A Yuletide Treasure by Cynthia Bailey Pratt Read Free Book Online Page B

was not encouraging. No fire, no warming pan, and a slight smell of mold made it seem dank and neglected. By the light of the low-held candle in her hand, she caught a glimpse of her reflection. Pale, drawn, with tangles of hair falling snakily about her face, she looked like a bloodless ghost. She also bore a stain of mud on the bodice of her dress, large enough to run over her like a sash. Camilla decided to search for a warmer corner before she made repairs.
    It was in her mind that if she hurried, she could regain her presentability before Sir Philip returned home. She didn’t want his next impression of her to be that of the dilapidated Gorgon she saw before her.
    “Vanity, all is vanity,” she said and sneezed twice.
    Still squinching along in her too-large, damp boots, Camilla sought the warmer regions below stairs. Of course in this unconventional household, she did not know what she would find. Anything from bacchanalian revels to a quiet spot of tree worship, she imagined.
    The house breathed quietly. A pleasant scent like fresh flowers filled the air, odd in winter. As she walked down the stairs, the scent was slowly replaced by that of baking apples. Her mouth watered as she realized how long it had been since she’d eaten, Except for a little pink cake, she’d not tasted anything substantial since the slice of bread and butter with which she’d started her day. Hard to believe that it had only been this morning that she’d left her home.
    If the Manor were anything like Sir John Fuster’s house in her own village, the door to the servants’ quarters should be under and behind this staircase. She made a sharp turn, and to her pleased surprise, the green baize door was exactly where she’d surmised.
    In Mrs. Twainsbury’s phrase, it was not “done” for a lady to enter another house’s servants’ quarters without the express permission of and possible accompaniment of the hostess. But the beckoning fragrance of baked apples was impossible to resist, and Camilla did not hesitate to push open the door. A deep voice upraised in song, so deep that she wasn’t certain at first if it was a man’s or a woman’s, reached her along with a stronger scent of cinnamon and cloves.
    “And the judge laid down, with a fearful frown, the sentence from on high; Allen Ramsay must die, must die. Yes, Allen Ramsay must die!” The last high note told her the singer must be woman, or that a great tenor was lost to the stage.
    “Hello?” she called, penetrating further.
    “Who’s that?” the voice said, breaking off in mid-verse, something about a maiden’s tears.
    “It is I. Miss Twainsbury.”
    “Oh, is it, then? Come. Let me get a good look at you.”
     

Chapter Four
     
    “Well, if it isn’t the heroine of the hour,” the cook said, turning like a battleship to unmask her guns. Her dazzlingly white apron would have made a fine mainsail, a yard long and twice as wide. It was tacked to a bosom that would have done any bowsprit proud below a pair of shoulders that any able-bodied seaman would have squared with pride. A drop of sweat glistened on the woman’s brow, sliding down from iron-colored hair bound and wound about with dozens of elaborate braids.
    Camilla had never met with so much hostility in her life as she’d found at the LaCorte Manor. She was beginning to worry that her own behavior was somehow calling forth this reaction. Yet she couldn’t remember any pride or arrogance on her part that would account for it.
    The guns did not fire. The cook swept her hard eyes over Camilla, and if her expression did not soften, her tone altered. “You’re not old at all, are you? That Mavis told me you was an old lady.”
    “It’s this hairstyle,” Camilla said, smiling as she dragged a damp hunk off her cheek. “It makes me look more mature.”
    A smile twitched the corner of the down-drawn mouth. The cook stretched out a brawny arm, heavy with muscle from beating batters and hammering cuts of meat