Then he’d been hauled upstairs to be scoured raw, the clothes he’d brought with him burned, his small tin of prized possessions—a pencil he’d received at Christmas, the pin he’d won at school for being the best speller, and the crucifix that Lydia, the Catholic prostitute, had pressed into his palm the night before—thrown away while he was in the bath.
“We did look for snails the next morning, but it was a disappointing hunt. I was no use at all in the woods and Bertie could only find tiny ones that wouldn’t be worth the trouble.”
But then they’d sat down on a log and Bertie had given Stuart the essentials he needed to survive his new life.
Do not say “legs” in front of Fr?ulein Eisenmueller.
Do not disturb Father when he reads his paper.
Do not ask about the women who sometimes come to the house late at night.
Do not ever let servants, not even the frightful housekeeper who’s been at the house since time began, forget that you are the master’s son and they are entirely replaceable.
Bertie had been his lifeline in those days. He’d taught Stuart how to speak, how to behave at the table, and how to extract proper respect—respect that Stuart had been sure he didn’t deserve—from servants, villagers, and the children of guests.
“Did you love him?” he asked her.
“I did. Very much,” she said.
The calm goodwill of her answer moved him, the way children walking down the street holding hands still moved him.
“I loved him too. Very much,” he said. “I wish I hadn’t waited until he died to remember that.”
She made no response. Her silence drew him closer to the service stairs. When she spoke again, her voice was near, so near that it gave him gooseflesh.
“Once Bertie and I shared some madeleines on a picnic—it was some months before the Court of Appeal’s decision came down—and he said, ‘When we were small, I tried and tried to find something that Stuart would actually like to eat. I never succeeded. But I think he would have liked this.’”
Stuart smiled. So that was what Bertie had been trying to do, all those years that he’d placed one exotic item after another before Stuart and peered at him with anxious hope.
Suddenly there were tears in his eyes. He tilted his face up. He should not have allowed anything to come between them. He should not have taken Bertie for granted. And he should not have persisted in thinking that Bertie would never understand him and so it was useless to try to explain himself.
The corridor went dark.
It took him a moment to realize that she’d extinguished the light she’d carried with her. The hinges squeaked slightly, and then he smelled her, a stir of butter and flour in the still air.
Her hand brushed him at an odd angle across his torso, as if she held out her arm in search.
“Can you see, Madame?” he said.
She came up to him and wrapped her arms about him. He seized with shock, then embarrassment at this unsolicited contact, this assumption on her part that he needed to be comforted by a servant.
Physical contact in his life was largely limited to handshakes and an elbow offered to the ladies. Even with Lizzy the extent of their intimacy had never gone beyond anything greater than handholds and kisses on the cheek. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had embraced him, fully, solidly, and sustained it for more than a fraction of a second.
But he did not disentangle himself from her. After a few seconds, it didn’t seem quite so appalling. Her warmth seeped into him along his torso—he hadn’t realized that he was cold, standing in the basement in nothing more than his pajamas and his dressing gown.
And she wasn’t short—the top of her head came to just under his nose, making her about medium height for a woman. Her cap smelled of starch; the fringe of it tickled his chin ever so slightly.
“I’m all right,” he said. “Thank you.”
She moved, but only slightly. The edge of her cap caressed him from his jaw to the lobe of his ear. Riots erupted along his nerves. She breathed deeply and he realized that she was inhaling him, the odor of his skin. His pulse accelerated.
“What do I smell of?” he murmured.
“A fastidiously clean man who uses French soap for his bath.”
She spoke with her lips almost touching him—her breath soft and moist against his skin. Then she pressed those lips into his skin, and kissed his neck. The entire surface of his body smoldered, so much so he could barely tell where her kiss had landed.
She pressed another kiss into his neck. No, it was more than a kiss: a nibble. She tasted him, the touch of her tongue a white-hot blaze.
He flung her away from him: literally picked her up and threw her. Her body thudded heavily against the opposite wall of the corridor. She yelped.
“Don’t!” He sounded at once distant and furious. “I’m to be married.”
He would not succumb to it. He would not.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice small and distraught. “I’m very sorry.”
Pride called for him to storm out of the basement in a show of his moral superiority. He obviously lacked sufficient pride, for he stayed exactly where he was, his breath ragged, his hands flat against the wall behind him.