Stolen Moments Read online

  Stolen Moments

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1 1838

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Copyright

  Cover

  Table of Contents

  Start of Content

  To my husband, Ken

  ‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

  By any other name would smell as sweet.’

  Romeo and Juliet Act II Scene II

  Chapter 1

  1838

  ‘I’m going to be a nanny… a nanny… a nanny…’

  Cheeks flushed, Kate Stacey paused to get her breath back before opening the garden gate to Bramble Cottage. Eager to impart her news, she had run non-stop from the end of the lane, her skirts held high so that they wouldn’t be marked by the grass which was still damp from a sudden April shower.

  She straightened her straw bonnet, impatiently pushing back the escaping black ringlets beneath the white brim before retying the ribbons. Then she smoothed down the long full skirt of her cornflower blue cambric dress, that exactly matched the colour of her eyes. It was the first time she had worn it and she knew it flattered her slim figure, cinching her waistline in the style so much in favour since the young Queen Victoria had come to the throne.

  Her once-a-month Sunday afternoon visit home was a long-standing ritual. The moment her grandmother heard the click of the gate, she would pour boiling water from the big iron kettle that stood bubbling away on the trivet in front of the open fire on to the leaves already carefully measured into the best flower-patterned teapot.

  Still breathless, Kate caught her lower lip between her teeth apprehensively. Now that the moment had come to tell her grandmother her news she wondered if she should have asked her advice first before taking such a momentous decision. Grandmother had, after all, brought her up and been a mother to her.

  It was too late to think of that now, she reminded herself. She’d already given her answer, so there was no going back.

  ‘Hello! I’m home,’ she called as she pushed open the cottage door.

  ‘Come on in, m’lovey. It’s all ready.’

  Sunday tea with home-made jam and pickles, and a freshly baked cake, were spread out on a lace-edged tablecloth. Uncle Charlie, scrubbed, shaved and wearing a striped flannel shirt, was sitting at the table waiting to tuck in.

  Kate hugged and kissed the old lady, bursting to tell them her news but anxious to choose the right moment.

  ‘Stand back then and let’s have a good look at ’ee. That’s a new dress you’m wearin’.’ Her grandmother fingered the material between thumb and finger. ‘A proper lady ’ee looks in that and no mistake,’ she murmured, smoothing the velvet ribbon trimming and touching the tiny pearl buttons down the front of the bodice.

  ‘I’ve some special news for you, Gran,’ Kate exclaimed brightly as her grandmother began to pour the tea. ‘I’m changing my job, I’m going to become a nanny.’

  ‘A nanny? What’s that when it’s at home?’ Mabel Stacey frowned. Her face, wrinkled as a walnut under her lace-frilled Sunday mob cap, wore a puzzled expression.

  ‘Be it looking after goats,’ guffawed Charlie, spearing a hunk of cheese with his knife and taking a bite from it before dropping the rest on to his plate.

  Kate looked at her uncle in exasperation. It would have been so much easier to tell her grandmother on her own.

  ‘Well, go on then, bain’t ’ee goin’ to tell us what this nannying business be all about,’ he jibed when Kate remained tight-lipped and silent.

  Charlie was an avid gossip and she knew he savoured each new item almost as much as he did the home-made relish he was ladling on to his bread.

  ‘Yes, m’lovey,’ her grandmother pressed, sipping her tea with satisfaction, ‘tell us all about it then.’

  ‘It’s looking after children,’ Kate explained, her voice edged with irritation as she saw the mindless grin that spread over Charlie’s face.

  ‘Has that schoolmaster from Mere been filling your head up wi’ a load of nonsense again?’

  ‘Of course not! I’ve not seen sight nor sound of him since I left there four years back.’

  ‘Just because ’im made ’ee a monitor at school it don’t mean you’m cut out for that sort of job,’ her grandmother warned sharply.

  ‘I know that!’

  ‘Tidden possible for ’ee to be a governess, not wi’out qualifications,’ the old lady persisted.

