Summerset Abbey: Spring Awakening (Summerset Abbey Trilogy) (7 page)

“You shouldn’t have stayed so late, miss,” Susie called from the kitchen. Victoria could hear the running of water and knew she would soon have her aching feet soaking in a steaming tub of water sprinkled with lavender and bath salts.

“I stayed as long as I had to,” she called back, peeling off her uniform cape and entering her spacious sitting room. She and Eleanor had been living in the flat for several weeks, and a transformation had already taken place. They had done most of the cleaning themselves until Victoria had sent for Susie to help with the more difficult tasks of painting the walls and repairing
the plaster. The flat contained an eclectic mix of fine furnishings from Victoria’s former home in Mayfair and more worn pieces from Eleanor’s home. The back of their blue-and-gold Chippendale sofa was covered with a worn quilt made by Eleanor’s grandmother, and Victoria found the jumble homey and charming.

“They are working you too hard,” Eleanor mused from where she reclined on a lounge in front of the windows.

Victoria startled. “I didn’t know you were home. And don’t talk to me about working too much. You didn’t get home until two this morning and left before I awoke.”

Eleanor shrugged. “I trained VADs like you all day. The more volunteers we have, the less I have to work.”

Victoria snorted, collapsing into a red wingback chair. “As if you would work any less.” Eleanor had taken a position with the Red Cross as a training nurse and now educated young women like Victoria in basic first aid and nursing. Wounded soldiers were already arriving from the front by the thousands, and makeshift hospitals were being assembled in community centers and private houses. Soon there would be a nursing shortage unless volunteers were trained and quickly.

“I gave up the job at the prison,” Eleanor protested.

“Only when you had to.”

“What about you? You train all day, volunteer to write letters for soldiers, and go out all night with Kit. As your nurse, I must protest.”

Victoria grinned at the woman who had become as close to her as her own sister. “I’m perfectly fine now, as long as I don’t run or catch cold, and you know it, too.”

Susie came into the room carrying a tray with a teapot and miniature tea sandwiches. “And I suppose you won’t catch cold working with all those sick men?”

Victoria took the cup Susie held out to her, then helped herself to a plate of sandwiches. “Oh, thank you, you blessed creature. And they’re wounded, not sick, so don’t bother fussing. Prudence, Rowena, Elaine, and Eleanor have already tried to talk me out of volunteering—all to no avail. The settlement house where I was going to volunteer, if you remember, has been turned into a recovery home for soldiers, so I had to change my plans. One does what one must.” Victoria waved her cup, almost spilling her tea.

Susie harrumphed and left the room, and Eleanor gave Victoria a weary smile.

The doorbell rang and Eleanor started to rise before Victoria waved her back down. “Susie will get it. You look fagged out.”

“I am,” Eleanor admitted, settling back onto the chaise. “I never thought I would live to see the day where I had a housekeeper to answer the door. Have I told you how much I love living here?”

“Only a dozen times a week.”

“I can’t possibly say it enough.”

“Say what enough?” Prudence asked, coming into the room.

“Pru!” Victoria stretched up her arms to give her friend a hug. “I would get up to greet you, but I can’t feel my feet. Susie! Bring some more tea!”

“As if you have to tell me how to do my job?” Susie yelled from down the hallway.

“Such impertinence!” Victoria exclaimed with a grin. “What brings you to Chelsea? Not that you need a reason. I’m always so happy to see you!”

One of the best things about living in London again was that she got to see Prudence on occasion. Now that Andrew was in training in Salisbury, Prudence had become a frequent visitor to the flat Kit fondly called the Hen-Pen.

Victoria looked at Prudence sharply. Shadows marked her friend’s eyes and she looked thin and tense despite that her cheeks looked rounder.

“Other than just seeing your sweet self?” Prudence asked after greeting Eleanor. “I’ve come to ask a favor, actually.”

Susie brought in another cup for Prudence and then helped Victoria remove her shoes.

“What sort of favor?” Victoria asked, intrigued. Prudence rarely asked for favors, even while they were growing up together.

Prudence sat on the velvet sofa and set her cup carefully on the low table in front of her. “You told me that Colin is in the 1st King’s Dragoon, right? When will he be joining his regiment?”

