“What about Slaps?” Little Vi asks hopefully. “I can win at Slaps.”
His Majesty’s dark eyes spark with a clever light. “When do we play Slaps? Think carefully.”
“Um.” Little Vi puts her head to one side. “When Papa’s here?”
“Nearly.”
“When my governess is here?”
“Close.”
“Oh! I know—you only let me play Slaps when there’s someone else about. Isn’t that funny?”
“Exactly.” The king’s hands are busy, dealing out another game of écarté, which Little Vi hasn’t yet agreed to play. “Why do you think that might be?”
I’ve never been particularly deep. My younger self only stares at His Majesty.
“If I’m the king of trumps, then what does that make life?” the king prompts.
“A game?”
“Yes. Which means that when people choose to behave one way in company and another in private, they’re bluffing. Fortunately for you, I am indeed the devoted godfather I make myself out to be. I just hate to lose.”
“I agree with Papa,” Little Vi says pragmatically, climbing back into her chair. Clearly she’s resigned herself to a few more hands of écarté. “You do talk a lot of nonsense.”
The king laughs again, and echoes of it are still ringing through the room when the memory fades.
“This is all a game to him,” I say, more to myself than to my House. “I’ve just got home, which means we’ve been dealt our respective cards. And this—what if he doesn’t care so much about marrying me off, he’s just drawing me out, trying to see if I’ll play on or fold?”
White blossoms burst jubilantly from the mantel and the sun scuds out from behind its cover of clouds, pouring golden light through the windows.
“Well then, Burleigh,” I say grimly. “We haven’t got much working in our favor, so I think it’s time to bluff.”
His Majesty waits in the laneway, mounted and escorted by a dozen royal guards. There’s a carriage waiting behind him, identical to the one he sat in the day my father’s arrest began. A new tendril of fear uncurls in my belly at the sight of it. I tamp it down. Steady on, Vi. Don’t let him see you’re afraid.
In contrast to the king, I drift through the bramble-choked scar in the wall as light as gossamer, a scrap of gentle summer sky come to earth. I twine my fingers in my skirts as I walk down the gravel drive. I’m wearing one of Mama’s old gowns. The frock is too low in the waist to be quite the thing, but it’s long enough, and the forget-me-not blue makes me look harmless, which is what I want. It’s fitting to do this in Mama’s clothes, too, as for once it’s her I need to imitate and not Papa. No matter how unhappy she was, whenever an outsider arrived at Burleigh, Mama closed ranks. She put on a dazzling smile and lied through her teeth, chattering about how lovely life in a Great House was, and how perfectly wonderful things were between her and my father. Right up until the end, she kept her misery hidden from everyone but her family.
That’s who I must be now—a girl without a care, a reed that bends without breaking. Never mind the state of my House, the treason I’m planning to embark on, the fear that sometimes threatens to overwhelm me—His Majesty must not sense the slightest bit of it.
“Uncle Edgar,” I say with a curtsy as I step through a gap in the mortarous briars that now serve Burleigh for a gate. “Thank you so much for waiting. I feel worlds better about this now that I’ve had a chance to freshen up.”
I don’t. After working House magic twice in one day, I feel as if I might fall over at any moment. But I’m planning to tell rather a lot of lies, so I might as well begin as I mean to go on.
“Well, you’re a pretty picture now,” His Majesty answers indulgently. “Shall we carry on to the village? Lord Pottsworth is waiting at the church.”
I let a small sigh escape my lips, and the king raises an eyebrow. “Troubles, my dear?”
“I don’t know Lord Pottsworth. I’ve never even met him. It isn’t that I object to marrying a Caretaker you choose—you’re Burleigh’s deedholder and it’s for you to appoint a new keyholder. I accept that. But it does seem hard that I don’t have any say in the matter. And you promised me time to settle in. I’d hardly call a day generous in that regard.”
Coming up alongside the king’s charger, I reach out and rub a finger along the horse’s embossed leather martingale. His Majesty stares down at me, a frown playing across his features.
