Summerset Abbey (4 page)

But now, even though all that was gone, she still wanted to keep her secret. It was the last thing she’d shared with her father. The plan would just have to be tweaked, that was all.

Perhaps she would go on to the university and study, though how one went about going into the university, she wasn’t sure. But she was sure she could do it. In fact, she was sure she could do almost anything, in spite of having a body that tired much too easily and wouldn’t breathe when she wanted it to.

The door opened quietly behind her and Katie brought in a tray that held a steaming pot of hot tea and two cups for her
and Prudence. “Thank you, Katie,” she whispered. “And I think we should go out for a walk today.” Katie set the tray down on the ottoman and poured the tea. Handing a cup to Victoria, she nodded solemnly, understanding her meaning. “That’s a good idea, miss.”

Victoria moved to the vanity. Like the bed, it was made of bird’s-eye maple and had been polished so that she could almost see her reflection in it. Katie quickly took the plaits out of Victoria’s hair with deft fingers and brushed until it fell like a sheaf of wheat down her back. “Thank you, Katie.”

“Can I get you anything else, miss?”

“That will be all, until I need to dress. We can go out after breakfast.”

The girl shot her a conspirator’s smile and left the room. Smart as a whip, Katie had picked up shorthand faster than she had. She wouldn’t be a maid for long.

Victoria heard Prudence stirring behind her and took her a cup of tea. “Wake up. We have lots to talk about.”

Prudence yawned and sat up in bed. Her hair had come out of its plait in the night and tumbled down her shoulders in a fine, dark cloud. Victoria plumped up the pillows behind her and Prudence sat back, taking an appreciative sniff of the cup. “And what would we have to talk about this morning?”

Victoria picked up her own tea and sat on the edge of the bed. “Rowena. She’s hiding something.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Prudence said, but her green eyes slid away from Victoria’s.

Victoria gave a little bounce, almost upsetting both their cups. “Oh, you do!” she cried.

“Be careful! You’re going to make me spill! And I don’t either know what she’s keeping from us.”

“But you do agree she’s keeping something from us, right?” Victoria persisted.

“I’m sure there are many things she and your uncle talked about that she didn’t tell us. We were all exhausted last night. That doesn’t mean she’s purposefully keeping things.” Prudence looked at her sharply. “Do you feel all right? Your color is high.”

Victoria flounced off the bed. “I feel as well as I can. Stop fussing so. I’m not a child.”

Honestly, it was no wonder she never got any stronger the way everyone babied her. Prudence and Rowena treated her like she was still in the nursery even though she’d turned eighteen last spring.

“I’m going to bathe and dress,” she said in her most dignified tone. “No, don’t get up. I can draw my own bath and Katie will be up in a bit to help us dress.”

After a breakfast of scones, honey butter, fresh fruit, and kedgeree, during which they all pretended to eat but no one did, Prudence and Rowena rushed off to begin packing and do all the work necessary for their move. No one asked her to help, and for once Victoria was grateful to be left out. She wouldn’t have to think up an excuse to disappear, after all.

Their uncle was staying in his own Belgravia monstrosity of a house, so she was on her own. Before putting on her coat and collecting Katie, she tiptoed up to the study. One of the advantages of being so small and pale was that she could often sneak about unnoticed. It was one of the many reasons the household could never keep secrets from her. She knew every shadowy nook in the house and effortlessly spied on the servants as well as her family.

So she knew exactly where her father kept the key to the safe secreted behind the strange painting his friend Picasso had given
to him. Running her fingers along the back of the top desk drawer, she triggered the mechanism that opened the secret compartment. She snatched the key and paused, listening for any noise in the hallway. Satisfied, she took down the picture and opened the safe. Her father kept a folder full of old papers there, along with the extra household money. She grabbed the pound notes and then hesitated. Perhaps she ought not to leave his papers here when they closed up the house? Well, she could decide on that later. Carefully, she shut the safe and returned the painting to its proper place, tucking the notes away in her purse and slipping the key back into its hidden compartment. Then she tiptoed back upstairs to her room, pulled her new Lucile wool coat out of the wardrobe, and went to find Katie.

