Secrets of Nanreath Hall (29 page)

Ginny arrived back amid the clamor as cups were drunk and biscuits devoured while the young lad who'd brought them grinned his delight over being the center of so much female attention.

“Nothing yet, but I've oodles of files to sort through. What say, you go on. If I find anything out, I'll jot it down and bring it home tonight. Mum will want to be in on any grand secrets anyway.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“Leaving us so soon?” Lizzie commented as Anna shrugged on her coat. “What's your hurry? Uncomfortable accommodations,
bad lighting, catty girls, and enough paper to giftwrap the earth. You'd be daft to give up such an opportunity.”

“Very nice meeting you,” Anna said.

“Say hello to the war for me,” Lizzie grumbled, turning over a new set of folders.

Ginny left Anna at the lift. “Don't mind her. She wanted to serve on a naval base or an airfield. Somewhere romantic and full of action. She's gone a bit sour being stuck down here with us lot.”

“What about you?”

“Me? I'm glad enough. I like being in London and I like the job for the most part. It's almost like being a detective, isn't it? Piecing a bit from here and a bit from there and seeing the whole picture.”

Something nudged at Anna's consciousness. “Yes, it is, isn't it?” She couldn't put her exact finger on what she was missing, but she sensed the answer lay close at hand. “Can I ask one more huge favor, Ginny? I mean, if it's not too much bother.”

“Ask away.”

“Would you be able to find me another military record?”

“How many fathers are you looking for?”

“No, it's nothing like that. It would be my uncle, Lady Katherine's brother. His full name was William Algernon George Burnside Trenowyth. His title would have been Viscount Boxley. He served as a captain in the Royal Artillery.”

“Died in battle?”

“No. Wounded and gassed at Bazentin Ridge. He was invalided out and died in 1917.”

“Oh, that should be easier. Soldiers discharged due to injury weren't among the files burned. I can ask around and see what I find. Anything I should be looking for in particular?”

“Would it be trite to say I'll know it when I see it?”

Ginny grinned. “The game's afoot.”

H
ugh was as good as his word. To the delight of Mrs. Willits, he arrived in a taxi that evening to sweep them off to dinner at the Ritz. Introduced to the other occupants of the house as His Lordship and a particular friend, Hugh made sure to bow over each lady's hand, his noblesse oblige on full display, his immaculate evening wear and blond cinema-star looks melting hearts up and down Cherry Tree Lane.

Mrs. Willits settled herself in the back of the taxi, wrapping a rather forlorn stole about her shoulders as the feathers in her enormous hat tickled the roof. “Ginny's running late. She said she'll meet us there if it's all the same to you, my lord.”

“We'll keep her cocktail warm, madam.”

She tittered like a schoolgirl as Hugh and Anna exchanged a smile.

The lobby of the hotel was packed, but Hugh moved them through with an ease born of innate superiority. Arrangements were made, doors were opened, and staff acquiesced to every request with surprising speed. Hugh never batted an eye, just behaved as if this was par for the course, which Anna expected it was. An advantage of wealth and rank that inferior folk could only look on with envy.

“If only Tilly were with us,” Anna said oh-so-casually.

Hugh chuckled. “I can picture her now slinking her way through here like Rita Hayworth. The hens would be cackling for certain.”

“Would that bother you?”

“Have you ever known me to be bothered by cackling hens? I go out of my way to toss petrol on a fire.”

“True. You do have a love for causing a spectacle.” Which made his furtive relationship with Tilly so odd. Hugh would be more likely to flaunt her in his mother's face, just for spite.

Even with the dust and debris clogging the nearby streets, the
Ritz remained relatively unscathed and the famous Palm Court as glamorous and opulent as Anna had always imagined. She tried to match Hugh's nonchalance but felt herself straining to catch every glittering sight, and she knew her eyes must have been bulging. Mrs. Willits, on the other hand, had gathered herself together in the taxi and now moved with the same careless disinterest as the most jaded of society matrons.

Over the rare treat of oysters, roast lamb, and fresh garden vegetables rather than the soggy tinned substitutes relied upon by the hospital, Hugh nudged Mrs. Willits to recount story after story of Anna's misspent youth on Queen's Crescent. “Oh, the times we had. Mr. and Mrs. Handley were good respectable folk. Never a bad word to say about anyone and always there to help when you needed it. Do you remember when . . .”

A lump formed in Anna's throat even as she laughed over events and people she'd nearly forgotten.

“. . . a real close street, you know, my lord? Everyone knew everyone. Of course, it's not the same now, is it? People uprooted, families split up. I expect things won't ever be the same again.”

Not even close. Anna swallowed her food with difficulty, her stomach knotting.

Ginny arrived, still in her WAAF uniform and carrying a sheaf of papers as they nibbled on cake and sipped tiny cups of strong espresso. Anna had refused dessert and sat fingering her locket, aching for one of Graham's warm, pipe-smelling hugs or a cup of Prue's honey and ginger tea with scones straight from the oven.

“Sorry I'm late. It's a mess out there. Took me hours to get a bus,” Ginny said as she slid into the chair Hugh held for her. “Golly, is that chocolate?”