“You could have far worse men for your husband than Lord Pottsworth,” he says. “He’s dull as powder, but that only means you’ll be able to manage him however you like. And he has a passion for orchids—I’m sure if you bring Burleigh round, he’ll do marvelous things with the greenhouse and the gardens.”
I don’t point out that the greenhouse has, in fact, been overtaken by brambles and that without the key, I can’t restore it. Nor do I mention that my House doesn’t need a Caretaker who can be managed, but one with fire and strength of will and an unflinching resolve to put Burleigh’s needs first.
Instead, I glance up at the king with what I hope is a wistful expression. “It’s just that everything’s been taken out of my hands. And it’s all so sudden. Your own marriage was a political match—were you happy before Queen Isabella had to return to Spain?”
I refuse to let my gaze falter. The words sound entirely innocent, but it’s the king himself who taught me to play games of strategy, and I know as well as anyone how badly his match to Isabella went. The king gives me a searching look, but I stand my ground, wide-eyed and guileless as only a seventeen-year-old girl with ulterior motives can be.
“No one likes a forced marriage,” I say, letting self-pity creep into my voice. “All I want is a bit of time, and some choice in the matter. In return, I promise to bring Burleigh around, and settle down happily once you’ve found someone I fancy.”
For a long while the king only watches me, with that prying, hawkish gaze of his. I want to shift, to look away, but hold fast, even when I begin to suspect he’s about to drag me off to be married to the faceless Lord Pottsworth by force, if necessary.
“Very well,” the king concedes finally, and I think I might melt with relief. Or at least I do until I hear the rest of what he has to say. “I’ll give you a choice. Marry Lord Pottsworth now, stay on here, and find a way to reconcile the House to him. Or you’re welcome to spend half the summer alone with Burleigh and come August I’ll give the key to Lord Falmouth, should the House still be standing. Falmouth won’t want to marry you—he’s got his eyes set rather higher—but I hear he’s dreadfully hard on chambermaids. Perhaps he could find you a position as a servant here.”
“Lord Falmouth who tore this hole in Burleigh’s walls? That’s hardly much of a choice,” I say, keeping my voice to a petty grumble while my mind races.
“Mm, yes. He’s the one who alerted me to your father’s treasonous inclinations as well. But that,” the king purrs, “is me raising the stakes, you vixen. How badly do you want time with the House? And what do you plan to do with it, I wonder?”
“Host a number of lawn parties,” I answer lightly, though my hands, hidden in my skirts, are balled into fists. “Perhaps take up tennis. Alright, you’ve got a bargain, Uncle Edgar. Come August, should the House still be in need of a Caretaker, I will let it pass to your man Falmouth, without a murmur or a complaint.”
Two months then, for me to succeed where my father failed.
“I still plan to summer in Bath, to keep an eye on things here,” His Majesty warns me. “And I expect unfaltering loyalty from you until your wedding day, of course.”
“That goes without saying,” I answer with a smile. “You’re all I have left in the way of family, Uncle Edgar. I feel far more forgiving now I’m home and you’re allowing me some leeway. I think we’d better let bygones be bygones.”
“You’re a devious little witch,” the king says affectionately, patting my head as if I’m a faithful hound. “I always did like that abo
ut you. We’re far more similar than you think, Vi.”
Like hell we are. “Oh, I think so, too, Uncle. We do tend to land on our feet.”
“As you say.” He gestures to the guardsmen and they start off down the lane, moving away from Burleigh Halt and toward Taunton.
“You know where to find me if you need me,” His Majesty calls back over one shoulder. “Oh, and I’m sending someone into town, to look out for you and the House. Just in case Burleigh should unfortunately need to be—dispatched—at short notice.”
So we’re to have an executioner in residence while I plan my treason. Wonderful. What could possibly go wrong?
Rather than complain or answer back, I stand in the lane and wave, a dutiful girl farewelling her beloved godfather. It’s only once the king’s party has rounded the bend in the road and disappeared from view that I step back and lean against the House’s wall for support.
