Free Anna Jacobs by Mistress of Marymoor Page A

to check its point when there was a knock on the half-open door and Mr Simley came in without waiting to be asked. She rested the hand wearing the wedding ring in her lap and covered it with her right hand.
    He spoke with a touch of scorn. “If you wish for a fire, miss, may I suggest you sit in the breakfast parlour, which has already got one?”
    “I think we need one in here as well, Simley,” she said calmly, “because people will be visiting the house, no doubt, to offer their condolences. Also I need to write a letter.”
    “I don’t think Mr Jannvier’s papers should be disturbed until Mr Elkin has seen them.”
    “My writing a letter will not disturbing anything. Are you refusing to light a fire for me in here?”
    “I am merely trying to do my duty by my late master and by my new one, too,” he said stiffly, but his expression was far less polite than his words.
    By now it had become a point of honour with her not to give in to this bullying. Bessie had often scolded Deborah for that stubborn streak, but she didn’t to allow the two Simleys to treat her in this cavalier manner. “Kindly do as I ask and send the maid in to light the fire.”
    His breathed in deeply, then let his breath out again slowly. For a moment all hung in the balance, then he inclined his head and left.
    However, when Merry returned she had lost her smile, had a red mark on her cheek and was looking distinctly tearful.
    “Is something wrong?”
    She sniffed. “They’re angry with me for showing you in here. And—and I've just been given my notice, miss. To leave after the funeral. If I do as they say till then, I'll get references, otherwise I won't.”
    “Who told you that?”
    “Mr Simley.”
    “He has no authority to do that.”
    Merry goggled at her. “Well, it’s him an’ Mrs Simley what run the house and gardens, have done for years, an’ they’re the ones as allus hire the servants.”
    Deborah chose her words carefully. “That doesn’t mean they can dismiss you. It’ll be for the new owner to do that.”
    Merry let out a snort of disgust. “Mr Elkin? Him an’ Mr Simley are as thick as thieves these days. Nor I’m not sure I’d want to work for him anyway. They say no woman’s safe with him.” She gasped, realising she’d said too much, and turned her attention back to the fire. “There, that'll soon be blazing up.”
    Once she had gone, Deborah finished writing the letter, rang the bell and found herself faced with Simley not Merry. Before she could ask to speak to Jem, there was the sound of horses and a carriage drawing up outside, followed shortly afterwards by a thunderous knocking on the front door.
    “If you will excuse me for a moment, miss?”
    Simley hurried out of the room and she heard voices in the hallway but was unable to make out what they were saying. She folded up the letter quickly and slipped it through the placket in the side of her skirt into the capacious pocket hanging there. The voices continued. Who could it be? she wondered. Matthew hadn’t expected Elkin to arrive until the afternoon.
    There was the sound of footsteps and Simley reappeared, looking smugly triumphant. “’Tis Mr Anthony Elkin, ma’am, the new master, come to look after things as I told you he would.”
    She was unsure what to do, could only hope Jem had heard Elkin arrive and was waking Matthew. Again she concealed her wedding ring, this time in the folds of her skirt.
    A gentleman came in to join them. He was tall and thin, several years older than herself, as she judged, with deep crease lines down his cheeks and thin, bloodless lips. There was an underlying sourness in the set of his mouth and a dissolute look in his eyes, which were even now raking down her body in an offensive way. She wouldn’t have ridden through the night with this man, felt uneasy at being alone with him, even.
    “May I ask who you are, my good woman?” he asked, looking sharply at her as if assessing her clothes and status and