By midday, both Thea and Lady Clarissa were covered in dust and half-buried amongst the storage chamber’s contents. Several pieces of furniture, including a three-legged chair and a divan that needed to be reupholstered, took up one side of the room. A half-dozen trunks filled most of the remaining space. The contents of four of the trunks lay spread on the floor.
They’d already uncovered the silver. Trays, cutlery, and even ornate goblets that looked more than a century old glinted dully in the chamber’s dusty, dim light. Now Thea and Lady Clarissa continued on for the fun of it, like two explorers discovering a new land inside each trunk.
“Let’s try this one,” Thea said, turning to the second to last trunk. She wiped a wisp of hair out of her face with the back of her dust-covered hand.
Clarissa settled before the trunk in a pool of blue skirts. Just as she reached for the lid, a soft cough came from the doorway.
Thea looked up to find Edmund leaning against the doorframe, his muscular arms crossed over his chest and an easy smile on his face. He was dressed as he’d been that first night, presumably because he’d just returned from his ride to the crofts.
Thea’s breath hitched and stuck in her throat. She adored him most this way, not confined by his English-style clothes, but looking part-wild and all male confidence in his Scottish garb.
She couldn’t stop her gaze from sliding over him. His boots still bore a few clumps of rapidly melting snow. The gap between the tops of his boots and the hem of his green and blue kilt revealed a fascinating glimpse of his bare knees and the scantest view of the corded muscle of his lower thigh.
He wore a wide leather belt from which a bag—a sporran, she thought it was called—dangled. Above that, his simple dark coat lay unbuttoned over an off-white shirt, which was open at the neck.
When she at last met his gaze, heat flooded her face, for the keen look in his forest-colored eyes told her he knew exactly what she felt when she looked at him—and that he felt the same.
“I thought I’d come see what trouble the two of ye have gotten into,” he said, shifting to lean on the other side of the doorframe.
“Was all well at the crofts?” Thea said, willing her voice to be even and polite despite the desire tightening her throat and melting her insides.
“Aye,” Edmund replied. “Better than well. I’ve met with all the families now. Seeing them only confirms what I’ve found so far in the papers on my desk. Relocating the people of Kinfallon is no’ only cruel, but it is also—blessedly—unnecessary. The estate has gotten by, even without my attention. There are still a few more matters of business to attend to, but I am more confident than ever that I can reject Selfridge’s scheme.”
“Oh,” Thea breathed. “That is wonderful ne—”
The moment was shattered by a sharp cry from Lady Clarissa.
Thea spun to find the woman leaning over the now-open trunk, her dark eyes wide and fixed on what lay inside.
As one, Thea and Edmund went to her side and knelt.
“What is it, Lady Clarissa?” Thea asked gently, but when her eyes followed the woman’s gaze, she had her answer.
Inside the trunk lay a few childish attempts at cross-stitch, several folded girls’ dresses—and a dozen figurines. Some were rag dolls, their eyes sewn-on buttons. Others were wooden, like the one lying at Lady Clarissa’s side. And there were a few painted nutcrackers as well, all slightly different, but made in the same style as the one Lady Clarissa called John.
“Margaret,” Lady Clarissa breathed, reaching out a shaky hand toward one of the dolls. Her voice broke on another moan.
Abruptly, she jerked to her feet and bolted from the room, her sobs echoing through the stone stairwell as she fled to her chamber.
Thea sat stunned, her heart twisting painfully.
“Do these…do these belong to Margaret?” she whispered, tilting her head toward the dresses and dolls.
“Nay,” Edmund replied, his voice low and tight. “All of Margaret’s things burned. These were Clarissa’s, when she was a wee bairn. She was saving them for Margaret until the lass was old enough. But…but Margaret was only a babe of one year when she died in the fire.”
Tears burned up Thea’s throat and into her eyes. “I had no idea she was so young.”
“Aye. She would be three now—likely already playing with one of these dolls or nutcrackers. They always pleased Clarissa as a young lass. She loved to collect them, and our parents indulged her.”
Edmund let his dark head sink into one of his hands, his eyes sheened with emotion as he stared blankly into the trunk.
