Secrets of Nanreath Hall (19 page)

“At ease, sir.” Hugh laughed good-naturedly. “Last I checked, you still outranked me.”

“On the battlefield, perhaps.” Matthews smiled like an indulgent parent. “Actually, I'm glad to run into you. I want to thank you for coming to dinner with the men last night. And for taking the time to stop in this afternoon, though I'm not sure if your offer of brandies all around went over well with Matron.”

“Had to give them something to cheer after all the bad news recently, sir. Greece gone, Hungary, Yugoslavia. I'm only sorry I couldn't offer them enough to drown their sorrows into oblivion. The Nanreath wine cellar houses more mice than bottles these days.”

“It feels odd inviting the owner to his own house, but ignore Matron and come anytime, sir. The wards can always stand a bit of a shake-up.”

“Thank you, Captain. I think I shall. Now if you don't mind, I was hoping to steal Miss Trenowyth away.”

“Of course.” Hands clasped behind his back, the MO strolled
away, leaving her alone with Hugh, who eyed her as if enjoying an enormous joke.

“I'd heard the two of you were an item.”

“You've been speaking with Tilly.”

“Among other things.” He shot her a wicked grin that would have set any woman in the place to swooning. It only irritated her, especially considering Tilly's growing moodiness. If Hugh had hurt her in any way . . .

“What do you want, Hugh? I'm busy.”

“Really? You look positively slothful.” He leaned against the tree, arms folded, a smile continuing to hover. But she knew it was all show. He couldn't sit beside her on the blanket without revealing his handicap, and the tree offered him support without being obvious. That moment of naked despair she'd glimpsed New Year's Eve had been buried deep. He'd not let her that close again—not without being blind drunk. “I've a surprise for you, but if you're too busy you can forget all about it.”

“Oh? Another lovely tea with your mother? A sack of poisonous snakes would be preferable.”

“She can be a bit of a handful, but you seem to have come to an understanding. I don't hear her crying for your head on a plate anymore.”

She slumped back against the tree. “No, though I still think she's watching me to see I don't make mischief for the family. What is she so scared of, Hugh? Lady Katherine ran off over twenty years ago. What can it possibly matter to anyone now?”

“It matters to you,” he answered quietly.

“It shouldn't.” She shoved her book in her bag. “Lady Katherine gave me life, but the Handleys raised me. That counts for more.”

“It does, but we all like to know where we come from. Where we fit.” He held out a hand. “Do you want my surprise or not? I swear
it has nothing to do with my mother. She doesn't even know what it is I've found.”

“All right.” Anna stood with a smoothing of her skirt. Shaking out her blanket, she folded it and added it to her bag. “But this better be good.”

“That's a girl,” he said, leading her toward the house.

They passed through the croquet game that was fast becoming a rugby match and entered through the terrace doors into the salon. A few men looked up from their papers or the wireless, but most ignored them. The main hall was busy. Sister Murphy glanced up from her files and scowled. Sophie pushed a trolley of medicines to Ward A, grief turning her bright, rosy looks to ash. The telephone rang. An orderly rushed to answer it. A young man sat in a wheelchair in a patch of sun by the front doors, a blanket across his knees, his eyes trained on the sky, face gaunt and grim.

“To set the record straight, I have no interest in Captain Matthews,” she said, apropos of nothing, but wanting to be absolutely clear.

Hugh took her hand as they climbed the stairs, though she couldn't be sure whether his act was born of spontaneous familial bond or his lack of balance. “You're right. He's far too upright and forthright. Hmm . . . who can we pair you with?”

She thought of Tony Lambert, and warmth burned her cheeks. She focused on the scratched paint of the wainscoting, the creak of the stair treads, the faint squares of light spilling across the corridor. “Maybe I'm not looking to be paired with anyone.”

“No? I thought you girls were constantly sizing up men for our matrimonial potential.”

She tried to remain stern, proof against his potent charm. “Not all of us pine for a wedding ring.”

“The woman who says that is the woman I fear the most.”

