Birdie and the Beastly Duke by Sofi Laporte

Chapter 3

It looked like a manifestation of an eerie nightmare. Grey and monstrous, it perched on top of a cliff, as if hewn directly out of the rock. Underneath, the waves of the turbulent sea crashed into its foundation. It had countless turrets with steeples that impaled the sky like pikes. The medieval keep was a colossal, forbidding block of stone surrounded by battlements that must have been built hundreds of years ago to ward off invaders. A massive drawbridge led over a ravine where the seawater gurgled. Whoever built this fortress left nothing to chance. It must’ve been impossible to invade. The coach rumbled over the bridge and came to a halt in the bailey, in front of a set of stone steps leading up to the castle keep. It was an impressive block of stone, but it appeared as if someone had tried to modernise it by installing wider, more modern windows; despite this, the structure maintained its gothic style.

“Would you look at that,” breathed Birdie.

No servants came running, no stable boys scurried forth to take care of the horses. The bailey was empty, and the doors and window shutters of the outer buildings were closed. Only one panel dangled from the hinges and the wind clanked with regular creaking against the wall.

Birdie climbed the stairs to the massive stone building with trepidation. The coachman had dumped her luggage in front of the massive oaken door, then climbed back onto the carriage and turned the horses.

“Wait. I thought you’re Captain Eversleigh’s coachman? Aren’t you staying here?” Birdie called after him.

“Nay. I’m no one’s coachman,” he grumbled as he flicked the whip. The coach departed, rumbling over the bridge.

Birdie stood alone in the deserted bailey and blinked.

“Well. That was unanticipated.” She walked up the stairs and looked at the massive door. She’d have to use both hands to lift the heavy brass knocker. She lifted it and let it slam against the door. It made a thump that echoed in the hall inside. She couldn’t shake the nervous feeling that she was awakening spirits in a tomb.

“Stuff and nonsense, Birdie. Compose yourself.” She wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

She hammered the knocker two more times. If no one came to open the door, she decided, she’d march around the building and find the servants’ entrance. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to visit the kitchen first. She craved a cup of good, strong tea. And maybe some hot pie. Or good, strong beef soup. She could also do with a slice of bread and cheese, but something hot in her belly would do her good. Just as she lifted her hand for the third time, the door’s hinges creaked.

Birdie jumped back.

Lo-and-behold, the vault opened. A desire to giggle rose in her chest. She bit her lips to suppress it.

The door opened, and in its shadow stood the oldest man she’d ever seen in her life.

Gracious me, now I’ve really awoken the dead. It flashed through her.

“You the bride?” the creature asked in a creaky voice.

Birdie snapped her mouth shut. “You the bridegroom?” she countered, somewhat louder in her surprise.

The man stared at her, his white face glinting in the shadows. He opened his mouth and bared a set of yellowed teeth, uttering a noise that was unidentifiable.

Birdie backed off, alarmed.

With a jolt, she realised that the noise must be laughter.

It sounded like wood creaking.

The man attempted to lift her suitcase.

“Perhaps you should leave it,” Birdie said. It looked like the man was going to break in half simply by lifting her luggage.

“Get in,” he replied. He’d somehow managed to pick up all three pieces of her luggage without collapsing.

Birdie stepped over the threshold into the hall. A cold draft of air blew about her. Then the door closed behind her with a thump, and she was swallowed by darkness.

Birdie stood in a hall that seemed to have appeared right out of the time of medieval warlords. A massive stone fireplace was carved into one end of the hall, and a long wooden table stretched across the entire room. A staircase at the end of the hall led to the upper floors. Elaborate tapestries that would put the tapestry of Bayeux to shame hung on the walls.

“Goodness me. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Birdie mumbled and rubbed her hands. She shivered in the cold.

“Follow me,” the creature said as he shuffled to the stairs. He went up slowly, step by step. Birdie was behind him, impatient and worried that he’d collapse under his burden at any moment. He stumbled over the last stair and Birdie caught him by the elbow.

“Isn’t there another servant here who can help with the luggage?” she asked.

“Eh?” He turned his head and squinted at her.

“Isn’t there someone else who can carry the luggage?” Birdie raised her voice.

“Yes, yes. He must marry the baggage,” the man muttered and shuffled on.

“No. I meant—” Birdie interrupted herself as they reached a tremendous corridor.

She gulped. It looked dark, dusty—and definitely haunted. “Stuff and nonsense,” she whispered to herself. The man had shuffled on and halted in front of a room.

“Here.” He nodded at the door.

“Wait, allow me.” Birdie walked to him and opened the door so that he didn’t have to put down the luggage. “Oh!” she exclaimed.

She hadn’t expected such a lovely room. All gothic oak and with velvet blue drapes over the bed and the window. The window! Birdie ran over to it. She had a striking view of the ocean. It was dark grey and turbulent; impossible to tell where the water ended and the clouds began. “How utterly marvellous!” She gasped.

The man dropped off the luggage by her bed and shuffled back to the door.

“Wait! I take it you’re not the, er, bridegroom. Who are you? And where is Captain Eversleigh?”

“Eh?” The man leaned forward and cupped a hand over his ear. “You have to talk louder, miss.”

“Who. Are. You?” Birdie roared into his ear.

