Change of Address

Change of Address

Kate Dolan

Blush sensuality level: This is a sweet romance (kisses
only, no sexual content).

Amanda, her young sister and her
unconventional mother move to a small house in a remote village just before
Christmas—and discover it lacks furniture and everything else they need.
Charles, son of the local squire, bursts in to rescue them when he mistakes
smoke from the clogged chimneys as a house fire. When she realizes his father
is their landlord, Amanda drafts Charles into helping them, and he willingly
complies with the requests of the beauty.

As the acquaintance between the
families deepens, Amanda comes to realize that Charles may not be quite as
bacon-brained as she assumed. When he rescues her from a drunken man, she then
has to conspire with him to prevent worse consequences—all on Christmas Eve.

Change of Address

Kate Dolan

Chapter One

“There must be some mistake.” Amanda Castling stared in
disbelief from the coach halted in front of a plain, two-story cottage
apparently cobbled together from an irregular assortment of small stones.

Her younger sister Honoria elbowed her aside to gain full
access to the small window in the coach door. “I do not see any trees suitable
for climbing.”

“You are nearly thirteen and that is much too old to climb
trees, as you well know.” Amanda sighed. With no governess to keep her
addlepated sister in check, it would probably fall to her to ensure that
Honoria did not do something that would embarrass them before their new
neighbors. But it would not be here, because this could not possibly be the
house her mother had rented for them. Even she would not be so foolish.

Of course, her mother had been foolish enough to insist on
riding her own horse ahead of them on the last portion of the journey because
she thought it dispirited the mare to be tied to the back of a coach. So
anything was possible.

Amanda climbed out of the coach.

A gust of icy wind sliced through her cloak as though it
were made of spun sugar rather than two layers of felted wool. She pulled it
closed tight at her throat as her gaze scanned the countryside. On this gray
December day, rolling hills that might have appeared green and verdant in the
spring were now only bleak swathes of brown, outlined by skeletal, darkened
hedgerows. The wind carried with it the faintly rotten odor of the sea, which
lay somewhere just over a bleak horizon. From this angle, certainly, it looked
as if they had traveled to the edge of the Earth. Turning her gaze in the other
direction, she saw one other house up on top of the hill, a manor house of
buttery stone with rows of long, regularly spaced windows, looking down upon
them as if to taunt her family in their new reduced circumstances.

Or perhaps it welcomed her. Perhaps the coachman had driven
to the wrong building by mistake. The stone manor house was substantial,
certainly, but it was not as big as Holingbroke House. Perhaps the manor was
indeed the one her mother had rented for them. She’d have chosen it because it
reminded her of Holingbroke and they might live there and pretend that things
had not changed so very much.

Behind her a door creaked open. “Aaghhahooaahhh,” a voice
coughed and gagged.

Amanda whirled around to see her mother bent over in the
doorway of the ignominious stone cottage, hacking into her cloak. Smoke rolled
out the door behind her.

“Mama!” she screamed, racing up the path toward her. “You
must get away! The building is ablaze!”

Her mother shook her head as Amanda tried to pull her away.
“No.” She gave one final great, hacking cough and spat onto the hard-packed
dirt at her feet. “The chimney is clogged, that is all.”

Amanda peered into the gray, impenetrable gloom of the
interior. “Are you certain?”

“Is it safe to enter?” Honoria asked eagerly.

Her mother nodded. “The only fire is in the firebox.” With a
sigh, her mother stood up straight and pulled her cap back down into place as
Honoria dashed past her into the house. “I fear there is little enough inside
that would burn in any case.”

“What?” Amanda took a step back. “Surely there must be
furniture…”

Her mother shook her head.

“And linens…”

She shook it again.

“And…” Amanda let her voice trail off. All these they’d left
behind in Holingbroke for her cousin, at her mother’s insistence. Amanda hadn’t
been certain whether her mother’s motive had been to part with all reminders of
the past or to assure her cousin that they had no want of anything, but they’d
brought only their clothes and personal goods with them, along with a few
pieces of china and plate from her mother’s family.

They had almost nothing with which to set up housekeeping.

She stared at her mother in disbelief. “How could you—”

“The agent assured me the cottage was equipped with
everything we’d need.”