“We think so, though heaven only knows where they got it,” Hugh replied. “We've decided not to ask just in case we hear it's
ground pencil shavings or some other putrid concoction meant to trick us.”

“I often wonder if Lord Woolton eats some of the meals he dreams up for the rest of us. Mock fried egg, pilchard pancakes, carrots à la king.” Mrs. Willits wrinkled her nose and forked in another spoonful of cake. “Who on earth comes up with these recipes?”

Hugh waved to a passing waiter, and immediately plates of food appeared in front of Ginny.

“Blimey,” she murmured as she looked on dazedly at the bounty before her. Between bites, she recounted her day in spectacular fashion while Anna sat on her hands and tried not to reach across the table and throttle her impatiently.

Mrs. Willits leaned back in her chair. “Yes, dear, I'm sure we're all sympathetic to your trials with the section's temperamental mimeograph and laddering your last pair of good stockings was horribly careless of you, but poor Anna is all aquiver. Did you or did you not find reference to Simon Halliday?”

Ginny carefully examined each pea before she scooped it into her mouth. “Oh, well . . . you see . . . about that . . .”

Mrs. Willits rapped the table with her knuckles. “Virginia Willits, stop that infernal mumbling and answer the question.”

“Sorry, Mum. I don't mean to mumble. But you see . . .” She threw her mother an agonized look.

Out of patience, Mrs. Willits snatched the file. “Here now, Anna. Open it up and let's have it once and for all. No sense wondering and worrying. Lady Katherine was a sweet thing, and if she loved that man enough to have a child with him, then he couldn't have been all bad.”

“No, but Mum . . . it's complicated . . .” Ginny stammered.

Anna was torn between Ginny's reluctance and Mrs. Willits's determination. She glanced at Hugh, whose face bore a grim expec
tancy, hand resting against his bad leg, fingers curled to reveal white knuckles. “Remember what I told you. Be very sure you want an answer before you ask the question.”

“I have to know, Hugh.”

“Right.” He gave a faint smile as Anna flipped the folder open. Seven pages clipped inside; an entire life neatly summed up in a few columns of type and handwritten scrawls. “Simon Edward Halliday. Born on December twelfth, 1887, in Wragby, Lincolnshire,” Anna read aloud. “Occupation: artist. Enlisted August 1915. Lieutenant Fourth Suffolk. Died September sixteenth, 1916, at Flers-Courcelette.”

Anna's eyes followed the page down and stopped—dead. The names blurred. Her eyes burned.

Forgive my love.

Don't ask the question if you don't want to hear the answer.

It all made sense now. Awful, perfect sense.

August 1916

A
ll right, you two. Take five minutes to stretch.”

Agnes put down the Chinese fan she'd been holding while I grabbed a heavy dressing gown to throw over my naked body. For the last two hours, we'd been arranged like dolls in a series of come-hither poses while a photographer snapped countless pictures to be turned into lurid penny postcards.

Desperation had finally led me to accept Mrs. Duchamp's suggestion for alternate employment, which was how I found myself in this nondescript house off Brixton Road where tenants came and went and no one noticed anything for the right price. It was a job, I told myself. And if I had to remove my clothes in order to be paid, I could at least take comfort in knowing that was as far as it went.

“Have you heard anything from Simon?” Agnes asked as she sipped a cup of tea in barely more than a pair of lacy garters and stockings.

I shook my head as I nibbled a cracker, my stomach quivering with the nausea that had plagued me for the last month.

“Well, take heart. No news is good news as they say. He'll write when he can.”

I drank my tea and tried not to envision Simon as one of the hideously scarred faces or limbless shambling men who now populated the city's streets. It was hard. Since one short letter in June, informing me he was headed a few miles behind the lines for forty-eight hours of leave, I'd heard nothing. That was six weeks ago.

“Does he know about the baby?” Her gaze flicked to my stomach. I had yet to start showing, but I felt as if the whole world could tell I was carrying my lover's child.

I clenched my dressing gown tighter. The coarse fabric itched my swollen, tender breasts. “I don't know. That's the worst part. I don't know if he received my letter. I don't know anything.” I swallowed to keep the quaver from my voice.

“Perhaps his parents have heard something. Have you written them to ask?”

“I don't expect they'd answer a letter from me. They've never approved of Simon's profession or his life in London. It would be ten times worse if they knew I was working here.”

“If you ask me, you need to go visit these Puritans and let them know you're going to have their grandchild.”

“What if they don't care?” I'd yet to tell anyone besides Agnes and Jane that I was increasing. I hadn't even written to William with the news. I didn't want to give him more to worry over.

“If something's happened to Simon, surely they'd want to know some part of him carries on, even if the child's . . . you know . . .”

“A bastard?” The weight of that horrible word seemed to press on my shoulders, and my hands unconsciously cradled my growing stomach. I hated the thought of bringing an innocent into this
world saddled with the guilt of its parents' sins, a shameful burden through no fault of its own.

