by Emily Bow
Thorn looked around the room at the tons of boxes. “Maybe you’ll get more done now that you have a system sorted? And without us around.”
Maybe. There’d be less distraction for sure. I wouldn’t let him push me. “Nope. We can’t go faster. Details matter.”
Thorn picked up a blue teacup sitting among the pile of teacups. “What detail matters? That this one is gold trimmed instead of silver trimmed? That there’s a pink rose on it instead of a blue rose?”
Put that down. I winced. He was holding a cup worth 10,000 dollars if I’d researched correctly. But I couldn’t say that. What if an official appraiser gave it a value of a dollar? “It’s expensive.” That covered a wide spectrum of sums.
He frowned. “Americans and money. Cups are to drink out of.”
Screw it. “It’s worth ten thousand pounds.”
He pressed his lips together and put the cup back. “How close will you be to being done when I return in September?”
The thing about history was, there was no need to rush. It wasn’t brain surgery or docking a space shuttle. And there were only three of us. “Not remotely close to being done. This is a massive project.” Why was he going to be gone until September? Why did I hate that so much? I didn’t. He was simply an interesting guy.
“October?”
I didn’t get the hurry, and he wasn’t explaining why he was asking. Did he simply want me gone? An ick feeling tightened my skin. “I’ll personally be done in December when I go home. This project won’t be done for years.”
His lips tightened, and he tilted his head. “Hmm. We’ll see. I’ll expect that listing of letters before you show them to anyone else.”
He had voiced no response to my departure date. Not that I cared.
He shoved the box with the teacup in it aside to tip open the lid on another.
I crossed the room and retrieved the precious porcelain, moving it to the table and out of his reach. Not that I thought he’d break his own dish. It was more a power move. I was controlling my workspace, and I took the item from him because I could. “The professor may want a look through the database while you’re gone.” Why was I challenging him? Did I prefer bickering with him to being ignored by him? No. Both of those rattled me. I preferred the guy I’d met at the pub, and the guy he’d been at the folly when he’d relaxed enough to be himself.
“I am the owner. I’ll see them before anyone else.”
Now that the teacup was safe, I moved the silver tray under the light to get a look at the stamp. “Your mother may want a look.”
“I am the owner.”
“Got it.”
Thorn went to the window, the best spot in the room.
I had work to do, but I joined him and peered out, because he was leaving and these were our last moments together. Lush green grounds. A view of the English garden leading up to the stables. Billy and Regina speaking under one of the rose trellises. “Does that bother you?” I wanted to know and I didn’t want to know.
He shrugged.
I refused to let myself smile. “How deep is your love?”
He smiled. “What has love got to do with marriage?”
Marriage? His word choice made my breath catch. Was he truly considering marrying Regina? She was pretty, but unpleasant. Wealthy, but snotty. I didn’t know anyone back home our age who was already married. My stomach knotted. “I foresee a long and unhappy married life with that attitude.”
He walked toward the door and looked at me over his shoulder. “American.” He left the room.
It was an hour before Lily came back in, flushed, and leaned against the wall. “Sebastian’s a flirt.”
“Not with me.”
Lily blushed brighter. “I get the impression the duke won’t be keeping this house. Or locking it up or something. That puts us out of a project. Mom won’t like that at all.”
Thorn had been antsy and nosy. I half thought he’d been up here to see me. Was he snooping to end our project? “All I know for now is there’s a hallmark on a silver tray for me to learn about.” I held the heavy tray to the light but her words niggled at me. “Do you really think he’ll shut us down?”
Lily wound her chestnut ponytail over and over her elastic hairband so she could tuck the end underneath. “I don’t know. I didn’t think we’d even meet him.”
“Me either.”
***
We talked about the possibility of Thorn closing the project a lot over the weeks while he was gone. How could we not? The project directly impacted our year. I’d put off graduate school for this opportunity.
