Authors: Kate Noble
She ignored that, saying, “But what they all say is that it’s getting worse, and he needs constant care.”
Jason looked thoughtful a minute. “Then we shall procure constant care.”
Jane exhaled her relief, let her body slump for a moment—unrestrained by proper posture for the first time all evening. All year, perhaps. Finally, Jason understood. He would take some of this awful weight from her shoulders.
“Send out a letter to the agencies tomorrow,” Jason was saying, “Hire whomever you need, but make certain they are discreet and can travel.”
“Travel?” Jane’s posture snapped back into attention.
“You’ll take Father back to the castle, of course,” Jason dictated blithely. “This time you’ll have sufficient help and can . . .” However, Jane did not hear the rest, simply because her mind swam colors in front of her at the staggering quantity of error her brother had managed to incorporate into his speech.
“Jason,” Jane said very clearly, holding on to composure with whatever strength she had left after the long night, “I am not going back to the castle.”
“What, you think to flit around London, dangling after a Marquis or two?” Jason answered wryly, as Jane felt her face turn hot. “Didn’t think I’d been in Town long enough to hear about that one, did you? Your little wager to win the hand of that fripperish Broughton?”
Jane had to admit the wager she made with Phillippa Benning to see who could catch the newly returned to Town Lord Broughton a month or so ago was one of her more ludicrous follies. But then, she had been newly returned to Town herself, and eager to throw herself back into the game that she had been forced to abandon the year before. But something had shifted—either the merry chase had lost its merriment, or Jane had lost a bit of hers. For some reason, running about Town, striving for the most sought-after man and the most sought-after invitation didn’t hold the interest it once did.
The engagement of such pursuits proved empty . . . and proved to Jane just how much things had changed. The thrill was gone.
“That has no bearing on why I do not wish to go back to the castle.” Jane responded to her brother’s query with a superior sniff.
“Why?” Jason asked suspiciously. “What trouble did you cause there?”
“I didn’t cause any.” She sighed but did not elaborate further. Because . . .
Because . . . It was the silliest thing. It was weakness on her part, and she would refuse to admit it to Jason, but—the castle was where their mother had been ill. It was where she was buried. And Jane had borne it—the constant edge to her thoughts, walking down a corridor and catching a glimpse of the hall where her mother had stumbled . . . the bed where her mother had perspired through the sheets . . . but now that she had been away, the idea of going back was unbearable.
But she’d be damned if she ever told her brother that. Because she knew he would laugh.
“Whatever mischief you got into at the castle—” Jason began, but Jane cut him off.
“Hear me, Jason Cummings. I am not going back to the castle.”
“And did you not hear me when I said that Father cannot be seen on the streets of London? Especially with a caretaker, being coddled as if a child. I suspect that is why you held back from hiring someone so far—fear for father’s pride.”
“The scales have tipped, Brother. I now fear far more for his health and safety.”
Jason brooded for a moment. Rubbed his hand against his chin—so much like their father, however much he did not realize it, Jane thought.
Jason’s head came up. “The Cottage is a mere three miles from Reston,” he said.
“The Cottage? Reston—Jason, you can’t mean to retire us to the Lake District!” Jane expostulated.
“Why not? Dr. Lawford is eminently respected, and his practice is very near the Cottage’s grounds. Father will have the benefit of the outdoors—”
“His constitution is not in question,” Jane retorted. Then, with more whine in her voice than she liked, “It’s . . . the Cottage, Jase. In the Lake District. You would exile us to the north?”
“Your objection to the castle has forced my hand. Reston will be nearby, the good Dr. Lawford at hand—we would be within a half a day’s ride to Manchester or York, if more drastic action is necessary.”
“There are half a dozen other estates we could go to—” she argued.
“None so plausibly. We used to go to the Cottage every summer. Well, it’s summer now. No one would blink an eye at you going,” Jason rationalized, much too neatly, damn him. “A little rustication. Besides, the rules were always more relaxed there—”
“For you, perhaps,” Jane grumbled.
“And,” Jason continued, ignoring her, “Father always loved going to the lake. It will make him happy.”
And Jane knew her brother had her. Her father did always love going to the Cottage. It had been part of her mother’s dowry and very much her mother’s house, but the Duke was never less an aristocrat and never more a man than when he was on the lake.
Yes, Jason knew he had Jane. But Jason didn’t know that Jane had him in turn.