Susie brought in a steaming tub of hot water, and Victoria gingerly put her feet into it before answering, “I’m not sure. They are on their way back and then will no doubt be heading to France or to Africa or some hellish place like that. Why?”

Prudence stared into her tea as if she were reading the future. Victoria leaned forward, her shoulders tensing. Whatever Prudence wanted, it was important.

When Prudence finally looked up, her green eyes were pleading, and Victoria caught her breath. Prudence looked so much like Rowena, Victoria couldn’t believe they had grown up oblivious to the family resemblance.

“I don’t want Andrew to go to the front. I know, I’m being selfish, but I want him to come home alive. I was going to ask you if you could talk to Colin, see if he can’t do something. As gentry, he may be able to have Andrew assigned to the remount depot, where he can work with the horses. Andrew would like that, and he wouldn’t be fighting.”

The fear Prudence felt for her husband etched her pretty features with misery. When she closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, Victoria’s heart swelled in sympathy. “Of course, I can ask him. I don’t know how much pull Colin has, but I will talk to him as soon as possible.”

Prudence opened her eyes and gave Victoria a tired smile. “Thank you,” she said simply.

“Of course! I would do anything for you, you know that. Now do you want some biscuits? Susie? Do we have any of those chocolate butter ones I like so much?”

Susie went to fetch the biscuits while Victoria turned back to Prudence, careful to keep her expression cheerful. “Have you seen Katie lately?” she asked, to change the subject. Prudence looked relieved, and they gossiped about mutual friends until Susie came back in with a colorful tin of biscuits.

Prudence started to choose one and then paled. Pushing the tin away, she clapped a hand to her mouth and rushed from the room. Victoria blinked. She would have followed her, but her feet were still soaking.

“I’m going after her. She may need a cold cloth.” Susie left the room, her thin face drawn up with worry.

Victoria turned to Eleanor. “What’s wrong with her? Go after her. You’re the nurse.”

Eleanor shook her head. “It’ll take nine months to fix what’s wrong with her.” She looked smug.

“Nine months? Whatever do you mean? What?” Then Victoria’s jaw dropped. “Oh!”

“Probably more like seven months, actually,” Eleanor continued.

Victoria jumped up, sloshing water over the side of the tub. Not bothering to dry her feet on the towel Susie had left, she
raced across the room, sliding once her feet hit the bare floor. Righting herself, she hurried down the hall to the water closet.

Susie stood in front of the door holding a rag in her hand.

Victoria ignored her as well as the retching noise she heard coming from the WC. She knocked on the door. “Am I going to be an auntie, Prudence? Am I?”

Prudence retched in response and then Victoria heard a weak “Maybe . . .”

“Hurrah!”

Victoria grabbed Susie around the waist and did an impromptu polka down the hallway. A few minutes later Prudence emerged, pale and tired. Susie handed her the cloth while Victoria slipped an arm around her waist and helped her to the sitting room.

“How long have you known and why didn’t you tell me straightaway?” Victoria said. “If you weren’t so wretched looking, I’d be mad at you for not telling me sooner!”

“One hardly goes about announcing such things,” Prudence said, a blush highlighting her cheeks. “Plus, I’d only begun to suspect since I began getting sick every single morning, with no other explanation.”

“Oh, pooh!” Victoria said. “You always were the most conventional one of us all.”

“How far along are you?” Eleanor asked, after they had settled Prudence on the sofa.

“I’m not sure, but I am thinking the baby will be born in late April or early May.”

Susie brought Prudence a cup of tea and cleaned up the water mess Victoria had made. Victoria sat down and beamed. “Just think! A baby!” A sudden thought struck her. “Does Andrew know?”

Prudence shook her head. “No. And I’m not going to tell him either. At least not while he’s training. He would just worry and there’s nothing he can do about it. The last thing I want is my husband distracted while engaging in rigorous physical trials—”

“That’s why you don’t want him going to the front,” Victoria said, reality dawning on her.

Prudence bit her lip. “I just couldn’t stand for anything to happen to him. I mean, I couldn’t have stood it before, but now, with the baby . . .”

“Oh, my dear.” Victoria moved to Prudence and put her arms around her. For the first time, Victoria felt as if she were comforting Prudence rather than the other way around. “Colin will be able to help. We will keep him safe and sound so he can change nappies.”

