“Perhaps later, Tregeagle,” North said absently. He turned to Caroline and smiled down at her. He rubbed the spot of dirt from her cheek.
“My lord.”
“Yes, Coombe?”
“We would appreciate your attention to us, in private.”
“Not now, Coombe.”
“Very well, my lord. You force me to speak our mind in front of all and sundry and female. We didn’t want these portraits brought down. Actually, even though we knew they existed and were in that room, we’d honestly forgotten about them. We tried to explain to her that your great-grandfather had had them all removed, that he forbade any female portraits ever to hang here at Mount Hawke, that the female portraits were meant to remain forgotten and locked away, only the door was open to her and we don’t understand that, for Tregeagle swears it was locked.”
“How do you know that, Coombe?”
“Your great-grandfather wrote of it, my lord. Didn’t you read the diaries Mr. Tregeagle gave you before you brought this Female Person into Mount Hawke?”
To North’s surprise, Caroline laughed. “Oh, do give it up, Coombe. Come, Tregeagle, this is a new and different time. The past is past, and all the unhappiness of the past is where it should be, behind us. It’s no longer a part of us or of this house, nor should you continue harking back to it. Do welcome a return to what is right and just. These ladies are Nightingales just as much as are the men. All the men had to have mothers, you know, including his lordship here.”
“We do not like it,” Tregeagle said. “The Nightingale mothers weren’t worthy. They were all, we regret to say, trollops. They were Nightingales only temporarily, only until the Nightingale men realized how very perfidious they were. It does lead one to generalize, my lord, and rightfully so.” He paused apurpose, staring toward Caroline. “In the recent past there has been no Nightingale wife who was loyal and true to her husband. The Nightingale men carry this curse or this blessing, depending on how one regards it. It is their legacy—your legacy—my lord.”
“I think that’s quite enough, Tregeagle,” North said, his voice low and smooth and quite deadly.
“But, my lord, we know she’s already carrying on with Dr. Treath!” Coombe shouted. “Everyone knows!”
Tregeagle said, his voice earnest as a vicar’s at a funeral, “It?
??s true, my lord. She’s just like all the others. It’s the Nightingale men’s burden to bear.”
“I think,” North said slowly, looking at each of his three male servants in turn. “I think I will just take you all out and shoot you. You’ll not change. Caroline, may I borrow your pistol?”
“I’m sorry, North, but I gave it to Timmy the maid, remember?”
“Then a length of rope,” he said. “I’ll hang all the buggers from the apple tree branches in the orchard. When they rot they can hit the ground just like the apples.”
29
“NOW, MY LORD,” Tregeagle began, a sheen of sweat on his brow. “That isn’t exactly what I would call a playful jest on your part.”
“I’m not jesting.”
Coombe said, “It isn’t something any of us enjoy contemplating.”
“No, Mr. Coombe,” Mrs. Mayhew said, stepping right up to him to stare him straight in the eye, “it isn’t. Therefore, you’d best listen to me. His lordship has been more than patient with the three of you, but enough is enough. And you, Mr. Sniggledy-Piggledy,” Mrs. Mayhew continued to Tregeagle, stepping even closer until she wasn’t more than two inches from his nose, “her ladyship is quite right. Mount Hawke is no longer a male sanctuary, and it’s about time things were put back to normal. Now, sir, why don’t you and Mr. Coombe and Mr. Polgrain all go to the kitchen and have a nice restoring cup of brandy. It will soothe your nerves, perhaps grant you some proper perspective. It might also save you from his lordship, for he does indeed look ready to stretch your miserable necks.”
“He doesn’t have that particular look at all,” said Polgrain. “He just looks a bit distracted, and no wonder, with all of you chattering about and doing things you shouldn’t be doing.”
“He wouldn’t harm us,” said Coombe. “It isn’t civilized and all Nightingale men have been civilized.”
“But he might if I helped him,” Caroline said. “And I’ll tell you, I’m close to the brink now. Just stop it. You must, gentlemen, accustom yourselves, for your attitudes will no longer be allowed here. This is a new day at Mount Hawke. Nightingale women are back again where they should be.”
To her surprise, all six other females began to cheer. The three males of the Mount Hawke servant bastion stood there frozen. North looked from one side to the other and raised his hand. There was instant silence. He was the master, after all.
He looked quickly at Caroline, who just happened to be giving him the most adoring look he’d ever had directed upon him in his entire life, except for those other times when she’d been looking at him with that same adoring look. He forgot what he wanted to say. He wanted to kiss her dirty face and strip off her dirty gown. He wanted her filthy hands all over him. He wanted her legs wrapped around his waist with him carrying her, shoving into her as she threw back her head and screamed her pleasure, her hair falling free and thick.
He cleared his throat. “Her ladyship is quite right. Whatever happened in the past here at Mount Hawke is over. Mrs. Mayhew is perfectly right as well. No longer will you refer to the Viscountess Chilton as ‘you’ or as ‘miss’ or as ‘madam.’ She is ‘your ladyship’ or ‘my lady.’ The past will no longer taint the present. There will be a return to sanity now at Mount Hawke, and with God’s blessing, there will be children, not just the obligatory Nightingale heir. I ask you to consider this carefully. Now, go away, all of you. Have a cup of brandy just as Mrs. Mayhew suggested. But know this: Mount Hawke is now going to be the way it was before my great-grandfather’s time.”
The three male martinets filed out of the great entrance hall, stiff and silent, and Caroline suddenly worried that the oxtail soup that had made Alice ill had been done apurpose, just as had that monster face in her window. Oh, surely not. A monster’s face dangling in her window was one thing, but poisoning soup was quite another. No, she wouldn’t credit that. They were simply all old men who were faced with change none of them could accept, at least yet. Mrs. Mayhew wasn’t, however, a gloater. She wouldn’t tweak their noses; she wouldn’t taunt them in their loss.
Mrs. Mayhew curtsied to Caroline and shooed Chloe and Molly away to get on with their duties. Miss Mary Patricia said, “Alice is feeling a bit peaked, Miss Caroline. Evelyn believes she should rest now. I’ll see to it.” She nodded to North and gave him a smile that bespoke a great deal of satisfaction. He didn’t see it, Caroline noted. He was looking distracted again; he was staring again at the portraits.