The Garden's End (MLM)

CHAPTER TWO.

                The morning following the funeral, Pip walked into the kitchens to find them busier than ever. Handmaids were running here and there with fresh baskets of laundry and linens, chefs were preparing breakfast, servants were polishing everything from silverware to the floors in the halls, hurrying in and out past Pip with plates and orders while Chef Blackwood and Mrs. Mary walked amongst the lot, their heads bent close together as they discussed something of evident great importance.

It seemed the subdued atmosphere of the previous day had been all but lost.

"What's gotten into everyone?" Pip asked a small serving girl, Emily, as she passed him with a broom.

She flushed as she always did when any man spoke to her.

"Haven't you heard?" Emily said with all the giddiness of a schoolgirl. "Lord Westcott returns from his travels today."

"Lord Westcott?" said Pip. "So soon?"

"Of course!" said Emily. "After Lady Westcott's death only yesterday, he is to inherit the estate. When did you think his return would be?"

I hadn't considered it at all, Pip nearly confessed. For although Oliver had told him of his brother's return, his sole concern had been raising his lover's spirits. Pip flushed as he remembered the previous night's private meeting; kiss-swollen lips, hands running through his hair, the ache in his own thighs. He cleared his throat.

Admittedly, he had completely forgotten both Robert Westcott and his arrival.

"Emily!" Chef Blackwood suddenly called over, and both he and Mrs. Mary looked stern as they approached the servants.

"What on earth are you doing, girl, chattering about?" demanded Chef Blackwood, his great stomach bouncing and his moustache twitching with every word. "We're on a very strict schedule!"

Emily pouted. Chef Blackwood was perhaps the only man that could not turn the girl's face red. "Aren't we always?" she grumbled.

Chef Blackwood's moustache twitched again. "And what did I tell you about that pesky mumbling? Go see to your work, girl, go!"

"And you, Pip," said Mrs. Mary, exasperated. "I expected you awake half an hour ago! Where have you been?"

Pip pressed his lips together, thinking quickly. He had waited until all had gone to bed the previous night before coming up to Oliver's bedchambers—per his master's usual instruction—then left again before any had awoken. Knowing he could hardly confess that in between the time upstairs and in his own bed that he had not slept for long, he merely shrugged and mustered a sheepish grin.

"I—er—was tending to the gardens very late last night, ma'am."

Mrs. Mary didn't look like she believed him. Pip could tell she wanted to say something, but little Jane Westcott came running in at that very moment, her long blonde hair flying behind her.

"Mrs. Mary," she clung to Mary's frock, her blue eyes wide and not at all those of a girl who had recently lost her mother. "I'm hungry!"

Mrs. Mary tutted. "And when did you wake? Look at the state of this hair, and your ribbon's a mess!" She huffed. "Honestly, where is Amelia?"

"Sorry, sorry," to answer her question, Miss Helen Bradley came running in, looking harried with a brush in her hands. As the Lady Westcott had not been her mother, Miss Bradley had not bothered wearing black. ("It's really not one of my better colours," she'd said when Mr. Colton had insisted they wear black through the next six months, at the very least.)