“The agent in Wells?”

“Yes.”

“Who’d probably never been to this part of Somerset?”

“Yes.”

“And who is a man in any case and has never had to set up
housekeeping. He assured you the cottage had everything we’d need and you
believed him?”

Her mother rubbed her hands together. “Why should I not? I’m
sure he’s rented to many widows before now.”

Amanda pursed her lips and turned away so she would not call
her mother a fool to her face. The agent knew, certainly, that they were too
far away now to object or ask for a refund of any of their money anytime soon.

Unless…

She turned back around. “We could return to Holingbroke with
the carriage.”

“What?” Her mother shook her head with vehemence. “No,
heavens no.”

“John Castling said we might take whatever we needed.”

“No, we’ve left all that behind.”

“And he said we might remain at Holingbroke as long as we
wished.” She waved toward the carriage. “Surely he would not object to our
return if he knew the circumstances.”

Her mother crossed her arms. “We all knew the day would come
when your father would finally pass and we would need to start a new life.”

“We might have at least waited until spring. John Castling
said—”

“Your cousin was merely being polite. Besides, now
he
will have to bear the expenses of St. Stephen’s Day, which we could little
stand.”

Amanda stopped. This was the single worst excuse she had
ever heard. “Is that why you insisted we leave in this late in December?”

Her mother took her arm and nodded toward the coachman as he
came toward them bearing a trunk on which Honoria had painted a very elaborate
set of initials. Her meaning was very clear—the discussion would not be
continued in front of a servant, even though he was no longer in their employ.

“Come,” her mother led her toward the door, “let us see
whether we fare any better with the other chimney.”

Inside the smoke had dispersed just enough to enable Amanda
to see her sister the moment before she leapt off the end of the winding
staircase at the back of the room. “I want my bed placed in the chamber on the
east side of the house,” she fairly shouted. “I think I can see the sea from
the window!”

Amanda gave a morose laugh. “You don’t have a bed, in case
you hadn’t noticed.”

Honoria looked at their mother. “I had rather wondered about
that. Will we need to make beds for ourselves then? Is this like an expedition
to the wilderness?”

“Just so, it is that indeed.” Her mother’s expression
softened. “We shall need to make a great many things.”

“Put that in the front room upstairs, please,” Honoria
ordered the coachman as he stepped inside with her trunk and she slipped past
him out the door. “I am going to make a bed of rose petals from the garden.”

“You’ll find nothing but frozen thorns at this time of
year,” Amanda pointed out. But Honoria probably had not heard her and even if
she did, she never gave any heed to the six years additional wisdom Amanda had
over her.

Her mother smiled with indulgence. “She has the right
spirit.”

“She’s a ninny.”

“Perhaps we must all be ninnies from now on.” Her mother
looked at her pointedly. “We certainly cannot be what we were before.”

Amanda turned away. “We could have pretended. At least for a
while.” She rubbed her hands together, realizing all at once that she could
barely feel her fingers.

“Help me light the fire in the kitchen,” her mother ordered.
“Surely both chimneys cannot be blocked.”

Amanda followed her mother into the next room, but she could
not think of it as a kitchen. At home, at Holingbroke, the kitchen was a big,
cavernous place bustling with activity—Cook bellowing orders, pots banging in
the scullery—and rich with smells of savory meat pie or pungent chopped onion.
The room her mother led her to was small, though it comprised nearly half the
ground floor of the house, but what was worse was the coldness of it. Not only
the temperature, the room had an empty feel as if any attempt at warmth or life
would be sucked up the chimney along with the wind that swirled in the corners
every time the coachman opened the door to bring in another box or trunk.

A scrap of onion skin on the floor was the only sign that
the room had ever been used to prepare meals.

Bending over the fireplace, her mother picked through the
ashes to find bits of unburned wood.

“We haven’t any coal,” Amanda observed morosely.

“No, but I gathered scraps of wood from out back. I think
those are cherry trees. Can you just think how sweet it will smell when they
bloom in the spring?”

“There won’t be much scent if we have to cut the trees down
for fuel.”

