Airborne - The Hanover Restoration Read Online Free Page A

it a hundred times before.
    Everything stopped. Tableaus had gone out of fashion, but this must have been what they looked like. Four people frozen in place—two kitchen maids with frightened faces and two women of imposing stature staring at me as if I’d materialized out of a magician’s cloud of smoke. One of the older women, a long wooden spoon in her hand, was poised over a large pot on the stove. Her dark brown hair was confined in a bun at the nape of her neck tight enough to exaggerate every frowning line on her face. Her gown, of severe cut, was as puritan gray as the streaks in her hair.
    The other woman was of a different cut altogether. Her chestnut brown hair was stylishly dressed around the strikingly attractive features of a woman not much older than my guardian. Her face was unmarked by frown lines, but her high cheekbones and pursed mouth gave her an arrogant cast not quite compatible with the role of housekeeper. Yet she had to be the Mrs. Biddle my guardian spoke of, for the other woman was obviously the cook.
    “Mrs. Biddle?” I said.
    “Miss Galsworthy.” She dropped a curtsey so slight it bordered on insolence. “I fear you have caught us at our worst. My apologies. May I introduce my sister, Hannah? A master cook is our Hannah, but of an evangelical bent. You may as well know from the outset that she and I quarrel continually. As much a part of the Abbey as his lordship’s tinkerings.”
    “She’s a witch,” Hannah Biddle declared, pointing the long wooden spoon straight at her sister’s heart.
    Evangeline Biddle proffered a smile that would have frozen the bones of most young misses. “My sister considers anyone not of her faith a spawn of the devil,” she declared. “Ignore her maunderings. I do.”
    I offered poor Hannah Biddle a sympathetic smile. I suspected she meant well. I wasn’t so certain about her sister. “I should like to see my room,” I said more forcefully than I had intended. It was, after all, my first experience dealing with a witch. Alleged witch.
    “Of course, Miss Galsworthy. Please follow me.” With a clink of her chatelaine keys, the younger Mrs. Biddle turned toward an archway in the far corner of the kitchen.
    In case you’re not aware of the tradition, housekeepers are always given the title of “Mrs,” whether married or not. I suspect it’s because on our tight little island “Miss” implies a young, bubble-headed female or an eccentric, cat-keeping spinster. Being married, even falsely, gives a cachet of responsibility, wisdom, and common sense. Unfair? Absurd? Of course it is, but that is the world I live in. A female must have a “Mrs.” before her name for anyone to take her seriously.
    Mrs. Biddle, the alleged witch, swept before me like the prow of a ship parting stormy seas, leaving me to trail in her wake. Evangeline Biddle did not like me, did not want me here. Every move, from the set of her shoulders to her tone of voice when she spoke to me, screamed, “Enemy!”
    I didn’t have time to consider why. We were now in a corridor outside the kitchen and the housekeeper was stopped before what looked like a black, wrought-iron gate set into the wall. When she was certain I was giving her my full attention, she pulled the gate to one side, enjoying my surprise as the metal folded in on itself, like a collapsing fan. Who cared about a hostile housekeeper? Stonegrave Abbey was becoming more fascinating by the moment.
    The room behind the wall was small, no more than four feet square, but I didn’t hesitate when Mrs. Biddle indicated I should step inside. She followed me in, then pulled the collapsing metal gate back into place. A t such close proximity to the housekeeper’s hostility, a shiver shook my spine.
    She pressed a button remarkably similar to the ones on the Mono. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, suddenly, with a creak and a groan, our tiny room shimmied into life. Ah, as I suspected, a lifting device! Slowly, slowly, we