Secrets of Nanreath Hall

by Alix Rickloff

  “It’s nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing.” She gripped the cuff of his trousers and tore with a nurse’s strength. The fabric ripped along one seam, revealing the raw, ugly flesh of his upper leg where the straps bit into it with every step. “You never say anything.”

  “Would it do any good?” She saw the tight-lipped, hard-jawed strain for what it was, constant pain held at bay with drink and determination.

  “Oh, Hugh,” she sighed.

  “To hell with your pity, cousin,” he snarled. “To hell with all of them and their damned smothering compassion. I should have gone down with the plane. Better to die a hero than live on as a pathetic cripple tied to his mother’s apron strings.”

  “Don’t say that. Don’t ever wish for death.”

  He lay back on the floor, staring up into the dark reaches of the ceiling. “I never meant to hurt you, Anna. I’m such a bloody awful bastard.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me.”

  He closed his eyes, his breathing ragged but steady.

  “Let’s get you to bed. A good sleep and you’ll feel a hundred times better.”

  “Doubtful.”

  She wrapped an arm around his shoulder and together, they managed to maneuver him back onto his feet. By then his face was white, his hands shaking. “I can make it the rest of the way on my own.”

  “I’m sure you can,” she said as she continued to assist him. They hobbled from the gallery, slow, unsteady steps taking them down a long hall and up a flight of stairs. He stepped on and ripped the hem of her gown. “Blast. Sorry about that.”

  “Tell Sophie when you see her next.”

  “I’d buy her a new one, but I have a feeling I couldn’t afford it.”

  At the door to his bedchamber, she leaned against the wall as she scooted close enough to turn the handle and get him inside. By now his green face had grown gray, white ringing his clamped lips, a rapid pulse beating under his jaw.

  “I can’t go any farther or I’ll toss dinner all over your shoes,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “I’m a VAD. Remember? I do all the muck work the proper sisters don’t have time for.”

  “Ouch. Hoist with my own sword.” He gave a rough bark of laughter. “Careful. There’s a step down . . . oof.”

  Her foot missed the drop into the room, and she came down hard, his awkward weight dragging her almost to her knees. He pinned her against the doorjamb. His bloodshot eyes seemed to drink her in, as if seeing her for the first time. He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “No one could ever dispute the relationship. Your resemblance to Lady Katherine is uncanny,” he said. “I’ve never seen such a shade of red before.”

  She swallowed around the lump in her throat, tried to keep her voice cool and no-nonsense. Hugh was drunk and remorseful—a bad combination. “Lady Katherine was much prettier. My mouth is too wide and I have big ears.”

  He traced the edge of one lobe. “Did he have big ears?”

  “Extremely. Like father, like daughter,” she said in the same chirpy tone she used with her sickest patients, hoping it would break Hugh’s whiskey spell.

  “Who was he?”

  “I have no earthly idea. Now, are you going to let me go, or do you plan on chatting all night? Because I just want to go to bed and put this disaster of an evening behind me.”

  Neither one of them noticed the shadow slicing the floor between them like a cleaver until a voice thundered from above like a crack of doom. “I believe leaving is for the best, Miss Trenowyth. You needn’t worry about Hugh. I can take care of whatever he needs.”

  Anna snatched her hand from Hugh’s waist as if it had caught fire. So much for a battalion hospital in North Africa or the Far East. She’d be lucky if she weren’t scrubbing lavatories in Greenland for the duration of the war.

  “Good evening, Mother . . . or should I say good morning?” Hugh smiled at Lady Boxley, who hovered like an angel of doom. “Anna here was helping me to bed.”

  Anna shot Hugh a venomous look. As if Lady Boxley didn’t already resent and despise her, Hugh had to throw fuel on the fire out of some perverse need to shock his mother. She found herself remembering Sophie’s tale about the last nurse caught in a compromising situation with the master of the house, and sympathized with the poor girl.

  “Miss Trenowyth is a credit to the Red Cross, I’m sure. Her talents are wasted on such a small hospital as Nanreath.” Her attention flicked to Anna. “If you’d like, I know more than a few people associated with the Joint War Organization who could assist you if you wished to transfer.”

