Summerset Abbey: Spring Awakening (Summerset Abbey Trilogy)

by Brown, T. J.

Prudence Wilkes hurried up the stairs of her Camden Town flat, wondering how time had gotten away from her. She liked to have dinner already cooking when her husband got home from the docks. Hauling pallets tired him out so much that he could barely keep his eyes open through dinner as it was. If she didn’t have his food on the table early, he barely made it through his meal.

  He’d been working steadily ever since he had passed the examinations for the Royal Veterinary College. He didn’t say it, but she knew it rankled him to live off her money. He was working hard and saving so that when he started school in the fall, they wouldn’t have to lean so hard on her small inheritance.

  She put her key in the lock, entered the stuffy flat, and hurried to turn on the fan she had splurged on. All it really did was move the hot air around, but it helped. A little. She had left all the windows open, but Andrew didn’t like her leaving the door open while he was gone. The flat was so long and narrow that the air never seemed to circulate from the front room to their back bedroom, and the windows didn’t help at all.

  She had gone down to St. Pancras Gardens and sat in the shade to read. At least hearing the water in the fountains made her feel as if she should be cool, even if she wasn’t. It was better than sitting in the sweltering flat all day. She tried not to think about the cool, spacious rooms of the Mayfair house where she’d grown up. That way of life had died when Sir Philip had. This was her life now, and for all intents and purposes, it wasn’t a bad life. Just a different life.

  Prudence went to the small counter next to the sink and set the block of ice she had just purchased into it. Pulling up a corner of the burlap, she chipped off a chunk of ice and put it in a glass before wrapping the burlap tightly around the block and placing it in the small icebox. She filled her glass with water and drank deeply before refilling it and starting supper. There was no way she was going to light the oven. Andrew would have to be grateful for the bangers she had bought and would serve with a small, and blessedly cool, plate of fresh, sliced tomatoes.

  While she worked, she remembered that Victoria’s letter was still in her pocket. She put the bangers in the pan, sliced the tomatoes, and then arranged them prettily on a plate. She wasn’t much of a housekeeper or cook, but at least she tried.

  Taking her cool glass of water, she sat at the kitchen table and opened her letter. She could almost hear Victoria’s impudent, breezy voice as she read the scrawling words.

  My dearest Pru,

  How I wish I were sleeping on your tiny window seat rather than living in a place where everyone watches me as if I am going to collapse at any given moment, regardless of how fine a mansion it is! The doctor has given me a clean bill of health, my asthma is better thanks to Nanny Iris’s concoctions, and still everyone fusses over me so!

  But on a happier note, I’ve finally pinned Uncle Conrad down as to a date when I can move out. He did promise, you know, and has been dreadfully remiss in keeping that promise. I, however, have not forgotten that he promised me a flat in London, and Eleanor has started looking already.

  The wedding is over a month away, but that’s all I hear tell of day and night. I think Rowena is as sick of it as I am, at least that is how it seems. And poor Sebastian disappears every time Aunt Charlotte and his mother appear.

  I am so happy I made the decision never to get married. I think Seb and Ro should just do what you and Andrew did: a week to plan, a day to get married, and you’re off!

  Well, I hope to see you soon. I plan on coming up in a week or so to see the flats Eleanor has found. I will send word as soon as I know what day. Why don’t you just get a telephone? They are so convenient!

  All my love,

  Vic

  Prudence set the letter aside, mixed emotions warring in her chest. The thoughtless comment about the telephone stung a bit—but Victoria had little concept of money and would have no clue that Prudence didn’t have a telephone because they couldn’t afford one—so Prudence couldn’t fault her much for that.

  If she was honest with herself, it was Victoria’s talk of the wedding that settled in her stomach as if she’d eaten a bad pudding.

  She had thought she was over Sebastian. She was over Sebastian. It wasn’t as if they’d actually had anything more than a flirtation. She pushed their one and only kiss from her mind. That certainly didn’t count.

  If she was completely honest with herself, she would have to admit that her biggest peeve about the entire situation wasn’t that Sebastian was getting married; it was whom he was getting married to.