  ‘More’s the pity!’ Kate tossed her head pertly, her blue eyes flashing, a blush staining her cheeks. ‘Schoolmaster Barnes said I had a good head for learning and if I’d stayed on at school…’

  ‘You mean you’m goin’ to be a nursemaid then, do ’ee?’ her grandmother interrupted.

  ‘Wipin’ babies’ bums, cleaning up sick, feedin’ ’em pap and walkin’ the floor wi’ ’em when they’m teethin’. Mug’s game that, if you asks me,’ Charlie Stacey guffawed, jabbing out a pickled onion from the jar in front of him and munching it noisily.

  ‘If you’ll shut your trap, Charlie, and listen a minute I’ll tell you both what I mean,’ Kate exclaimed heatedly.

  ‘Go on then, we’m all ears.’

  At that moment she hated him so much she wanted to hit out at him, but she knew better than to try. Just one of his huge ham-like hands could imprison both of hers, and her slim frame was powerless against his brawny strength. His strength was the talk of the King’s Head pub. It was rumoured that Charlie had once picked up Farmer Eden’s bull by the horns, swung it round and dropped it over a hedge into the next field. And having seen the effortless way he swung churns of milk up on to a cart, she didn’t doubt the truth of that story for one minute.

  ‘All brawn and no brains,’ she thought cynically as she watched the great mountain of flesh that spilled over the top of his corduroy trousers wobbling uncontrollably as he shook with laughter. It was a pity he hadn’t been sent off to Australia like the farm labourers from Tolpuddle. She’d seen him waving a pitchfork and trying to incite others to join in the riots, but no one had taken any notice.

  ‘Poor old Charlie,’ they said. ‘Silly old fool’s been on the scrumpy. Means well, but ’ee don’t know what he’s doing.’

  ‘Take no notice of his moidering, m’lovey,’ her grandmother said placidly, ignoring Charlie’s snorts of laughter. ‘Just ’ee tell us what this nannying business be all about.’

  ‘It’s looking after children who are too old to have either a nurse or a governess, Gran.’

  ‘Just carin’ for ’em and lookin’ after their clothes?’

  ‘And going for walks with them and keeping
them company. Sort of taking the place of their mother when she’s too busy to be with them.’

  ‘What’ll folks wi’ money think of next,’ Mabel Stacey sniffed.

  ‘I’d a thought they’d need a grow’d woman to mother ’em, not a chit of a girl who’s barely eighteen,’ Charlie said derisively.

  ‘What’s wrong with being eighteen?’ Kate demanded. ‘A lot of girls my age are married with children of their own.’

  ‘Got too much to say for ’emselves, thinks them’s gro’d up but ’em aint,’ he snarled.

  ‘The new Queen was only eighteen when she came to the throne,’ Kate told him defiantly. ‘If people think she’s old enough to be on the Throne of England, then I’m old enough to be a nanny.’

  ‘’Tidden the same thing, m’lovey.’

  ‘’Er don’t have to do anything ’cept sit there,’ spluttered Charlie, his mouth full of one of his mother’s fruit scones. ‘She’ve got Ministers to do all the work.’

  ‘She’m just a figurehead.’

  ‘And us don’t know as if ’er’s any good at it yet,’ he added, wiping the crumbs away with the back of his hand.

  ‘That sort of talk’s disrespectful and ain’t fitting at Sunday tea-table, Charlie, so ’ee stay quiet and listen to what Kate has to tell us,’ his mother told him disapprovingly.

  ‘Well, that’s it!’ Kate shrugged as she helped herself to a piece of cake.

  ‘There’s no children nowadays up at the Manor, m’lovey,’ frowned Mabel Stacey. ‘Master George has children of ’is own.’

  ‘It’s his two girls I am going to be nanny to,’ Kate said quickly.

  ‘You’m moving away… to Bramwood Hall?’ asked the old woman in a querulous voice.

  ‘It’s not all that far away, only a couple of miles.’

