“You haven’t heard, my Lord?” the boy asked and Byron felt his patience beginning to run short.
“What is it?” he asked through gritted teeth, attempting to keep his composure.
“I think that perhaps you should go up to the house, my Lord,” the boy said, his cheeks flushing as though he was embarrassed that he might have said too much.
Still gritting his teeth, Byron nodded and instructed, “See that Thunder is fed and watered. I’ll be taking him out again tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, my Lord.” the boy gave a small bow before beginning to lead the great black stallion into the stables.
Byron waited until he was gone before he turned to the house and began to walk, picking up speed with every step.
Before he knew it, he was running up the back steps into the house and through to the back drawing-room.
He stopped in his tracks the moment that he found his brother sitting on the very edge of the couch. His brown hair that was usually combed back from his face had fallen down over his forehead and Byron could barely see his face but the trembling in his shoulders told him that he was crying.
“Brother? What’s wrong?” Byron asked, moving to sit down beside his little brother. In all his years he had never once seen his brother cry, at least not since he was a toddler.
Bryce jumped as though he hadn’t noticed his brother’s presence and when he looked up Byron could see that tears were streaming down his cheeks.
Bryce gave a quick sniffle and wiped the tears away with the back of his hand, a guard suddenly placed over his expression as though he hadn’t meant to show any weakness in front of anyone.
“It's mother,” he said in a voice that was still strained with tears and he seemed as though he was trying to hold in a sob.
“What do you mean?” Byron asked. “What about her?”
Byron’s heart stopped for a second as he waited for his brother’s answer.
“She’s ill.”
A wave of relief washed over Byron. The way his brother was crying, he had half expected to hear that she had passed away.
What was I thinking? Byron told himself, struggling not to laugh, People don’t just pass away like that.
He remembered breakfast that morning when his mother had been coughing. She’d passed it off as something in her throat but Byron had known from the paleness in her usually rosy cheeks that it was probably more than that.
“Is that all?” Byron struggled not to chuckle.
“No, Byron, she’s very ill.” Bryce shook his head and when he looked at Byron again there was obvious worry in his blue eyes.
“Where is she?” Byron asked. He was sure that his brother must be overreacting. He needed to see for himself.
“She’s in bed. The doctor has just arrived,” Bryce explained. “Byron, she doesn’t look well.”
Byron placed his hand on his little brother’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.
“Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine,” he promised him.
After a moment, he pushed himself back to his feet and began to make his way through the house.
Even as he drew to the top of the stairs, the smell of sickness began to clot in his nostrils. Unlike the smell of grass and wildflowers, this scent was sour and musty and it made his stomach churn.
Turning down the hallway to the east wing of the house, Byron drew closer to his mother’s bedroom, the smell growing ever stronger.
The sound of voices came from inside the bedroom as he slipped into the shadows opposite the doorway.
"Is there anything that can be done for her, doctor?" His father's voice was filled with worry. He stood just inside the door, watching as the doctor leaned over his wife, even as Byron watched them both.
He remained silent, holding his breath as he waited for the doctor to answer.
"I'm afraid that all we can do is make her comfortable. The rest she must do on her own,” the doctor explained and when he straightened up, giving a clear view of his patient, Byron realised that his brother had been right.
His mother looked worse than he had ever seen her.
With skin so pale that she looked like a ghost and thick black smudges beneath her sunken eyes, she barely looked like his mother at all. Byron might not have even recognised her if not for the silver necklace that held a single pearl that nestled against her throat. It shuddered as a gut-wrenching cough erupted from her.
"Help me to put her on her side,” the doctor instructed and a maid appeared out of nowhere as though she had been standing silently at the edge of the room.
She and the doctor tilted her onto her side as though she weighed little more than a child and her coughing began to ease.
When they finally allowed her back onto her back, the maid propped her up on several pillows.
"Good. Let's try to keep her from lying flat," the doctor suggested. "Offer soup and water throughout the night and we shall see where we stand in the morning."