  Rowena.

  Rowena, whose thoughtless bargain with her uncle had led to Prudence’s being treated like a maid for weeks. Rowena, who’d lied and covered her tracks and who said she meant well, but always seemed to do things that hurt people. Rowena, who had been like her sister and then betrayed her.

  That needled.

  Suddenly she became aware of a thick, acrid smoke wafting toward her from a fry pan.

  The bangers!

  She leapt up from the table, knocking her chair over backward. Snatching up the hot pan, she tossed it into the sink and turned on the tap. Thick smoke billowed up from the pan, and her eyes stung. How could she have forgotten them when she’d been only a few feet away?

  Tears ran down her face. Stupid bangers. She hated to cook. And right now, she couldn’t help but feel a seething hatred for Rowena.

  She cried harder and didn’t notice that the door had opened until it slammed shut.

  “I do hope this isn’t over my supper.” Andrew set his lunch pail on the table and gathered her up in his arms.

  Prudence laid her head against his chest and gulped back her tears. “I’m such a ninny. I’m just so bad at all this.” She waved her hand, indicating the entire flat.

  He understood. “You weren’t brought up to be a housekeeper. All this is new to you, just as working the docks and living in the city is new to me. Have some patience with yourself, my love.”

  She hiccuped and her tears slowed and stopped. She tilted her head back to look into his pleasant hazel eyes. Even though they looked tired, they twinkled at her and held no disappointment at their ruined supper. “I just wish I were better at it, for your sake.”

  “I just wish I could afford to hire a maid to come in and do the hard work. But I can’t, so we may as well not cry over it.”

  Tear welled in her eyes again, as much for the tone of his voice as for the words.

  He shook her lightly and begged her to stop the waterworks.

  She giggled and wiped her eyes. “But what about our supper?”

  He shrugged. “It’s too hot to cook anyway. Let’s go down to the pub for some beer and kidney pie. Let someone else slave over a hot cooker.”

  Giving him a rather watery smile, she kissed her husband and went to make herself presentable. On her way to the bedroom, she picked up the letter from Victoria and tossed it into the stove. She would give no more thought to a wedding taking place miles from London. She loved her husband, and it was no matter if her life wasn’t exactly what she thought it would be. Sebastian and Rowena were in her past. It was up to her to make sure they stayed there.

  chapter

  three

  Victoria followed Eleanor through the narrow hallway and into the spacious sitting room of the first flat they were scheduled to look at. She turned a circle in the middle of the room, considering. The sitting room was important because it would be where they would do most of their day-to-day living.

  The wood floor could use a good refinishing, she thought, but some pretty rugs could cover the worn areas. The windows were narrow, but tall, and the light streaming through emphasized the bits of plaster falling off the walls and the burned-out bulbs.

  Her heart sank. “I’ll take it!” she said even before her friend had a chance to show her the rest of the flat.

  Eleanor laughed. “This is the first one we’ve seen.”

  Victoria didn’t care.

  Mr. Barry, her late father’s solic
itor, sniffed in disapproval. “I do believe this was the address your uncle liked least, Miss Victoria. The young lady is right. We still have other, more suitable flats to show you.”

  Mr. Barry didn’t approve of lady bachelors at all, and for Victoria, with her youth and family connections, to choose to live on her own was a disgrace. Victoria knew that if it weren’t for Mr. Barry’s loyalty to her father’s memory and his hope of obtaining the patronage of her uncle, the Earl of Summerset, he wouldn’t be showing her and Eleanor flats at all.

  “What do you think?” she asked Eleanor as they walked through three more rooms. The flat consisted of seven rooms: a sitting room, kitchen, two roomy bedrooms, a chamber for the live-in maid, a bathroom, and a small study with an enchanting bay window that overlooked a small park. A layer of grime lay over everything, as if the home had been vacant for quite some time, but according to Mr. Barry, an old woman had lived here until she had gone to live with her son. Apparently, she hadn’t thought to clean after vacating the premises.

  Eleanor’s blue eyes widened and she put her hands on her hips. “It’s enormous. Do we really want to clean a flat this big?”