“I’ll go to her and see what comfort I can give,” Thea said, scooping up the doll and nutcracker that Lady Clarissa had left behind.
“Thank ye,” Edmund murmured.
Thea hurried out of the storage chamber and up the spiraling stairs toward Lady Clarissa’s room. A rhythmic thumping and an unbroken low wail grew louder as Thea reached the door.
She pushed into the chamber to find the mattress once again dragged from the bedframe. Lady Clarissa sat in the middle of the empty frame, clutching one of the wooden posters and slowly banging her head into it. Her eyes were wide and unseeing, her mouth slack as she moaned.
“Lady Clarissa,” Thea said gently. “Please, do not harm yourself.” She crouched opposite the woman and slid a hand between the poster and her forehead. Lady Clarissa drove her forehead into the back of Thea’s hand a few times before she slowed in her rocking.
“I w-want Margaret,” she whimpered. “I want Margaret. And John. I want John.”
Thea lifted the two figurines in her hand and extended them to Lady Clarissa.
But when the woman’s gaze focused on them, her eyes filled with agony and rage. “Nay!” she screamed, snatching both the doll and the nutcracker. She raised them over her head. “I want the real Margaret! I want the real John!”
Lady Clarissa flung both figurines away. The doll landed harmlessly on the mattress lying askew on the floor, but the nutcracker hit the stone wall with a crack before bouncing to the ground, his jaw lying splintered beside him.
Realizing what she’d just done, Lady Clarissa sucked in a sharp breath, then crumpled to the floor as if she, too, were a broken doll. Hard sobs racked her body, making her hunched shoulders lurch and shake.
“Clarissa,” Thea murmured, placing a gentle hand on her back.
Lady Clarissa tensed and shied away from Thea’s touch. “Dinnae say it is all right,” she mumbled through her tear-thickened throat. “Dinnae say that I’ll be fine, that I must let go.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Thea replied, “because everything is not all right.”
Lady Clarissa stilled, lifting her head and fixing Thea with a guarded look.
“At least at the moment things are not all right,” Thea went on. “You are in pain. You’ve experienced a terrible loss. And anyone who tells you that you must let it go—that you must let them go—”
Realization hit Thea like a blow to the chest. Good God, the others—the doctor, the companions, the nursemaids Edmund had hired…they likely had told Lady Clarissa just that. Get over it. All will be well. You must simply let go—of your sadness, of the dolls, of your husband, of your child.
Thea pulled in a breath, holding her tears of outrage and grief on Lady Clarissa’s behalf at bay. The woman needed her to be strong now.
“Has no one ever told you that it is all right to simply hurt?” she asked, slowly circling her hand over Clarissa’s taut back. “That you are allowed to feel?”
Lady Clarissa didn’t speak, but the wave of tears that broke over her was answer enough.
They sat like that for a long time—long enough for the light to fade in the chamber and for Lady Clarissa’s voice to turn ragged with her sobs. All the while, Thea stayed with her, rubbing her back and murmuring nonsense in an attempt to comfort her.
When at last Lady Clarissa’s weeping turned to hiccups, Thea lifted her head and rolled the stiffne
ss from her neck. Her gaze landed on Edmund, who stood like a statue in the doorway, his eyes glazed with emotion.
As if hesitant to break the spell cast over the chamber, he cautiously stepped inside. But instead of going straight for his sister, he moved to where the nutcracker and its small wooden jaw lay.
“I can fix it,” he said, lifting the nutcracker and the broken jaw piece. “Make him good as new. Would ye like that, Clarissa?”
Lady Clarissa blinked bleary red eyes at him, then slowly nodded.
“Aye,” she rasped, her voice thin and raw. Slowly, she crawled over the wooden bedframe and onto the mattress. She curled up, pulling a blanket over herself as she did, and fell asleep almost immediately.
“She’s exhausted,” Thea whispered to Edmund, longing to seek her own bed.
Edmund nodded, then tilted his head toward the door, indicating that they should leave her to sleep.
They made their way in silence down the stairs, but Thea hesitated at the bottom.
“Can you really fix the nutcracker?”
