Again the Magic by Lisa Kleypas

blocks of soap, candles, crystallized flowers, and fancy edibles such as bottled fruit. Today the housekeeper was unusually busy, with the household filled with guests and servants. She left the storeroom, her arms filled with heavy bricks of newly made soap. As soon as she carried the bricks to the stillroom, a pair of housemaids would use string to cut the soap into hand-sized cakes.
    Preoccupied with the multitude of tasks yet to be done, Mrs. Faircloth became vaguely aware of the large bulk of a footman as he followed her along the narrow hall. “James,” she said distractedly, “be a good lad and take these things to the stillroom. I have need of a strong pair of arms. And if Salter takes exception, you tell him that I bade you to help me.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” came the obedient reply.
    The voice did not belong to James.
    As Mrs. Faircloth hesitated in confusion, the burden was taken from her, and she realized that she had just issued orders to one of the master’s guests. His well-tailored clothes proclaimed him to be a man of privilege — and she had just ordered him to carry something for her. Servants, even upper ones, had been dismissed for less. “Sir, do forgive me…” she began in distress, but the dark-haired gentleman continued to the stillroom, hefting the weighty soap bricks with ease. He set the soap on the slate-topped table, turned from the
open-mouthed housemaids, and regarded Mrs. Faircloth with a rueful smile.
    “I should have known you’d start giving commands before I had the chance to say hello.”
    Staring into his glowing blue-green eyes, Mrs. Faircloth pressed her hands to her heart as if to stave off the threat of apoplexy, and blinked with sudden tears of astonishment. “McKenna?” she exclaimed, impulsively holding out her arms. “Oh, good Lord…”
    He reached her in two strides and caught her stout form against his, briefly lifting her off her feet as if she were a slight-framed girl. His gruff laugh was muffled in her silvery curls.
    Dumbfounded by the emotional scene involving their normally stoic housekeeper, the maids in the stillroom drifted into the hallway. They were followed by a gaping scullery maid, a kitchen maid, and the cook, who had worked at the manor for only five years.
    “I never thought to see you again,” Mrs. Faircloth gasped.
    McKenna tightened his arms around her, basking in the never-forgotten maternal comfort of her presence. He remembered the countless times that Mrs. Faircloth had saved extra food for him — the heels of the bread loaves, the leftover tea biscuits, the flavorful dregs from the stew pot. Mrs. Faircloth had been a source of necessary softness in his life… someone who had always believed the best of him.
    She was much smaller than he remembered, and her hair was now pure white. But time had painted her gently, adding only a few softening wrinkles across her rosy cheeks, and a nearly imperceptible bow to the formerly straight lines of her shoulders and spine.
    Drawing back her lace-capped head, Mrs. Faircloth regarded him with open disbelief. “My heavens, you’ve grown into a Goliath! I would scarcely have known you, were it not for your eyes.” Becoming aware of their audience, the housekeeper released the large young man from her arms and gave the assembled servants a warning stare. “Busy yourselves at once, all of you. There’s no need to stand there with your eyes bulging from your heads.”
    Mumbling obediently, the maids scattered and resumed their posts, throwing discreet glances at the visitor as they worked.
    Mrs. Faircloth pressed McKenna’s hand between her small, plump ones. “Come with me,” she urged. They went in tacit agreement to the housekeeper’s personal room. She unlocked the door and let him inside, and the familiar smell of clove pomanders and beeswax and tea-dyed linen mingled in a perfume of pure nostalgia.
    Facing Mrs. Faircloth, McKenna saw that the housekeeper was becoming tearful once again,