Together they continued through empty rooms and up stairs, which he took slowly and painfully until they reached the top floor in a wing of the house she'd never been. A bare bulb hung from the low ceiling, and mildew snaked along the peeling paint of once cream-colored walls. Hugh fit a key into a lock and pushed wide a creaking iron-hinged door. Snapping on his torch, he swept its light back and forth. The room was enormous, open beams crisscrossing a sloped, cobwebbed ceiling. The air was stale and sour. Boxes and crates were piled high amid a layer of thick dust.

“Where are we?”

“Nanreath's attics.”

She followed him into the long, windowless chamber under the eaves, trying not to stumble over either the clutter of past generations or Hugh, who paused before a battered rolltop desk to shine his light upon a dusty leather portfolio case. “Welcome home, cousin.”

She rubbed a hand over the dusty cracked leather, revealing a brass name plate, scratched and tarnished with age. “This belonged to my mother.”

“I came across it when I was repairing the leak in the roof. Yes, I was telling the truth, thank you very much. This house would crumble around our ears if I let it. Anyway, the portfolio must have been up here for ages.”

Anna stared at the loopy script upon the plate, her mind spinning until she sank onto a rickety stool to catch her breath. Her hands tightened on the case as she fought to control their trembling.

“I didn't look inside,” he said. “Figured you might like first crack at it.”

“Yes, uh, thank you.” She snapped open the latches, drawing it
wide. Froze at the deep growl of airplane engines. Her brain went blank. Her heart skipped at the unmistakable whistle of falling bombs.

“Anna, get down!”

Hugh threw himself over her, knocking her to her knees as the first explosion rocked the house, showering them with dust and chunks of plaster. More explosions sounded, shattering windows, spraying glass and splinters of wood. The sound pushed the air from her lungs.

“They must be after the airfield, and bloody smashing everything within twenty miles,” Hugh said, levering himself onto one elbow.

“Tony,” she whimpered.

“Will be quite safe, I'm sure. It's us I'm worried about.”

An airplane engine sputtered in and out before ominously rising in pitch. The whine vibrated painfully along her bones, setting even her teeth on edge.

“It's going down!” Hugh shouted.

The sound intensified, the growl coming closer, louder. The pressure along her skin lifted the hairs along her arms and the back of her neck. The noise deafened her.

“. . . not going to make it to the water.” Hugh grabbed a nearby tarpaulin, dragging it over them both as a bone-rattling boom brought down a heavy beam along with a section of ceiling. Plaster, lathing, bricks, and tiles rained down. With a curse and a grunt of pain, Hugh pressed her into the floor. She couldn't breathe beneath the heavy canvas. She gulped like a dying fish, flailing to free herself from the confining weight. Just when she thought she'd go mad, Hugh shoved the canvas aside, letting in a rush of smoky air. Heavy splintered wood lay in jagged pieces on the floor. A ragged
hole above them opened to a blue sky smeared with black smoke. She could hear the crackle and spit of flames above the pounding of her heart.

“You're bleeding.”

She touched her scalp, her fingers coming away red. Drops speckled a torn page from her mother's portfolio.

“So are you.”

A cut slashed Hugh's cheek and there was a spreading red stain on his shoulder. He held his left arm close to his body. “We need to head downstairs before the whole bloody roof caves in.”

Blood dripped onto Anna's hand. Warm and sticky and bright red. Smoke spread thick and black. She choked on a sob, shuddering against the panic overwhelming her. This was not France . . . this was England . . . and yet . . .

Harriet's blood spattered Anna's face, its scalding heat seeped through her fingers and drenched her uniform. Someone gripped her under the arms to pull her clear of the twisted steel wreckage as men screamed. She passed out, coming to in the cold, salty plunge of seawater. She gasped and sank and surfaced again, her body gnawed by an unspeakable pain. Screams and shouts accompanied by the groan and scrape of a dying ship and the incessant whip of bullets across the greasy water. She struck out for the shore, sank once more and this time, let herself submerge, too exhausted to continue.

“Damn it, move or you'll get us both killed.” She was jerked to her feet, a voice shouting over the noise. “Downstairs now!”

“But Harriet . . . I can't leave her! I can't . . .” She lashed out, but a hand gripped her by the arm and forced her to focus.

“It's me, Anna. It's Hugh. You're safe. But you have to move. Can you do that?”

She nodded, turning her back on her friend—again.

