“Did you see that, Miss Worthington?” Her smile stretched wide, her eyes shining with goodness. “Did you see her face? It is such a joy to help others. The faces of the people I help are all the reward I will ever need. It is what motivates me in everything I do. And Henry will be so pleased to know I am already fulfilling my duty, won’t he, Sylvia?”
Sylvia mumbled something in reply. Judging by the look of exhaustion on her face, I thought she was probably just looking forward to finding somewhere to sit after her taxing walk from Blackmoore.
“Oh, is that a bakery? How quaint! I didn’t remember a bakery here before. Come, let’s get something to eat. Perhaps it will smell a little better inside.” Miss St.Claire picked her way across the cobblestones to the small, narrow stone building with the bread in its front window.
Sylvia followed her, and the two of them stopped twice for Miss St.Claire to hand a bundle of food to a passing villager. I hung back and tried to talk myself into liking Miss St.Claire. She was the epitome of thoughtfulness and generosity, and yet everything she said and did irritated me to no end.
“Come on! Mother said we have to hurry!” The child’s voice drew my attention to the two small girls walking past me. One looked to be about seven. Oliver’s age. She had a firm grip on the arm of a small girl, who was pulling back and crying. As the older sister tugged, the younger one slipped on the wet cobblestones and fell, hitting her head on the ground.
I swiftly crouched next to her. “Oh, dear. Let me help you.” I reached for the little girl, who couldn’t have been more than four. Her dirty cheeks were streaked with tears, her long brown hair falling in her eyes. Her lip quivered, and she looked at me with large brown eyes as I picked her up and set her back on her feet.
“Mary! What were you doing, falling down like that?” The older sister marched back to her side, but at my glance she fell back a pace. “I’m sorry, miss,” she said, dropping a clumsy little curtsy. “I hope my sister didn’t bother you.”
“No. Not a bit,” I said, smiling to reassure her before turning back to little Mary. “Now, let’s see if you’ve hurt yourself, shall we?”
She nodded, then held still as I ran my hand over her head, pausing when I felt the bump on the back.
“Oh, yes. That’s a bump. But no blood. I think you will be just fine.”
Tears still brimmed in her eyes, and her lower lip quivered in a most pathetically charming way. “Please, miss, can I have a sweet?”
“Mary!” The older girl tugged hard on Mary’s hair.
Mary cried out again.
“Oh, no, don’t do that,” I said, smoothing Mary’s hair. “She did nothing wrong, I promise. I don’t have any sweets with me right now, but I shall buy some and bring them to you. How does that sound?”
Mary hiccupped a sob. “Y-yes, please.”
I smiled at the older girl. “And what is your name?”
“Katherine, miss.”
My smile grew. “The same as my name. Well, Katherine, you are being a dutiful little girl, I can see, trying to get your sister where your mother wants you to go. So I shall bring you some sweets as well.”
She smiled, and she had the same gap-toothed smile Oliver sported. I suddenly missed him fiercely. I had to stop myself from pulling these two little girls into my arms and hugging them. Instead I stood and said, “How will I find you to give you the sweets?”
Katherine turned and pointed behind us. “That’s our house—the blue one.”
I told them I would return shortly, and as I turned to join Sylvia and Miss St.Claire in the bakery, I saw more than one of the villagers watching me walk away.
“Where did you go?” Sylvia asked when I found her inside the bakery. Miss St.Claire was daintily devouring a hot cross bun.
“Oh, I was just outside.” I pulled my reticule from my pocket and paid for four penny buns, two meat pies, two scones, and a handful of barley candy.
Sylvia looked at my purchase with wide eyes. “Did you not eat breakfast?”
“No, not much.”
I took my purchases, looked once more at Miss St.Claire’s nibbling, and said, “I have an errand to run. I’ll meet you at Blackmoore later.”
“What? By yourself? You cannot—”
I turned back and looked at Sylvia, who had been my best friend but was not anymore. I wondered how long and wide this gap between us would stretch. And I felt sad that we had drifted this far apart.
“Are you worried for my safety or my reputation?” I asked.
She drew closer and whispered with narrowed eyes, “Your reputation, of course.”
I sighed. “It doesn’t matter, Sylvia. I’m leaving soon for India, anyway. A walk home by myself will not make one bit of difference.”
It was easy to find the blue house. But once I knocked on the door, I wondered what I would say if the girls were not home. A young man opened the door and stared at me.
“Good day. Are Mary and Katherine home?”
He nodded, looking nervous. “What have they done?”
“Oh, nothing! I have ... brought them something.”
The girls came running, expectant smiles lighting up their faces. I handed them the bundle from the bakery. “Be sure to share with your other siblings.”
“Oh, yes. Thank you, miss!” Katherine tried to drop another curtsy as she hugged the bundle to her chest.
Mary turned her brown eyes on me, her face wiped clean of tears. “Yes, thank you very much.”
I turned away and wondered for a moment if it really was a good idea for me to walk back to Blackmoore alone. But just then I heard a familiar voice call out, “Miss Worthington! What do you do here?”
I smiled at the sight of Mrs. Pettigrew, my traveling companion. “I was just looking for someone to walk back to Blackmoore with. You are not heading that way, are you, Mrs. Pettigrew?”