"Is there nothing else you can do for her?" Byron's father's voice was almost frantic now and it clawed at Byron's gut. He had never heard that kind of tone in his father's voice before. If even he was worried, maybe Bryce was right.
The doctor never got the chance to answer because Lady Maxwell began to cough all over again. This time it wracked her entire body and she shook as though her limbs were not her own.
The scene caused Byron to gasp and even as the doctor and maid began to turn the mistress of the household back onto her side, his father's head whipped around.
For just as second their eyes met. Byron could see the defeat in his father's eyes, mixed with worry and heartache.
"He should not see this!" the doctor exclaimed.
Byron’s father hurried across the room to close the door without speaking a word.
Standing there, unable to move, Byron remembered what he had told his brother and suddenly he realised he had been wrong. All was not going to be well.
Chapter 3
That morning was to be the morning when everything changed. Harriet couldn't have known it when she got dressed that morning but at just fourteen years old, who could blame her?
She dressed as she always did, with the help of her mother's lady’s maid and she calmly walked down the hallway to the stairs even though everything in her urged her to run.
Young ladies don't run. Her mother's constant reminders of how she was supposed to act echoed in Harriet’s mind whenever she got the urge to do something that her mother would disapprove of. When she was younger she might not have cared as much, but the more the older children began to point out her downfalls, the more she began to listen.
She clasped her hands in front of her and gracefully took the stairs one at a time even though she could have leapt two at a time to get to the bottom twice as fast.
She could feel her mother's lady’s maid watching her from the top of the stairs, standing in the shadows as though she was spying, just waiting to be able to tell her mistress of her daughter's latest antics. Harriet would not give her the satisfaction.
Instead, she reached the bottom of the stairs and turned a sweet smile upwards in the maid's direction before continuing on to the dining hall where she knew she would find her parents at breakfast.
As soon as she entered the room she recognised that the tension in the room was far greater than usual.
Her parents were always known for doing things the proper way but their silence was eerily extreme.
Usually, she found her father reading the morning paper at the head of the table with her mother sitting silently beside him. The only thing to break the silence would be the sound of her mother's cutlery as she began her breakfast or the sound of her father flicking to the next page.
Today the room seemed utterly silent as though everything had stopped. Harriet had to glance out of the window and see the birds fluttering about the rose bushes to be sure that time had not stopped entirely.
"Good morning Father, Mother," H
arriet said politely as she entered the room, standing in the doorway to wait for her father to gesture for her to join them.
"Good morning, Harriet," her mother responded in her usual polite yet guarded tone. Harriet's hearing was keen and she sensed something else in her mother's voice that morning. Something that reminded her of concern. Although it usually accompanied her mother's tone when she was about to scold her for something unladylike, Harriet couldn't help but feel that this morning was different. She had barely been out of bed for half an hour. How could she possibly have done something coarse in such a short time?
"Harriet, please come and sit down. There is something we need to tell you." Her father gestured to her seat opposite her mother and fear crept into her stomach as she realised her father was folding up his paper. He never did that until he was finished reading through every page. Something serious must have happened for him to break a routine he had been practising for as long as she could remember.
"Please Graham, she doesn't need to know. She is much too young for such things," her mother insisted even as Harriet came to sit.
She placed her hands in her lap and tried to ignore the way that they trembled as her father ignored his wife and turned his full attention on her.
"Harriet, I received a letter from Lord Maxwell this morning with grave news," he said with a sigh.
"What? What is it? Is everything alright? Has something happened to Bryce?" Harriet blurted out. Sudden concern for her friend made her loose-lipped and her mother scowled at her as though it was yet another thing to add to her list of unladylike qualities.
"I told you, she is much too young to handle these kinds of things," her mother insisted but her father shook his head.
"She will hear of it soon anyway and it is best that she is prepared," her father's words left her feeling less prepared than she ever had been.
She braced herself, scrunching her fingers up into the fabric of her dress, as she waited for the awful news about her dearest friend.
Has he had an accident? Is he gravely injured? Am I going to lose my only friend? Have I lost him already?
The questions whizzed like fireflies in her mind even as she breathed deeply to try and control herself.
