Mine Till Midnight (6 page)

All she had been able to do was love him.

Swallowing back her bitterness, Amelia glanced up at her brother and managed a rueful smile. “Thank you, but at this advanced stage of life, I have no ambitions to marry.”

Leo surprised her by bending to brush a light kiss on her forehead. His voice was soft and kind. “Be that as it may, I think someday you’ll meet a man worth giving up your independence for.” He grinned before adding, “Despite your encroaching old age.”

For a moment Amelia’s mind chased back to the memory of the kiss in the shadows, the mouth slowly consuming hers, the gentle masculine hands, the whisper at her ear.
Latcho drom
 …

As her brother turned to walk away, she asked with mild exasperation, “Where are you going? Leo, you can’t leave when there’s so much to be done.”

He stopped and glanced back at her with a raised brow. “You’ve been pouring unsweetened tea down my throat for days. If you have no objection, I’d like to go out for a piss.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I can think of at least a dozen polite euphemisms you could have used.”

Leo continued on his way. “I don’t use euphemisms.”

“Or politeness,” she said, making him chuckle.

As Leo left the room, Amelia folded her arms and sighed. “He’s so much more pleasant when he’s sober. A pity it doesn’t happen more often. Come, Poppy, let’s find the kitchen.”

*   *   *

With the house so stale and dust-riddled, the atmosphere was hard on poor Win’s lungs, causing her to cough incessantly through the night. Having awakened countless times to administer water to her sister, to open the windows, to prop her up until the coughing spasms had eased, Amelia was bleary-eyed when morning came.

“It’s like sleeping in a dust box,” she told Merripen. “She’s better off sitting outside today, until we can manage to clean her room properly. The carpets must be beaten. And the windows are filthy.”

The rest of the family was still abed, but Merripen, like Amelia, was an early riser. Dressed in rough clothes and an open-necked shirt, he stood frowning as Amelia reported on Win’s condition.

“She’s exhausted from coughing all night, and her throat is so sore, she can barely speak. I’ve tried to make her take some tea and toast, but she won’t have it.”

“I’ll make her take it.”

Amelia looked at him blankly. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised by his assertion. After all, Merripen had helped nurse both Win and Leo through the scarlet fever. Without him, Amelia was certain neither of them would have survived.

“In the meanwhile,” Merripen continued, “make a list of supplies you want from the village. I’ll go this morning.”

Amelia nodded, grateful for his solid, reliable presence. “Shall I wake Leo? Perhaps he could help—”

“No.”

She smiled wryly, well aware that her brother would be more of a hindrance than a help.

Going downstairs, Amelia sought the help of Freddie, the boy from the village, to move an ancient chaise out to the back of the house. They set the furniture on a brick-paved terrace that opened onto a weed-choked garden bordered by beech hedges. The garden needed resodding and replanting, and the crumbling low walls would have to be repaired.

“There’s work to be done, mum,” Freddie commented, bending to pluck a tall weed from between two paving bricks.

“Freddie, you are a master of understatement.” Amelia contemplated the boy, who looked to be about thirteen. He was robust and ruddy-faced, with a ruff of hair that stood up like a robin’s feathers. “Do you like gardening?” she asked. “Do you know much about it?”

“I keeps a kitchen plot for my ma.”

“Would you like to be Lord Ramsay’s gardener?”

“How much does it pay, miss?”

“Would two shillings a week suffice?”

Freddie looked at her thoughtfully and scratched his wind-chapped nose. “Sounds good. But you’ll have to ask my ma.”

“Tell me where you live, and I’ll visit her this very morning.”

“All right. It’s not far—we’re at the closest side of the village.”

They shook hands on the deal, talked a moment more, and Freddie went to investigate the gardener’s shed.

Turning at the sound of voices, Amelia saw Merripen carrying her sister outside. Win was dressed in a nightgown and robe and swathed in a shawl, her slim arms looped around Merripen’s neck. With her white garments and blond hair and fair skin, Win was nearly colorless except for the flags of soft pink across her cheekbones and the vivid blue of her eyes.

“… that was the most terrible medicine,” she was saying cheerfully.

“It worked,” Merripen pointed out, bending to settle her carefully on the chaise.

“That doesn’t mean I forgive you for bullying me into taking it.”

“It was for your own good.”

“You’re a bully,” Win repeated, smiling into his dark face.

