Keeping the Castle - By Patrice Kindl Page 0,64

and his mama rocked him to sleep.

Miss Vincy laid her son down upon his bed and we waited, in a mood which alternated (at least for me) between annoyance and foreboding. Outside, the wind and rain lashed against the walls of the cottage, and through the windows we could see branches heaving back and forth.

“Perhaps Mr. Fredericks thinks the weather too bad to venture out,” suggested Miss Vincy.

I did not trouble to reply to this. Mr. Fredericks was not afraid of a little bad weather, and Miss Vincy knew it quite well. She was trying to persuade herself out of any unkind thoughts about him. Now would be the best possible time for her to leave, while her little boy slept. I knew she was torn, wishing to stay with him, to satisfy herself that all was as well with him as she believed, but she was also anxious to return to her parents and soothe their ruffled feelings and calm their fears. She bit her lip and watched the window and the small yard in front of the cottage.

I was occupied in preparing a scolding for Mr. Fredericks when he should finally arrive, until it suddenly occurred to me that there might be a reason beyond simple perversity for this delay. Perhaps he was ill. I remembered that he had been ill on his return from India. I wondered, as I never had before, about the nature of that illness, and how serious it had been. What if he was at this moment tossing with fever?

Or perhaps there had been an accident? He was a superb horseman, but accidents may happen even to the skilled. Pictures flashed across my mind, of Mr. Fredericks lying in a gully with a broken neck, of Lord Boring’s horses and carriage careening off a cliff.

“Althea, is something wrong? You have torn that handkerchief quite in half,” said Miss Vincy. “And your face is whiter than the handkerchief.”

I looked down. It was true. I had spoilt a perfectly good handkerchief. I began to reassure Miss Vincy, but was interrupted by the sound of hoofs and the jingle of harness in the road outside. We started up from our chairs and hurried to the door in time to hear Mr. Fredericks’s voice halting the horses and to see him, wearing a greatcoat of such smartness and with such a multiplicity of capes that it was almost certainly the property of Lord Boring, jumping down from the box.

Relief washed over me with such intensity that I realized I had been digging my fingernails into my palms for the past two hours. “Where have you been?” I demanded.

“Do not fly at me, I pray you, Miss Crawley,” he said, shaking the rainwater off himself all over the room, its contents and its occupants, like a large, wet dog. “I give you both my apologies for being so late. I had my reasons.” Although he was ostensibly speaking to me, his gaze was fixed on Miss Vincy, and he did not so much as glance in my direction during the following exchanges.

Since it seemed clear that he was not going to tell me those reasons, or at least not at present, I enquired after our clothing and other effects he had promised to bring.

“Oh, I forgot them,” he said. “Well, nothing is to be done about it now, I suppose. Are you ready? Miss Vincy?”

I was opening my mouth to berate him for this cavalier attitude, but something about the steadfast way in which he refused to look at me was unsettling.

“Is something wrong?” I asked, in a gentler tone.

“No, not at all,” he informed the top of Miss Vincy’s head. “Or rather, that is to say, yes, very much so. I’ve had a devil of a quarrel with Boring, and I intend to clear out as soon as I’ve delivered the two of you.”

“Clear out!” we cried in unison. Miss Vincy, remembering her sleeping son, hushed us, and the ensuing conversation took place in whispers.

“But you and Lord Boring are such great friends!” murmured Miss Vincy.

“No longer,” retorted Mr. Fredericks. “If I didn’t think duels were nothing but a waste of good ammunition, I swear I’d . . . Never mind. I’m off, and that lot at the Park can manage without my assistance.”

“But . . . but where will you go?” I asked, feeling as tho’ an arrow had pierced my heart.

At this, his eyes shifted to mine for one brief moment, and I feared I