“Aye,” Edmund said, lifting the broken jaw and inspecting it for a moment. He tucked the little piece of wood in his coat pocket, clutching the broken nutcracker in one hand.
When his eyes captured hers, she saw a cavernous well of sadness in their green depths.
“Will she be all right?”
Thea knew he didn’t just mean tonight. He was asking if his sister would always suffer so greatly.
“I cannae help but fear,” he continued quietly, “that I have made things worse for her. If I hadnae hired all those bloody fools who were so cruel and callous toward her, perhaps Clarissa—”
“Edmund,” Thea interrupted. “You hired them because you hoped they’d help your sister. And when they didn’t, you sent them away.”
“Aye, but even I was a damned fool at times. I kept trying to push her out of her grief, instead of letting her feel it.”
“You did all that you knew how to. She knows you love her.” Thea drew in a breath. “And as to her wellbeing…I don’t know if she will get any better,” she said honestly, “but I think she will be all right, even still.”
“Thanks to ye,” Edmund murmured.
She looked up into his eyes, but something above his head caught her attention. She nearly giggled with a mixture of delirium and exhausted astonishment at what she saw.
When Edmund followed her gaze, he gave a weak chuckle. They stood directly under one of the clumps of mistletoe she’d hung earlier in the week.
He raised a dark eyebrow at her in a silent question. She nodded, feeling a foolish grin curving her lips. But Edmund’s mirth fell away as he stared down at her. His eyes turned liquid and dark with hunger—hunger for her.
This time when he kissed her, it wasn’t the gentle, slow brushing of lips they’d shared under the pine tree. No, this kiss was demanding, urgent—and sent warmth instantly pooling low in her belly.
His body connected with hers, but he didn’t stop there. He continued to move forward until he pinned her against the stones lining the stairwell entrance.
When his tongue found hers, a soft moan rose in her throat at the velvet heat. She looped her arms around his neck, savoring his silky hair, pulling him impossibly closer.
Abruptly, he jerked back, his breath ragged and his eyes clouded with lust.
“Go on,” he rasped, nodding toward the south tower stairs where her chamber lay. “Before I forget myself. I’ll see ye tomorrow morning.”
Slowly, he took a step back, freeing her from the wall. Thea’s face was hot—her whole body felt as if it were aflame—but she didn’t care. She met his scorching gaze for a long moment, letting him see just how he affected her, before turning at last and walking on quiet feet toward the opposite stairs.
Thea let a private smile touch her lips as she went. She could no longer deny what grew in her heart. Love. Love for this place, love for Edmund’s family—and love for him.
As she took the stairs to her chamber, that thought warmed her even more than Edmund’s kiss.
Chapter Nine
The next morning, Thea dressed hurriedly, eager to see Edmund again. Once she’d tightened her front-lacing corset, arranged her petticoats, and buttoned the nicer of her two dark, plain gowns, she coiled her hair in a simple plaited bun and set out from her chamber.
The great hall was empty. Perhaps Edmund had already broken his fast? She crossed to the north tower stairs and headed for his study, supposing that was the next most likely place to find him, even this early. He’d been working so hard in the near-month since Thea’s arrival. Now that she understood just how harmful the clearances would be—had already been, especially to Lady Clarissa—she knew why he spent so much time poring over his papers.
Thea swung open the study door, her heart already leaping in anticipation of seeing his handsome face.
“Edmund, I thought today Lady Clarissa and I could—”
She pulled up short. The man sitting behind the large oak desk wasn’t Edmund—it was Selfridge.
“Ah, Miss Reynolds,” Selfridge said, leaning back in Edmund’s chair. “I’m afraid Lord Kinfallon—or Edmund, as you so familiarly call him—had to see to a small matter at one of the crofts early this morning. Mrs. MacDuffy showed me in here to wait.” His dark blue eyes grew sharp. “Perhaps we can wait together.”
Unease rippled through her. What was it about Selfridge that reminded her of a snake? He bore no forked tongue, no unblinking, vertically slitted eyes, yet he seemed to slither as he rose from Edmund’s chair and moved around the desk.