“I hate him,” I whisper to the sun-warmed stone. “I want you out from under his thumb, and for neither of us ever to have to answer to him again.”
Mortar oozes from the wall in reply, like blood from a wound that won’t heal.
10
I FIND MIRA IN THE KITCHEN, BUT THERE’S NO SIGN OF Wyn.
“Are you married, then?” Mira says, looking up from the basin full of laundering she’s at work on.
“No,” I tell her. “Not yet, at least.”
“Good,” she says with an approving nod. “Wyn told me what was going on. My first thought was to run out with the rolling pin and beat the priest over the head with it, if need be. But then I remembered you’re nearly grown and set on being a Caretaker, so you need to fight your own battles.”
I rest my chin on my hand and let out a sigh. “Everyone’s far more confident in my capabilities than I am.”
Mira smiles wickedly. “If things hadn’t gone your way, I had every intention of making that lord’s life utterly miserable while he was under this roof. Burleigh and Jed and Wyn all would’ve helped. The king’s man would have been begging for an annulment after a fortnight. And there was always the rolling pin, if he tried to lay a finger on you.”
I look at her, bent over the washbasin, her hair all gone iron-grey, arms red to the elbows from the sting of harsh soap. I love her. Blood and mortar, I love her and Jed so much it hurts sometimes.
“I’m sorry I was cross about the deed,” I tell Mira. “I don’t deserve you or Jed, truly I don’t.”
She rolls her eyes. “No family agrees about everything; why should we be any different? But Violet, try to be safe, won’t you?”
“I’ll do my very best,” I promise, getting up and brushing a kiss to her cheek. “Wyn hasn’t left yet, has he?”
“No, he said he was going to do some plastering in the dining room. He was . . . anxious . . . while you were out there with the king.”
“Anxious that I’d come back within an hour, maybe, and that he’d have to speak to me again,” I grumble. But I leave the kitchen and walk down the dimly lit, musty corridor that leads to the dining room. I’m still trying to learn Burleigh’s new face, but it seems to me as if several more cracks have sprouted in the walls since I last came this way. Surely I would have noticed those gaping fissures, and the way they spill mortar and black-thorned brambles out over the wallpaper.
It feels like a chance at redemption, finding Wyn in the dining room yet again, this time plastering over gaping holes in the walls rather than nailing up a broken window.
“Still here, are you?” I say from the door. “I hope you’ve finished being angry at me. I haven’t done anything, Wyn. I know other people have done things to you, but I haven’t. And I want to help—not just the House, you too.”
At the sound of my voice, Wyn sets his palette down and turns, visibly collecting himself.
“I’m not angry,” he says. “Hello, Violet. I missed you. Welcome home.”
I want to be petty. To hold on to how standoffish and harsh he’s been, but I don’t have it in me. It feels like everything was upside down, and now it’s gone right-side up again. I’m not sure which I needed more, either—the I missed you, or the welcome home.
“Do you have another palette?” I ask.
“On the drop cloth,” he says. I pick it up, and for a quite a while we work together in silence, mending some of Burleigh’s hurts. It may not be House magic, but as we go, a bit of the tension singing through the floor beneath my feet fades.
Oh, Burleigh, all you want is to be looked after.
I gather my courage as we reach the last damaged section of wall, and steal a glance at Wyn. He’s got his serious face on, a slight frown pulling his brows together as he smooths plaster across a seam.
“Why did you come back?” I ask.
“I don’t really know,” Wyn says without looking at me.
“Will you stay long?”
His frown deepens. “I don’t know that, either.”
“I still plan to look for the deed,” I warn him. “To finish what my father started. Now more than ever—Burleigh couldn’t keep itself together at the thought of a new Caretaker. So if you can’t live with that . . .”
“No, it’s alright.” Wyn takes a step back and eyes his work critically. “I remembered something while I was on my way out to Taunton—I never could change your mind, when you were set on something. So I’ve changed mine, instead. You say you came back to help me, but I’ve come back to help you, too. Or at least to keep you from killing yourself with House magic.”
