The Painted Castle

by Kristy Cambron

  The only glimpse of their current reality was the shattered glass of the grand Palladian window that had been boarded over from the inside after it had taken a hit from a rogue bombing early in the war. The room still held a secret beauty, even though it had been closed off from the rest of the manor. The heirloom paintings it had once housed had been crated up and stowed in the safety of an interior ground-floor storage room, and the furniture now was exposed after its ivory dust covers had been repurposed as clothing for the children.

  “I didn’t mean to disturb you, milady. But I was told I might find you in the library. I just didn’t know it was like this.”

  Quite right. If she wasn’t at work on the estate, she was at play with the memories of it.

  Amelia loaded a stack of books in her arms and crossed the space to the opposite wall, her work boots clicking the hardwood. She climbed two steps on the rolling ladder and set the books eye-level on the shelf. “How may I help, Captain?”

  When he didn’t speak right away and awkwardness befell the room, Amelia turned to see if he was still there. His eyes weren’t military then—all deference and leading drills. Questions hovered in their hazel depths, his obvious curiosity quite unexpected in the moment.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No. It’s just . . . It’s true then? You’re a viscountess?”

  Darly. Amelia would have to kill him for perpetuating the lie that she was to be treated as royalty because of a silly title she’d obtained through marriage and only held for the year after. “Who said so?”

  “The address for the rations was made out to a Viscountess Huxley. Is that you?” Wyatt tipped his brow, eyes teasing just a shade. “And you answered to milady without missing a beat.”

  Amelia felt a blush battle its way to the surface.

  Perhaps she had.

  “I’m afraid it’s not as glamorous as all that. We just keep the ‘milady’ part quiet around here—especially when I’m mucking out barn stalls.”

  “But now you’ve opened your home to evacuated children, manage the estate grounds, harvest honey, and give the what-for to a bunch of bee-swatting GIs who stepped in to turn over your world. Quite the title earner if I ever heard of one.”

  “I believe titles are actually earned in one’s actions after they’re inherited, but that is not always the case in the real world, is it? And that’s what we have here more than anything. Several of the children arrived years ago and haven’t seen their parents at all in that time. We’re lucky to have two teachers come in from the village school, or I don’t know how we’d manage. The library got lost in the shuffle of honey harvesting and keeping things going, I’m afraid, and I’m backed up in my chores to get everything restacked. If that’s not a triple dose of our real world, I don’t know what is.”

  The captain turned a circle in the center of the ground-floor room, under a chandelier that twinkled from reams of morning sun. “A shame,” he said, chin up, looking over the rich designs of gold coffer and baroque art spanning the ceiling vaults. “It should be used more. You could give tours, when this is all over of course.”

  When this is all over . . .

  Tours of an English manor seemed a world away to think on, not when flyboys were sleeping on cots wall to wall in the drawing rooms, children from ramshackle lives in London were packed like sardines in the upper-floor chambers, and bombs fell from the sky like a stout English rain.

  Amelia pushed the possibility of tomorrow from her mind.

  “I’m just tidying up in here, Captain. So . . . is there something I might help you with?”

  “Yes, actually. I’m looking for Mr. Woods—or should I address him as Viscount Huxley? I don’t know how honorifics are handled here. I haven’t yet had the chance to speak with him, and there’s a list of essentials I need to discuss about the estate.”

  Amelia breathed in, her hand freezing to the first spine on the stack.

  How long had it been since she’d heard her husband’s name spoken by anyone other than the voice in her head or the longing in her heart?

  Her mother-in-law mentioned “my son” in letters, but that was only in the occasional missive to check on the state of affairs at the manor. The children hadn’t known Arthur well for how infrequently he was on leave those first few months of the war. Even Darly didn’t say his name, and Arthur had been his great-nephew. It was as if the manor held its breath, keeping all from speaking of who and what they’d lost before they’d arrived.

