his most companionable smiles, he cocked his head to one side and asked, “That all right with you, Scruggs?
It’ll save me a lot of time and bother.”

  Scruggs had to clear his throat before he could answer, in a suspiciously hoarse voice, “Yes, sir.”

  Then he tottered out of the room like a broken man, leaving Claire to gaze after him anxiously.

  Her concern over the butler’s wounded sensibilities touched Tom. “Will he be all right, Miss Montague? I hope I didn’t shatter the poor fellow’s feelings.”

  She left off wringing her hands, for which Tom was grateful. “I believe he’ll be better soon, Mr. Partington.” She gave a huge sigh. “He was actually used to taking his instruction from me, you see, but your . . . approach to things is at great variance with what he’s used to, and I believe he’s worried that he will give offense if he departs from the traditions of Partington Place.”

  “I see,” said Tom, who didn’t. He’d always figured servants merrily went about doing what the boss wanted and didn’t worry about traditions. Showed how much he knew about servants.

  He rubbed his hands together happily. “At least I’m glad you got him to serve breakfast in the breakfast room. This is much more cozy.” Waving his hand toward a chair, he said, “Have a seat, Miss Montague. Let’s have breakfast together and plan our day.”

  She looked pleased, and that pleased Tom. He liked her better when she smiled. She’d seemed so troubled yesterday afternoon and evening, he’d become quite worried about her.

  Mr. Oliphant entered the room, along with Jedediah Silver. The breakfast dishes had been set out on the sideboard, so they each served themselves.

  “Did I hear you say you were going into Pyrite Springs today, Miss Montague?” Tom asked after swallowing a mouthful of eggs prepared with a delicious, creamy cheese sauce. He was very happy that Mrs. Philpott, while obviously high-strung and prone to tears, could at least cook up a storm.

  “Yes, indeed, Mr. Partington. My friend, Mr. Addison-Addison, works at the Pyrite Springs Mercantile and Furniture Exchange. I’m sure he’ll know just where to find lamps for the dining room that won’t offend poor Scruggs’s feelings.”