“Will you at least sit?” Amelia indicated the chair.
“I can stay long enough for that.” A small smile lit her face.
Amelia took the opposite seat and folded her hands in her lap. “So what brings you to call today?”
“I should like to inquire, being you know this area so well, if you have a recommendation for paths I might venture upon. I dearly love to walk, you see, and I’m not nearly as fatigued as when I first arrived.” Though as of yet no telltale bump swelled her dress, Mary rested her hand against her belly. “If only my muse would return as vigorously as my energy, but I find that when I put pen to paper, all I end up with are ink blots and crumpled pages. I thought walking might help.”
How well Amelia knew that struggle. After returning from Bohemia with a raging fever that had muddled her mind, she’d had to push past all that to finish her manuscript even though there wasn’t a thing in her that felt like writing. Absently, she ran her finger along the chair arm, tracing the brocaded pattern. “It is difficult to write when all one can do is stare out the window. But often we are hardest on ourselves, are we not?” Her gaze met Mary’s. “Give it time. There is a season for everything.”
The words circled back, and when they landed on her own heart, it was with a wholly different meaning. That was it! She merely needed to give Colin time. Hewouldmend. Of course he would.
“You speak the wisdom of Solomon,” Mary murmured.
“It is easier to borrow wise words than come up with them myself.” She grinned. “Now then, I have a few suggestions. Have you been to Brandon Hill yet?”
“No, but I have heard of it.”
“That’s a good start. It’s a lovely stroll.” Amelia tapped her lower lip a moment. What other areas might inspire this young woman? “Oh, I know! There’s another walk that’s a bit more secluded, but the scenery is beautiful. Take Percival Road until it forks. Go left and continue on towards Clifton Down. Beyond a stand of beech trees is a trail leading into the woods, which opens up to a stunning view of the Avon River Gorge. If that doesn’t inspire you, I don’t know what will.”
“Thank you.” Mary beamed. “I shall give both of these—”
Overhead, something crashed. A beastly howl split the air. Mary stared slack-jawed at the ceiling as heavy footsteps pounded like dropped boulders. Amelia shot to her feet, heart in her throat. What if Colin raced down here? Frightened Mary?HarmedMary?
With quick steps, she reached for the woman’s hand, guiding her up. “Well, my dear, I am sure you’ll want to begin your exploring. If you leave now, you ought to make Brandon Hill and back before the sun sets. Come. I shall see you to the door.”
The whites of Mary’s eyes were enormous as Amelia ushered her from the room. “Is everything all right?”
“I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“Nothing? It sounds like a caged monster roams about upstairs.”
“Oh. That. Probably just my brother. He…um…” He what? Think.Think!She reached for the front door and flung it open. “It’s likely just a spider. He’s deathly afraid of spiders. Enjoy your walk, Mary.”
“But—”
“Thank you for stopping by. Good day.” Gently—yet ever so firmly—Amelia steered the woman out the door and shut it behind her. Whew. That was close, especially since Colin started up a fresh wave of howling. She’d gotten Mary out the door quickly, but the woman had heard enough to spread gossip about the strange doings at Balfour House. Would she?
No time to ponder that now. Amelia had a brother to tend to, and by the sounds of it, a very agitated one.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“Has this mind, so replete with ideas, imaginations fanciful and magnificent, which formed a world, whose existence depended on the life of its creator—has the mind perished?”
Alot could happen in four days. Many a battle had been fought and won in less time. And yet as Graham unhooked the horse from the gig and gave the animal a cursory rubdown, he growled at all the changes that should’ve happened by now for Colin Balfour. After so much time since surgery, the man should be coherent and able to communicate. He ought to be capable of eating a meal without flying into an inexplicable rage—and that was the whole crux of the matter. The untamable frenzies. The erratic bursts of derangement. The placid, amiable persona of Colin Balfour had been replaced with an animal that frequently strained against the leash. And Amelia bore the brunt of it, a burden she never should have had to carry.
Graham slammed the curry comb onto the workbench, startling the horse. With a pat to the withers and a soft “Easy girl,” he calmed the animal, yet it did nothing to stop the fury rising up his gullet.
Forcing a calmness he didn’t feel, he retrieved the dandy brush and finished grooming the old bay. It wasn’t right that Amelia should have to watch the deterioration of a much-beloved brother, that every day when he attended the man, her big brown eyes pleaded with him for something—anything—to be done to help Colin. But there was nothing he could do. The fear in her voice, the worry bending her shoulders, the way her gown hung on a frame much diminished from the healthy woman of little over a month ago, all served to stoke the continual rage burning in his gut.
With a growl in his throat, he flung the brush towards the stable door—narrowly missing a white-haired head.
Dodging aside, Peckwood clutched a leather portfolio to his chest as a shield. “Great heavens! Is it safe to enter?”
In the mood he was in? “Hardly,” he ground out through clenched teeth, then turned back to the horse. Better to finish detangling the animal’s mane than pop the doctor in the nose.
Footsteps crushed errant bits of straw, drawing closer. “I suspected I’d find you here, but not throwing about the grooming tools like a madman. What has you so frothed at the mouth?”
What sort of game was this? Surely the man had to know. With supreme effort, Graham ran his fingers gently through the horse’s mane. “In short, Mr. Peckwood, you are the irritation. No more can I tolerate your ethics, your procedures, your insatiable appetite for power and renown. These things are abhorrent, and I will not remain silent any longer.” Stepping away from the horse, he faced the man, mind made up to speak out and hang the cost. “I am done with you, sir, and when the authorities are informed, you will be done as well.”