“You’re incorrect on one major point, Jason.” Jane rose, sliding gracefully to the sideboard and replacing her long-empty glass on its polished surface. “You said no one would blink an eye at my going to the lake.”
“And so they shan’t,” Jason replied. “Half the Ton will abandon Town within the next month for the sweeter country air; you simply traveled a bit earlier.” Jason’s eyebrow shot up. “I know you, Jane—you will not get out of your obligations that way—I was not gone from the country so long that I am wrong about that.”
Jane came to lean over her brother as he leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out, all too comfortable in his superiority.
“No,” Jane smirked, “your mistake was merely singular.” At her brother’s confused look, Jane bared her teeth in a feline smile. “I’m certain you meant to say we.”
“THE Cottage? Minnie, are you sure?” Victoria Wilton paused at the bank of the Broadmill River, one hand hiking up her skirts from getting wet, the other looped around the base of a particularly stubborn sprig of mint. It grew wild on the riverbank that cut through the small park of the Wiltons’ residence, and she needed the whole thing for the mint jelly she and Mother were intent on setting up for preserves this afternoon. But suddenly all her attention was given to the Wiltons’ stout housekeeper, Minnie.
“Yes, miss,” the housekeeper replied, her hands fluttering over her thick muslin apron in excitement. “The butcher had it directly from the Cottage’s housekeeper—she said she was roused in the middle of last night by a rider with the missive. The rider told her he had been paid at double his normal rate to get here quick.” Minnie raised her eyebrows at this lavish display of coin.
But it was not the money spent that made Victoria’s heart move as a hummingbird’s wing. “Goodness, that must mean they intend to be here soon.” Victoria dropped her skirts and ran her hand over her blonde locks. She had just started to wear her hair up last year, and in the warmth of the sun found no small comfort in having it off her neck—but somehow she found herself yearning to twist her curls around her fingers like she did as a child when nervous.
Instead, she concentrated on her next inquiry, and keeping very, very still.
“Perhaps the Duke has decided to rent the Cottage out for the summer?”
But Minnie shook her head. “Nay, Miss Victoria. The housekeeper said the missive came straight from Lady Jane’s hand! It is the family that comes for the summer at last!”
Lady Jane! Oh, Victoria had not seen Lady Jane in ages—not since she was almost thirteen and Lady Jane fifteen. She had been utterly refined then, but surely Lady Jane was the most elegant creature now, what with her impeccable schooling and fine Town fashions and London soirees—goodness, Victoria herself had never even been as far away as Manchester, and . . . oh, what would she think of Victoria’s hair? Surely its simple country style was not at all the thing . . .
“The Duke and his daughter, come to rusticate at the Cottage,” Victoria breathed. Finally, something worth talking about in Reston!
“Nay, miss,” Minnie began, causing Victoria’s mouth to fall open in confusion.
“But you just said—”
“Yes, miss, but I meant to say—the family is coming. The whole family.”
But . . . but that meant . . .
Jason.
The mint was forgotten—thrown ruthlessly to the ground as Victoria picked up her now-soaking skirts—far above the ankle, terribly unladylike, Minnie thought—and began to run toward the house.
“Michael, Joshua!” Victoria cried out to her two younger brothers, playing cups and bowls beneath the large apple tree by the house, “Go and fetch Mother back from the rector’s! Now!”
The boys (used to being scolded by their elder sister but rarely with such panic) were shocked out of their game and into action. They sprinted toward the gate to the road, but Michael’s dirty hand had barely touched the latch before the gate was swung open from the outside.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Berridge,” the boys said, clambering to a halt and giving the most cursory of bows before scrambling past him and through the gate toward the village.
“What on earth . . .” Dr. Andrew Berridge said to the retreating forms of the boys and turned back to the Wiltons’ garden, only to see Miss Victoria Wilton sprinting toward him as if her skirts were on fire.
“Oh, Dr. Berridge!” Victoria came to a halt, curtsied with the same ingrained good manners that her brothers displayed, and then smiled up at him. Dr. Berridge—Andrew, as he had told her once to call him but she never had the nerve to do so—had only come to Reston within the past year to join Dr. Lawford’s practice, but in that short time he had become quite a good friend to her father. Initially, Sir Wilton had been suspicious of having two doctors in their village, thinking that this was a sign the town would grow out of proportion to its unique quaintness. But upon being assured by Dr. Lawford that he intended to retire and merely wished to introduce his replacement into Reston life as kindly as possible, Sir Wilton took to the new Dr. Berridge like a long-lost brother. The young doctor was twenty years Sir Wilton’s junior, but they had both studied at the same university, and Father enjoyed talking about his years at school so much, Dr. Berridge found himself invited to dinner almost thrice weekly. And since Victoria often found herself seated next to him, they, too, had struck up an enjoyable friendship.