He snapped to attention, pulling himself up to his full height as if suddenly remembering who he was.

“Higgins. Higgins at your service, miss,” he said in an unexpectedly clear voice. “I am the butler.” He stared at her and blinked. “And you’re the bride.”

Well. They’d already established that, hadn’t they?

“Higgins. Where is Captain Eversleigh?”

“The wedding is tomorrow morning at ten. In the chapel,” Higgins replied, ignoring her question. He turned and left the room.

“Wait. Higgins!” She went after him in the corridor. “May I have some tea? Or supper?”

But the butler had all but disappeared.

“Now this won’t do at all.” Birdie frowned. She hadn’t eaten since that sloppy breakfast at the coaching inn early this morning, which had consisted of a thin gruel and an even thinner mug of tea. They hadn’t stopped at any other inn, since there wasn’t any on the way, the coachman had explained.

Her stomach growled. It must be reaching suppertime, Birdie conjectured. She squinted down the dusky corridor and rubbed her arms.

“There’s got to be a kitchen somewhere,” she said aloud.

Kitchens were usuallyon the lower floors. She’d run into a domestic eventually, she figured, then she could ask them for some supper.

She wrapped herself in a shawl, took a candle and lit it, for it was getting dark rapidly, and ventured forth.

Goodness me. Wouldn’t her friend Lucy love this? And Pen, with whom she’d shared a room at Miss Hilversham’s seminary. And Arabella, who was always so proper, duke’s daughter that she was, but one who’d thirsted for adventure as much as any of them. She felt a wave of nostalgia sweep over her. What wouldn’t she give to be with them now? No corner of the castle would be safe with them beside her.

Birdie sighed so loudly; it echoed along the corridor, giving her a fright.

“You really have to stop this,” she scolded herself and pressed a hand over her thudding heart. “Ghosts. Fustian.”

She was in the main hall. Shouldn’t the big oaken table be set for dinner by now? But there was no fire burning in the fireplace, and the table wasn’t set. She went to the main door and tried to open it.

It was locked. A pang of alarm shot through her. Why was the door locked?

“Hello? Higgins? Captain Eversleigh? Is anyone here?” Her voice echoed through the hall.

No answer.

Was Eversleigh even in residence? It looked like not. How excessively odd. Why had he wanted her to come to this castle when he wasn’t here himself? Was he away? Would he arrive in the morning?

“Very well, Roberta Talbot. You can do one of two things. One, panic. Two—” she gulped—“find that kitchen and get yourself something to eat. Which is it to be?”

Her stomach growled in response.

In the end, she found the kitchen by accident. As she returned to the stairs, she spotted a small door in the wall to her right. She opened it. It revealed a smaller set of stairs winding itself down. Servants’ stairs.

“This must be it,” Birdie muttered. Thankful that she’d brought the candle along, she followed the stairs down.

She found herself standing in what must have been the servants’ hall. The kitchen, however, was empty.

“Looks like you have to prepare your own supper.” If there was one thing Birdie knew how to do, it was cooking. She’d spent countless hours in the kitchen of her former home, watching their cook dice, boil, broil, chop, and whisk everything from Yorkshire puddings and mutton cutlets to minced pies and madeira tartlets. Cook’s biscuits were legendary. When Cook was in a good mood, she’d sometimes allowed her to help cut out the biscuits and stamp emblems on the dough with the biscuit stamp. But most of the time, whilst she tolerated Birdie’s presence, she did not approve of her helping in the kitchen.

She’d put her hands against her hips, purse her lips and say, “You’re a baron’s daughter, miss. It’s beneath your station to be here. I’ll let you watch, but you won’t move a finger, you won’t.” Then she’d explain in great detail how to broil a good lamb.

Birdie was grateful for every minute she was allowed to spend in the kitchens. It was her way of avoiding her family whenever she visited: her mother, whom she could never please, her two sisters, whom she did not understand, and her brother, who was a rake and a gambler and perpetually absent.

When she was younger, Birdie sometimes thought that she must’ve been a changeling, swapped at birth, for she had nothing at all in common with her family. All her mother’s beauty and ethereal loveliness had gone to her sisters. Her mother had lamented that Birdie was plump, with devil’s hair and street-boy freckles. Once, her mother had forced her to eat chalk, hoping it would whiten up her skin. She’d had to scrub her face with freckle wash, a mixture of lemon, milk and brandy, which left her skin raw and irritated. She wasn’t allowed to go outside, for she had to stay out of the sun.

It was a relief when her holiday time at her home was over and she could return to Miss Hilversham’s seminary, where no one cared about the colour of her hair or how many freckles she had. She considered the seminary to be her real home. There, too, she’d wheedled the cook to teach her a thing or two about whipping up a good syllabub.

Birdie set the candle down on the centre table and lit a lamp.

The kitchen had a surprisingly modern cast-iron range, which looked unused, as well as a range of copper cookware, pots and pans in the shelves.

She studied the larder, which, to her surprise, contained some food items, predominantly oats and flour, but also a basket full of eggs and blood sausages that hung from hooks. In a drawer, she found some stale bread.

“Let’s see. Sausages. Eggs. Bread. Hm. Not the freshest, but it’ll do.” She lit the stove and prepared her supper.