Summerset Abbey: Spring Awakening (Summerset Abbey Trilogy) (6 page)

They walked for a moment across the wide expanse of Summerset’s manicured lawn toward the conservatory door. “Oh, I think they are going to make sure I am home for the wedding. Both mine and yours.”

Elaine stopped short and hit her brother in the arm. “You wicked! Who?”

Colin pulled away and laughed. “Haven’t you guessed? Annalisa, of course!”

Rowena’s eyes widened. “How did that come about? What a sly boot she’s been! She hasn’t said a word.”

Elaine squealed. “I adore Annalisa. At least it’s not Daphne,” she said referencing another member of the Clever Coterie.

Colin snorted. “Daphne? Hardly. One doesn’t marry girls like Daphne. Besides, Mother would make mincemeat of her.”

“When are you planning on telling Mother and Father?” Elaine asked.

“I already told Father. That’s one of the reasons I’m back here. He thinks my upcoming nuptials will appease Mother.”

“I don’t think anything will appease Mother.”

Elaine’s voice was dry, but Rowena could detect the hurt underneath. She wondered briefly what her relationship with her own mother would have been like. Her memories of her mother were hazy at best, as she had died shortly after Victoria was born, but she did know her father, and any woman he chose would have to be loving and special indeed. Her heart ached for her cousin and rather dimmed the happiness she felt for Colin. “When are you getting married?” she asked.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Annalisa and I don’t care to have a big wedding, but you know Mother, she is going to insist—but we don’t want to wait. After some preliminary training here, I’ll be sent off to India, and we would like to be married before then so she can follow me as soon as our affairs are in order.” He stopped walking and looked at Rowena, his blue eyes pleading. “We were wondering if we could combine our nuptials with yours and Sebastian’s?”

Elaine clasped her hand over her mouth in excitement, and Rowena laughed at the expression on her face.

“That would be brilliant!” Rowena told him. “It would be such fun to be standing up there with you and Annalisa. I must speak with Sebastian, of course, but I can’t see that he would have a problem with it.”

Colin reached out and squeezed her hand. “Thank you, Rowena! Timing-wise, it works out perfectly. And best of all, the wedding will be grand enough that Mother won’t feel cheated.”

Elaine did a little jig between them. “No, best of all, it takes the pressure off of me for a bit. Ha!”

She linked arms with Rowena on one side and her brother on the other. “Come, let’s telephone Annalisa and give her the good news so she can make the trip out and we can start planning.”

They were nearing the conservatory when they heard a cry and the crash of china against its brick floor where afternoon tea was being set.

“There goes another maid,” Elaine murmured. “Mother hates it when they break her china.”

But then a keening noise filled the air, and Rowena’s stomach knotted. The three picked up their pace and hurried through the wide-open doors of the conservatory, then, as if in accord, they all stopped in shock, staring at the tableau before them.

Rowena could hardly reconcile what she was seeing. Her cold, manipulative, austere aunt Charlotte was doubled over in her husband’s arms while an unearthly moaning came from her open mouth.

Charlotte spotted them in the doorway and put up one hand in a claw. “You stupid boy!” she screamed at her son. “You stupid, stupid boy!”

Hortense, Aunt Charlotte’s lady’s maid, rushed into the room and put her arms about her mistress.

“Take her upstairs,” Uncle Conrad ordered. “I will be up shortly to check on her. Give her some laudanum, if necessary.”

“It won’t help, it won’t help,” Lady Summerset sobbed as she was led out of the conservatory.

A wide-eyed maid appeared out of nowhere to clean up the mess covering the red tiles.

Rowena could feel Elaine trembling next to her, and Colin was as white as a sheet. Lady Summerset was never out of control. Never.

“Was that about my wedding?” Colin asked, his voice tight.

Uncle Conrad shook his head, and Rowena noticed that sweat had beaded on his forehead. “No. I had just delivered some news. I didn’t know how hard she would take it. I had no way of knowing.”

His voice broke and Elaine rushed to his side. “What is it, Father?” she cried.

For the first time Rowena spotted the crumpled paper in his hand. She stared at it, knowing that whatever it contained had caused her aunt’s undoing and her uncle’s grim countenance.

Her uncle held his fist up and stared at the paper. “Britain just declared war on Germany.”

Rowena froze and Elaine gasped. Colin remained motionless.

Even the maid, on her knees before them, stopped cleaning the broken bits of china.

Elaine finally found her voice. “Why on earth would we do that?”

“Haven’t you seen the newspapers, Lainey? Austria declared war on Serbia. Germany invaded Belgium. It’s a tangled knot of alliances.” Colin turned to his father. “I didn’t think Germany would invade Belgium.”

Rowena looked from her cousin to her uncle, horror rising in the pit of her stomach. “I thought Belgium was neutral.”

Her uncle nodded, his eyes bleak. “And like a house built of cards, all the countries fall.”

Elaine turned to her brother, shock and confusion marking her pretty face. “What does this mean for you? Will you not be going to India now? I don’t understand . . .”

Colin turned to his father. “I should get back to London. I don’t know what exactly the army is going to do with me now.
They will be mobilizing and may not want me to ship out to India if they are bringing the 1st King’s Dragoon home.”

Elaine whimpered and Rowena took her hand.

Uncle Conrad nodded, though his mind seemed far away. “Don’t forget to say good-bye to your mother. She’s quite upset, you know,” he added accusingly, as if they hadn’t just witnessed his wife’s breakdown. “But it’s because she loves you, and she’s worried for your safety. War isn’t child’s play, my boy.”

Colin nodded and, after a squeeze to his sister’s shoulder, left the room. With a nod to Elaine and Rowena, his father followed him.

Rowena and Elaine stood frozen, still holding hands.