  Mr. Barry grimaced at Eleanor’s East End accent, and Victoria wondered if the good solicitor realized that she had met her friend in prison. Eleanor had been Victoria’s nurse, and her kindness had been the one bright spot during those dark days. She had kept Victoria’s family informed of her well-being, and the only reason Victoria’s uncle had consented to her moving to London on her own was because she would have a nurse living with her.

  Victoria blinked. “That’s why we’ll retain a maid.”

  Eleanor giggled. “Ah. A maid. Of course. Silly me. Well, the location is closer to my job and the settlement house where you wish to work than the other flats on the list.”

  Even Mr. Barry’s mustache quivered with disapproval. “Really, Miss Victoria. I think the place near Bond Street would be more appropriate and—”

  His obvious condemnation of the flat made Victoria dig in her feet. “No. Eleanor and I have decided on this. It’s perfect for us. We can both get to work easily from here, and its closer to Eleanor’s family in Whitechapel.”

  Mr. Barry’s mouth fell open for a second before snapping shut, and a little burst of triumph erupted in Victoria’s chest. They would hire a maid and make the house their own.

  She would be free.

  After Mr. Barry promised to have the papers sent to her uncle to sign, and Eleanor ran off to her job, Victoria was at liberty to explore her neighborhood. Telling the driver she would be getting some air, she set out on foot. She couldn’t be gone too long . . . she had promised Kit she would meet him for tea at his house.

  The streets were busy and she spotted a dry-goods store, milliner’s, a tea garden, and a bookstore, all within walking distance of the flat. She noted that most of the people she saw milling about were dressed in nice, if not particularly stylish, clothing. She strolled to the corner and saw the tube just down the street.

  Victoria was eager to get on with her life. Her desire to be a botanist had been little more than a desperate attempt to stay close to her deceased father. She loved botany, but now realized that the real draw for her had always been the much more pointed study of herbs and their medicinal uses. And more than anything else, she had an overreaching desire to do good in the world, to somehow make it a better place. Teaching at the settlement house would suffice for now. Kit called her a do-good, but who cared what he thought?

  Her chosen neighborhood had a homey feel, she thought, looking around. Not like the Mayfair neighborhood where she had grown up, but it seemed the kind of place she could be happy. The thought of her beloved home depressed her, and she turned back to where the driver waited. Her uncle, in all his wisdom, had moved the girls out of their childhood home and let it out, so now the bright and lovely house where she had been so happy was filled with Americans, who were, no doubt, loud, careless, and completely unappreciative.

  She fell into a pensive mood and was quite out of sorts by the time she reached the Kittredges’ Belgravia mansion, which was not the way she wanted to face Kit’s mother. One needed all of one’s wits when facing the clever and daunting Mrs. Kittredge.

  Victoria waited until the driver came round to open her door and took a deep breath. The house was far more ostentatious than her uncle’s stately London home. The Kittredges were new money, and like many of the new rich, they tended to throw their money around in all the wrong places. The house took up almost an entire block and included a carriage house, which now housed the Kittredge motorcars, and a stable in the back.

  The butler led her to the drawing room, and Victoria’s heart sank when she saw the guests seated proper and upright in their seats. Her eyes swept to Kit, and her heart sank even lower at the sour expression marring his handsome face. Mrs. Kittredge was nowhere to be seen.

  Kit stood, a look of relief crossing his features. “Victoria, how wonderful to see you. I’m sure you know Mrs. Gertrude Asquith, Lady Elizabeth Reinhardt, Lady Eloise Cash, and Mrs. Genevieve Balfour.”

  Victoria nodded with a pleasant smile on her face, her eyes darting to Kit. “How do you do? It’s so very hot outside, isn’t it?”

  She addressed this last part to the room in general, but Kit jumped on it as if he had been waiting for something to do.

  “Yes, it is. Would you like some lemonade?”

  “That would be very nice, thank you.” She looked at his vacated spot on the sofa. She did want his support if she was going to be stuck having tea with these society women who had no doubt heard of her incarceration, but she didn’t want to give him any ideas. However, the only other available seat was between Mrs. Asquith and Lady Cash, and she just couldn’t make herself do it.

