Once and Always Read online

  As if he read her thoughts, he added stiffly, “If you have any problems with the staff, miss, bring them to me. As head of the household, I will endeavor to see that they are rectified immediately.”

  “I’m certain I won’t need to do that. Everyone here is very efficient,” Victoria said kindly. Too efficient, she thought as she wandered into the sunshine.

  She walked across the front lawns, then shifted direction and went around the side of the house, intending to visit the stables to see the horses. With a half-formed idea of using apples to befriend them, Victoria went round to the back and asked directions to the kitchen.

  The gigantic kitchen was filled with frantically busy people who were rolling out dough on wooden tables, stirring kettles, and chopping vegetables. In the center of the bedlam, an enormously fat man in a spotless white apron the size of a tablecloth stood like a frenzied monarch, waving a long-handled spoon and shouting instructions in French and English. “Excuse me,” Victoria said to the woman at the nearest table. “May I have two apples and two carrots if you can spare them?”

  The woman glanced uncertainly at the man in the white apron, who was glowering at Victoria; then she disappeared into another room adjoining the kitchen, returning a minute later with the apples and carrots. “Thank you, ah—?” Victoria said.

  “Mrs. Northrup, miss,” the woman said uneasily.

  “How nice,” Victoria replied with a sweet smile. “I’ve already met your husband, the butler, but he didn’t tell me you worked here, also.”

  “Mr. Northrup is my brother-in-law,” she corrected.

  “Oh, I see,” Victoria said, sensing the woman’s reluctance to talk in front of the moody fat man, who seemed to be in charge. “Well, good day, Mrs. Northrup.”

  A flagstone path bordered by woods on the right led to the stables. Victoria walked along, admiring the splended vista of rolling, clipped lawns and lavish gardens on her left, when a sudden movement a few yards away on her right made her stop short and stare. At the perimeter of the woods, a huge gray animal was foraging about in what appeared to be a small compost pile. The animal caught her scent and raised its head, its feral gaze locking with hers, and Victoria’s blood froze. Wolf! her mind screamed.

  Paralyzed with terror, she stood rooted to the spot, afraid to move or make a sound, while her benumbed brain registered haphazard facts about the terrifying beast. The wolf’s heavy gray coat was mangy-looking and thick, but not thick enough to hide its protruding ribs; it had terribly large jaws; its eyes were fierce. . . . Judging from the animal’s grotesque gauntness, it appeared to be nearly starved to death. Which meant it would attack and eat anything it could catch—including herself. Victoria took a tiny, cautious step backward toward the safety of the house.

  The animal snarled, its upper lip curling back, baring a set of huge white fangs to her view. Victoria reacted automatically, hurling her apples and carrots to him in a desperate effort to distract him from his obvious intention of eating her. Instead of pouncing on the missiles she’d thrown at him, as she expected him to, the animal jerked away from its garden feast and bolted into the woods with its tail between its legs. Victoria spun on her heel and raced into the house via the nearest back door, then ran to a window and peeked out at the woods. The wolf was standing just inside the perimeter of the trees, hungrily staring at the compost pile.

  “Is something wrong, miss?” a footman asked, coming up behind her on his way toward the kitchen.

  “I saw an animal,” Victoria said breathlessly. “I think it was a—” She watched as the gray beast trotted stealthily back to the garden and gobbled the apples and carrots; then it ran back into the woods, its bushy tail still between its legs. The animal was frightened! she realized. And starved. “Do you have any dogs around here?” she asked, suddenly wondering if she’d been about to make a mistake that would make her appear exceedingly foolish.

  “Yes, miss—several of ’em.”

  “Are any of them big, thin, and black and gray in color?”

  “That’d be his lordship’s old dog, Willie,” he said. “He’s always around here, beggin’ fer somethin’ to eat. He ain’t mean, if that’s worryin’ you. Did you see him?”

  “Yes,” Victoria said, growing angry as she remembered how the starved creature had been gobbling spoiled vegetables from the compost pile as if they were beefsteaks. “And he’s nearly starved. Someone ought to feed the poor thing.”

  “Willie always acts like he’s starved,” the footman replied with complete indifference. “His lordship says if he eats any more, he’ll be too fat to walk.”

  “If he eats any less, he’ll be too weak to live,” Victoria retorted angrily. She could perfectly imagine that heartless man starving his own dog. How pathetic the animal looked with his ribs sticking out like that—how gruesome! She went back to the kitchen and requested another apple, some carrots, and a plate of table scraps.

  Despite her sympathy, Victoria had to fight down her fear of the animal as she neared the compost pile and spotted him watching her from his hiding place just inside the woods. It was a dog, not a wolf, she could see that now. Remembering the footman’s assurance that the dog wasn’t vicious, Victoria walked as close to him as she dared and held out the plate of scraps. “Here, Willie,” she said softly. “I’ve brought you some good food.” Timidly, she took another step forward. Willie laid his ears back and bared his ivory fangs at her, and Victoria lost her courage. She put the plate down and fled toward the stables.

  She dined with Charles that night, and since Jason was again absent, the meal was delightful; but when it was over and Charles retired, she again found herself with time on her hands. Other than her trip to the stables and her adventure with Willie, she had done nothing today except wander aimlessly around with nothing to do. Tomorrow, she decided happily, she would go to work. She was used to being busy and she desperately needed something more to fill her empty hours. She hadn’t mentioned to Charles her intention of earning her keep, but she was certain that when he found out, he would be relieved that she was carrying her own weight and sparing him future tongue-lashings from his ill-tempered nephew.

  She went up to her room and spent the rest of the evening trying to write a cheerful, optimistic letter to Dorothy.

  Chapter Six

  VICTORIA AWOKE EARLY THE NEXT morning to the sound of birds chirping in the tree outside her open windows. Rolling over onto her back, she gazed at a bright blue sky filled with huge, puffy white clouds, the sort of sky that positively beckoned her outdoors.

  Washing and dressing hurriedly, she went downstairs to the kitchens to get food for Willie. Jason Fielding had sarcastically asked if she could push a plow or drive a nail or milk a cow. She couldn’t do the first two, but she had often seen cows milked at home and it didn’t look particularly difficult. Besides, after six weeks of confinement on the ship, any sort of physical activity was appealing.

  She was about to leave the kitchen with a plate of scraps when a thought struck her. Ignoring the outraged stare of the man in the white apron, who Charles had told her last night was the chef and who was watching her as if she were a madwoman invading his pot-bedecked kingdom, she turned to Mrs. Northrup. “Mrs. Northrup, is there anything I could do—to help here in the kitchen, I mean?”

  Mrs. Northrup’s hand flew to her throat. “No, of course not.”

  Victoria sighed. “In that case, could you tell me where I will find the cows?”

  “The cows?” Mrs. Northrup gasped. “What—whatever for?”

  “To milk them,” Victoria said.

  The woman paled but said nothing, and after a puzzled moment, Victoria shrugged and decided to find them herself. She headed out the back door to search for Willie. Mrs. Northrup wiped the flour off her hands and headed straight for the front door to find Mr. Northrup.

  As Victoria neared the compost pile, her eyes nervously scanned the woods for a sign of the dog. Willie—what an odd name for such a large, ferocious-lo