  Lady Boxley’s expression was unreadable, but her meaning more than clear: leave or be sent away.

  Anna wanted to laugh. Here was her chance to be sent to a battalion hospital close to the front. They’d turned her application down, but they wouldn’t refuse Lady Boxley.

  “I don’t want her to go,” Hugh groused, his voice petulant as a small boy’s.

  “It’s for the best, Hugh dear. For everyone,” Lady Boxley replied.

  He looked from his mother to Anna and back. Then threw up.

  Chapter 10

  May 1914

  Simon and I arrived at London’s Euston Station close to midnight. A cold spring rain drenched the streets, quickly overcoming our shared umbrella, and by the time we were settled in a cab, I was soaked to the bone and trying not to regret my wretched impulsiveness. If I’d chosen differently, I could have been tucked up in a warm bed with a crackling fire and a glass of milk with naught to worry over but how best to please my new fiancé. Instead, I had defied Aunt Adelaide and fled Strathblane with her dire predictions blistering my ears.

  Wretched, ungrateful girl.

  You’ll come to a bad end. Calf love has ruined cleverer girls than you, Katherine Trenowyth.

  And with the finality of a funeral, her last words before slamming the house’s great double doors. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

  For better or worse, I had tied my fate to Simon.

  As if sensing my thoughts, he smiled reassuringly as he directed the driver to Digswell Street. We had decided as the train clacked its way southward from Scotland that the best course of action was to seek out Doris’s assistance. If I was fortunate, she’d offer me my old lodgings back. If less so, she might know where I could find suitable rooms to rent.

  “Tell me again about this job you’ve found for me?”

  “The woman’s name is Evelyn Ferndale-Branch. She’s a respected member of the new art school started by the artists Byam Shaw and Vicat Cole in Kensington. She’s willing to take you on as her assistant. The pay won’t be much, but you’ll be able to take classes at the school in your free time.”

  “I can’t believe it. It’s a dream come true.”

  “You say that now, but what about your parents? I doubt they’re going to be happy.”

  By now my parents would have been informed of my precipitate departure. I could well imagine their reaction. If I returned home this time, I’d be handed a one-way ticket to Australia or some other equally distant destination where my troublesome existence might be swiped under the rug. “I don’t care. Or rather I don’t care enough to do as I’m told. After all, they say in life you only regret those things you didn’t do.” I tried to sound brave and indifferent. Inside, I was terrified.

  “It will come out all right, Kitty. I promise.” He touched my chin, my cheek. Locked eyes with me until I nodded dumbly in agreement.

  He pulled me close, his hand curving around my waist as he nibbled wine-scented kisses up my throat to my ear. My skin grew hot and tight as my hand flattened against his chest, the beat of his heart like a drum beneath my palm.

  Before we got too carried away, the cab pulled up in front of the narrow terraced house. A light shone through the basement window. Someone was home—and awake.

  “You’ve a nerve coming back here after all these months, Lady High-and-Mighty.” Doris answered my tap on the door
in a belted dressing gown, her hair in a braid down her back, her expression nearly matching Aunt Adelaide’s for outraged displeasure.

  “Let me explain.”

  “You don’t need to,” she cut me off. “You’re like all the rest of the bleeding toffs, lying to get what you want with no care about who you hurt in the process.”

  “It wasn’t like that at all.”

  “No?”

  Was this the same girl I’d laughed with over dinners of bread and butter when we’d not two pennies to put together? The same girl with whom I’d commiserated over long days, small pay packets, and men who thought every unattended female was deserving of their unctuous attentions? The same girl who’d nursed me through the worst of my fever even when it meant missing a day of work?

  “Please, Doris. Let us in. It’s raining, and we’ve had an awfully long journey.”

  She cocked a narrowed glance at Simon behind me.

  “He’s found me a job. I’m to work for an artist at the Byam. I’ll finally be able to do what I’ve always wanted.”

  “Good for you. It still doesn’t explain why you lied—or what you’re both doing here begging in the middle of the night.”