“Miss Victoria, whatever is the matter?” Dr. Berridge said, concern overflowing his voice. “Is someone injured? Let me fetch my bag—”
“Oh, no, nothing like that—the boys are off to bring back Mother from the church,” she said breathlessly, her face warmly flushed with exertion. Behind her, Minnie had caught up to her young mistress, breathing even heavier.
“Minnie, you, too?” Dr. Berridge inquired, his eyebrow reaching new heights of suspicion. “What has the Wilton household running like lunatics?”
“Minnie, we need to find my pin money—I’m so sorry, Doctor, I expect you’ve come to accompany my father on his daily walk,” Victoria apologized.
“Never mind that—would someone please tell me what is wrong? Why are the boys to fetch Lady Wilton?”
Dr. Berridge—Andrew—grasped her hand with his, concern emanating from his frame. Suddenly Victoria realized that her breathless countenance had shocked the always calm and good-natured doctor into intense worry. She laughed then and squeezed his hand reassuringly.
“The most wonderful news! Jason has come back to Reston, and I desperately need a new gown!” And with that, her eyes alight with pleasure, Victoria half skipped, half ran back to the house, leaving a stunned Dr. Berridge, and a still-breathless Minnie in her wake.
Dr. Berridge looked down at the small bunch of wildflowers he carried in his hand. “Minnie,” he said, startling the poor housekeeper to attention, “would you please be so good as to tell me who this Jason is?”
JANE had always found blackmail to be remarkably useful. It allowed her to attain what she needed with very little effort on her part and generally, no harm to either party.
Oh, she wasn’t cruel about it—she had no use for other people’s money, took no joy in taking someone low. However, when the ends required it, Jane found the means justified.
Jason would likely contradict her philosophy, saying that, as Jane’s perennial blackmail victim, she most certainly did take a perverse joy in making him bend to her will.
It could be true, Jane thought smugly. But she would never admit it. Because if Jane was going to be stuck on this wretched journey all the way out to the Lake District, where not a soul worth knowing lived at the height of the Season, she would be damned if she would lack for company.
Jane leaned forward in her seat, nudging back the heavy carriage window curtains with her hand. There, trotting along in a jubilant style that belied its rider’s humor, was Jason’s great golden steed Midas. And on his back—a glum Jason.
That should teach him the dangers of leaving her alone in a place where he stored his belongings, she thought triumphantly.
Of course, three days ago he had not been nearly so compliant.
Jane had been at her escritoire at their house in London, writing her regrets to all of the hostesses she was obliged to disappoint. She felt keenly for all of them, but most especially when writing her note to Phillippa. Their friendship was of such an odd construction, it could be easily categorized into phases. Best of friends when they met at school—when Jane was still scrawny. Then the year she turned thirteen, she had come back to school fully formed and intoxicated by its power, and everything turned. Now, after years and personal tragedy on both ends, adulthood made them see each other as people again.
Funny thing, growing up.
If only Jason would join her.
“I wrote those when I was sixteen!” Jason had said, the veins in his neck sticking out like the roots of a tree as he loomed over her desk, trying his best to be threatening. Jane simply smiled and turned back to her correspondence.
It was taking much longer than Jason liked to hire a qualified nursemaid, pack up the London house, and leave for the Cottage, and so he took the opportunity to whine, once again, about the method his sister employed in forcing him to accompany them.
“Yes, I can tell,” Jane replied calmly. “Your hand and syntax drip of juvenile feeling.”
“Damn it, Jane, those are my letters; you have no right to them!” he grumbled.
Jane would have answered this argument, but she already had, repeatedly, over the past three days. Jason knew that if he hadn’t wanted the letters he wrote when he was sixteen to be discovered, he should not have left them in his quarters at the castle, stuck between the pages of a book on Tudor-era architectural jointure, which was wrapped in oilcloth and hidden beneath the floorboards . . . where anyone could find them.
Especially a restless, lonely sister with (as her mother had once lovingly described her) no talent for anything other than mischief.
“Come, come, Jason,” Jane tried for her most light and reasonable voice. “If I recall, you enjoyed your youth at the Cottage very much. Surely you would like to see it again.”