And the job might end early? Ugh. I could imagine the look on my parents’ faces. They thought my being here was flighty enough. My sister Chelsea had called my volunteer job “cleaning out grandma’s attic.” If they knew how precarious my position was, it would justify all their hesitancies. The threat added stressor to my stay, but when I thought it through, I calmed down. I had this opportunity for now. I’d relish all the finds and the experience of living in a castle while I them.
Professor McCrary came into the cataloguing room and went over to Lily, who was sorting old perfume bottles. From where they stood, with the light from the window shining on the professor’s hair, giving it an illusion of lightness, I could see their resemblance. Some mothers and daughters were unmistakable like that. The professor held out her palms. “We’re in
luck. I received notice that Sebastian is back at Hopewell Manor. The duke’s there, too. And the duke has requested the castle deliver his dinner. To Hopewell Manor. This evening.”
My heart stupidly jolted over the mention of Thorn being back. No reason for it to flutter. Thorn was simply close by. He was an interesting guy. A guy who didn’t think like I did. That was all.
Professor McCrary took her glasses off her head. “Carrying food over is really not a lot to ask. The duke simply wants someone over here to deliver dinner to him over there. It’s not that big a request when you think about the estates proximities to each other. Lily, you can go. Imogen can go with you.”
Chapter 10
I gave Professor McCrary a look. Hard pass. Thorn’s command implied servitude and sexism. I didn’t work for him. He wasn’t family. He wasn’t a friend. Those were pretty much the spectrum of people who I might run food over to. What game was he playing? “Too bad we’re busy. One of the staff can do the food over for him though. His staff that he pays.”
“Staff’s gone,” the professor said.
When the family was in residence, staff were here twenty-four hours. When they weren’t, staff left by 6 p.m. The time was 6:05 p.m.
Professor McCrary polished her reading glasses on the hem of her blouse, her gaze on the lenses. “You’ll be doing the duke a favor. You wouldn’t be paid for the delivery, of course. That’s not our arrangement here. We’re here for academic scholarly purposes only, but they might tip you, like they’d tip a delivery driver.” The professor nodded and said the words as though the thought of a tip would be enticing.
Lily cringed and slowly shook her head as if rejecting the image of Regina tossing her a pound coin. “I’m not sure the English tip for stuff like that.”
“Lily dear, the request no big deal. Put something together. Run a tray over. See what the manor house is like.”
How did moms achieve that manipulative tone?
“I don’t cook.” Lily rubbed her temple. “Why, Mom? Why would you volunteer me? Why don’t you do it?”
“It would be too obvious I was checking out their house. You can examine the manor covertly.” The professor wiggled her eyebrows. “Hopewell Manor is a named historic house. Maybe there’s work there if our castle project folds.” She pointed to me. “Always have a plan B like Imogen says. It’s no castle, but a manor house is something. We could examine the interior for the Hopewell family.”
Ew. Now this was my fault somehow.
“Mom. No.” Lily sounded like a squeamish teen. “Let them make their own dinner arrangem
ents.”
Professor McCrary shrugged and smiled. “We are their arrangements.”
I understood Lily’s reluctance. This was no simple food delivery. The professor wanted us to go over hat in hand looking for her next job. Lily’s choices were to ask Sebastian, who might be interested in her, to have a look around his house. Or worse, ask his sister Regina, who persistently showed us her unpleasant side. That would be so much worse.
“You’ll be like Uber Eats. Or Pizza Hut Delivery. Just not paid. I know, call yourself, ‘Lily’s Libations and More.’” I teased her because I have two siblings; I couldn’t not tease her.
“There you go.” The professor said the words like I wasn’t kidding. “Come now. Go and see if there’s work at Hopewell Manor for after this is done. Hopewell Manor is Edwardian. Dated 1906. It should have large rooms. Solid brick construction. Steeped gables. The country home to the Hopewell family. The current marquess, his younger brother Sebastian, and Sebastian’s twin Regina.” The professor relished every word. “It’s too late a century for features like priest holes, but they all had hidden nooks of some sort. All these great families had their enemies.”