“As a matter of fact, I am.” She trudged up the hill next to me, and I wondered if I had made the right choice, leaving Sylvia like that. I wondered how much of our separation was due to my choices two years ago. And as I climbed the hill and crossed the moors to the house on the cliff, I thought of that day two years ago—the day Mr. Delafield died—and the choice I had made. I wondered if everything happening now could be traced back to that moment and that choice.
Chapter 26
Two Years Before
I ran through the woods that separated our houses. Rain fell on my shoulders in fat drops. I had forgotten my bonnet and my cloak. Leaves covered the ground, a wet and thick blanket of fallen dead things, muffling the sound of my running feet. The sky was dark, the leaves were shades of brown, and there was a large, ancient maple tree ahead. It was halfway between my house and Sylvia’s. Its lowest branches started above my head, and it was so tall and substantial, its branches so wide, that it created a canopy—a shelter from the rain. Standing against the trunk was Henry.
I stopped still, my breathing ragged, and stared at him. His head was bowed, his hair dripping wet. His arms were crossed tight over his chest, as if he were trying to hold broken things together inside himself. As I stared, I saw his shoulders shake. Nobody was meant to witness this, and I felt like a thief, standing there, stealing something that was never meant to be mine.
I closed my eyes and breathed and tried to forget what I had just seen, tried to find the courage to do the right thing—to walk away and never, ever let Henry know that I had seen him like this. But a sound reached my ears above the falling rain, the patter of drops hitting fallen leaves. It was a low, muffled sob.
I had known, of course. I had known that morning, when our servant came with the news of Mr. Delafield’s passing. He had been on his sickbed for only a few days, and his death was a terrible shock, for he was stout and strong. I had thought only of Sylvia and her grief. I had not thought of Henry until I saw him there, behind the tree, leaning against its trunk as if he were too weak to support his own weight or the weight of his grief.
I made a decision. I o
pened my eyes and stepped toward him, onto the dry ground, where the leaves were not wet and my footsteps made a sound. His head jerked up, and his eyes flew open. The sight of those eyes would, I knew, haunt me forever. Such sorrow, such emptiness, such aching despair I had never before seen in Henry’s eyes. When he looked at me, suddenly, I felt a blow to my chest—as if the force of his grief had struck me, and I could not move or breathe in the wave of this revelation. This Henry—this boy—whom I had known all my life, was, in that raw, grief-stricken moment, so much more than just the boy I had known all my life.
I knew I should not be there, and for a moment I feared he would hate me for seeing him like this. But then he moved. He moved toward me with quick steps, and I dropped all my hesitation and moved toward him. He reached out for me, his arms pulling me to him, holding me tight. The smell of wet leaves clung to him. His hair was wet where it touched my cheek. He buried his face in my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around him. And then his shoulders shook again.
How long we stayed like that, I never knew. My face was wet from my tears and his, as was my shoulder, where he had buried his face as he cried. Daylight had faded to deepest dusk when his grip on me loosened, and he pulled back. He took a deep breath, then let it out without any sign of a shudder, while looking down at the carpet of leaves. And then he raised his eyes to me. They were red, but calm, and he looked at me as if I was an entirely new person. In that moment, I was sure it was true. I was sure I was a new person, for I had known Henry all of my fifteen years, but I had never really known him until this day.
I felt unaccountably shy in the moment, until Henry bent his head so that he was looking into my eyes. He smiled. It was not a large smile but a peaceful one. It felt like a gift. And then, to my great surprise, he put a hand on my cheek. His hand was cold, and my cheek was wet. He lowered his head and pressed his lips to my brow, where my hair was messy and falling across my forehead. “Thank you,” he whispered, his breath brushing my skin as lightly as his lips had.
I felt rooted, as if I were reaching into the earth as deeply as the ancient maple tree we stood beneath. I felt something deep within me—something born of Henry’s arms and his eyes and that small, warm smile he had given me like a gift.
“You’re welcome,” I whispered back. The words came from a place of quiet awe within me.
Then he dropped his hand from my cheek, and his thumb brushed my jaw as he did. He stepped away from me. “I’ll walk you back,” he said. “It’s nearly dark.”
I nodded, and we walked together in a silence that was deep and mellow and warm. The silence felt too significant to break, as if everything that might have been said would have trivialized the things that had passed between us without any words at all.
Too soon I spied my house, the glow of candlelight flickering through its windows. I stopped at the edge of the grass, and Henry stopped too. I realized I had forgotten my original aim—to visit Sylvia. To comfort her. To give her my strength, if I could. But I could not go now. I had given what I had to Henry. All of it.
I reached for him without thinking and found my hand grasped by his, easily and naturally. “Tell Sylvia—tell Sylvia I will visit her tomorrow.”
“I will,” he said, holding my hand as he had held me earlier—as if he needed me. As if he wanted me.
My throat was suddenly too dry for speaking, and so I nodded and slipped my hand from his grasp. Turning, I ran quickly to the house, sure that I felt his gaze on me the entire way.