Jason grunted in reply.
“Besides,” she continued with a sly smile, “I also believe that the intended recipient of those letters is in Reston. Perhaps you’ll chance to see her again.”
Never in her life did Jane think she would see a ghost—but that is exactly the shade Jason turned.
“No,” he croaked, his voice like dry paper. “You can’t know.”
“No?” she replied, all innocence. “Are you sure? I was certain you wrote them to Penelope Wilton. I know, I know, you addressed them merely to ‘P,’ but you described her golden hair and her beauty mark rather profusely. Although I have to categorize the paragraphs about her backside as adolescent fantasy—I hope you know by now that human beings aren’t meant to bend in the ways you described.”
“AAAARRRGGHHH!” Jason let out, causing Jane’s quill to blot horribly on her missive to Phillippa. “Jane—please, I am reduced to begging. Please, please, please . . . allow me to forego this trip. If I stay, you and Father could leave immediately—there would be no need to close up the house. And I could work on my paper to present to the Historical Society. I promise, I would visit often—write more so. Can’t you see it would be for the best? You know what to do for Father—I would be useless to him.”
He was kneeling in front of her, prostrating himself before her mercy. Jane looked into her brother’s face. They shared the deep inky brown eyes and red hair of their mother, but otherwise Jason was so like their father: his jaw set, his aristocratic nose long and stubborn. His face and frame still had some of its boyish narrowness, but an extra layer of flesh had been added by his wine- and food-laden European excursion. All it did was make him seem younger than his four and twenty years. And, as he knelt before Jane, completely and wholly vulnerable, she felt her resolve crumble. Slightly.
“Oh, Jason,” she said, placing a consoling hand on his shoulder, “I did not take into account how difficult the journey would be for you. Of course you should stay in London.”
Jason’s face broke out into the most beatific grin. Goodness, the thought struck her, he could be very charming when he wished. “You are terribly understanding—absolutely cracking, Sis.” He leaped up, kissed the top of her head, and waltzed toward the door. “Charles and Nevill are waiting at the club for me—I shall tell them the news.”
“Wonderful,” Jane replied. “I’ll just send your letters off to the print shop while you’re out.”
Jason stilled by the door. Turned, ever so slowly, on his heel, coming back to face Jane.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that. Think of it this way. You’ve always wanted to be published.”
Jason froze, his once-ghostly countenance turning red.
“It’s you and me, Jase,” Jane echoed. “We’re in this together.”
Jane smiled at the memory of his murderous stare, as well as the defeated scowl he wore on his face now, riding alongside the carriage.
On their way to exile.
Letting the curtain go, she leaned back against the plush velvet seat, rocking gently with the sway of the well-sprung carriage. Her father was ensconced comfortably next to her. At least, he was as comfortable for the long journey to the Lake District as Jane and the newly hired nurses could make him—blankets in case he was cold, a flask of water in case he became hot. There was a leather medical case sitting across from the Duke, filled with sedatives and smelling salts alike.
The Duke was having a good day. His expression had lightened immediately upon being told Jason had come home—and when he learned of their intentions of traveling to the Lake District, he was positively delighted. The Cottage had always been one of his favorite places.
“I used to joke with your mother, that if she had been a mythical banshee, I would have at least considered marrying her—if only because of the Cottage,” the Duke commented as the carriage rollicked along.
Yes, the Duke was having a very good day. His mind was with him, and had been consistently for a few days now. Jane had to squash down the foolish hope that always sprang to her breast when her father seemed himself for a good stretch of time. No doctor had ever offered her any hope.
“Why would you have mistaken her for a banshee, Father?” Jane yawned, setting up the joke she had heard a hundred times before. “Her Irish complexion?”
“Nay—she could not sing a note.” Her father threw back his head in laughter, arousing the newly hired head nurse, Nancy Newton (earning her the unfortunately unforgettable alliteration of New Nurse Nancy by the London house’s staff) from her doze.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, my lady!” she said with a start, her hand pressing into the starched white nurse’s apron. Nancy was one of those people who defined roles in life by what was worn. A lady wore her gowns, a thief wore his rags, and a nurse, whether traveling or in the home, wore her starched and pinned apron.
And despite her nickname, New Nurse Nancy was not new to the profession. Of middle age, gray creeping into her neatly braided and coiled hair, Nancy had impressed Jane with nothing so much as the length of her references. It was only two names, but both patients were men of pride and gentility, both of whom were her patients for over a decade apiece.
