KDBookOnline
Share Us
He laughed. ‘You were saying?’
She pressed her lips together, irked by his ease and the way he talked to her, as if she was… an equal. A fellow human being, rather than the housekeeper. The others wouldn’t dare address her so informally. For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Inside her head, she grappled for the words to reprimand him. And then the image of the woman in Pearson’s window came back to her—that joyless stranger with the pursed-up mouth and lines between her brows.
‘It must have caused quite a disruption at the fair,’ she said instead, in a grudging concession to conversation. ‘It seems we left just in time.’ Realising that her wet blouse told a different story, she hurried on. ‘Are the others still there?’
‘I imagine so. They seemed to be enjoying themselves when I left.’
‘And you weren’t? Enjoying yourself?’
‘Ah—I’m a good bit older than them. I think I’ve reached the age when swingboat rides and the helter-skelter have lost their appeal.’
She arched an eyebrow. ‘You make it sound like you’re ancient.’
The noise he made was somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. ‘It feels that way sometimes. I’m twenty-seven—I discovered the other day that’s five years older than Thomas; eight years older than Eliza. Closer to your age than theirs.’
On any other day she would barely have registered the comment, but the ghost woman in Pearson’s window floated before her, a taunting contrast with the laughing girls spilling out into the yard that morning in their sprigged dresses and pretty hats. On this day—this date, that she had been trying so hard to ignore—his casual comment found the chink in her carefully assembled armour.
He must have noticed her stiffen, or perhaps he felt the weight of the silence that followed, because he said, ‘I’m sorry. I’ve offended you. I didn’t mean that you’re ancient; the opposite, in fact. You’re surprisingly young for a housekeeper.’
‘And you’re surprisingly forward for a footman.’
It came out far more sharply than she’d intended, but she didn’t want his apology. She didn’t want his pity or his curiosity. She didn’t want him to speculate about her age or where she’d come from and what had brought her to be keeper of the keys in a house full of silence and shadows. She didn’t want him to know that today—unmarked and uncelebrated—was her thirtieth birthday, and to look at her with those eyes—granite-grey and shimmering with reflected rain—and remind her of who she used to be and what she’d given up.
She didn’t want him to see her at all.
‘You’re right. Forgive me.’ He turned away, his voice subdued but edged with bitterness. ‘A footman… of course. I’m only there to carry their trays and clean their boots and pour their wine and stand in the dining room. I forget sometimes.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t—’
‘No, it’s my fault. I know how it works. We don’t have eyes, or ears, or opinions, or feelings. Especially not feelings. What did Thomas say this morning, about Hyde’s ancestor? He brought all sorts of artefacts back from India—including a boy. We’re possessions, aren’t we, in our uniforms and crested liveries? We mustn’t be allowed to see each other as human beings. Even downstairs we play the game. We know our place.’
As he spoke, she felt the heat rising in her cheeks and something like panic tightening her chest. She had to fight the urge to clap her hands over her ears and shout at him to stop. Because not only had he seen her… It was as if he had looked into her heart and read aloud what was written there, putting all her loneliness into words.
‘It’s—it’s not—’
Her throat was tight with emotion, making it hard to speak, but he cut her off anyway.
‘Look—the rain’s stopping. We can go.’
They walked back together in the hazy aftermath of the downpour, as the ground steamed and the bracken shimmered with diamond droplets.
Jem sensed that she would have preferred to go on alone, but with them so obviously heading to the same place it was difficult to think of an excuse to walk separately. It made no difference to him; his plans had been disrupted the moment she’d appeared through the deluge. He’d been banking on taking advantage of an almost-empty house (Mr Goddard hardly emerged from his room) to have a good look around, but it was better to have come across her unexpectedly out here, rather than at Coldwell, in an upstairs room where he had no business.
The sky above the hills was still bruised, painted with a watercolour rainbow. The washed-clean world was loud with birdsong, and clouds of insects hovered above the grass as they descended the ridge to the road, and the Coldwell boundary beyond. The ground was spongy, but she walked briskly, her posture upright, the space between them observed as rigidly as if Mr Goddard had appeared with the ruler he used to measure out place settings in the dining room. Nothing about her invited conversation, so he didn’t attempt it.
God forbid he was too forward.
In the servants’ basement she seemed so severe and aloof—a pillar of black—but out here, with her hair slipping out of its pins and her damp blouse showing the lace of her chemise beneath, she seemed softer and slighter. He suspected that was the last thing she would want. He smothered a sigh, turning his head to look out across the heather. It was the last thing he needed too. It took enough effort not to notice her when she was dressed in her housekeeper’s armour, with the silver chatelaine at her waist like a crucifix to a vampire.
He spent a lot of energy not noticing, and wasn’t always successful.
A dragonfly appeared, blundering through the blue like a drunk at the fair, and she recoiled sharply, batting it away. Caught by the air current, its glass wings stuttered and it plummeted, tangling in her hair. With a little cry, she came to an abrupt halt.
‘Hold still.’
He went to stand in front of her, reaching out his hand to cup the insect. Her eyes were closed, but he could sense her agitation and feel the tremor of her body as his wrist rested lightly against the top of her head.
‘Ugh. Please, get rid of it.’