The Oy of Sex by Marcie Scheiner

Author:Marcie Scheiner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cleis Press
Published: 1999-03-22T05:00:00+00:00

The Nanny of Ravenscroft

Joyce Moye

I tapped on Jack’s bedroom door, even though it was open. I don’t know when I had stopped thinking of him as Mr. Mainhardt, or even as John Mainhardt.

He was sitting in one of the two chairs that flanked the fireplace, cradling a brandy snifter. His feet were propped up on a tufted hassock upholstered in the same chintz as the chairs. A fire crackled on the hearth, the flickering light throwing reddish shadows on the satin lapels of his dressing gown.

I pictured the cozy domestic scene this must have been when Valerie was alive: husband and wife, relaxing after a long day, gazing silently into the flames and listening to music.

Handel’s Royal Fireworks was playing.

“Come in,” he said, without looking in my direction. He nodded toward the vacant chair. “Have a seat.”

Glancing down at my fleece robe, the hem of my flannel nightie, and the oversized bunny-rabbit slippers peeping from beneath, I felt more out of place than usual. Valerie Mainhardt would have worn peach lace.

“She’s asleep,” I said as I sat. “I think her fever’s broken.”

“Here,” he said wearily as he passed the brandy snifter to me. “Drink this.”

We were comrades-in-arms, surveying the littered battlefield at the end of a long fight. He rose, walked over to the small oak credenza where a silver tray held a crystal decanter and several more crystal glasses, and poured himself another brandy.

“Earaches are hell,” he said.

“Especially on parents,” I observed wryly.

The biting, pungent fumes made my eyes smart as I took a sip of the liquor. Old, expensive cognac seared my throat and burned its way down.

He raised his glass in a salute as he returned to his chair. A smile hovered around the corners of his mouth. “I take it nannies are immune?”

“I’m not experienced enough to be immune.” I gave him a self-deprecating grin.

We probably weren’t talking about Precious anymore. In the last few months, we had arrived at a place where friendly banter rippled just above the surface tension of deeper waters.

Uneasy, I tried to change the subject. “Do you always have a fire going in here, even in the summer?”

Whenever he was home, neatly laid logs burned discreetly on the hearths of Ravenscroft.

His eyes sparkled with mischief. “Always.”

When had I begun to think of him as handsome? His massive head, pockmarked complexion, and broken nose were not the Hollywood ideal.

“Why the infatuation with burning logs?” I asked.

“Why?” he repeated absently as he stared at the red-hot coals.

He knocked back half the contents of the brandy snifter and gave me a detached smile. “When my parents died, my grandfather sent me to a spartan English boarding school. A first-rate place, as they like to say.” The smile faded as his words trailed off. “It was one of those public schools that purport to turn boys into men with a regimen of frigid showers and freezing dorm rooms.”

His expression hardened. The memories I had dredged up were far from happy ones.

“And being from California,” I said quickly, wishing to undo what I had started, “you never could get warm.

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