  Perhaps each expected their own world to start again after the pause of war, and the reasons why they were all tossed together in a makeshift family at a country estate would have been nothing but a terrible dream.

  How she wished they could wake from it.

  Captain Stevens cleared his throat. “Milady? Are you alright?”

  “Yes, Captain. Do go on.”

  He held a scrap of paper in his hand, ticking things off aloud. “I need to see about bomb bunkers—are there any on the grounds? And there’s a list of supplies coming in from the airfield we’ll need to organize. Then there’s security at the front gate and the men’s schedules, how we can minimize any effect they might have on the children. And where do we park the jeeps we’ll have to use to ferry men back and forth from the airfield? It’s a growing list, I’m afraid.”

  Amelia stepped down the ladder, her denim coveralls brushing the iron rail and work boots touching back to polished hardwood with a clip-clop.

  Very well. If he needed to speak with the trousers that ran the place, he would.

  “That is a list with which I shall have to assist.” Amelia faced him with an assuredness that surprised even her and took the list from his outstretched hand. “I’m afraid my husband died four years ago.”

  What former ease he’d shown faded from his face. He slid a hand into the pocket of his uniform trousers, his demeanor far less animated than before. “I’m so sorry . . . I didn’t know.”

  “You couldn’t have.”

  “I’m still sorry for your loss.” He paused for a breath.

  The scampering of shoes clipping the hardwood drew both their gazes to the doorway. A boy stood there, winded and smiling, his herringbone newsboy hat over a mop of burnished-brown hair that curled out from under the brim.

  Luca’s was that beautifully awkward, seven-going-on-eight-years-old toothy grin—messy and perfect they were at that age. These days it was one of the things she lived most to see. He graced them with it, taking off his hat to turn in his hands.

  Amelia leaned against the bookshelves, waiting for him to ask this time.

  When he opened his mouth to speak, she whispered, “In English, if you please.”

  He thought for a moment, fingertips running over the hat brim while his mouth moved, silently trying to place the words. “I am here for my book, milady,” he announced, the shadow of a German edge to his accent.

  She pulled the pocket watch from her coveralls pocket—noon.

  “You are right on time. Barely.” Amelia narrowed her eyes in play as she walked over to the sideboard and plucked a burgundy leather-bound journal from its top. “And do you see we have a guest?”

  Luca looked to the captain, giving a polite nod as he accepted the journal from Amelia’s outstretched hand. “You’re an officer?” He glanced at the uniform, up and down the tall drink of water. “A flyer?”

  “Try to be on a good day.” Captain Stevens knelt, smiling on a playful whisper. “What are you reading?”

  “I’m writing, sir.”

  Too many questions. Too much risk to have them form an acquaintance. “Uh, Luca . . . hadn’t you better be off? Your sister will not take kindly to tardiness for your lessons. I’ll see you back here after, and we’ll see to your other studies. Yes?”

  “And. . .” Luca shifted a side glance to the officer. He cupped a palm around his mouth, adding a secretive, “We’ll check our painting after?”

  “Of course we will. As usual. Now—shoo. Off you go
.”

  Luca shifted his glance to the captain again, a mere second of notice. Was he deciding whether it was safe to leave milady with the stranger—maybe because of the uniform plus the smile? Then he fled back down the hall.

  “He’s a bright lad.”

  The former melancholy was swept away as a smile pricked Amelia’s insides. “He is. Yes. And his sister will have his hide if he’s late for lessons again. Already at seventeen Liesel’s as strict as their mother is, apparently. As you can see, there’s a manor of teachers and children, a pasture of bees, and now two squadrons of officers to tuck into the fold. I’d say we’re about as full as can be expected, given the circumstances. So you’ll have to bring your lists to me in future and we’ll see what needs to be done with them.”

  “You add teaching Luca to your list of daily activities?”

  “Well, that is our little secret, but I figured being an officer, we could trust you. He wants to learn to read in English, as his older sister prefers their native German. So I’ve agreed to help. We’re tripping our way through together.”

