“It seems odd to call you aunt,” Anne said with a tired smile.
“Just Charlotte would suit me.” She hesitated, but she had to speak. “You know… my father was troubled by a cough almost every winter. There is an herbal mixture that helped him be rid of it.”
Anne looked surprised, then interested. “Really?”
“We must get some right away!” exclaimed Lizzy.
“I would be happy to try it,” her sister agreed. She coughed again. “This is so very tiresome.” For a moment, her face looked pinched and worn. “Tell Alec the name; he will send someone out to ransack London.”
Charlotte nodded and followed Lizzy back to the hall, then along it to an equally pretty bedchamber papered and hung in blue. “This is yours,” Lizzy said. She went over and rang the bell. The cat squirmed, and she tightened her grip. “I need to take Callie back to the schoolroom. She wants to get down.”
“I can see that she does.”
“And I don’t want her getting loose again… just now.”
“Very wise.”
“Susan will be right up.” Lizzy turned to Lucy. “She can show you…” The cat writhed, nearly escaping her arms. “I must go.” Lizzy ran.
“Seems a funny sort of house,” said Lucy.
“Doesn’t it?” Charlotte agreed.
Once Lucy had been taken under Susan’s wing and gone off to explore her own quarters, Charlotte shed her cloak and bonnet and sat in the armchair by the fire. Everything in this room was lovely—the veined marble hearth, the blue wallpaper subtly striped with cream, the silver candlesticks and Dresden figurine on the mantle. The crackle of the fire soothed in a chamber without drafts; the air was scented with potpourri. She felt her senses open and expand. Her room in Hampshire had been rather like this. She had made her own potpourri, from her mother’s recipe. She had gathered beautiful things around her. Over these past months, it had been easier—imperative—to be shut down, to feel less, and then less still. Now her being stirred, eager to come back to life. And why not?
Charlotte’s hand closed on air. She would not be hemmed in any longer. She was free now—to savor, to expand, to make her own decisions. Nothing could make her return to the cramped, stunted life that Henry had forced upon her. Nothing would.
***
On their way to the top floor, Lucy and Susan passed a housemaid carrying a stack of clean laundry. Her dark blue dress and white apron were neat as a pin, and she gave Lucy a cheerful smile when Susan introduced her. She didn’t stop her work to gossip, however, which raised the household in Lucy’s estimation. When she found her bag already in the cozy chamber she’d been allotted at the top of the house, her opinion rose further. But still she had to say, “Odd sort of pet for a young lady.”
Susan laughed. Stocky, blond, and talkative, she had an infectious laugh. “Miss Lizzy took that cat in off the street, and a right argy-bargy it’s been, I can tell you.”
“I wonder she was allowed.” Lucy did more than wonder, after months in a house where it seemed nothing was allowed. She’d been braced for an explosion of masculine wrath in the entry hall and was surprised when it didn’t come.
“Miss Lizzy has a way of getting what she wants. That child can wheedle the birds from the trees. Do you want to unpack? Or come along down and meet everyone?”
“I’ll come.” Lucy had had more than her fill of solitude.
As was proper, Susan took her first to the housekeeper. In the tall, correct, cordial Mrs. Wright, Lucy recognized the sort of authority and experience she’d admired in the senior staff of the Rutherford house. Cook had it, too, in a more approachable way. She was plying the bitten manservant, who turned out to be the master’s valet, Ames, with tea and cake at the kitchen table. The sticking plaster on his hand seemed no hindrance to his appetite, though Ames moaned artistically now and then round a mouthful. From the amused glances exchanged, Lucy gathered that he had a taste for drama. When he held out his cup for a refill, his tragic expression set the kitchen maid—Agnes, Lucy reminded herself—giggling. She didn’t stop chopping carrots, though.
Something deep inside Lucy eased. The rich scent of simmering broth filled the air. The fire crackled in the hearth. The whitewashed walls and brick floor were spotless. The Wylde servants chatted easily with each other, clearly