Birdie and the Beastly Duke by Sofi Laporte

Chapter 13

The smell of coffee and freshly baked bread wafted through Birdie’s nose. Her stomach growled.

The new cook had prepared an excellent breakfast with strong coffee, fresh bread, and eggs.

The table was set for two people, but only she was present.

“Good morning, Higgins,” she said cheerfully as the old man doddered towards her with the coffeepot. She lifted her cup quickly before he poured the coffee over her eggs. “That will be all right, Higgins.” She took the pot from him before he dripped it all over the carpet.

“Has the duke had breakfast yet?” she asked.

He squinted at her. “He must be in bed?”

“No. I asked whether he’s broken his fast.” She made an eating motion with her hand.

“Yes, he has a broken past,” Higgins muttered.

Birdie gave up. “Say, Higgins, where do you sleep?” She pointed at him, and then placed both hands under her head, then lifted her shoulders and arms.

“What, me? Where I sleep? I sleep outside in the old guardroom.”

“But why?”

“Why?”

“There’s more than enough room here!” she shouted that so loudly that he understood.

“Yes, yes. But there are also ghosts.”

Birdie shook her head impatiently. “No, there are not. Silly boys’ tricks.” She took him outside and showed him the sheet and the candle that she’d found the other night. “Here’s your ghost. Someone is playing a trick on us.”

Higgins scratched his head. “This is the ghost of Dunross castle?”

“It appears so, Higgins. You do not know who might be behind this?”

“Someone who is up to no good,” he muttered. “There are ghosts a-plenty here. No point in creating new ones.”

“Entirely my point, Higgins. The question remains, who would do this? And why?”

A look of alertness flashed through his watery eyes. “Someone who is trying to harm the duke.”

“The duke!” Now, this was a new thought. Was this entire thing not aimed at Birdie, after all? “With this”––Birdie gestured at the sheet––“a child’s prank?”

“Aye. It may also be a child.”

Did Higgins have a point? Was the culprit a child? For it was certainly childish, no doubt about that.

“Come with me.” She took him by the elbow and walked him down the stairs to the servants’ hall.  For the first time, the kitchen was full of life. It steamed, gurgled, bubbled and hissed. Mrs Gowan chopped, and a girl named Annie peeled vegetables. There was a perfectly respectable and thoroughly cleaned butler’s room and pantry, made ready by the women the other day. It contained a simple but clean bed and a wardrobe.

“It is so much better here, don’t you agree? It is also warmer here than outside.”

Higgins scratched his head again. “You want me to sleep here?”

“Yes. And I want you to stop locking us in while you are outside.”

“The old duke swore the place was haunted,” he muttered. “Didn’t come here often.”

“What kind of man was he?” Perhaps she could get some information out of him. He didn’t understand what she’d said and continued to ramble on.

“Maybe he was wrong. Like about so many other things. I have served three generations of dukes. The last one was the worst. And this one—” He paused and shook his head sorrowfully.

“What about this one?” Birdie prompted.

“He is a good man. But he is broken.”

“Why?”

Higgins lifted a gnarly hand and patted it against his chest. “Too many ghosts here.”

“Can you tell me about his ghosts?”

But Higgins’s moment of clarity was over. He shook his head and muttered, “I must polish his shoes.” Then he looked about. “It is warmer here. And the wind is not so loud. She wants me to sleep here. Aye, I will. Even if it is haunted.”

Birdie looked after him thoughtfully as he shuffled away. Higgins certainly wasn’t the one who’d pulled the prank with the ghost. Neither, she was certain, had it been Gabriel. She was certain he’d spoken the truth when he said he never set foot outside the castle.

She returned to her room and her eyes fell on the velvet purse on her dresser. It was bulging. Birdie opened it and gasped. It was filled to the brim with coins. She was certain she’d spent most of it on the servants.

Someone had refilled it. She searched for a note, but there was none.

Gabriel? It must be.

Her mind was in a whirl. She closed it and packed it away safely in a drawer.

The man was full of mysteries.

What ghosts were haunting him?

Later,Birdie took a walk by the cliffs.

The water slapped onto the black, jagged rocks, foaming and gurgling. Mist rose from the ocean and wrapped the castle in a white, lacy veil.

She’d always loved the sea, but other than an excursion to Brighton one summer with Miss Hilversham and her friends, she’d had little opportunity to see the ocean.

She loved the sound of the waves on the beach and the redolent smell of salt, even the wild shrieking of the seagulls. The wind teased the hair out of her bun and whipped it across her face.

She wrapped her shawl around herself more tightly and wandered along the path.

From here, the view of the castle was magnificent. Proud. Indomitable.