  He nodded, accepting her answer without argument. And then his demeanor softened. He looked out one of the windows, to the green pastures stretching beyond the manor.

  “I hate to bring it up, but for practicality’s sake, how are you fixed at night?”

  Amelia’s attention snapped to him. “I’m sorry?”

  “The raids.” He pointed a fingertip up to the soaring ceiling. “You know, to see about the children?”

  “Oh.” She exhaled fast. “Yes, of course.”

  Air raids had occurred with such ferocity in places like London and Norwich, and though they’d had their share of close calls, the Luftwaffe wasn’t frequent in threatening the country estates like they’d pounded the metropolitan areas. But being not far from the coast and with an airfield in such close proximity, they still needed to consider the reality that a German Dornier could slip through again . . .

  She prayed—every day—it wouldn’t.

  “We get along.”

  “You have Morrisons in the manor? I didn’t see any shelters outside, so I have to assume with so many children here, you have some indoors.”

  “Yes, we have Morrisons—they’re packed away in the cellar, where we keep the bees in winter. And we do have Anderson shelters, but they’re buried in the gardens and that’s where they’ll stay. Past the rock-wall fencing. We don’t venture out there much, at least not unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  He looked out the windows again, as if he expected a formation of Luftwaffe fighters to loom large on the horizon. “But isn’t that too far from the manor? If bombs fall, how do you get the children to safety in time?”

  “We manage well enough, Captain.” Amelia’s heart closed up like a coastal town awaiting an impending gale.

  The captain was nice enough, with kind eyes that looked but never lingered for too long, and the manners that came with integrity and maturity were easy to see over some of the other officers. That was a comfort. But in matters where he was attempting to tread—quite uninvited—Amelia wouldn’t allow the liberty to dig any deeper than the surface of estate doings.

  Parham Hill was their world, and she was willing to give her life to ensure the children remained wholly untouched by war in the midst of it.

  “If you should provide me with a supply list, I’ll see that Mrs. Jenkins is aware of the incoming rations. Preparing tea for a real army may come as something of a shock to our cook’s sensibilities. I’d like to break the news as gently as I can, and a list that includes butter and sugar could be just the ticket to smooth things over.”

  If the captain noticed her deflection, he didn’t comment or argue. Just nodded and handed the list over without another word.

  He wasn’t bullish, she’d give him that.

  “I can have a cook sent over from the canteen.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Captain. It’s just a matter of getting organized.” Amelia slipped the list in the front pocket of her coveralls and whisked past him toward the door, leaving the stacking of books—and private memories—behind for another day.

  “Milady?”

  Amelia turned, not wishing to appear rude but simply regretting she couldn’t acknowledge a title she didn’t deserve without an air of serviceable indifference. “Yes?”

  “This may be a bit presumptuous, but . . . may I come back here?”

  “To the library?”

  He nodded. “If I promise not to disturb you and Luca, that is.”

  “Well, we’re not often in here exactly.”

  “Oh. I see. Secret lessons require a secret space?”

  The man—quiet in his responses, and with undetermined motives—wanted to come back to the library? Arthur’s library . . . No one spent time in here but her. And Amelia’s time was all packed up in the memory of yesteryears. Now this man wanted to share that? He couldn’t have known what he was asking.

  “You read, Captain? I mean, for pleasure.”

  “It’s Wyatt. Please. And yes. I read.”

  “The kind of books one might find in a well-stocked English library?”

  He leaned in, lowering his voice. “Any books. I try not to judge by the cover if I can.”

  “Alright.” She paused, her feet almost tripping her back a step to put distance between them. The removal of stones from the walls around her heart was a painfully slow process—as was any new development that meant the world was moving on without Arthur. “As long as we can agree you will not call me ‘milady’—that title belongs to my mother-in-law, and she’s quite content to keep it to herself. ‘Mrs. Woods’ will do me fine.”

  “I believe I can remember that.”