The pale autumn sun shone as they walked down Brook Street, and the sidewalks were crowded with people wanting to enjoy the last bit of warmth before the rains. Children, the girls in their enormous hair bows and boys in their knee breeches, scampered about on the sidewalks, hindered only by their stiffly starched nannies. Harried housekeepers and maids ran errands, hoping to get back in time for their afternoon tea. In the streets, hansom cabs, broughams, and victorias vied for room among the ever-increasing multitude of motorcars. The acrid scent of exhaust now competed with the good, clean, grassy smell of horse manure.

It was an obscenely beautiful day for having just lost her father, and Victoria remained silent as she and Katie walked slowly down the street to Miss Fister’s school. It wasn’t a long walk, but as always, Victoria was winded by the time they reached their destination. She and Katie sat on a bench near the school to rest.

“Are you all right, Miss Victoria?”

Victoria smiled at her friend and concentrated on breathing
in and out slowly, as the doctor taught her to do. “I’ll be fine.” She took a few more careful breaths.

“I’m desperately sorry about your father, miss. He was a good man, the way he paid my way to the school and all.” Katie’s freckled face puckered as if she was trying not to cry.

Victoria’s throat tightened, which didn’t help with her shallow breathing. She patted Katie’s hand in answer.

Having recovered, she told Katie to sit tight and entered the old brick office building where Miss Fister’s school resided. Miss Fister wasn’t in and Victoria was disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to say good-bye to her teacher, but she wrote a short note explaining the situation and left her address with the clerk, along with the remainder of her and Katie’s course fees.

“Is everything all right, miss?” Katie’s dark red brows knitted together when Victoria rejoined her in front of the school.

“Yes, I just wanted to make sure you were taken care of after I’m gone. I’ve paid the fees off for both of us.” Her generosity buoyed her step as they headed toward home. No wonder her father had been so giving. It felt wonderful.

“Oh, thank you, miss!”

On impulse, Victoria linked arms with Katie. “You’ve been a good friend, keeping my secret.”

Katie’s eyes widened. “Well, it’s my secret, too. Hodgekins would say I didn’t know my place if he knew.”

“You’ll make a good secretary someday.”

“I hope so. That day may come sooner than we think.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, on account of your uncle selling the house and all. The staff is all in a dither about losing their jobs.”

Victoria stopped and clutched Katie’s arm. “Where did you hear that?”

“From Hodgekins, of course. Your uncle told him that the house will probably be sold by next summer. He wanted the staff to have time to look for other employment.”

Victoria’s knees buckled and Katie caught her around the waist. “Miss!”

Black spots appeared in front of her eyes and her chest got the hollow, tight feeling that meant she was about to lose her breath completely. She gasped, fighting for air. The black spots knitted together, becoming a tunnel, and she knew she would faint if she couldn’t get a breath of air soon. Katie backed her up against the brick wall of a millinery shop and she leaned against it gratefully. She pressed her lips together and counted, one, two, three, and took a little breath.

“Miss! Do you need your nebulizer, miss?”

Victoria heard Katie’s panicked voice as if it were traveling from a great distance. She shook her head and continued counting. One, two, three, little breaths. One, two, three . . . bit by bit her pulse slowed and her chest opened.

“Is everything all right, miss? Is this girl bothering you?” A man dressed in a posh flannel jacket and waistcoat hastily approached them.

Victoria’s eyes flew open, aghast at the man’s assumption that Katie, in her worn woolen uniform, was accosting her. “Certainly not. Mind your own business,” she gasped. “How dare you make such presumptions based on our attire. You should be ashamed of yourself!”

The man’s eyes widened as he tipped his bowler and backed away.

“Are you all right now? Was it something I said, miss?”

Victoria shook her head. “No. Of course not. It was just . . . just an
episode
. The same as always.” Though her new doctor
called her an asthmatic, Victoria hated the word “asthma” and refused to use it or any variation of it. It sounded so . . . sickly.

Katie’s face scrunched up, but she said nothing as she helped Victoria stand upright and they began walking slowly down the street.