  She took the spot on the sofa and gave a vague society smile to the women around her. She suppressed a little shiver as they stared at her with varying degrees of curiosity and general disapproval, no doubt because she had come into their august presence wearing a simple serge walking skirt and a short-sleeved blouse of white lace. Too late she remembered the matching jacket she’d taken off in the heat of the motorcar.

  “How are your sister’s wedding plans coming along, my dear?” Mrs. Asquith asked. She wore a fancy visiting dress of tobacco-colored satin and a kimono-sleeved bodice, but most startling to Victoria was her straw hat, upon which an entire brown bird was impaled at the front of the crown. Surely that wasn’t a real bird?

  Victoria forced her eyes away from the pitiful figure. “It’s going wonderfully well. Though they did decide to move the date out a bit further.”

  Lady Cash clucked critically. “Isn’t this the second time the wedding has been delayed?”

  The women all leaned forward ever so slightly in unison, as if they were about to hear some previously undisclosed gossip. Victoria pressed farther back in the sofa.

  “Yes. Sebastian’s older sister is in her confinement and he very much wishes her to be at the ceremony.”

  Lady Cash looked disappointed, while the others glanced at one another as if wondering if Victoria should be chastised for mentioning the word confinement.

  “Here you are.” Kit handed her a glass of lemonade.

  She took it thankfully and eyed the seat next to her. Too bad, the look said. If I have to put up with this, so do you. Kit caught her meaning and sat with the aggrieved air of someone standing at the mark. Where was Mrs. Kittredge? Why had Victoria been asked to this happy little tea party anyway?

  “Are you in London with your aunt?” Lady Balfour asked.

  Victoria’s spirits were revived by the cold drink and Kit’s proximity, and she instinctively adopted the same breezy tone she used with Aunt Charlotte. “No. I’m here by myself. I’m flat shopping, actually.”

  Lady Balfour arched her eyebrows. “Whatever for?”

  “Oh, I’m moving to London to take a job. Or volunteer, to be more precise. I am going to work at the Rodgers Settlement House.”


  Lady Reinhardt, who had remained silent until now, audibly gasped, and even Mrs. Asquith’s dead bird seemed to look at Victoria reproachfully.

  Next to her Kit stifled a laugh, and Victoria felt the devil rise up in her.

  “Well, I never heard of such a thing!” Lady Cash said.

  “Oh, yes.” Victoria nodded. “I’m going to be a lady bachelor. My nurse from prison will be living with me.”

  The silence dropped into the room like a bomb. The women glanced at one another, unsure as to what to do or say next. Victoria was, after all, the niece of their friend the formidable Lady Charlotte, and the daughter of a knight.

  “Victoria, are you shocking my guests?”

  Every head in the room turned toward Mrs. Kittredge’s low, sultry voice. It was early afternoon and Mrs. Kittredge wore a peacock-blue tea outfit with insets of lace as if it were state dress. As always, the style was slightly oriental, with kimono sleeves and a low bodice. She wore her dark hair back with a wicked straight fringe across her forehead that accented her dark-almond eyes. The expression on her face showed amusement, but her eyes held a warning that Victoria caught immediately. She would allow Victoria to go only so far as she found it entertaining, but anything that would threaten her own status was out of the question.

  Victoria understood. Mrs. Kittredge had taken her husband’s fortune and turned it into a stepping-stone into society, and her position was precarious. As unorthodox as she was, she still played by the rules, and now that her husband was dead, and the aristocrats no longer relied on his business to make money, her position was more precarious than ever.

  Victoria kissed Mrs. Kittredge on the cheek, as did Kit.

  “I’m so sorry I’m late. I had an unavoidable delay. Thank you all so much for coming. Where is that unfortunate butler with the tea?”

  As if in answer, the butler appeared in the door with a tinkling tea cart.

  “Victoria, would you do us the honor of pouring tea, darling? Gertrude, wherever did you get your cunning hat? I’ve never seen anything like it.”