“Didn't you say his family owned some big machine works in Lincolnshire? They should be willing to lay out a few quid to the woman carrying their son's baby. And if not, maybe they'd be interested in paying a few quid to keep your mouth shut. Either way, you win.”

“Agnes!”

“Don't Agnes me.” She tossed her head, gray eyes flashing. No hint of embarrassment or shame in her bold gaze. “You can't be squeamish, Kitty. You have to look out for you and the mite. No one and nothing else matters.”

“You sound well versed on the subject.”

“My mother was in service down south when she found she was pregnant. Did she turn up her toes? Not a bit of it. Came to London and did whatever she had to in order to scrape the pennies together. It wasn't always pretty and it wasn't always decent, but it fed me and clothed me and in time she found a boatman living in Limehouse who married her and made her a respectable woman. I knew how hard she had it, and I never looked down on her. Not once. Yours won't neither. I guarantee it.”

“Ladies!” The photographer returned, grinding out his cigarette as he prepared to resume his work.

Removing my dressing gown, I lay back down on the bed amid the silken sheets and tasseled pillows, staring straight ahead as indifferent, tobacco-stained hands arranged my naked body. My nipples puckered despite the stifling heat of the studio, but I never flinched or blushed. I became the bold wanton of Simon's painting, who offered no apology and met every challenge.

I carried that confidence through the week, and thus it was that I found myself following Agnes's advice and traveling north to Lin
coln. I shared a hard wooden bench in a third-class carriage with an old woman loaded down with baskets and bags, a sleeping boy, and a young woman trying to soothe her squalling baby. Soldiers crowded the rest of the remaining dirty cramped space, sharing cigarettes and the occasional flask, their laughter harsh, bitter, and overloud. To take my mind from the coming confrontation, I spent the time sketching my traveling companions with a scrap of pencil I found at the bottom of my handbag.

When I finally emerged in Lincoln, I was tired and grubby. Porters who would have fallen over themselves to carry Lady Katherine Trenowyth's luggage ignored Miss Kitty Trenowyth with her one shabby bag, though they did—reluctantly—offer me assistance when I asked directions and pointed me toward the tram that would take me to the uphill neighborhood north of the river where the Hallidays owned a fine big house on a fine big street.

I had not long to wait. I gathered myself together and pressed into the tram along with a number of fellow travelers and soon found myself dispensed on a corner by a church. A wide, leafy avenue stretched north and the air smelled more of new-cut grass and summer gardens than it did of river mud or diesel fumes.

Set off the road and approached by a wide gravel drive flanked by a pair of brick pillars, stood a large house of golden stone. A fountain murmured, and in the shrubs by the front doors, a gardener worked on his knees, pulling weeds. He spied my approach and sat back on his haunches, a spear of grass tight between his lips.

“Servants' entrance is around back,” he said.

“Is it?” I said coolly as I climbed the steps to pull the bell.

He moved his grass from one side of his mouth to the other but didn't go back to his work. Instead he hung about, all too interested to see what happened next.

I clenched my handbag tighter in front of me and waited for someone to answer my ring.

“May I assist you, miss?” The Halliday butler was twice as toplofty as comfortable Burton, the man's livery immaculate, his manner chilling.

“I was hoping to speak with Mr. and Mrs. Halliday.”

Apparently, the oddity of my shabby appearance placed against my obvious aristocratic bearing confused him. He seemed uncertain whether to shut the door in my face or invite me inside. I used that moment to my advantage and slid past his guard into the hall.

I couldn't help staring around me at the garish opulence wrought from the cogs and wheels of farm machinery and now military hardware. Nanreath's stark dignity seemed positively shabby in comparison.

“I'm sorry, miss. The Hallidays are not at home.”

“I'm happy to wait.”

When he realized I was not going to be gotten rid of so easily, he bowed stiffly. “I shall see if they are accepting visitors.”

“Snaffle? Who was at the door?” A voice called down from the upper stairs. A head poked over the bannister, a woman perhaps a little older than myself; thin-faced with arrow-straight hair pinned up ruthlessly against her head. She wore an elaborate afternoon gown riddled with bows and beads, and diamonds sparkled in her ears. “Oh, hello. Are you here about the job? I believe Mrs. Nuttle is interviewing the girls in her office.”

“I'm here to see Mr. and Mrs. Halliday. It's about their son, Simon.”

Her wan complexion blanched to bone, though in no other way did her expression change. She hurried down the stairs, her hand tight on the baluster. “Have you heard something? We've been wor
ried sick, and my father-in-law hasn't been able to get any news out of the War Office no matter how many strings he pulls.”

“I should wait to speak to his parents.”

“You can tell me. I'm his wife.”

She continued to speak, her hand plucking at my coat like the twitting of a bird. I heard nothing beyond that one heart-stopping declaration as the truth clicked one into another like artillery shells shattering my world, one crumbling piece at a time. My stomach turned, and I thought I would be sick right on this woman's expensive pumps. I don't remember what I said to escape that house and that woman, but when I came to my senses I was back on the tram, heading to the railway station, the shredded pieces of Simon's last letter flittering the air as I released it out the window to catch the wind.