Victoria’s fingers and toes tingled and she wasn’t sure if it was the aftereffects of her experience or the anger building at her core.

So that was what Rowena was hiding from her.
They were selling her home! Their lovely house with its countless windows, bright, clean lines, and years of treasured memories. How could Rowena let it happen?

*   *   *

Prudence kept her eyes closed. Each little jolt of the carriage grated against both her bones and her nerves. When they had started out yesterday, she’d felt a stirring of excitement underlying the grief that still lingered on her skin like a film of powder. But that had been early in the day, before the endless green fields and autumn-lit trees had lost their novelty. By the time they’d stopped at the inn in Bedford last night, she’d been stiff and more than a little sore. Now every muscle screamed at her enforced confinement. She wished they’d waited to come down until the next week, when the driver would be delivering Sir Philip’s new motorcar to Summerset, but the Earl had insisted on a traditional funeral procession. He rode in the carriage in front of them, while the black mahogany coach carrying Sir Philip’s coffin led the way.

Often, when they met a motorcar, the coaches had to stop to settle the horses, which made her want to scream. It felt as if they’d never reach Summerset.

Rowena and Victoria had barely said two words to each other since their quarrel the other day. Victoria had been in such a huff, she’d had to be put on the nebulizer on and off for the rest of that afternoon. For Prudence, the sulky silence between the sisters made the never-ending ride even more unbearable.

Her mind still reeled from the revelation that Rowena’s uncle was going to sell their home. Rowena promised she wouldn’t let it happen. Prudence had no idea what she could do to stop it, but she had to trust Rowena.

Next to her Victoria stretched. “How long now, Ro?” Her voice sounded contrite and Rowena answered in kind.

“It shouldn’t be too long. Look, we’re going past the kissing mill.”

“Why do you call it that?” Prudence asked as both she and Victoria craned their heads to look out the carriage window.

“The locals have a legend that if you ask your girl to marry you by the water wheel, she can’t say no,” Victoria said.

Rowena snorted. “I think it’s just a private place for couples to get away to kiss.”

“I think it’s lovely,” Victoria said. She turned to Prudence. “We’re on Summerset land now. The manor is over the next hill. I can’t believe you’ve never been here before.”

“It does seem strange,” Rowena agreed. “Victoria and I have spent almost every summer here since we were children.”

Prudence looked down at her hands. “My mother was happy with the holiday to Bath your father gave us every year. She said there would be time for visiting later on.”

“But you never did,” Victoria said.

“No. I never did.”

“Weren’t you born in the village?”

She nodded.

“Well, you could have family here.”

Prudence had never thought about it, but it was entirely possible. So why had her mother never come back to visit? Most women can’t bear to be parted from their families, but her mother’s family was never mentioned. For that matter, her mother had rarely spoken of her girlhood and never about Summerset Abbey. Could it have something to do with the Earl, as those women at the funeral had suggested?

“So tell me about Summerset,” she said, partly to change the subject and partly to pass the time.

“It’s lovely, imposing, and terrifying,” Victoria said immediately.

Prudence raised her brows. “Terrifying how?”

“It’s a bit intimidating because it is so large and some parts of it are rather frightening. But it’s lovely, too.”

As Victoria warmed to her subject, Prudence learned that Summerset was built in the early 1600s on the site of an earlier home that had been built on the ruins of a castle constructed in the eighth century. It sat on a park of over a thousand acres, with three formal gardens, a kitchen garden, its own lake, and several ponds. The house itself had over a hundred rooms and staffed a small army of sixty servants, which included not only housemaids, footmen, and gardeners but also a carpenter, a stonemason, and a mechanic to keep the motors in top shape.

“I think you’ll like it, even if it’s very different from our house,” Victoria finished. “You’ll especially love the library, which has over five thousand books.”

Rowena cleared her throat in a very nervous, I-have-something-to-tell-you way. Prudence and Victoria looked at her expectantly.

“I’m afraid I wasn’t completely forthright about my discussion with Uncle Conrad.”

“You mean about something else besides him selling our home from underneath us?” Victoria murmured, and Prudence hushed her.