Her mother laughed as she sat back on her heels. “We are not
so poor as all that. I have settled us in close proximity to the first family
of the region, who’ve owned these estates for centuries and are quite genteel,
I’m told. And though our house is small, it is well made, as you can see. Look
at size of those beams! And the doorway, there just behind you.” She waved
toward the arched opening in the oak-planked wall that divided the ground floor
into two rooms. “I can just imagine a medieval knight stepping through that
door in full armor, can’t you?”

Amanda grimaced at her mother’s fancy. “I’d rather not
imagine a strange man walking through the middle of our house, if you don’t
mind, Mama.”

She laughed. “This afternoon I will ride to the village and
order coal and foodstuffs and see about hiring a boy for the stable. Oh, and I
suppose some help for the house, too. Will you bring me the sticks I left by
the fireplace in the parlor?”

Amanda started for other room before she realized what her
mother had just said. “Stable? There’s a stable with this tiny cottage?”

Her mother nodded. “That’s why I knew it would be perfect
for us.”

Perfect
was not the descriptive term Amanda would
have chosen to describe the place, unless it was combined with additional
letters, such as “-ly dreadful”. But somehow she wasn’t surprised that though
the house had clogged chimneys and no proper kitchen, it had a stable for her
mother’s mare, Juno. Keeping a horse in their reduced circumstances made no
sense whatsoever, but no sense seemed to be just about the amount that her
mother had.

Amanda stepped into what she supposed was the parlor to pick
up the twigs and broken branches that lay heaped near the hearth.

Pounding sounded at the back of the house and the rear door
rattled on its hinges.

“Do you suppose that’s Juno telling us she would rather be
accommodated in the house?” Amanda asked.

“Open the door, ’Manda,” a muffled voice called through the
door. “My arms are full.”

“Oh good, I don’t think those rotten sticks will last long.”
For once, her sister had done something useful.

But when Amanda unlatched the door, instead of finding
Honoria’s arms laden with firewood, she saw that her sister had collected only
an armful of leaves.

“Well that’s even worse than the rotten sticks. Leave those
and find something better.” Amanda started to shut the door, but her sister
stuck her foot in the doorjamb.

“These are for my bed,” she insisted.

“That’s absurd.”

“I shall be quite comfortable sleeping rustic.”

Amanda coughed. “You shall look quite rustic as well with
your hair full of leaves. A regular Jack in the Green.”

“But I will be Jane in the Brown,” Honoria pointed out.

Amanda shook her head sadly as she stepped back to allow her
sister to bring in her leafy bedding. Then she turned to call to her mother. “I
think that chimney must be clogged as well. I’m going to leave this door open.”
She sighed. Since it was destined to be as cold inside as out, she might as
well go back outside and collect more wood.

Though there were no trees in front of the cottage, she
nevertheless found herself out in front, her eyes straying to the carriage as
often as they scanned the ground for sticks. It was their last link with home.
When Richmond finished unloading their meager belongings, he would leave and
that link would be severed forever. She would no longer be “Miss Castling of
Holingbroke” but instead merely “Miss Castling of no place in particular”. She
felt like a tree severed from its roots, ready to collapse at any moment.

The trunks were no longer atop the carriage and when
Richmond emerged from it carrying a sculpture of four horses drawing the
chariot of Zeus, she could see that the interior of the conveyance was now
empty as well. He must be holding the last item, a ridiculous bit of frivolity.
Her mother was too proud to take any of the Castling bed linens or ironware,
but she had asked John Castling if she could have the statue of the
anemoi—
pretend
gods pretending to be horses to carry another pretend god.

As he carried the ridiculous item into the stone building
that could scarcely be termed a house, Amanda found herself blinking back
tears. Her cousin had earnestly entreated them to stay after he’d moved in, and
certainly Holingbroke was big enough to accommodate them all. There was no
money to keep up appearances, of course, but that truly had not mattered. She
had friends, she had her books and knew in all the corners of the house where
to find the sunlight at different times of the day.

Now she had only a few books, no place to sit to read them,
no friends with whom to discuss them. And without Holingbroke’s staff, she and
her mother and sister would be working from dawn to dusk, so she’d have no time
to read or talk or do anything in any case. They would hire some local help for
the household eventually, since none of the Holingbroke maids had wished to
move with them, but until then they must do everything for themselves. Her
mother had traded a life of ease for a life of drudgery. She was a fool.