Twelfth Night by DEANNA RAYBOURN

Author:DEANNA RAYBOURN
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-06-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Now good digestion wait on appetite, And health on both!

—Macbeth, III, iv, 38

The next morning was grey and dull, with a thick, muffling fog creeping through the countryside, settling in hollows and wreathing hills until all was quiet and still. But inside the Abbey pandemonium reigned.

“It’s the oysters,” Morag told me with grim satisfaction. “They had a bad lot and every member of the family is down with it.”

“With what?” I demanded, still fatigued from my marital exertions. Brisbane was a very thorough husband.

“Poisoning,” she said, her voice tart. “What I just told you. They’re all down sick with the oysters. The village doctor has been and said they’ll all be right as rain once they’ve heaved it all out, but in the meanwhile, the maids and footmen are run off their feet with slop buckets and rags and—” I felt my stomach give a lurch.

“That’s enough, Morag. One does not require the unsavoury details. I suppose Cook isn’t doing breakfast, then?”

Morag shrugged. “I’ll bring a tray up.”

“How is the baby this morning?” I asked, certain she had already been to the nursery.

Her face took on a tender expression. “Sweet as a newborn lamb, he is. I gave him his morning feed, and he opened his eyes wide as you please, as if to say thank you.”

I rolled my eyes at her, but she ignored me. Instead, she gave Brisbane a tender look. “Mind you don’t wake the master. You’re not taking proper care of him. A wife ought to see her husband has a regular supper instead of stuffing him with toast and chocolate at all hours.”

She banged out, and Brisbane opened an eye, grinning at me. I shoved his shoulder. “Stop. It isn’t decent that my lady’s maid should like you so much more than she does me.”

“I am nicer to her than you are,” he pointed out.

Aquinas, acting as valet to Brisbane as well as butler since Father’s own staff was indisposed, arrived then with his shaving water. When we had both completed our ablutions, we sat down to eat the breakfast Morag had secured. Brisbane uncovered a dish to find something unappetising looking back at him. He poked it tentatively with a fork.

“What do you think it is?”

“I daren’t guess,” I told him. “The undercook must still be at the helm in the kitchens. Toast for me, thanks.”

He covered the dish up again, and we fell on the toast. “I can’t live on bread, Julia. Not if you mean to ravish me so thoroughly. A man has to keep his strength up.”

I pulled a face. “Why don’t we walk down to the vicarage? Uncle Fly has an excellent housekeeper. Aunt Hermia’s tried to hire her away for years, but she won’t leave her post.. She’s devoted to Uncle Fly.”

Brisbane was on his feet before I finished the sentence. We donned our outdoor things and hurried out of the Abbey.

* * *

At the vicarage, Uncle Fly was absent on a call to an elderly parishioner, but his housekeeper, Mrs.

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