She sat down in the grass and pulled some flowers. They were the same purple flowers that her husband had picked for her.

She heard the crunching of boots on the gravel and looked up.

There he was.

He was walking, deep in thought, his face averted. It had become natural for him to hold his head crooked as if he wanted to shield people from the damaged side of his face.

Birdie scrambled up, and he came to a startled halt.

He turned in her direction and looked flustered, almost bashful, when he spotted her. “I didn’t know anyone was here.” A flush of dull red spread over his cheeks.

“You took my advice and went out in the fresh air. I am impressed.” Birdie smiled at him.

“I wanted to see the castle from this perspective,” he explained.

“It is magnificent.”

He turned to share her view. “Yes, I suppose it is.” His black hair tumbled over his brow. Birdie gazed at his profile, the expressive brow with an aquiline nose, a firm chin with a sensitive mouth. The scar almost touched the curve of his mouth. She longed to trace it with her finger. Maybe even press a kiss on it.

Now, where on earth had that thought come from? She drew in a shuddering breath and wrapped her arms around herself to prevent herself from doing anything foolish.

He looked at her sharply. “Are you cold?”

If truth be told, she was rather hot.

He took off his coat and placed it around her shoulders before she could say anything.

“Th–thank you.” She inhaled the spicy, smoky, masculine scent of his leather jacket. Gabriel stood in front of her in shirtsleeves. Once more, the analogy of a pirate came to her.

“Did you ever wish to become a sailor?” Birdie blurted out the first thing that came to her mind.

“No. I would have made a poor naval officer. I don’t have any sea legs at all. I am a landlubber through and through.”

“Sometimes I wish I could board a ship and sail away. One can’t help but wonder what horizon is beyond, where the sun meets the sea.” Birdie pointed at the distance, where the sun dipped into the ocean.

Gabriel followed her gaze. “I suppose if you follow it long enough, you’ll end in the Americas.”

“It must be nice to be a man and to have the freedom to travel,” Birdie said wistfully.

“Do you wish to travel?” He gave her an inquisitive look.

“Oh, yes. This is the farthest I’ve ever travelled. I am in the midst of a glorious adventure.” She took a big breath of salty sea air.

“You think this is an adventure?”

Birdie opened her eyes wide. “Very much so. Look around you. What do you see?” She waved her hand about.

“A decrepit castle. A village full of grumpy people. Infernally damp weather and a girl who is shivering.”

She uttered a short laugh. “I see a beautiful medieval castle, a cobalt blue ocean and a fairy tale meadow with purple flowers. There is much potential in this place.”

“You seem to enjoy being here more than I.”

“Perhaps that is because I am more curious about people and places than you are.”

He did not respond to that.

“What happened that gave you this scar?” she heard herself say.

He stilled.

“I apologise. You don’t have to tell me if you’d rather not.” She turned back toward the castle.

“You have repeatedly accused me of not caring for the people here. I would like you to understand some things,” Gabriel said in a low voice. “So that you don’t think I am the monster many think I am.”

Birdie held her breath.

“I was the captain of a light company in the second battalion, Coldstream Guards. We were a close-knit group of nearly fifty men. We’d fought many wars together: the Peninsula, Spain, Portugal. You wouldn’t find a finer and more loyal bunch of men. Even though I was the youngest of the lot, I was their leader and captain. They trusted me with their lives.” Gabriel looked at her with burning eyes. “And because they did, they are all dead now. Every single one of them. Because of me. Because they followed my command.”

“It was a war. You couldn’t have known of the consequences,” Birdie whispered.

“It was my job to know,” he snapped harshly. “I was their captain. I was their leader. They trusted me blindly. If I told them to go right, sending them straight into the jaws of hell, they did so without as much as blinking. None of them survived. Only me. I was lucky.” Gabriel pointed at his cheek. “This is nothing compared to what happened to many others. When I woke up in the infirmary, everything was over. They were dead––and I survived.”

Tears streamed down Birdie’s face.

“So, you see, Birdie.” Gabriel shook his head. “I can’t ever lead men again. I lead them to death and destruction. People are better not to put their trust in me––including you.”

That night,Birdie fell into a troubled sleep. She dreamt about a war she’d never seen; she heard the cannons, saw the blood on the battlefield. Amid everything was him. On his knees, weeping. A beautiful strain of music played over the scene of carnage.

Powerful, melancholic, divine music.

“How lovely,” Birdie muttered, as she turned over in bed, pushing her head further into her pillow. The scene in her dream shifted. She now dreamt she was back at the seminary, and she was playing on a grand Broadwood piano.

