a dark pink, but it has faded over time and many washes. Perhaps the kind of coverlet a woman would wear as she paints, so as not to stain her clothes.
The hair on my arms stands up in a flurry. I hurriedly drop the coverlet back onto the chair and turn around, scanning the room. I can’t see a hidden doorway in this one, but that’s not to say it’s not there. But the eyes I felt on me as I was studying that fabric have disappeared now.
Was it that same man, watching me?
I shiver, and leave the art room. I was going to wait until after lunch to try feeding Rose with the bottle again, but I have an unnerving feeling that I’m already running out of time.
Although Mrs. Potter hadn’t gone into detail about where the kitchens were, I manage to find my way to them easily enough. It wouldn’t have taken me quite so long, if I hadn’t stopped to stare at the portraits hanging on the landing. The older paintings are all of stern men and women rarely featured in the same portrait, and all wearing the stiff, form-fitting clothes of late eighteenth-century aristocrats.
The one that catches my attention most is a colorful portrait of a man and a woman. I recognize Brandon in the painting, but not the woman beside him. She barely reaches his chest, and has a long, sleek mane of blond hair. Her eyes are blue, just like Brandon’s, but from the way they are standing, I’m certain they aren’t brother and sister. The inscription reads:
Sir Brandon and Lady Dunnwood
So this was Rose’s mother?
What a stunning woman, if many years too young. Her face could have belonged to a porcelain doll’s. She’s wearing a pale dress that makes her blue eyes pop, and her hair that much paler in comparison. Brandon is decked in midnight blue. He has his hands wrapped around the Lady’s waist as if he’s about to hoist her into the air like a child. And wrap her waist they do — I hadn’t noticed with his permanent set of gloves, but Brandon’s hands are enormous.
Or perhaps it’s just Alaine’s tiny waist that makes them appear so.
A faint sound draws my attention from the painting. As soon as I look down the long passage ahead, I’m almost certain there’s a flicker of movement in the far back. But as soon as I blink and try to focus, it’s gone.
“I hope you’re not haunting this place,” I mutter, scowling up at Lady Alaine. “Things are hard enough as it is, thank you very much.”
Alaine says nothing, her beautiful smile that of an angel’s.
The kitchen is a heap of organized chaos. Cooks and scullions scuttle about like crabs cleaning the ocean floor — picking up this and setting down that — all amidst a cacophony of banging pots and scraping cutlery. I stand on the threshold of the wide room for a moment, somewhat lost as I search out Mrs. Potter’s face. It’s hot and humid in here, the air so thick with the smell of roasting meat that I can taste pork in the back of my throat.
My stomach turns over uneasily, and I flatten my hand on it to keep it steady. I still have a small hump over my belly. Howie took up a lot of room — most of which he left behind after I’d squeezed him out fourteen hours after I’d had my first contraction.
I still can’t believe I birthed him into this world…and survived. But despite how he looked, Howie was as fragile as Rose.
A hand falls on my shoulder. I jerk, spinning to face Mrs. Potter as my cheeks drain of blood.
I push the visceral image of a doll-like Howie — the last one I have of him — from my mind. “I need a breast pump,” I tell Mrs. Potter.
Brandon
“Where is she?”
The serving girl glances at me, and then drops a curtsey. “Can’t say, m’lord.” Then she’s gone, scampering out as if the Devil himself is nipping at her heels. I face a long table, but the seat opposite mine is empty. Had Mrs. Potter not reminded the girl of this meal? Or was she trying to find her way down to the dining room, getting lost in the maze of stairways and passages?
Mrs. Potter told me she’d asked for a breast pump, and then disappeared into her room. Perhaps she was still in there. I try to imagine what on earth she’s