D
ownstairs, shattered glass from blown-out windows sparkled like diamonds across the lino amid splintered wood and toppled furniture. Cracks spread dark, spidery lines across the plastered walls, and the front doors hung crooked off their hinges, beyond which burned two cars and an ambulance that had been parked in the sweep. Smoke billowed above the distant tree line.

Nurses and orderlies rushed to move patients out of the damaged wards under Matron's sharp eyes and quick commands as Captain Matthews and Sister Murphy worked triage. Those injured by flying debris sat against the wall or leaned upon their friends as surgeon and nurse moved calmly and efficiently assessing need and dispensing reassurance.

A soldier tore through the door. “The plane went down just outside the village! Took the whole church out, and three streets round about.”

“Dear God,” Hugh gasped. “My mother was attending a Women's Institute meeting. Anna, I have to go.” He was covered with dirt, dust, and blood. He gentled his left arm close to his body, a tear in the sleeve revealing an ugly laceration. His face was streaked with ash, a wild look ringing his eyes.

“Your arm.”

He waved off her words. “I'll have it bound up, but you . . . will you be all right if I leave you?”

She nodded then wished she hadn't. Her skull felt scrambled as an egg. “I can manage.”

He threw her one last uncertain look before fleeing.

Anna hurried to assist a young man leaning drunkenly against a doorway, his wheelchair and blanket gone, his eyes looking everywhere at once as the chaos of sounds bombarded him from every direction.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“A Dornier. Engine on fire. Tail shot away. Must have jettisoned its bombs hoping to ditch in the sea.” He continued staring out at the greasy black smoke as it rolled upward and was seized by the winds to smear itself across the spring sky.

“Let's find you a place out of the way to sit down.”

He seemed to return to himself. He stared at her, his pale eyes fringed by long, dark lashes, his lip fuzzed with the beginnings of a mustache. So impossibly young and yet bearing an old man's burdens. “Don't be scared, Nurse,” he said in a firm voice. “I'll see you come through all right.”

She started to lead him toward an alcove in the shadow of the stairs where the hospital's main telephone sat. It was out of the way and somewhat sheltered should any more of the ceiling decide to fall. But with each wobbly-kneed step she took, the floor heaved and dipped under her feet, and strange dancing spots flickered at the edges of her vision. She stumbled over a fallen chair, banged her hip against a table. She drew a deep breath, hoping to stave off her dizziness, but her ribs ached and she gasped against a shooting pain down her side.

“Nurse?” the young man said, his brows low. “What's wrong?”

“I think . . . I think I need to sit down.” She sank onto the bench and leaned back, letting the roll of voices wash over her. She closed her eyes against the smoke and to ease the throbbing pain at her temples. “I'll be all right. Just need a moment.” She couldn't lie about here—just five minutes and then she'd get up, find Sister Murphy or one of the VADs and help where she could . . . just five minutes . . .

“Nurse?” The airman's voice seemed to call from a long tunnel. “Nurse Trenowyth, listen to me. Anna . . .”

She wished he'd stop shouting. She tried to tell him but gave it up as too much work.

“Anna? Anna, can you hear me?”

She swam up toward consciousness like a deep-sea diver emerging from the ocean floor. For a moment she was unaware of either where she was or how she had arrived. Weight pressed uncomfortably upon her, the air hung thick with old smoke and dirt, and she had a moment's panic of being trapped once again amid the burning sinking ship.

She opened her eyes, squinting against a blinding glare. She licked her lips, her mouth dry, her tongue fuzzy. The pain in her side dulled to a bearable, yet uncomfortable ache.

“Welcome back, sleepyhead.” The silhouette burning its way into her retinas slowly focused itself into the familiar form of Tilly. Anna was in her bedroom, tucked up under a pile of blankets. Late-afternoon sun streamed in through the window.

“Oh, thank heavens,” Anna said, suddenly remembering the soldier and Tilly walking out toward the cliffs just before the bombing. “You're all right.”

“I'm fine, but how do you feel? You've been out for hours.”

“Horrid.” Anna tried to sit up and winced. “Ugh, my aching head.” She shifted and decided she shouldn't have. “Ugh, my aching body.”