“Yes, I know,” Merripen murmured, tucking the lap blankets around her with extreme care.

Delighted by the improvement in her sister’s condition, Amelia smiled. “He really is dreadful. But if he manages to persuade more villagers to help clean the house, you will have to forgive him, Win.”

Win’s blue eyes twinkled. She spoke to Amelia, while her gaze remained on Merripen. “I have every faith in his powers of persuasion.”

Coming from anyone else, the words might have been construed as a piece of flirtation. But Amelia was fairly certain that Win had no awareness of Merripen as a man. To her he was a kindly older brother, nothing more.

The feelings on Merripen’s side, however, were more ambiguous.

An inquisitive gray jackdaw flapped to the ground with a few
tchacks,
and made a tentative hop in Win’s direction. “I’m sorry,” she told the bird, “there’s no food to share.”

A new voice entered the conversation. “Yes there is!” It was Beatrix, carrying a breakfast tray containing a plate of toast and a mug of tea. Her curly dark hair had been pulled back into an untidy bunch, and she wore a white pinafore over her berry-colored dress.

The pinafore was too young a style for a girl of fifteen, Amelia thought. Beatrix was now at an age when she should be wearing her skirts to the floor. And a corset, heaven help her. But in the past year of turmoil, Amelia hadn’t given much thought to her youngest sister’s attire. She needed to take Beatrix and Poppy to a dressmaker, and have some new frocks made for them. Adding that to the long list of expenditures in her head, Amelia frowned.

“Here’s your breakfast, Win,” Beatrix said, settling the tray on her lap. “Are you feeling well enough to butter the toast yourself, or shall I?”

“I will, thank you.” Win moved her feet and gestured for Beatrix to sit at the other end of the chaise.

Beatrix obeyed promptly. “I’m going to read to you while you sit out here,” she informed Win, reaching into one of the huge pockets of her pinafore. She withdrew a little book and dangled it tantalizingly. “This book was given to me by Philomena Parsons, my best friend in the entire world. She says it’s a terrifying story filled with crimes and horrors and vengeful phantoms. Doesn’t it sound lovely?”

“I thought your best friend in the world was Edwina Huddersfield,” Win said with a questioning lilt.

“Oh, no, that was
weeks
ago. Edwina and I don’t even speak now.” Snuggling comfortably in her corner, Beatrix gave her older sister a perplexed glance. “Win? You have the oddest look on your face. Is something the matter?”

Win had frozen in the act of lifting a teacup to her lips, her blue eyes round with alarm.

Following her sister’s gaze, Amelia saw a small reptilian creature slithering up Beatrix’s shoulder. A sharp cry escaped her lips, and she moved forward with her hands raised.

Beatrix glanced at her shoulder. “Oh, drat. You’re supposed to stay in my pocket.” She plucked the wriggling object from her shoulder and stroked him gently. “A spotted sand lizard,” she said. “Isn’t he adorable? I found him in my room last night.”

Amelia lowered her hands and stared dumbly at her youngest sister.

“You’ve made a pet of him?” Win asked weakly. “Beatrix, dear, don’t you think he would be happier in the forest where he belongs?”

Beatrix looked indignant. “With all those predators? Spot wouldn’t last a minute.”

Amelia found her voice. “He won’t last a minute with me, either. Get rid of him, Bea, or I’m going to flatten him with the nearest heavy object I can find.”

“You would murder my pet?”

“One doesn’t murder lizards, Bea. One exterminates them.” Exasperated, Amelia turned to Merripen. “Find some cleaning women in the village, Merripen. God knows how many other unwanted creatures are lurking in the house. Not counting Leo.”

Merripen disappeared at once.

“Spot is the perfect pet,” Beatrix argued. “He doesn’t bite, and he’s already house-trained.”

“I draw the line at pets with scales.”

Beatrix stared at her mutinously. “The sand lizard is a native species of Hampshire—which means Spot has more right to be here than we do.”

“Nevertheless, we will not be cohabiting.” Walking away before she said something she would regret later, Amelia wondered why, when there was so much to be done, Beatrix would be so troublesome. But a smile rose to her lips as she reflected that fifteen-year-old girls didn’t choose to be troublesome. They simply were.

Lifting handfuls of her skirts to pull them away from her legs, Amelia bounded up the grand central staircase. Since they would not be receiving guests or paying calls, she had decided not to wear a corset that day. It was a wonderful feeling to breathe as deeply as she wished and move freely about the house.