“I worked at a foundling hospital before that, your ladyship,” Nancy had said with the forthright nature Jane had come to know since hiring her, “but I discovered I had more to give older patients than babes.”
Nancy was intelligent, practical, and kind to the Duke. She had enough experience with the peerage to not be too in awe of them to help them be human. And she led the other two nurses hired to act as assistants with the practical skills of a field commander. In short, she was perfect.
Except . . . she did snore.
Which she did, after she gave the Duke a quick once-over and settled quickly back to snoozing.
The Duke watched New Nurse Nancy carefully, and at the moment that she was well and truly asleep, he took his daughter’s hand.
“I want you to know,” he began, banked emotion in his voice, “I am very happy to be going back to the lake. I do not wish you to worry on that score.” He looked into Jane’s eyes, the steady hazel intelligence that Jane had always known from him. “I have missed it. And I am glad to get to see it . . . one last time.”
And as the Duke settled into his seat and followed Nancy’s lead and set to snoring, Jane was struck dumb by her father’s awareness of his situation. And his acceptance of it. According to some doctors, the time would come when he would not even be aware enough to know he was ill.
Jane did not know which would be worse.
As the carriage swayed back and forth, and the countryside rolled past, Jane wished she could sleep, like her carriage mates. Traveling was exhausting, but Jane had never taken to sleeping in a carriage. Reading was nearly as impossible, as it caused headaches in the enclosed space. Unfortunately, this left Jane with nothing for company but her own thoughts.
She hated leaving London. She hated leaving her friends, newfound and old; she hated leaving the parties—a wonderful distraction for her hurried and overwhelmed mind—and she hated taking her father away from the best possible medical care.
Although, she thought glumly, Jason was right on that score: Father would despise being seen by all his peers while ill. And Dr. Lawford was a respectable caretaker. How many times had he treated the Cummings family’s fevers and pains in how many summers? And they had New Nurse Nancy.
But Jane could not help but feel as if she were being taken prisoner . . . or perhaps returning to indentured servitude. It wasn’t fair, she thought, as she allowed herself a little sulk.
Or at least, she had intended to sulk. To rail against the injustice of being taken out of the cream of society at the height of her popularity, forced on her by a lost old man and a dunderheaded young one. But then, over the course of the journey, days spent rambling down familiar roads with two snoring companions, something strange occurred.
It started with the gnarled oak tree, the one that sat a few miles outside of Stafford, on the North Road. The Beast, she had called it as a child. The massive growth that rose from the ground like a boil on the earth, the moss that covered its black hide a faded green, blending the Beast into the grass it sat upon. Its leaves fell like wisps of hair on a bald man’s head, and the Beast was so tall and so thick that when Jane was little and of a frightfully macabre mind, she was certain it would eat passersby and force them to live in its knotted innards. But then, Jane’s mother, seeing that her daughter cowered whenever they passed the tree, whispered in the child’s ear that the tree wasn’t about to devour them as they trotted by in the barouche. Nay, the gnarled old tree was in fact the manor house of the Fairy Lord—and instead of holding her breath as they passed, she should wave hello, and the fairies would lift the limbs of the tree, and it would wave back.
So tentatively, Jane had waved. And then, an equally tentative breeze floated along the air, nudging the Beast’s limbs into motion. Jane shrieked with delight, waving enthusiastically now, and with the wind coming up, the tree waved just as enthusiastically back.
Every year after, even when she was long past the age of believing in Fairy Lords, she would wave to the Beast, taking a childish delight in its rumpled visage as it waved back, or didn’t, on the whims of the breeze.
And so it was only natural that now, as the carriage rolled past, Jane raised her hand and gave the smallest of waves. But the surprise was how her heart lifted to see those ancient limbs lift on the wind, cheering her on her journey.
The farther north they ventured, the colder it became, even in summer. Jane was outfitted for the journey, but New Nurse Nancy was not, and Jane found herself lending the good lady a very expensive champagne-colored wrap. Jane didn’t give the thing a second thought, until the Duke eyed it. “It’s the exact color of the sunrise on the water at Merrymere,” he said.
So it was, and Jane found herself picking the hue out of her memory.
Then there was the signpost at the village of Palfrey, which had been knocked by a passing lorry twenty years ago and never righted. It simply leaned, pleasantly defying the principles of gravity.