She would remember his hands on her, his arms around her, his soft voice in the dark. He, she told herself fiercely as she climbed into the carriage, would remember only the terms.
CHAPTER 15
By the time the carriage rattled to a halt in the mews behind Fenwick House, the night had grown thin and brittle. Frost laced the cobbles in pale threads.
Gwen stepped down with care, drawing her cloak close, every nerve still unsteady. Her skin felt too tight for her bones, as if everything that had happened at the lodge had stretched something inside her that could not be neatly coaxed back.
The footman bowed and melted into the shadows. No lamp shone from the rear windows. The household slept.
Gwen slipped through the servants’ entrance, the familiar scent of coal dust and soap meeting her in the narrow passage. Martha had long since gone to bed. The scullery maid, who sometimes snored in the corner, was absent. The house felt like a held breath.
She crept up the servants’ stairs, her hand gliding along the banister to keep herself steady. Each step creaked in protest. She paused once, listening for any sign that Howard was prowling the corridors as he sometimes did when drink would not let him rest.
Silence.
At the top of the stairs, she did not turn toward her room. She went instead to the corridor that housed the family bedchambers, her slippered feet whispering over the runner. Her mother’s door loomed pale in the dimness.
She hesitated, her heart pounding. There was still time to go to bed. There was still time to let the night stand as it was: a tangle of pleasure and hurt and unwelcome clarity about the man at the lodge.
But she had only three weeks. Less now. Every day she waited, Howard’s decision grew teeth.
Gwen lifted her hand and knocked softly.
A moment later, she heard the faint rustle of sheets, a sleepy murmur, then the floorboard groaned as someone rose.
The door opened a careful inch, and Cordelia peered through, her fair hair unpinned, her eyes heavy with sleep and worry—which were often the same thing for her.
“Gwen,” she whispered. “What is it? Is it Howard? Has he?—”
“No,” Gwen said quickly. “He sleeps. Or he lies there and fumes. I do not know. May I come in, Mama?”
Cordelia drew the door wider at once. “Of course.”
The room was warm from the banked fire in the grate. A candle burned low on the small bedside table, casting a soft, wavering circle of light. The familiar scent of lavender water clung to the air.
Gwen slipped inside and shut the door behind her, turning the key with a small, decisive click.
Her mother watched the movement, a crease forming between her eyebrows. “Gwen,” she whispered. “What is it? You look pale.”
Gwen gave a small, mirthless smile. “I always look pale. You have told me so since I was ten.”
Cordelia reached for her hand and pulled her closer. “Sit, my darling. Tell me.”
Gwen sat on the edge of the bed. For a moment, the words stuck in her throat. She had rehearsed them in her mind all the way back, along with a dozen variations of her mother’s answers, everything from joyful assent to outraged refusal.
“I have a plan,” she began.
Cordelia’s fingers tightened around her hand. “A plan?”
“For leaving,” Gwen said quietly. “For both of us. For going wherehecannot follow without exposing himself as the brute he is.”
“Gwen, do not speak of your stepfather so.”
“He is my mother’s husband,notmy father,” Gwen replied, almost gently. “I spoke correctly.”
Cordelia closed her eyes briefly. “Child.”
Gwen drew a breath. “Mama, listen to me. Please. We can go to Cousin Edith in Cheltenham. You remember she wrote last year, inviting us to visit when our lungs needed the country air. She has that dreadful little house with the roses and the yapping dog. She would take us in. She has always adored you.”