"What is it, Father?" she asked, attempting to sound mature even though she could already feel the tears pricking the corners of her eyes.
"Yes though I fear he and his family are in for a rough time of it over the next few months," her father said and his eyes became affectionate and filled with concern. "We received word this morning that his mother, Lady Maxwell, is gravely ill."
Harriet felt her heart lift in a moment of relief to know that her best friend was well. Then guilt clawed at her gut as she remembered how close he and his brother had always been to their mother. She had always envied their relationship, wishing that her own mother could be more accepting of her.
Perhaps if I had been a boy. She thought even as she pushed herself to her feet.
"I must go to Bryce," she insisted but her mother was the first to shake her head.
"Absolutely not!" she said in such a harsh, loud manner that it took Harriet by surprise. Her mother was usually calm, collected, and quiet, all the things that Harriet was not.
"I forbid you to go anywhere near that house until we know that it is safe," her mother added.
Harriet turned to her father, begging him with her green eyes to listen to reason. "Please father, let me go to them. Bryce will be in need of a friend right now."
"Bryce has his father and brother to care for him and they do not need a silly little girl getting under their feet at a time like this," her mother practically snarled. She picked up the napkin from her lap and folded it before placing it on the table. "Now, eat your breakfast and join me in the drawing-room for morning reading."
With that, her mother pushed herself to her feet and gave her husband a much friendlier farewell before she swept from the room.
"Father, please," Harriet practically begged as soon as her mother was gone. She knew her father was much more willing to listen whenever her mother wasn't around. "Let me go to him."
She held her breath as her father seemed to think for a moment.
Then he sighed and nodded. "I will have one of the servants take you once you have finished your breakfast, but you must promise me that you will go along with whatever else your mother has planned for you today."
"I will, father, I promise," Harriet gushed.
***
The Maxwell house was not at all how Harriet usually found it. There was no sign of servants in the yard keeping the place spotless. She listened and couldn't even hear the usual sounds of horses coming from the stables that were set just a little way back from the main house.
The only sound was that of the wheels of her carriage turning and when it stopped at the steps that led up to the main building, the place seemed unnaturally silent.
Taking in a deep breath, she could at least recognise the familiar scent of the flowers that grew beneath the manor windows, mixed with the musky scent of horses coming from the stables.
"Allow me, Miss Harriet," her father's driver said as he opened the carriage door and offered her his hand to help her down.
"Thank you," she responded politely as she allowed him to help her.
"Your father has given me instructions to wait until you are ready to return home," the driver explained and she gave him a nod and a grateful smile.
"I am not sure how long I will be," she admitted.
"An order is an order, Miss. I shall wait for as long as you need," he said, giving her a small bow.
Harriet smiled at him again before she began to ascend the steps of the house.
Even as she came to the top, the door was pulled open as if the butler had been made aware of her arrival.
"May I take your cloak, Miss Harriet?" Ivan, the butler asked, as soon as she entered.
She shrugged off her cloak and handed it to him with a smile, noticing the passive expression on his face where usually there was a warm smile waiting.
The air in the house was heavy with grief and as she turned she found out why.
Bryce was perched on the bottom step of the staircase with his head in his hands. His hair that was usually combed perfectly into place, was mussed up in a way that told her he had quite forgotten to brush it.
He looked as though he had dressed in a hurry if he had even dressed at all. Looking closer Harriet realised that he was still wearing the same clothes he had been wearing the morning before when they had taken a stroll over the fields in the sunshine.
There was definitely no sunshine in him now. In fact, Harriet could almost believe that she could see a heavy cloud hanging above his head.
"Bryce?" she said softly in an attempt not to startle him.
His head whipped up at the sound of her voice and her breath caught in her throat when she saw the red rims that encircled his blue eyes.
"Bryce, what is the matter?" she asked as she drew closer, dropping down into a crouch to take hold of her friend's hand.
"She's dead, Harri. My mother is dead."
The words washed over Harriet like a freezing cold torrent and she shivered as the weight of it landed upon her shoulders.
Once Upon a Dreamy Match: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 23