Filled with determination, she pounded on Leo’s door. “Wake up, slugabed!”

A string of foul words filtered through the heavy oak panels.

Grinning, Amelia went into Poppy’s room. She pulled the curtains open, releasing clouds of dust that caused her to sneeze. “Poppy, it’s …
achoo!
 … time to get out of bed.”

The covers had been drawn completely over Poppy’s head. “Not yet,” came her muffled protest.

Sitting on the edge of the mattress, Amelia eased the covers away from her nineteen-year-old sister. Poppy was groggy and sleep-flushed, her cheek imprinted with a line left by a fold of the bedclothes. Her brown hair, a warmer, ruddier tint than Amelia’s, was a wild mass of tangles.

“I hate morning,” Poppy mumbled. “And I’m sure I don’t like being awakened by someone who looks so bloody pleased about it.”

“I’m sorry.” Continuing to smile, Amelia stroked her sister’s hair away from her face repeatedly.

“Mmmn.” Poppy kept her eyes closed. “Mama used to do that. Feels nice.”

“Does it?” Amelia laid her hand gently over the curve of Poppy’s skull. “Dear, I’m going to walk to the village to ask Freddie’s mother if we can hire him as our gardener.”

“Isn’t he a bit young?”

“Not in comparison to the other candidates for the position.”

“We have no other candidates.”

“Precisely.” She went to Poppy’s valise in the corner, and picked up the bonnet poised atop it. “May I borrow this? Mine still hasn’t been repaired.”

“Of course, but … you’re going right now?”

“I won’t be long. I’ll cover the territory quickly.”

“Would you like me to go with you?”

“Thank you, dear, but no. Dress yourself and have some breakfast—and keep a close watch on Win. She’s in Beatrix’s care at the moment.”

“Oh.” Poppy’s eyes widened. “I’ll hurry.”

Chapter Five

It was a pleasantly cool, nearly cloudless day, the southern climate far milder than London. Amelia walked briskly through a fruit orchard beyond the garden. The tree branches were weighted with large green apples. Fallen fruit had been half eaten by deer and other animals, and left to ferment and spoil.

Pausing to tug an apple from a low-hanging branch, Amelia polished it on her sleeve and took a bite. The flavor was intensely acidic.

A honeybee buzzed close by, and Amelia jerked back in alarm. She had always been terrified of bees. Although she had tried to reason herself out of her fear, she couldn’t seem to control the panic that overcame her whenever one of the dratted beasts was in the vicinity.

Hurrying from the orchard, Amelia followed a sunken lane that led past a wet meadow. Despite the lateness of the season, heavy beds of watercress flourished everywhere. Known as “poor man’s bread,” the delicate pepper-flavored leaves were eaten in bunches by local villagers, and made into everything from soup to goose stuffing. She would gather some on her way back, she decided.

The shortest route to the village crossed through a corner of Lord Westcliff’s estate. As Amelia passed the invisible boundary between the Ramsay estate and Stony Cross Park, she could almost feel a change in the atmosphere. She walked on the outskirts of a rustling forest, too dense for daylight to penetrate the canopy. The land was luxurious, secretive, the ancient trees anchored deeply into dark and fertile ground. Removing her bonnet, Amelia held it by the brim and enjoyed the breeze against her face.

This had been Westcliff’s land for generations. She wondered what kind of people the earl and his family were. Terribly proper and traditional, she guessed. It would not be welcome news that Ramsay House was now occupied by an ill-mannered, red-blooded lot like the Hathaways.

Finding a well-worn footpath that cut through the forest, she disrupted a pair of wheatears, who flapped away with indignant chirps. Life abounded everywhere, including butterflies of almost unnatural color and beetles as bright as sparks. Taking care to stay on the footpath, Amelia picked up her skirts to keep them from dragging through the leaf litter of the forest floor.

She emerged from a copse of hazel and oak into a broad dry field. It was empty. And ominously quiet. No voices, no cheep of finches, no drone of bees or rattle of grasshoppers. Something about it filled her with the instinctive tension that warned of an unknown threat. Cautiously she proceeded up the gentle rise of the meadow.

Reaching the brow of a stunted hill, Amelia paused in bewilderment at the sight of a towering contraption made of metal. It appeared to be a chute propped up on legs, tilted at a steep angle.