  I tried to collect myself, but my heart jumped in my chest and the breath I drew into my lungs reeked of fish, cooking oil, and latrines. “Please, Doris. I never meant to deceive you. At first, I was afraid no one would hire me if they knew who I really was. Then you had such strong views on the greedy aristocracy that I was afraid to tell you the truth. I couldn’t lose you.”

  “Me or my flat?”

  I drew back. “That’s unfair.”

  She dropped her eyes to the frayed cuff of her dressing gown, face splotchy and mulish. When she met my eyes once more, there was doubt, but I knew I’d not convinced her. “Yes, well . . . that’s all fine and good, but you can’t stay. It’s late and Sally’s sleeping.”

  “Who’s Sally?”

  “My new roommate. I’ll wager she won’t disappear and take her share of the rent with her,” she spat with renewed venom. “I had to pawn my gold cross in order to keep a roof over my head, and that was a present from my mum.”

  “I didn’t know. I’m sorry, Doris.”

  “’Course you didn’t. You were off hobnobbing with dukes and duchesses and never a thought to those you left high and dry. I can’t help, Kitty. If you’re smart you’ll go home and stop pretending to be something you’re not.” She closed the door in my face, the thrown latch a hollow, painful sound.

  “Damn,” Simon muttered. “That’s done it, then.”

  The loss of Doris’s friendship hurt like a slap to the face, and my breath came in small, stuttering gasps, but I tried not to panic. “Is she right?”

  “About what?”

  “That I need to stop pretending to be something I’m not. Simon, I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

  “What happened to all that about regretting the things you don’t do, not the things you’ve done?”

  “When I said that, I wasn’t drenched to the skin in the middle of the night wondering what was to become of me.”

  He ushered me back to the waiting cab. “Ralston Street.”

  His expression was hidden, but for the flickering reflection of passing streetlights in his eyes. A strange, quivering anticipation settled in the pit of my stomach.

  This time the cab ride seemed to last forever. The rain intensified until water streamed down the windows. I knew we headed south past Ludgate Hill and the Houses of Parliament and along the Embankment but I could see nothing beyond the bleary rain-smeared glass. Simon lit a cigarette. Neither of us spoke.

  At Ralston Street, Simon held his umbrella for me and we dashed for the door. He fumbled with his key. Drops slid cold beneath my collar and down my neck. I tried to convince myself this was the cause of the shivers running up and down my spine.

  Inside, we ignored the door opening off the narrow foyer and instead climbed the staircase, which ran up to a landing and bent before rising to the first floor and another two doors. Simon opened the left and entered a cluttered set of obviously bachelor rooms. They smelled of unwashed dishes and unwashed socks. A few pieces of furniture in the front room, a tiny kitchen at the rear, and behind a set of heavy, dusty velvet curtains could be seen the corner of a bed and a dressing table.

  He set down my case, took my coat and removed his own. “I’ll put on a pot of tea. That should warm you up.”

  I removed my hat and tried to look as if I belonged.

  A few minutes later he handed me a steaming cup and sat beside me on the couch. “You’ll stay here. It’s for the best anyway. Much more convenient than a bedsit all the way in Islington.”

  “Simon, I . . .”

  “I know what you’re going to say.”

  “I don’t think you do. I may have left my great-aunt Adelaide’s house for the promise of a job and a place at the Byam, but I came to London for you.”

  He did not smile as he took the cup from my hands and set it down. His expression bore a dark, questioning intensity as he leaned forward and kissed me. The sweet, smoky taste of him was dizzying, like drinking too much champagne. He drew a pin from my hair, then another. Slowly. Patiently. As if he had all the time in the world. As if each tress that fell about my shoulders was another promise between us. “The first time I laid eyes on you I thought you were a meek little mouse like all the rest,” he said quietly. My hair hung loose, curling to my waist in a fiery tangle. This time we had no stern cabbie to hold us in restraint. He kissed me again, deeper, longer. I felt a greedy heat pooling low in my belly, my blood rushing hot through my veins. “I was wrong, Kitty. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

  His hand moved to the buttons on my frock, his breath shivering my bare skin. I should have been frightened or nervous. I should have had Mama’s imprecations on suitable female behavior ringing in my virgin ears, seen the error of my wicked ways, and run from this place and this man, but I did not. “Not a mouse.” My answer came breathless but firm. “A wanton.”

