The Crimson Gown

Chapter Two

Three days later, the first of the house guests arrived.

Lydia did not spy the carriage upon its approach, nor did she witness the man and woman who descended from it. But the commotion that accompanied their appearance on the grounds echoed through the lower levels of the house, servants running to and fro with orders to heat water, to lay fresh fires in the cleanest of the rooms and to prepare refreshments for the incoming travellers.

The fires would have to be large, Lydia thought, to keep out the chill that refused to dissipate from the upper rooms of the house. The weather was no aid to their task, regularly sending a brutal wind that lashed against the outer walls while a cold drizzle laced with ice scratched at the windows overnight.

Lydia wondered at the timing of the event. House parties were typically hosted in the warmer months, when the weather was more suitable to travel and there would be the assurance of outdoor walks and activities for the assembled guests. But it was only the beginning of February, with the freezing gusts still howling down from the north and the promise of finer days and sunshine as ephemeral as a dream.

She was given little time to nurture her musings over the peculiarities of the aristocracy. There was tea to be made, and additional silver to be polished, and a fresh batch of linens to be placed on newly mended mattresses. The midday meal became a hurried affair—for the servants, at least—as the menu for dinner was still in the process of being edited and embellished, the grand meal now scheduled to take place in the dining room, rather than a mere tray ordered for the master of the house.

It was not until the day after Lydia's meeting with the enigmatic man, the one with the unfashionable hair and the eyes that seemed to possess the threat of tallying her every sin with a single glance, that she learned of his identity.

Thomas Mosbe, Lord Cailvairt.

She was familiar with the name. The Mosbes were an old, long-established family, their roots penetrating farther back through the reaches of the gentry than many of those who had laid a claim to the English throne for the last three centuries. But they had become a forgotten sort over time, the previous lords choosing to spend many of their days in London or on the continent, until the great house had become something of a peculiar monument to the men who had abandoned it years before.

"This new one..." Anna spoke quickly between the bites of hard bread and cheese that accompanied their tea. "They say he's an odd sort. Spent all his years in France, I think. Or Spain. One of the two. Either way, no decent place for a young man. And now he's back here, creeping about the halls like some accursed demon. Probably likes it here, what with all the drafts and spiders and unnatural noises screeching about."

Lydia said nothing. She had made no mention of her encounter with this Lord Cailvairt to any of her fellow servants. She assured herself it was because the meeting had been such an inconsequential event that it didn't even merit the position of a bit of gossip to be shared over the dinner table. For who would bother to even feign the slightest bit of interest in her discussion with a reclusive lord? Especially when the topic had concerned a mouldering bit of art stashed away on one of the upper floors of the house?

But the truth of the matter was quite different. The conversation lingered in her mind, their exchanged words adorned by his every glance, his every breath that had warmed the bare skin at the nape of her neck.

It was wrong of her to dwell on such remembrances. The days did not make this difficult, the encumbrance of work and the presence of the other servants enough to banish all memory of the conversation from her mind. No, it was in the evening when the memories returned to her, when Anna was late to return to her bed and Lydia found herself clinging to the last of the light before the candle burned down to smoke and the darkness of the small room became complete.