Magic Below Stairs by Caroline Stevermer Read Free Book Online Page A

but he could tell from Bess’s voice what the answer was supposed to be, so he echoed, “Right.”
    â€œWhat is this Billy Bly thing?” Bess demanded.
    â€œMagic.” Frederick was in no doubt whatsoever about that.
    â€œRight. So why was Billy Bly here?”
    â€œBecause of me?” Frederick ventured.
    â€œRight. Now, why is Lord Schofield keeping you under his eye?”
    â€œBecause Billy Bly liked me?” Frederick asked.
    Bess rapped his knuckles with her scrub brush, but not very hard. “Because you brought him with you, fool. Lord Schofield wants to know why, and what else you may have brought with you without knowing.”
    â€œBut I didn’t even notice Billy Bly was here,” Frederick protested. “Or at the orphanage, for that matter.” But he had noticed at the orphanage, Frederick reminded himself. He just hadn’t understood what it was he had noticed.
    â€œDon’t go all pie-faced worrying over it. Lord Schofield is curious as a cat. Billy Bly made him curious about you. That’s all. Don’t worry. He’ll lose interest soon enough.” Bess went back to scrubbing.
    In a way, she was quite wrong about Lord Schofield. He didn’t lose interest in Frederick. But in a way she was quite right, for Lord Schofield was as curious as a cat. The thing that most interested Lord Schofield about Frederick was the way he tied his cravat.
    â€œYou look remarkably tidy on a daily basis, and I know for a fact you can’t have more than two neck cloths to your name. How do you manage it?” Lord Schofield demanded when next they met. “It takes Piers an hour and a dozen neck cloths every morning, and if I’m not to go out looking like a badly made bed, I have to tie the thing myself.”
    â€œIt’s just a knack. Sometimes I have to find a looking glass,” Frederick admitted.
    Lord Schofield frowned at Frederick’s cravat. “There’s more to it than a knack. Explain the trick of it to Piers.”
    The very next morning, Frederick presented himself to Piers in his lordship’s dressing room.
    â€œLord Schofield sent me,” Frederick said.
    Piers, a well-scrubbed, muscular young man, looked up from reading his lordship’s morning newspaper. “Ah, young Frederick. Yes, I was told to expect you. You’re to give me lessons in how to tie a cravat properly.”
    â€œIf you please, sir,” said Frederick politely. “Lord Schofield’s orders.”
    Piers sighed as he folded the newspaper away. “You can save it. I haven’t the aptitude.”
    â€œHow do you know?” Frederick asked. “You haven’t tried.”
    â€œOh, haven’t I?” Piers looked gloomy. “Dozens of neck cloths I’ve spoiled doing it wrong. They wrinkle if I so much as look at them. Fan won’t even speak to me anymore.”
    â€œDid Fan show you how it’s done?” Frederick asked. “All I know is what she showed me.”
    â€œShe tried a few times.” Piers shook his head. “Lord Schofield’s orders, of course. But it’s no use. I ruin them every time.”
    â€œLet me show you, just once,” said Frederick, “so we can honestly say we tried.”
    â€œJust once, then.” With another sigh Piers opened a drawer and drew out a crisp clean neck cloth, neatly folded. As he handed it to Frederick, he was already undoing his own cravat. “Have at it, lad.”
    Frederick shook out the neck cloth and put the valet’s smoothing iron to heat in the fireplace. He cleared a place among the brushes and razors on his lordship’s dressing table and folded a towel to serve as a pressing cloth. When the iron was hot, Frederick smoothed the ends of the neck cloth as if it were his own, then positioned Piers before the dressing room’s looking glass.
    â€œNow, watch me.” Frederick worked as quickly as he could, given that