Every day for the last five years she had prayed for an answer, but God was not in this place—not with what Sister Frances had turned the abbey into.
Helena edged down the corridor, wondering if she might creep into the kitchen and steal some freshly baked bread. Cook always left a few loaves cooling on the rack overnight, to be consumed at breakfast. Also, there was always left-over stew in the pot, bubbling over the banked flames of the kitchen fires in a cauldron.
One of the helpers usually slept on the kitchen floor to deter rats and other vermin from getting in, but Helena knew how to be incredibly quiet. She held her breath all the way down the corridor, releasing a sigh of relief when she reached the end without incident.
As she slipped down the stairs that led to the kitchen, she thanked God that she’d walked these steps many times. The darkness seemed to grow with every step, pressing into her oppressively. She might have given up and gone back to bed if she wasn’t so hungry.
She slipped on the bottom step, almost landing on her bottom, and gave out a tiny, startled squeak. She straightened up to her feet, leaning against the wall to get herself together.
It saved her from being caught, because she saw the approaching torch before the person was close enough to see her. As fast as she could, she slipped into the space beneath the stairs, crouching low and as far into the shadows as possible.
Her heart jumped as she recognized Sister Frances’s voice.
“I’ve received a letter from Mr. James Porter. He wants to know if we have managed to break the girl yet.”
She heard a snort, then Sister Mary Gertrude’s voice. “His niece is hopeless. I fear there isn’t much more we can do with her.”
“He would do better to just get rid of her permanently,” Sister Frances replied, making Helena tense further.
“I doubt he would object to that.” A third voice Helena recognized as Sister Philomena said.
They wish to get rid of me.
“I am at my wit’s end with that wretch,” Sister Frances said with an exasperated sigh.
“I gave her a whipping last week, and when the other girls cut her down, she wasstillimpertinent. Absolutely hopeless,” Sister Mary Gertrude replied.
Helena remembered that beating. Five strokes with a cat o’ nine tails. She had thought she would expire. If she’d said anything afterwards—and she did not recall what had happened after the beating—it would have been to express her relief at surviving.
Though heaven knows what I’m surviving for. Seeing Charlie again, perhaps? If only.
Helena would have been happy about the idea of the nuns getting rid of her if she’d thought it’d involve anything except ending her life. She would have been happy to be thrown out onto the street to make her own way, or even transported, as long as Charlie was well.
But she could not let herself be killed. Not before she could rescue her brother from her uncle’s clutches.
Now, she had to think of herself.
When she was sure that the footsteps were completely gone, she got to her feet and crept the other way. Thankfully, the nuns seemed to have been comingfromthe kitchen and so she did not have to abort her mission. She scrambled down the rest of the corridor and came to a stop at the archway that led into the kitchen.
She could hear the gentle snoring of the helper and peered into the kitchen cautiously. By the light of the banked fire, she caught sight of him, laying on a pallet spread out at the end of the long table. She crept into the room, moving as quietly as possible.
Looking around the kitchen, she noted that the pail of goat’s milk they collected every morning from a milk maid was not empty. With an internal skip of glee, she snatched up a scooper and filled a cup up to the brim. Then she took a bowl from the drying rack, crept across the room towards the fireplace, and peered into the simmering cauldron.
There was still a little stew bubbling at the bottom, with parsnips, carrots, and a few pieces of meat bobbing about.
Marveling at her good luck, she scooped it all up into the bowl, before snatching a loaf and making her way as quietly as possible out of the kitchen—the helper’s reassuring snores keeping her company as she walked down the darkened hall.
With her hands full, it was more difficult to feel her way up the stairs. She put her back to the wall, sliding from step to step until she reached the top.
She hurried to her cell, sitting down on her hard bed and munching on the bread as she thought about what to do next.
I have to escape here before they do me permanent harm.
She thought about her seven-year-old brother and what escaping would mean for him. She wondered if he would be safe.
As the new Earl of Downfield, he was the legitimate owner of all the lands and properties that her uncle and mother were currently occupying. Uncle James was simply playing regent until Charles reached the age of majority.
Surely that will protect him. They cannot hurt him if it means they lose everything.