  He smiled and drew me up from the sofa, leading me back to the velvet curtain and that glimpse of bed beyond. “My wanton.”

  I woke suddenly, completely disoriented. For a heart-stopping moment, I imagined myself in my bedchamber at Great-aunt Adelaide’s house, the last days naught but a hallucination brought on by a return of my fever. Then a body rolled over to spoon warm against my back, an arm snaked over my side to pull me close. He breathed evenly in sleep, though parts of him seemed very much awake and more than alert. I held very still. Not out of fear, but because I wanted to savor this brief exhilarating moment as long as I could before the reality of my situation intruded.

  When the sun rose above the rooftops, I would be no more than a cautionary tale to be whispered about in horrified yet eager undertones. But in these small rainy hours as the breeze curled chilly through a crack in the window, and the faucet in the kitchen dripped a steady tempo to match my heartbeat, the man I loved held me in his arms and I was perfectly and utterly at peace with what I had done.

  When I woke next, I was alone in bed. Rain streamed down the window and the smell of toast and bacon filled the tiny flat. Simon whistled as he cooked.

  I had an irresistible urge to pull the covers over my head, but Simon poked his head round the door before I could feign unconsciousness. “Good, you’re awake. Come eat something and then I’ll take you over to meet Miss Ferndale-Branch. She’s usually at the Byam, but she owns a small studio south of the river.”

  I washed and dressed quickly, tidying my hair as best I could, ignoring the wreckage of my damp, wrinkled clothes. I ached in unusual places, there was a mark on my neck that no amount of powder erased completely, and my body felt strange and heavy, limbs stiff, breasts tender, and my freckles seemed to congeal across my face into one huge scarlet letter. I half expected a lightning bolt to strike me down where I stood.

  “We’re going to be late if you don’t hurry,” Simo
n called.

  I pulled myself together with a deep breath and gave my reflection in the speckled mirror a stern talking-to. I had wanted a life of my own with the man I loved. I’d not go pudding-hearted now.

  I strode into the kitchen as if laying claim to it. Simon sat at a rickety table, a dressing gown over his shirt and trousers. His feet were bare, which I found indescribably sweet. “There you are. Waiting for the maid to help you dress? Afraid it’s her day off.”

  My confidence faltered, then I realized he was teasing and returned his smile. “By the looks of things, I’d say she’s been absent for a while.”

  He grimaced. “It is a bit of a muck, but it won’t take long to put to rights.”

  True. It was only three small rooms and a loo on the upper landing. And I’d had a few months’ practice at scrubbing. I’d soon have the place sparkling. I snatched a piece of toast and suddenly felt much better. “What’s Miss Ferndale-Branch like?”

  “If you want the truth, she can be damned disconcerting,” Simon replied. “Very straightforward and brutally honest. She smokes like a chimney, drinks like a sailor, and has the vocabulary of a dockworker, but she knows her craft. You couldn’t be in better hands.”

  “Oh.” I chewed slowly and tried to look nonchalant.

  He smiled as he ate. “You and she will get along fine. She knows your history and can’t wait to meet the infamous daughter of Lord Melcombe. She thinks it’s all a great laugh.”

  My toast seemed to stick halfway down my throat, my newfound poise shriveling along with my stomach. “Does she?”

  A great laugh? Is that what I was? Is that what Simon thought, too? He’d not mentioned last night, instead behaving as if waking with a woman in his flat was nothing out of the ordinary. My already deflated stomach turned over, and I had to lock an ankle round the table leg to prevent myself from fleeing like a wronged maiden.

  Simon paused, his cup of tea halfway to his mouth. His brows wrinkled, his expression endearingly puzzled and worried. “Kitty? Are you feeling well?”

  My face grew warm, my hand fluttering to the powdered spot on my throat. “Simon, last night . . . I mean we . . . that is . . . you and I . . .”