I bet they did.
Rain pinged against the window, and Lily pointed at the misty sprinkling left behind. “It’s pouring out.”
Professor McCrary grinned and then stifled it. She knew she was close to victory. “If we let rain stop us, we wouldn’t do much in this country.”
The rain came two days ago and hadn’t left. At first, the mild storm had only been damp enough to frizz my hair, but since yesterday, there had been intermittent downpours. Not with the flashes of lightning and thunder like we got in Houston but with plenty of rainfall.
“Fine. But I am bringing Imogen.” Lily opened her eyes wide and mouthed, “please” to me.
“No thanks. It’s raining.”
Lily didn’t smile. “Please, Imogen.”
“It’s Imogen’s evening. She may do as she likes.” Professor McCrary sighed. “I’m sure Lily can carry all the bags over herself. In this rain. On these foreign roads. Alone. And remember every detail of the manor house.”
Erg.
Lily made puppy eyes. “Please, Imogen.”
“Fine.”
The professor grinned as if she knew we’d do it all along. “Now you two go see what you can put together in the kitchen.” She looked at her watch. “And get on over there.”
I shut down the laptop and followed Lily downstairs. My insides were a mix of confusion. Despite all my jumbled emotions, I couldn’t escape the fact that I wanted to see Thorn again. “What do you think we should take for them?”
Lily shrugged. “I don’t know. Caviar? Paté? What does a duke eat?”
“Peasants and equality?”
Lily snickered and riffled through the veg drawer.
I never thought of vegetables as ‘veg’ before. Living here was making some of their lingo stick. It made sense. Veg was shorter than veggies and vegetables was a ridiculously long word. I went over to help her. “That French chef will be PO’d if you mix up his parsley and his parsnips. Tread lightly.”
Lily made a face. “He terrifies me. The way he throws his knives into the butcher block like they were darts. I hate coming in here.”
“I haven’t seen him do that.”
“Yeah, well, lucky you.” Lily dropped a handful of bright green watercress and stared into the fridge. “Even if they’d labeled the food it wouldn’t help me. They call rutabagas Swedish turnips. And I don’t even know what a parsnip is.”
“A parsnip’s like a white carrot. Sort of.” I came from a takeout family, so I couldn’t plan a meal without the Internet or a takeout menu myself. I stared blankly into the fully stocked fridge for a minute before moving to the massive pantry. It was like at home, when I was hungry and the pantry was full, but I had no clue what to eat.
Several picnic-style hampers were on the back shelf. I’d start there. I got a footstool and snagged two. “Let’s just throw in some ingredients. Their cook can figure it out.” I put hampers on the table and opened them. They were padded in pale blue silk with embroidered fleur-de-lis along the edges. The French symbol was almost enough to make me hesitate. Almost.
“Here you are. One batch of freaky white carrots to go.” Lily tossed the handful of parsnips into the hamper and topped them with spinach and watercress. She went into the pantry and emerged with two cans of soup. “Split pea and split pea.” She put those in the second hamper. “We should toss in all the stuff we don’t want to be stuck eating. I hate mushrooms. If you find any, throw those in.”
I held up a portobello.
She nodded.
I tossed the fungus to her like a frisbee. She held the wobbly mushroom over the hamper and hesitated before dropping it in. “Should we leave a list of what we took so the kitchen staff will know?”
“I don’t want to.” I grabbed a can of caviar and put it in, and a can of tuna for good measure. Then I went to the breadbox to pull out a fresh loaf. Since the chef had arrived, the fresh bread had been incredible. “The duke owns all the food anyway.”
“I don’t want to either.” Lily looked around the pantry like there was too much choice and left the veg to go back and look into the industrial fridge.
“We’re overthinking it. Thorn’s a guy. Grab some steak.”
Lily switched her attention to the freezer, returning with white butcher-wrapped packages and a freezer pack and put them in with the cans. “Done.”