  ‘’E’d be a lot better off staying at the Manor,’ Charlie told her.

  ‘I’ve been there ever since I was fourteen.’

  ‘And come next fall they’ll make ’ee parlourmaid. Just think o’ that!’

  ‘I don’t want to be a skivvy, waiting on folks at the Manor forever!’

  ‘Be able to wear one of them little lace caps,’ grinned Charlie.

  ‘Two afternoons a month off… and more money. What more could ’ee want! Charlie’s right, m’lovey. Lookin’ after Master George’s two girls won’t get ’ee anywhere. In next to no time they’ll be off to finishing school, or else married, and where will that leave ’ee?’

  ‘But Gran,’ Kate’s blue eyes shone with enthusiasm, ‘it’s a chance to better myself!’ She pushed the dark tendrils of hair back from her face, her finely boned chin lifted proudly.

  ‘That’ll happen when you’m made parlourmaid.’

  ‘At Bramwood Hall I won’t be sharing an attic with the rest of the servants. I’ll have a room all to myself and I’ll be called Miss Stacey.’

  ‘And that David Owen spends a lot of time at Bramwood Hall,’ Charlie added slyly. ‘Fanny ’im, don’t ’ee!’

  ‘Shut your face!’ Trembling with anger, Kate glared at her uncle.

  ‘I see’d ’ee an’ him only t’other week,’ he leered.

  Her breath caught audibly in her throat, her face paled, then flamed.

  ‘Too busy the two o’ ’ee to notice I…’

  ‘If you must know,’ she spat, ‘the reason I so badly want this job as a nanny, and the chance to get right away from the Manor, is because I’m fed up of being spied on.’

  ‘Ah, well, perhaps then it’ll be for the best,’ Uncle Charlie said, shifting uneasily in his chair.

  ‘There’s folks around here, who I won’t mention by name, that I can’t abide,’ she added darkly.

  Perspiration gleamed along the top of his upper lip. As he wiped it away with the back of his hand, Kate smiled to herself. He wouldn’t say anything more against her idea. He was too scared that she might tell on him.

  Some said her Uncle Charlie was just a bit simple, but she knew he was sly, lecherous and sadistic. She hadn’t trusted him since she’d caught him watching her through a chink in the outside privy when she was about twelve. When she’d threatened to tell her grandmother he had twisted her arm behind her back until her shoulder cracked and the pain brought tears to her eyes.

  She had suspected for quite some time that he still spied on her. Now, she was more than ever sure that the rustlings in the bushes when she and David Owen met in the summer house wasn’t a rabbit, or some other wild creature, but her Uncle Charlie watching them.

  Kate found that convincing her grandmother that she was doing the right thing in going to Bramwood Hall was not easy. Though she was riddled with rheumatism, her body shrunken beneath the dark brown dress, Mabel Stacey’s brain was sharp and Kate found it hard to placate her.

  ‘I’ll be able to come and visit you more often, every fortnight I’ll get a whole day off. I’ll have a room all to myself! And there will be a maid to wait on me and the girls,’ she told her grandmother over and over again.

  ‘Since ’ee’ve already made your mind up, let’s hope it all works out for the best,’ Mabel Stacey sighed at last. She closed her eyes, leaning back in her chair as if too tired to argue the matter any further.

  ‘That’s right, Gran, I have,’ Kate said stubbornly. ‘And it will be for the best, I know it will,’ she added, kneeling beside the old lady’s chair and tenderly holding one of her grandmother’s gnarled hands against her face.

  Chapter 2

  Life had changed for Kate from the moment she had first seen David Owen.

  It had been a bright, frosty morning and she’d been sent to fetch kindling from the barn. On her way back across the yard she’d stepped on a patch of ice, losing her balance and her pile of wood. Knowing how Cook would scold if she took too long she’d scrambled to her feet, and in spite of the pain from her twisted ankle, struggled to pick up the scattered sticks.

  ‘Here, let me help.’