“You see, I have something very particular to inform Lord Kinfallon,” he said, stepping closer. “But now that I think on it, perhaps you are the person I should speak to regarding this…matter.”
Thea’s mouth went dry. Cold foreboding swept through her. She turned to exit the study, but Selfridge darted forward, closing the door with one hand even as he loomed in front of her, effectively trapping her between his body and the door.
“It might be less messy this way,” he said, more to himself than to her. “Less of a scene.” He looked down at her, his gaze frostily assessing. “Yes, I think this will be far cleaner. You see, Miss Reynolds, the particular matter I came to discuss with Lord Kinfallon is actually regarding you.”
“Me?” Thea murmured. Her mind screamed at her to move, to find her spine, to put Selfridge in his place, yet a terrible sense of dread seemed to weigh her limbs.
A sly smile that didn’t touch his eyes lifted his thin lips. “Yes, indeed. I had a friend in London look into you, Miss Reynolds—or should I say, Miss Tynham?”
Thea’s stomach plummeted. Before she could speak, though, Selfridge went on.
“But that isn’t quite right, is it? Your father didn’t give you his name, since you were bastard-born. Lord Tynham’s name carries a fair bit of weight in London, but it wouldn’t do to give it to a child borne of a whore.”
The study seemed to tilt on its side. Thea’s vision clouded as she felt herself beginning to fall. Selfridge’s bony fingers suddenly dug into her upper arm, holding her up and giving her a shake.
“Now, let’s see if I remember this right. Reynolds was a distant cousin’s name. No, that’s not it.” He snapped the fingers of his free hand, drawing her partially out of her stunned torpor. “An aunt. Yes, that’s right. A childless aunt’s name, which you took to give yourself enough respectability to pass yourself off as a governess.”
“I…I am a governess,” Thea mumbled, willing her eyes to focus on Selfridge. Think! her mind screamed, but everything was happening too fast.
“You are a bastard,” Selfridge sneered, “and the daughter of a whore and a nobleman who couldn’t keep his trousers fastened. Yet you presented yourself as a respectable young lady, inserted yourself into noblemen’s homes.” He paused for effect. “Taught those noblemen’s children. You see how this looks, don’t you?”
Yes, she did. She knew exactly how it looke
d, and what would happen to her if anyone ever found out. She would never find work again. No one would hire a governess, who was supposed to be a model of propriety to young children, if she was bastard-born and had lied about her pedigree.
Her mind skittered back to what Selfridge had said earlier.
“And,” she said, swallowing hard, “you plan to tell Lord Kinfallon this?”
“It is my duty as his friend to look after his wellbeing,” Selfridge said. “I cannot stand by knowing that a deceiver, a liar, and a woman of immoral character is living under his roof, spending time with his sister.” He let his gaze sweep slowly over her, making her skin prick with revulsion. “Especially not when that woman has clearly used her charms to cloud the earl’s judgment. What must you have done to earn the right to call him by his Christian name? Dropped to your knees before him? Spread your legs like your whore mother?”
Selfridge’s cruel words were like a splash of ice water over Thea’s face.
“Why are you doing this?” she ground out, glaring at Selfridge. “And do not say friendship for Edmund, for we both know that is a lie.”
He stepped back at last, tilting his sandy head. “I suppose it can’t hurt to tell you. I have been angling for the earl to take up a business venture with me.”
“I know about your business,” Thea practically spat. “What does that have to do with my past?”
“The earl was close to agreeing to my plan,” Selfridge replied. “Until you arrived. You have created quite the problem for me.”
So that was it. Selfridge sought to drive her away so that Edmund would sink once more under the weight of caring for his sister while also trying to manage the estate. Selfridge was counting on being able to destroy Edmund—by destroying her.
And he could—or at least he could ruin Thea forever, obliterating her ability to ever find paying work as a governess again. She would be forced to go to the workhouse. That reality loomed before her. Some women could work in factories or mills for years, managing through careful effort to walk the knife’s edge between respectable living and destitute poverty. Others, however, became sick and lost their position, or their wages were lowered until they could not afford enough food to fill their bellies. Some even died in accidents or from the diseases that tore through the workhouses like flames over dry kindling.
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