I snapped a picture. “We can email this to Sarah if the chef’s bent out of shape over our foraging.” Which he would be. Or Sarah would be. Maybe the professor could explain our boundary-breaking free-for-all to them.
“That works.”
We both grabbed jackets and umbrellas and lugged the hampers outside to where the professor had parked her small leased car behind a hedge of lilacs. We put the hampers in the trunk and maneuvered our way into the car doors while keeping the umbrellas over our heads.
My skin tingled with an alive sensation. Not at the thought of seeing Thorn again, it was just fun going out in the car. We’d been cooped up in the castle, and the car evoked a sense of freedom, of open roads and the power to go anywhere. I sank into the passenger seat.
The car was cramped and smelled of rain and the narrow daisy-shaped air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. I thumped the pale-yellow flower with my finger as Lily put the gear into first. We headed out.
Between the jolting stick shift and the narrow tires, I felt every bump on the country road, but I held in my complaints because Lily was driving so at least I didn’t have to. Their roads were mostly like we had in the US but driving on the left was an experience I hadn’t tried yet.
The clouds darkened the sky, and Lily kept the headlights on. We needed the brights by the time we turned right onto the long drive that led to Hopewell Manor. Midway down, we drove over a scenic wooden bridge that crossed a stream full of rushing rainwater. From there, we followed a tree-lined stretch that ended at our destination.
Ivy-covered walls framed the beautiful cream stone building. We parked right in front. Lily turned off the car and blew out a breath. “We made it. Okay.” She turned her face to me. “This is going to be so embarrassing.”
“Yep.” I didn’t want Thorn to think I was obeying him, and I didn’t want Regina to think I was chasing him. I could not care less about Sebastian, but from Lily’s demeanor she cared.
Lily sighed and cracked the door, letting cold air and rain in. She popped open her umbrella and got out.
I did my own rainy-day maneuverings and joined her at the trunk of the car. The little bulb lit up the hampers.
“Thanks for coming with me,” Lily said. “I can’t believe the duke asked for this.” She hefted a hamper and tilted the handlebars so I could take it. She paused, grabbing the second one. “What if he didn’t?” Her voice held horror and she groaned. “He probably didn’t and Mom made his request up.”
Yikes, that was worse. “He may have ordered the food.” Lightning cracked in the sky. We hurried up the front steps. “I thought maybe Thorn was putting us in our place or something.”
“But he likes you.”
My face flushed, which was nice in this cool air. “No, he doesn’t.” He’d liked me at the pub, and at various fleeting moments during our interactions at the castle, but he didn’t like me like me. If he were into me, he’d give up on preserving his acreage by marrying the neighbor, and shutting the castle project down, and we’d be together.
Lily struggled to reach for the doorbell without letting go of the hamper or her umbrella because the flat facade of the house had little in the way of rain proofing. “The duke better have called and asked her for this or Mom...” She shook her head.
I balanced the weight of the hamper on my hip without losing hold of my umbrella. I’d used an umbrella more here than I had since I was a kid, but I was by no means a pro. I was sure the maneuver looked delightfully awkward. “We can hide your mom’s body in the moat. I’m sure it won’t be the first one hidden there.”
“Ew.”
The doorbell pealed a violin concerto.
Thorn was somewhere on the other side of the tall double door. Thorn, who I’d seen at the pub, and the castle, and between white sheets. Now I’d see him here in moments. My heart thumped in time with the rain as we waited for a response from Hopewell Manor.
Lily looked back towards the car. “We could get out of here before they answer. We can tell Mom we tried but they weren’t home.”
“Sure. We can leave the hampers here. Ring the bell again and run. As if we’d toilet-papered the place.” I was trying to lighten the mood, because Lily was stressing, and, honestly, I’d like to see Thorn again. He was a difficult memory to shake.
Lily arched her eyebrows. “Ugh, it’ll eat at me.” Lily shrugged and rang the bell again.
“You sure?” I bent so my hamper was only an inch from the black doormat and contorted my body into a running man pose as if I were about to make a dash for the car.
Lily giggled.