  The sound of a man’s voice had startled her. Before she could protest he had collected up the wood and she’d been too embarrassed to speak as he’d piled it into her sackcloth apron.

  For days afterwards the man’s voice had haunted her and she’d walked round in a dream, remembering his brown eyes and the firm pressure of his hands when they’d briefly touched hers.

  ‘What’s the matter, Kate?’ asked Phoebe Mullins. ‘I’ve spoken to you twice and you’ve not answered. Be you in love?’

  ‘Course she is,’ giggled Carrie Withers, the other girl who shared the attic room with them. ‘She’m in a trance half the time!’

  ‘Tell us ’is name, then,’ pressed Phoebe.

  ‘I don’t know it,’ sighed Kate, ‘but he’s the handsomest man I’ve ever seen.’

  They listened wide-eyed as she related her adventure.

  ‘So do either of you know who he is?’ she asked hopefully.

  They stared at her blankly.

  ‘We never get above stairs any more than you do. Lucy Parsons might know though, being parlourmaid. She must have heard them call him by name when she’s been serving meals.’

  ‘None of your business who he is, Kate Stacey,’ Lucy told her primly. ‘Anyway, I’m not supposed to talk about anything I might hear.’

  ‘Go on, tell me his name. You must know it.’

  ‘Just remember your place, miss,’ reprimanded Cook. ‘We don’t stand for no gossiping about our betters. You’d best remember that if you are hoping to take over from Lucy when she leaves to be wed next autumn.’

  ‘I wasn’t gossiping about him, I only wanted to know what his name was because…’

  ‘It’s no concern of yours who visits Lord and Lady Sherwood,’ interrupted Cook sharply. She folded her arms over the spotless white apron that covered her ample figure, her black gimlet eyes boring into Kate’s. ‘Do you understand? We don’t want no hoity-toity sulks either,’ she added sharply when she saw Kate biting her lower lip to stop herself answering back.

  Kate still hadn’t been ab
le to put the man from her thoughts. Each night, after the candle had been snuffed out, she would lie there in the darkness remembering every detail about him.

  Her memory was so vivid that she could almost touch the thick dark hair and side-whiskers. Or run a finger over the well-shaped brows that framed his warm brown eyes. She remembered his broad shoulders, the strong jawline, the swing of the dark cape that had topped his boxcoat with its smooth velvet revers and the well-cut trousers of black cloth fastened with straps beneath his shiny black boots.

  As he came alive in her mind, his voice would ring in her ears. Not like the slow, buttery burr of the cottagers, or the sharp cultured tones of the Sherwoods, but mellow and musical. A voice that was as deep and rich as his colouring, yet as firm as the set of his square chin.

  She thought about him so much that on her next Sunday off, when she left the Manor and found him leaning on the stile by the lane, she wondered if she was dreaming.

  ‘Good afternoon, Kate.’

  She smiled at him shyly from under her grey poke bonnet, afraid to speak in case it shattered the illusion.

  ‘I see your ankle is quite recovered.’

  ‘Yes… thank you.’ Colour rushed to her cheeks as he glanced down at her feet.

  ‘Is this your afternoon off?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And you’re on your way home?’

  ‘I’m going to visit my grandmother at Bramble Cottage and have tea with her.’

  ‘Then, since the sun is shining, and it’s such a perfect day for a stroll, I’ll accompany you, if I may, for part of the way.’

  As they walked side by side in silence, she felt both elated and uneasy, conscious of the drabness of her dark blue dress and thick grey shawl alongside his elegant clothes.

  She kept glancing sideways to see if he was still there, not completely sure if she was dreaming or not. Yet the swish of his silver-topped walking cane as he cleared away the undergrowth that covered the path in places was real enough.

  Her walk from the Manor took on a new significance.

  Never had the early snowdrops looked so pure and white, the sky more blue, the clouds more fluffy. The leafless trees, pencilled against the sky, were beginning to show their buds. Blackbirds and robins darted from bush to bush, seeking out likely nesting places.