Chapter 27
Present Day
The evening had never stretched so long as it did on this evening while I waited for midnight to come again, bringing with it another trip to the tower with Henry.
“Where have you been today?” Henry asked, once we had climbed up into the tower.
I loved this place even more than I loved the bird room. I loved being high above everything. I loved seeing the tops of trees and the expanse of the ocean in the moonlight, and I loved hearing the haunting cries of the rooks in the next tower.
“I went into Robin Hood’s Bay with Sylvia and Miss St.Claire.” Saying her name brought a bitterness to my tone I had not planned.
“But you did not come home with them.” He made it sound like a question.
“No. I ... had something I had to do. But I made it here safe enough, as you see.”
He just looked at me, without comment, but I could sense there were things he wanted to say to me.
“Are you going to lecture me about propriety?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
He shook his head. “No. I was just going to say that I would have liked to go with you. I’ve wanted to show you Robin Hood’s Bay for a long time.”
I hadn’t thought of that at all. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “It’s not important.” Henry seemed aloof tonight. Angry, somehow, deep inside. But I did not know how to fix whatever was wrong.
So I said, “Let us proceed, shall we? You can ask your secret first tonight, if you like.”
He folded his arms across his chest, faced me as if confronting an opponent, and said, “I want to know why you are so opposed to marriage.”
I took a deep breath. He had asked me this many times before, and I had always refused to answer. But now I was bound to answer him, and the thought of being honest about this frightened me. My chin trembled. I looked away, searching for something within myself to anchor my courage to. India. This was for India, and open cages, and freedom. This was for a land far away, where I would never have to witness the marriage of Henry and Miss St.Claire. I gripped my courage and turned my nervousness to anger and hardness. I thought of my mother and father; I thought of Eleanor and her husband, James. And I said, “Marriage is bondage and misery.”
“Bondage and misery?” Surprise turned his voice. He shook his head. “I think of marriage differently. A companionship of like minds. A tie that binds, yes, but in the binding comes strength. A lifetime with your dearest friend as your truest and best companion. That is what it can be. I believe that.”
His naïveté infuriated me for a reason I could not explain. “Is that the sort of marriage you expect to have with Miss St.Claire?”
Henry’s head jerked back, as if I had slapped him.
He took two breaths before answering. “We are not speaking of my future. We are contemplating yours.”
“That is a thoroughly unsatisfactory answer, Henry Delafield.”
A smirk lifted one side of his mouth. “You always fall back on addressing me by my full name when you are upset. As if you were my mother.”
I scowled at him. “And you always fall back on trying to change the subject when you don’t wish to be forthright.” I reached out without thinking and grabbed him by the shirt front, pulling him down so that we were on eye level with one another. All I could see in his eyes was surprise and amusement. “Why should I be the only one making myself vulnerable? You have asked me for my secrets; now you should share something with me. It’s only fair.”
Henry reached both arms around me, resting his hands on the low wall at my back, trapping me. And even though I quickly released my grip on his shirt (what had I been thinking?), he continued to lean down, close enough to me that I could see the instant his expression changed from amused to intense. “What would you have me share with you?”
“Something honest. Something you have told nobody else. A secret of your own.” I paused, then added, “Something about Miss St.Claire.”
He shook his head. “She is not a part of this. This is between you and me.”
I felt thwarted and angry because of it. He never spoke of Miss St.Claire. Any information I had about her before this week had come from Sylvia. Through the years, Henry had been consistently reticent about his intended, and I burned with envy. I hated that he had a secret I could not get from him. I hated that he had a month out of every year that he spent here, with her, and I had never been allowed to be
a part of it. And I knew from experience that the secrets you never spoke of, to anyone, were the most treasured secrets of all.
I resisted the urge to shove him away, crossing my arms across my chest to rein in the impulse. “You never speak of her. I think it is abominable of you to keep something from me, after everything I have told you.”
“I will tell you a secret. I only said it wouldn’t be about Juliet.”
Juliet. He had called her by her given name, as if there was already an agreement between them. As if he had already proposed to her. As if they were already connected to each other.
“I hate that name, by the way,” I muttered.
Henry smiled, as if my hatred of her name gave him great amusement. Joy, even. “Do you? Why is that?”
“It sounds presumptuous.”
“Hmm.” Henry nodded. “Presumptuous.”
“Yes! As if she has something classical about her. As if she could be the star in a Shakespearean tragedy. It is entirely too presumptuous. Did her parents not think how they were setting her up for disappointment? For that is what I felt as soon as I met her—disappointment that she was so very bland.”
I stopped, realizing I had gone too far. Henry’s eyes narrowed. I was speaking of his intended. Perhaps his affianced. I should not have said what I had.
“Bland? Oh, I see. You object to her because she is not stubborn and willful and outspoken like you. Is that it?”
I pressed my lips together, cursing my loose tongue. But I did not retreat. “Yes. I suppose that is it.”
He spoke lightly. “Some men prefer quiet women.”
“You do not prefer quiet women, though,” I said, lifting my chin. “Do you?” It was pride that made me ask that. Pride asking if he disapproved of me. I had never considered it before—I had never considered that Henry might not approve of me. But now I had to know.
Blackmoore Page 18