*  *  *

The world had gone mad, Prudence was sure of it. Overnight, it seemed, London had given birth to thousands of soldiers. Prudence tried to shut the sounds and sights of war out of her head, but newspaper boys, screaming headlines in their high-pitched voices, trumpeted the latest combat news on every corner.

Apparently war sold newspapers.

She picked up a pound of tea, wincing at the price. During the first couple of weeks following Britain’s declaration of war, people had panicked and bought everything they could get their hands on, causing shortages and skyrocketing prices. Even though things had settled down a bit, prices remained inflated, and Prudence worried that they would have to dip too heavily into her savings just to survive. That money was needed to pay Andrew’s tuition to veterinary school, but even that wasn’t her biggest concern. Her worry was that Andrew would enlist.

The news from the Battle of Mons was heartbreaking, and she knew the thought of the Royal Army’s retreating before German
aggression did not sit well with her husband. Every night she feared he would come home and tell her he had volunteered. He wasn’t the type of man who would sit idly by while his countrymen sacrificed themselves for their King.

What would happen to their dreams then?

Her last stop was the greengrocer under their flat. She picked up an onion, several pounds of potatoes, a firm head of cabbage, and a bunch of carrots and added them to her basket, along with the tea and the small slab of brisket she had splurged on. Her cooking was still hit-or-miss, but her friend Muriel had taught her to make boiled dinner, and even Prudence was hard-pressed to spoil that.

She paused at the bottom of her stairs, feeling strangely dizzy. Why did the heat of Camden Town seem so much hotter than the heat in Mayfair? It hadn’t settled well on her and she was frequently out of sorts, experiencing headaches and dizzy spells more and more frequently. Andrew had told her to rest today, but who would do the shopping and cooking if she didn’t? She refrained from mentioning that to him, of course, because it only emphasized his failure to provide her with a maid to help.

Carefully, she hefted her marketing basket on one hip and made her way up the stairs. When she opened the door, she stopped short upon finding Andrew sitting at their makeshift kitchen table. Her stomach plummeted when she saw the firm-jawed resolve of his face coupled with the pleading in his eyes.

The loopy, dizzy feeling returned, but she fought against it. Leaning against the door, she shut her eyes for a brief moment before bracing herself for his news. “You’re home early.”

“Yes.” He got up from the chair and relieved her of her basket.
He set it on the table and began putting things away, methodically, the way he did everything. She remained where she was by the door.

The sounds of traffic outside and the low hum of the fan motor buzzed about her ears, but she focused on Andrew. She knew what he was going to say, and suddenly she wanted more than anything to put it off for as long as possible.

Once the dizziness passed, she moved slowly into the room, shutting the door behind her. She helped him put the rest of the groceries away. “I thought we would have boiled dinner tonight. You like boiled dinner.”

“Yes, I do. Prudence . . .” His voice was low and entreating.

“Could you fill the pot full of water and set it on the cooker?” she asked, turning away.

Without waiting for an answer, she slipped into the water closet and ran some water into the tiny basin. She was going to cry and didn’t want him to know, because he was going to leave her and go off to war and she couldn’t do anything about it. He was set to enter the Royal Veterinary College in two weeks, but that didn’t matter. Everything they had worked so hard for since their impromptu wedding last winter didn’t matter.

Tears ran down her face. She loved him and he was leaving her. Her mother had left her, Sir Philip had left her, Rowena had left her, and Victoria was embarking on an exciting new life that had nothing to do with her. One reason she had married Andrew was because she had known he would never leave her. Never.

And now he was leaving.

She splashed cool water on her face and dried her eyes. Taking down her hair, she brushed it out, before coiling it back up
into a simple chignon. After a deep breath, she walked out of the bathroom to face the inevitable.

He stood in the center of the room, his arms hanging loosely by his sides. He looked more unsure than she had ever seen him, and even though her heart throbbed, she knew she couldn’t let him see her pain. She couldn’t let him know. All over Britain, women were saying good-bye to their men. She didn’t want him worrying about her as he marched off to war.

“Prudence . . .”

She went to him then and took his hands in hers. They were rough, his hands, but so strong and so gentle when he touched her. Bending her head, she kissed the calluses on his palms.

He slipped his arms around her and she took a deep, shuddering breath. “I know, my darling, I know,” she said.

“It’s the right thing to do, Pru.”

A slow burning ignited in her chest.
The right thing for whom?
Not for her and not for him, surely. For the Crown? For the realm? She tamped the anger down. Arguing wouldn’t stop him from going any more than tears would. She knew with knowledge as old as time that nothing would sway him from his purpose.

“When?” she asked, her voice muffled against his chest.

“I’m not sure. I just signed up today. There’s a bit of confusion right now because of all the volunteers, but I should be sent to Salisbury for training.”

Prudence nodded, unable to articulate anything around the lump growing in her throat. Andrew tilted her chin up until she was looking into his eyes. In her flight from Summerset and the truth she’d discovered about her heritage, Andrew had been the rock that she’d clung to. She clung to him now, wishing she didn’t ever have to let him go.

“Thank you,” he said.

“For what?”

He didn’t answer. He bent his head to put his lips to hers, and with a grief-stricken desperation she kissed him back, soaking in every bit of her husband her heart could hold.

V
ictoria flung her bag on the small table just inside the door the moment she walked into her flat. Not even after dancing until dawn at some society function had her feet hurt so brutally. “Susie! Please, if you have a heart, bring me a cup of tea and a tub of water for my feet.”

Susie, who had been a scullery maid before filling in as an emergency lady’s maid, had been only too happy to leave Summerset and Lady Charlotte behind to become Victoria and Eleanor’s housekeeper, where she dined alongside the girls, slept in a warm, clean bed, and enjoyed an entire day off once a week. Even though London still frightened her, her daily life had improved and she considered Victoria a saint.