Her friends stood around the piano, clapping. “How wonderfully you play, Birdie!” her friend Arabella exclaimed.

Birdie’s eyes snapped wide open.

That was all wrong. One thing Birdie couldn’t do particularly well was play the pianoforte. Birdie had no illusions about her own piano skills.

Yet the beautiful sound remained, the strands of music clear and sweet. The playing was not merely part of a dream after all.

Birdie scrambled up, pulled a scarf over her shoulders, and slipped out of her room.

The sound came from the drawing room.

Was that Beethoven?

Birdie tipped the door open with her fingertips.

Gabriel sat by the piano, his shirtsleeves rolled up, playing with intense concentration.

Birdie had never heard anything like it. Her hand went to her mouth.

He played with his head thrown back, his eye closed. The music swelled to a sweet crescendo before it fell to a final, resounding chord.

A single tear ran down Birdie’s cheek. She sniffed and wiped it with her sleeve.

Gabriel whirled around in the piano chair and their eyes met.

He was still half dazed from playing.

“I vow I will never touch the piano again. That was divine.” Birdie stepped into the room. “Why didn’t you tell me you could play the piano so well?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I thought I’d forgotten. It’s been so long.” He flexed his fingers. “But my fingers remembered.”

“It was amazing. You play better than my friend Arabella, and she is quite the pianist. You also tuned it yourself?” Birdie asked in wonder.

He let his fingers gently brushed over the piano keys. “When I was younger, I wanted to be a musician…” His voice seemed to come from far away. “My father was against it. He was a merchant, and he did not think it a lucrative vocation. He wanted me to take over the family business. I used to go to our neighbour’s house and play on his piano. My father heard me through the window. When I saw him standing there, I thought, ‘That’s it! I will never get to touch a piano again.’ He left without a word. But that evening, he returned with a pianoforte.” His eyes glazed over in memory.

“And yet you ended up becoming a soldier. Why?”

“I knew I would never become the merchant my father wanted. I was realistic enough to know music wouldn’t provide a sufficient income, either. So I enlisted. It turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life.”

A silence settled between them. It was neither uncomfortable nor charged. Birdie thought of Gabriel as a little boy, sensitive and musically inclined, and how cruel it was that he ended up in muddy trenches defending his country. And how that experience had broken him.

She could’ve wept.

“Birdie.”

She looked at him inquisitively.

She saw him take a breath before he said, quickly, as if he wanted it out before he regretted it, “I’ve been a fool. You’ve invested energy and effort into hiring servants and making this heap of stone a more comfortable and agreeable place to live. And all I did was berate you for it. You deserve thanks instead.”

Birdie regarded him thoughtfully. “There is one way in which you can thank me,” she replied.

His eye flew up to meet hers. “How?”

“You gave me one month to stay here.”

He nodded.

“I want it to be a proper month. I want you there, behaving like a reasonable human being. Like a proper husband. All I am suggesting is that perhaps we could meet for breakfast, tea and supper and converse like reasonably civilised people. That is all I ask.”

Gabriel sighed.

“Is it such an unreasonable demand?” Birdie asked.

“Why is that so important to you?”

“I never thought I’d be married.” She smiled bleakly. “So, I’d like to pretend for a month everything is normal.”

“I don’t think I can do normal, Birdie,” Gabriel whispered. “I am not at all certain what ‘normal’ is.”

“Well, neither am I. Is anyone? Maybe it is what it is, and we decide for ourselves?”

He looked at the tips of his boots.

“I don’t think what I am asking for is unreasonable,” Birdie prompted. “We’re married, after all.”

He looked up, and their eyes met. One eye, granted, was covered by that piratical patch. But if one disregarded that, his remaining healthy eye was chestnut brown, fringed by dark eyebrows. He looked troubled.

Why? What was he so worried about?

“Conversing like reasonably civilised people.” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. Then he nodded curtly. “Very well,” he said after a long silence.

“Wonderful!” Birdie clapped her hands together. “We start tonight with supper. I am so tired of sitting all by myself.”

Gabriel hesitated, but then gave a curt nod.

“You will see that conversing with me is not as arduous as you fear. Though, I must say,” Birdie added with a smile, “we’ve been doing that successfully the last half an hour. Conversing, I mean.”

Gabriel’s head went up. “You may be right.”

When he smiled, the first genuine smile she had seen, she caught her breath. It lit up his face and made him look boyish, at least ten years younger. For one moment, she saw the glimpse of the man he really was. She saw that moroseness was not an inherent part of his personality.

This man, she realised, was fundamentally decent and kind. He could be everything a girl would wish for.

If he gave her the chance, she could be that girl.