This time, I’m the one who frowns. “It’s that simple?”
One corner of Wyn’s mouth tugs up, and he looks almost wistful. “Yes. That simple. Look, Violet, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was hard on you, but you’ve been away. I’ve been here all along and I watched everything that’s happened. So I know that if you’re not terribly quick and clever, either Burleigh or the king will be the death of you. I don’t want to see another Sterling die.”
“I’m not going to die,” I tell him with far more confidence than I feel. “I’m just going to . . . get ahold of Burleigh’s deed, free my House, and live forever.”
Wyn laughs, the sound short and dry, and possibly a little bitter.
“You were right,” he says. “You haven’t changed.”
But I have. I realize that now. Out on the fens, I was so sure I could fix things if I just got home. But now I’m actually here, doubt runs through me, as insidious as leftover mortar.
When Wyn and I have finished with the plastering, I make a flimsy excuse and slip away. I flit through the empty, echoing halls, where an occasional ghost shimmers in a corner or a doorway. In the conservatory, I push the glass-paned doors wide and go out into the garden, where the air is thick with late afternoon sunlight. As I pass by the tangles of unpruned roses, I can’t help but notice that there’s something not quite right about them. They blush grey rather than pink at their soft and velvety hearts.
But it’s not the garden I want. I go through the roses and the wildflower meadow to the edge of the woods at the back of Burleigh’s grounds. There, hemmed in on three sides by a drystone wall and on a fourth by the forest itself, is the Sterling family cemetery.
I let myself in through the little wooden gate. The sound of it shutting behind me is horribly final, as is the sight of bare earth mounded atop my father’s grave. There’s a stone marker with Papa’s name and the years of his birth and his death cut deep into it. The grave itself is fresh and new and raw, like a knife wound to the surface of Burleigh’s good earth.
Sinking down in the grass alongside the grave, I take a handful of bare soil, still damp from the earlier rain. This, too, reminds me of how badly things have gone wrong. When my father managed Burleigh it never rained before evening. Burleigh and Papa kept the land in excellent health and the weather carefully regulated.
My father worked ceaselessly on behalf of the House. He knew everyone at court, and rode back and forth across the length of the country in what I now know was h
is search for Burleigh’s deed. How can I possibly begin to retrace his steps, and to uncover the information he brought to light? I am just a girl, with no connections, no income, and no key with which to help my House. My resolution to save Burleigh and to complete the task Papa began is an empty one. What do I have, besides the strength of my own will?
Across the wildflower meadow, there’s a shimmer of faint blue-green as the House remembers Papa and me walking hand in hand toward the back woods, fishing poles resting on our shoulders. Whenever he managed to steal an hour or two for me, that’s what we liked to do—sit on the banks of the trout stream in the forest, sometimes catching something, sometimes not. We’d talk about Caretakers, about my duty to Burleigh House, and how so long as I looked after it, Burleigh would always be there for me.
But I left, and Papa is dead now. Burleigh is dying. I know, I know it’s not my fault, yet it still feels as if I had a hand in it.
What if I’d stayed? What if Papa had kept me behind, instead of Wyn? Would things be any different now?
I scrub both hands across my face in abject frustration.
You’re meant to be a Caretaker, Vi, Papa’s voice says in my head. And a Caretaker always puts her House first.
Run away with me, Wyn counters. We could go anywhere, let’s just get away from here. Burleigh’s not the friend you think it is.
Your father never told us where the deed’s hidden, Mira adds. The only ones who know that secret now are the king and Burleigh House itself.
I watch as the remembered versions of Papa and me reach the eaves of the forest and vanish among the trees. Then it strikes me like a bolt of lightning.
My father knew where the deed was.
Burleigh likely still knows it.
And while Burleigh can’t let me speak of the deed without destroying pieces of itself, it can show me memories of my father. Of what he said, what he discovered, where he planned to go.
Blood and mortar. I think I know how I’m going to save my House.
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