  “Grand. Then there are the likes of Joyce, Keats, and Shelley, if you prefer, on the upper level. Plenty of Shakespeare. Dickens. The Brontës or Austen, if you really want to get the full English experience while you’re here. Thoreau and Mark Twain—for the Americans in the room—are at the far end by the fireplace.”

  “Thanks. I’ll take a look. Though, my apologies—I’m not what you would call a fan of Jane Austen.”

  “As an officer in the United States Army, I’m not sure I’d have expected you to be. But I’ll leave the rest for you to discover on your own. You may borrow whatever you’d like and leave what you’ve read in a stack on the sideboard. Just please do not take any from the glass cabinet under the window.”

  He tipped an eyebrow.

  Yes, you just saw me place a book back on its shelf, but please—don’t ask me why.

  “Secret stash?”

  “No. Not secret. Just older.” She smiled, brushing off anything close to an explanation. “They tell a good story, but it’s one so fragile I’ll not even take them out to relive it.”

  “To relive what?”

  To relive time. Parham Hill’s broken story. The library’s legacy. Even Luca’s very presence at the manor. Captain Stevens—Wyatt, as he seemed determined for her to call him—could have taken his pick. But the one story Amelia wouldn’t relive was the yesterday when everything had changed.

  When Arthur put his life on the line and lost it . . .

  “It would do no good to relive a past that’s best left on the shelf. If you’ll excuse me then.”

  Amelia whispered a “Good day” and whisked out of the library, wishing the tiny decisions of yesterday weren’t sometimes the very ones that could manage to change everything about the future in the blink of an eye.

  Six

  April 20, 1843

  Parham Hill Estate

  Framlingham, England

  “You are lost, Fräulein?”

  A man’s thick German accent echoed against the high ceilings of the estate library.

  Elizabeth jumped, then whirled around.

  Impeccably dressed in an ice-gray coat with luxurious fox trim at the collar . . . Fair hair that mingled with gray at the temples, in his mustache, and in his tightly trimmed beard . . . Not
unattractive, but a bit older than she’d anticipated. And severe.

  “Lost?” Elizabeth wasn’t lost. She was snooping in a private library, and they both knew it. “No, sir. I am not.”

  The gentleman had surveyed the crowd with mild interest from his perch by the ballroom’s marble fireplace, almost since they’d arrived. Ladies had twittered past, fluttering fans and batting eyelashes under his deep-cognac glare. Yet he seemed to ignore the lot of them, as if the party both bored and irritated him in equal measure. He maintained a cool yet polished distance from the room.

  Elizabeth had fallen into duty, dancing with several eligibles her mother had seen fit to introduce, until they could manage to draw an audience with the viscount himself. As usually occurred, the ballroom walls had begun to close in on her from all sides. The refuge of a quiet hallway beckoned and she’d stolen into its depths, the haven of an exquisite library the unexpected prize at the end. There she could finally exhale surrounded by books, dark-paneled walls, gilded chandeliers, and a fire that danced in the hearth, as if the room waited for a weary-hearted traveler like her to come hither.

  And then . . . the paintings.

  Canvases dominated walls between rows of spine-packed shelves, stretching toward the ceiling in gilt frames taller than a man. Portraits depicted generations of Huxley men with strong jaws and broad shoulders under various military regalia, and brushstrokes created the rich landscape of what she assumed was Parham Hill Estate behind. Yet, curious enough, not one lord was fair haired. Or decidedly severe, except for those in heroic, battle-ready posture. She’d looked over them all, her first habit to search their eyes, but found nothing save for oil on canvas and the dance of firelight against the hues.

  At least until he’d found her.

  “Whatever finds you in here?” He flitted his glance across the vast treasure trove of books around them. “The party is . . .” He pointed to a second set of doors at the far end of the library. The sounds of tinkling crystal, melodic reels, and general gaiety were muffled by the heavy oak, but alive in the background nonetheless.