One expected winter to be a time of quiet waiting, especially here in the rugged north. But as dull and bleak as
Trees lining the road—coppices of pollard oak, ash, and elm—were bent in weariness under their burdens of snow. No few looked wasted and dead, as if struck by lightning or eaten from within by disease. And though the fields and pastures were no more than stubbled quilts of brown and white, even they seemed shadowed by death. Like Eden herself, the whole countryside wore mourning clothes.
The stone cottages and farmhouses on the fellsides seemed to cling there stubbornly like the remnants of a vanished race. Huddled sheep shifted like dirty wads of wool on the inbye pastures near the farmhouses.
"I do not remember feeling quite so cold in the north," Aunt Claudia remarked, pulling her fur-lined cloak more tightly about her. She had endured the long journey from
During the five-day journey,
Now
"Do you remember,"
The fearsome night of which they had never spoken.
"I made no secret of my dislike," Claudia admitted.
forgot her own fears and covered her aunt's hand. "I know that your memories of Hartsmere are not happy ones. The viscount—"
"Raines's accident was before your birth, and long ago. It is not for myself I fear."
No. You have always looked out for me, dear Aunt. But the one you warned me against is gone. Surely he is gone forever.
"You do not look happy, my dear. Have you second thoughts after all?"
"No second thoughts, Aunt." She spoke the lie with perfect aplomb. She would not increase her aunt's anxiety, or her own, with exaggerated fancies or sorrowful memories. She would not spend her time at Hartsmere looking over her shoulder.
The past was as dead as Spencer. She had come in search of her living son.
She tried to imagine what it would be like to be a mother. Her coterie of fashionable, fast-living matrons spent little time with their offspring, and she had avoided thinking about children. To do so brought forth too many painful emotions.
She could not remember grieving for her lost child; the days just before and after his birth had vanished from her memory. But even the possibility of getting him back dissolved the years, and the loss felt as fresh as yesterday.
How could I ever have believed you were dead?
She gazed out the window, seeking distraction in the landscape. Hartsmere itself had come into view, still half a mile distant. It lay nestled at the foot of a fell, almost at the end of the valley where the beck came tumbling over the rocks and made its way to the tiny lake—the mere of Hartsmere's name.
Behind the house, halfway up the fell, rose the thick patch of wood that spread like a menacing cloud over the land.
She wrenched her thoughts from the past and turned her attention to the house itself. Well she remembered its cold stone halls hung with threadbare tapestries, fires constantly burning to take off the damp chill at all times of the year except high summer.
As if infected by the same pall that had settled over the dale, Hartsmere's gray stones and chimneys leaned upon one another like ancient ruins near crumbling.
And did you expect a welcome
?
she
asked herself and laughed under her breath.
You, who cursed this place and vowed never to
return
?
"You find something amusing?" Claudia asked. "Pray, share it with me. I would be most grateful."
"I was only thinking that the house is in perfect keeping with our carriage and what little we have left to us. You know that I am a terrible housekeeper, dreadful with servants, and if you do not keep the household accounts, I do not know where we shall be by summer."
Claudia shook her head with a faint smile. "You do yourself an injustice, Niece. But of course I will help you—however long we remain."
Her aunt had not given up on the idea of leaving Hartsmere as soon as the mourning period was over and
She had not forgotten.
The berline made its creaking way down the winding road and into the dale. The beck was a mere trickle, and ice covered the lake. The frozen reeds, usually a haven for water birds, looked as sharp and uninviting as lances.
Now the
prepared to signal the coachman, thinking to stop and speak to the child. No sooner had she made the decision than the boy—or was it a girl?—vanished, she could not tell where. No curious faces poked out of the cottage doorways.
Troubled,
With a sinking feeling, she realized that the solicitor had not exaggerated. The dale
had
prospered… until everything had passed into Spencer's keeping as part of her marriage settlement.
She closed her eyes, trying to remember how it had been at the beginning of the events that had changed her life. Pictures rose in her mind: of days that seemed sunnier than anywhere else in the country, of endless flocks of handsome Herdwicks, of boisterous shepherds and farmers enjoying a hearty feast after days of hard autumn labor.
None of which she had appreciated during her time spent at Hartsmere.
"I do not believe that managing the household will be my only concern here, Aunt,"
Duties that had been sorely neglected—by Spencer and her—for half a decade.
"If you refer to the poor state of the cottages," Claudia said, "we know that your father's steward failed in his charge. Spencer should have replaced him. You cannot expect to undo five years of inadequate management in a few months."
But Papa gave this estate to me and I should have known. I should have made it my business to know.
Just as I should have realized the truth about my son.
The carriage passed through the gate and over the graveled drive that crossed the park. In
Hartsmere loomed above them as the berline drew around the sweep in front of the porch. The house was deceptively plain, for a former Fleming had attempted to modernize the Elizabethan hulk with an eighteenth-century facade. But that effort could not conceal what waited inside: the vast, cold hall, dark paneled wood, narrow passages, a confusion of chambers in the two wings, and a complete lack of modern conveniences.
A handful of servants waited before the porch, barely suppressing their shivers. They wore dusty, ill-fitting livery and well-worn dresses. Could this be the entire remaining staff?
"Only a pair of maids," Claudia remarked. "I suppose that gray-haired woman is your housekeeper. As for the men, none has sufficient presence for a butler, though the one in livery must be a footman. And that pair of ruffians must be gardeners or stablemen." She shook her head. "This is much worse than the solicitor led us to expect."
"Surely some of the servants must be inside,"
Claudia arched her brow but made no further comment.
When the berline came to a stop, the lanky
footman loped up to open the door and offer
his hand to Claudia. She took it and stepped down, surreptitiously brushing off her skirts.
The two maids curtsied, and the housekeeper came forward, her hands folded over her waist.
"Lady Eden," she said. "Praise
be
that you've come safely to Hartsmere." She bowed her head, but her gray eyes were shrewd and sharp in the mild, wrinkled face. Her words held more than the trace of an accent.
Irish
, Eden thought.
I do not remember her
.
"My name is Byrne, my lady. Mrs. Nuala Byrne. I'm sorry for this poor greeting, but there are few of us here now. The cook, Mrs. Beaton, is inside making up something for your dinner, and a pot of tea to take the chill off."
Claudia regarded Mrs. Byrne with a calculated stare that always put upstarts and mushrooms in their places. "I trust that you have rooms made up for us, Mrs. Byrne?"
"Aye, indeed, my lady.
I hope they'll be to your satisfaction." Her gaze shifted to
felt as if she were being examined from head to toe. If Claudia had hoped to cow this woman's boldness, she hadn't succeeded. But Papa had always said that the folk of the dales—like the Irish—were too independent and proud to bow and scrape to any "outcomer" lady or lord. They waited to be impressed.
"I am pleased to meet you, Mrs. Byrne,"
Mrs. Byrne hesitated, and then a cautious smile touched her lips.
"Aye, my lady.
Armstrong will carry up your luggage, and
recognized none of these people and was greatly relieved. No reason to fear that they remembered her elopement with her mysterious cousin. Papa had tried to confine the gossip; any vague tattle that might have followed her to
She glanced doubtfully at
"Pray go upstairs, Aunt,"
Claudia hesitated and followed Hester up the stairs.