Prudence giggled just as Victoria had hoped she would. “Imagine a man changing nappies!”

A knock sounded on the door and Victoria heard Susie answering it. Victoria got to her feet just as Kit breezed into the room. They had been excessively careful of one another since the fiasco at his mother’s tea. Neither of them had mentioned the incident, but they hadn’t completely fallen back into their old teasing relationship.

“I’m going to be an aunt!” she blurted the moment he filled the doorway.

His eyes widened before she realized what he was thinking.

“Oh, no!” She laughed. “Not Rowena and Sebastian! Prudence!”

“Oh.” Relief crossed Kit’s face. “That’s good, considering their wedding has been postponed again.” He inclined his head toward Prudence. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” Prudence stood and bade everyone farewell, and to Victoria’s consternation within minutes everyone had left her and Kit alone together.

They needn’t have bothered
, she thought resentfully. Why did everyone insist on pairing her with Kit?

Kit poured tea for both of them from the pot Susie had left and took the seat Prudence had just vacated. He crossed his long legs, and Victoria found herself annoyed at how handsome he looked in his olive-colored uniform.

“I find it difficult to believe that the fates decided to make you an auntie.” He sounded like his old mocking self and Victoria responded in kind.

“Don’t you think I’ll make a good auntie?” she demanded. “Can’t you picture me bouncing the babe on my knee, reciting poetry and fairy tales?”

He tilted his head. “Perhaps you would be a good auntie . . . as long as the Good Lord doesn’t make you a mother.”

“Ha! We finally agree on something. Motherhood is one adventure I will pass on, thank you very much.”

“As will I. Fatherhood, that is,” he clarified at her amused look. “You know what I meant.”

She toasted him with her teacup. “Aren’t you supposed to be off fighting Germans or Austrians or something like that?”

“Can’t wait to get rid of me? Actually, I’ve come on an errand of the utmost importance. Colin’s leaving the day after tomorrow. I’ve been sent to inform you that he and Annalisa are getting married in the morning.”

Victoria clapped her hand over her mouth. “Tomorrow? What does Aunt Charlotte say?”

Kit shrugged. “What can she say? War changes things, and he and Annalisa don’t want to wait. After Sebastian was called
up so quickly and the wedding was postponed yet again, they weren’t left with much of a choice. Sebastian has no idea when he will get leave and Colin doesn’t want to take the chance that the same thing will happen to him and Annalisa. Your aunt, Rowena, and your uncle are coming up on the train just before the ceremony, and then we will be having a wedding breakfast right after.”

A sense of sadness settled over Victoria like a fine powder. “All of our friends are leaving. Sebastian has been gone for several weeks already. Colin is leaving. Even Edward and the rest of the boys are gone. Soon the Clever Coterie will be completely bereft of all its masculine members.”

“The war can’t last that long,” Kit said, his voice hearty.

“You don’t believe that, do you?”

He sighed and shook his head.

“I don’t either. I read the newspapers and I can read between the lines, as well. I think the whole world has gone mad.” She quoted Robert Southey, her voice pained:

When innocent blood,

From the four corners of the world cries out

For justice upon one accursed head.

“Ah, but whose accursed head shall we heap the justice on?” Kit asked.

She shrugged. “Any of them. All of the leaders. Old men over their cognac and cigars planning war like a chess game while all our friends are sent to face death in foreign countries.”

There was a moment’s silence. “Victoria, I’m leaving for France next week.”

Her breath caught and her entire being went still. The light
coming through the windows had dimmed as they spoke, but she could still see the pensive expression on the intelligent planes of Kit’s face. Something caught in her heart and she wanted to go to him and offer comfort, much as she had Prudence earlier.

“Kit,” she said softly. He gazed at her with such yearning on her face she almost cried out.

Susie came in and lit several small gas lamps. “Sorry for interrupting. You don’t want to be sitting here in the dark.”

And the moment was broken.

“Would you like to stay for supper?” Victoria asked. Even to her own ears the invitation sounded false. She didn’t know why she suddenly felt uncomfortable.

He must have heard her insincerity because he stood. “No. I’m meeting some friends at the club. I should be going, actually.”