The Rogue's Company, Part Eight

by J. Rosemary Moss

Genre: Fan Fiction (Bonanza)
Rating: PG

Link to Part One

~

I had only a few minutes to close my eyes before Joe started moaning and groaning. I rolled over as he swore under his breath, complaining about his pounding headache. I gave him a look full of sympathy. Didn't I know just what he was feeling?

“You’ll feel better after you retch your guts out, sir,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, “I know.” He paused to lean over the side of the bed in order to do just that. Once he was settled down again, he turned his head back toward me. “Would you stop calling me ‘sir’? You did that all last night.”

I flashed him a grin as I bent my arm and propped up my head. “You’d prefer ‘Mr. Cartwright?’” I asked.

“Ha-ha,” he said, glaring at me. “I’d prefer that you called me ‘Joe.’”

But I shook my head at that. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m employed as a servant here,” I reminded him. “It’s not my place to call you by your first name.”

“Shea, we were drinking ourselves blind together last night!”

I gave him an innocent look. “I can’t stop you from slumming with the help, sir!”

He rolled his eyes at that and then thwacked me with his pillow. That led to a brief pillow fight which, in turn, led to a laughing wrestling match—but we were both too sick to keep it up. We ended up with our heads back over the sides to retch again instead.

I sighed as I tried to settle down again. “No offense—but I don’t think I’ll be drinking like that again. Not for a long while.”

“Yeah—me neither,” he agreed. But then he gave me a strange look. “Do most servants talk as good as you do?”

I furrowed my brow at that. “No, not most. A few do.”

“You been to school?” he asked.

“No, but I know how to read and write. My Mam saw to that. And I do lot of reading.”

He rolled his eyes. “No wonder you get on so well with Adam.”

I put my hands behind my head and stared up at the ceiling. “He wasn’t angry about this—the drinking I mean. He said he’d come in to check up on us and see to the fire.”

Joe nodded. “Yeah, he’s usually good about stuff like this—I’ll bet he had his share of drunken nights back when he was in college.”

I smiled a little at that. “What about your Pa?” I asked.

Joe swallowed hard. “Well, you don’t have to worry about him. He’ll figure that you’re Adam’s problem.” He paused and sighed. “We were singing at the top of our lungs last night, weren’t we?”

I nodded as I thought back to how we lay in the wagon, hugging our coats around ourselves as we drained the last bit of whiskey from our bottles and kept singing about leaving Ireland.

“Yeah,” I said. “And I think that when your brothers were carrying us upstairs, I was still caterwauling and you were telling everyone how much you loved them. There's no chance that your father didn’t hear us.”

Joe sighed again. “Well, Pa’s going to have something to say to me,” he said, sounding like a man resigned to his fate. But then he brightened. “Unless Adam talks to him for me—Adam's good at talking him around in circles until he forgets what he was angry about. Combined with my charm, that ought to be enough to keep me out of trouble.”

As if on cue, Adam chose that moment to walk into the room. He paused in the doorway to look us over and then shook his head at us. “How are you two feeling?”

“Been better,” Joe said. “Hey Adam, would you mind talking to Pa?”

“Already done,” Adam assured him. “Just give him that innocent smile of yours and you should be fine.”

Joe grinned. “Thanks, older brother.”

Adam just nodded as he stepped inside to start the fire up. When that was done, he turned around and picked up the basins. I tried to get up—he shouldn’t be cleaning up after us—but he ordered me straight back to bed.

“Get some sleep, both of you,” he said. “Hoss said he’d draw baths for you later so we can get the pair of you cleaned up.”

“Thanks,” Joe said. “We owe you both.”

“No kidding,” Adam said with a wink. Then he left the room, basins still in hand.

I curled up under the blankets again and grinned at Joe. “I like working for your brother,” I told him.

Joe yawned. “Yeah—sometimes that Yankee granite-head ain’t half bad.”

~

About a week later Joe burst into the kitchen while Hop Sing and I were sitting down to dinner. That had become a routine for Hop Sing and me—sitting down to dinner, I mean. We’d serve the family and, once they were done, we’d sit down to a meal ourselves. I’m not sure what Hop Sing did before Adam hired me. He must have been lonely, I suppose, without any other servants to eat with.

At any event, Joe burst in on us and took a seat at the table. “I forgot to tell you,” he said to me, “there’s going to be a fancy party in town next week. The Maris family is hosting it.”

“I know,” I said, putting down my fork. “Your brother told me—I have to prepare his favorite dress clothes for it.”

Hop Sing, meanwhile, was glaring at Little Joe. He didn’t like having his kitchen invaded by the family. He was about to order Joe out, but Joe gave him such a charming smile that the cook sighed and resigned himself to his presence.

Joe gave my arm a friendly punch. “How about I sneak you into the soiree—that’s what they’re calling it, can you believe that? Anyone would think they came from old money instead of striking it rich in the Comstock.”

I grinned. “There’s not much in the way of old money in this country—at least not out west.”

“Yeah—that’s true,” Joe owned. “Just look at us—Pa came from a poor family. But we don’t run around calling our parties ‘soirees.’

“No,” I agreed, winking. “But your brother hired a valet.”

Joe laughed. “Yeah—but I can see his point. I still want a valet of my own eventually. Are you sure you’re supposed to pronounce the ‘t?’”

That was a sore point between Joe and me. He always wanted to pronounce ‘valet’ the way the French do, but that’s not how my Mam pronounces it—and she once served in one of the best Anglo-Irish houses in County Wicklow. Not that I ever corrected Joe, mind, but I spoke up when he asked me.

I suppose Joe was entitled to the French way of saying it, though—his mother was a French Creole from New Orleans. Come to think of it, that French blood of his should have entitled him to use the term ‘soiree.’”

“But that don’t matter,” Joe was saying. “The point is, you can come to this dance if you’d like—Hoss and I cooked up the perfect plan. We can get you past that gargoyle of a butler they have.”

I shook my head, imagining how Adam would react to that trick. “Your brother would tan my hide if he caught me.”

Joe shrugged. “I'll take the blame. Besides, it might be worth it. Some fine looking girls are going to be there.”

But I wasn’t even tempted. I didn’t stand a chance with the girls who would be guests at that party. But the maids—well, that was a different story.

“I am going, sir,” I explained. “I’ll even have a place in your carriage. But I’m going to help out the servants of the house—they’ll need the extra hands. And they might have a celebration of their own below stairs.”

Joe stared at me as he took that in. At length he sighed. “Suit yourself,” he said. “I just wish you were going to be at the real party—I hate that a friend of mine isn’t welcome.”

“Well, I don’t mind,” I said. “I don’t move in those circles. And, to be honest, sir, I don’t have any desire to.”

He grinned. “Maybe not—but I have a week to change your mind.”

I rolled my eyes as he left Hop Sing and me in peace. Looking back, though, I should have taken Joe up on his offer. That celebration below stairs was where all the trouble started.

LINK TO PART NINE