Eleisha's fear faded slightly at Marion's calm manner. She'd never been in one of the hired servants' rooms before. White walls and a little four-poster bed made the atmosphere pleasant.
"Did the girl I'm replacing really disappear?"
"Got shipped off more likely." Marion frowned. "Some of these girls what keep flirting with their betters deserves it, I say. Pretty face and a round bum, and they think some squire will lose his head and forget who he is."
Such stories sounded romantic to Eleisha. "Who was she flirting with?"
"Who? Master Julian, that's who." Marion's frown relaxed into a thoughtful, distant look. "You mind my words and stay away from him. Something ain't right with him." She trailed off, and then smiled again. "But you're a good girl. I can tell. Let's find a uniform, and I'll pin up your hair."
Serving dinner turned out far differently than Eleisha expected. The house and its inhabitants had never seemed so alive. Lord William, dressed in a handsome black suit, laughed amidst gold-rimmed champagne glasses, and toasted his son's return. All the guests, dressed in exquisite splendor, grew intoxicated by his mood, and cheerful voices emanated from the great dining hall.
In her short life, Eleisha had known several girls who dreamed of being noble and wealthy, of drinking champagne and wearing silk gowns. Although she herself had no such aspirations, the silver trays and crystal chandeliers gave the evening a magical, almost unreal glow. Only one thing dampened her impression of the glorious dinner: Master Julian himself.
Sitting near his father, Julian neither smiled nor raised his glass. Taking in the sight of them together, Eleisha thought it nearly impossible that two men with such similar features could still appear so strikingly different. She wouldn't have placed them as father and son. Despite its fine tailoring, Julian's suit brought him no elegance. His dark hair had outgrown its cut and hung at uneven angles around a solid chin. Nearly black eyes glittered coldly in his pale face. Over six feet in height, he actually seemed taller but expressed arrogance rather than pride. While he did not partake in his father's exuberance, he did not appear bored either, and talked at length with several of the guests.
"You're right about the young master," she whispered to Marion while they refilled soup tureens. "He's odd."
"Look at the few people he'll actually chat with," Marion whispered back. "Only blue bloods. He won't even look at Lady Eleanor Endor. She married into her title, and he don't consider her to be one of them."
Julian's obsession with noble bloodlines meant nothing to Eleisha on that first night. She only sensed that he was a creature of few or deeply hidden feelings-someone to be avoided.
His dim shadow passed when he left a week later, and Eleisha was offered a real position with a moderate wage as Marion's assistant. She and her mother were assigned a small, whitewashed room in the east wing. For the first time in Eleisha's memory, they had a space of their own.
Time passed. Eleisha began taking a strange satisfaction in her work, quite different from before. The prospect of setting out lovely breakfast trays for Lord William (especially when somebody else had to do the washing up) evoked a nurturing instinct. If he had been anyone else, her feelings might have been different. But on her second morning of service, she forgot her place briefly and smiled at him when he walked in for tea. Instead of having her chastised or dismissed, he smiled back.
Their surface relationship never developed beyond small things-her extra care in setting his place, the occasional newspaper next to his plate, preparing his tea with the right amount of milk-but he made it clear she was to stay in the dining room until he had finished, and two weeks later her wages doubled. She grew to like his hunting jackets, his quiet manner, and the thin structure of his aging face. Something sad drifted behind his gray eyes, distant and lonely.
Lady Katherine never came down to breakfast or luncheon.
As with that first animated dinner party, dark spots in Eleisha's life occurred only with Julian's infrequent visits. One night in 1836, he burst unannounced through the great front doors, two guests in tow.
"Father! Come look," he called as though drunk. "You'll never guess whom I've brought."
Both Lord William and his wife were in the study, sipping brandy after supper. Eleisha followed them out to see Julian and the guests.
Julian stood laughing in the entryway, his cape covered in mud, his mouth smeared with streaks of blood. On one side of him stood a handsome, similarly mud-covered man. But all eyes turned to his other side. Even the eerie laughter, even the red smears on his lips, could not hold attention in light of his second guest.
Rather than pale, her skin glowed a soft ivory. Perfect features, framed by a mass of chocolate-black hair, almost detracted from the low-cut, red velvet gown she wore.
Eleisha decided later that it was not mere beauty, but something more, something exotic that drew such stunned and wordless stares.
"You all remember Miss Margaritte Latour? Maggie?" Julian bowed low in mock chivalry. "Philip's whore fiancee? You must ask her to tea sometime, Mother."
Lady Katherine's eyes clouded in anger. Perhaps she was the source of her son's belief in dominant nobility. Perhaps she was simply jealous of Maggie's overwhelming attraction. Perhaps both.
"Philip, my boy," Lord William said, walking over to clasp Julian's other guest in a quick embrace. "Good to see you. How are the vineyards?"
"Julian, wash your face," Lady Katherine hissed while the others fell into speaking French. "Eleisha, go fetch a washbasin and pitcher."
Only too happy to leave this macabre scene, Eleisha hurried down the hallway. Were they all half blind? Julian had blood all over his mouth and openly insulted one of his companions. Why did no one react? Why did no one ask him where he'd been?
She quickly returned with the water basin, and then fled the study before anyone noticed her. There was something else, something terrible in the room. Fear. It had been slight in the entryway, but grew stronger each moment he was home. A sickening, uncontrollable fear flowed from Julian and filled her with a panic she'd never experienced.
Locking her bedroom door for the first time, she crawled under the covers with her sleeping mother and passed a restless night. The previous evening's events felt like a bad dream the next morning while she set out trays of breakfast choices for Lord William.
"Will Master Julian be joining you for lunch?" she asked timidly.
"No." His gaze drifted into space. "He's gone back to Yorkshire."
Relief like tart water flooded into her mouth. Good. Let him stay there.
The following year, Eleisha turned fifteen, her mother passed away quietly, and Lord William began to forget things. Small things at first, like where he'd left his hunting jacket-while he was wearing it-and the names of books he'd just read. As he was well into his early sixties, these spells seemed simply a part of growing older. But then his actions grew puzzling. One afternoon scarcely an hour past lunch, he walked in and sat down at the table.
"Are you hungry, sir?" Marion asked.
"Hasn't my lunch been prepared?"
"Yes, sir. You've already eaten. Poached sole and greens."
His eyebrows knitted, and he looked at the mantel clock. "Oh, yes, of course…" He seemed about to say more, but then stood up and left abruptly. No one talked about it afterward.
Slight changes began taking place. Fewer and fewer dinner guests were invited. Lord William forgot the names of people who had just been introduced and kept asking them the same questions over and over. Marion stopped going over the menus with him and began giving the cooks lists of dishes he'd always liked. Lady Katherine stopped having brandy with him in the study after supper.