Chapter One
“Jennifer, is it my imagination or does the air in here feel rather odd? Like there is a thunderstorm about to break.”
Adeline was walking along a hallway in Briarwood, her home for the last two years. She had stopped a maid.
“I know what you mean, my lady. But it’s bright and sunny outside. I can’t think why the air feels different within the manor.”
The maid replied in an easy, conversational way which Adeline returned. She did not like feeling as though there were barriers between her and the household staff, even though she had become the de facto head of that household, after the Dowager Duchess of course. Adeline had noticed the changes, at first as a shift in the stillness, the way the heat seemed to swell unnaturally, pressing against her skin as though the house itself had taken fever.
“Do you happen to know where the Dowager Duchess is?” Adeline asked.
“I do not. Last I saw she was leaving the breakfast room and was saying something about the care of her skin?”
Adeline laughed. It was characteristic of her employer and friend. She was known for being rather eccentric. Adeline walked on, her slippered feet tapping briskly across flagstones, carpets, and polished wood, when the faint trace of smoke caught in her throat. She stopped. Turned. Sniffed again.
Yes, certainly smoke. Bitter and caustic, like paper smoldering in a grate long after the fire is spent. And smoke means fire!
“Your Grace?” she called out sharply.
No answer. Only the faint creak of the house as though it too listened. She forced herself to move quickly but without panic, down another passage, this time at the rear of the house, and toward the cellar steps, her hand trailing the wall for balance. There she found her charge at last. Cordelia, the Dowager Duchess of Greystone and Briarwood, was bent over a wooden crate, its lid prised open to reveal a sorry array of fish delivered the day before, eyes already filmed and scales dulled.
“They say raw fish is wonderful for the complexion,” Cordelia declared brightly, lifting a limp herring as though it were a jewel. Her grey eyes sparkled with the odd delight that only she could summon.
“The ladies in Paris use it, did you know? Sliced thin and pressed to the cheeks. Imagine the coolness!”
Adeline pressed her lips together, torn between laughter and despair. “Your Grace, I do not think your son would approve.”
“If you knew him, you would know that Winston approves of nothing, dearest, which is why I must approve of everything. It balances us nicely.” Cordelia smiled, perfectly untroubled.
Adeline crouched beside her, taking the fish gently from her hands and returning it to its crate. “Another time, perhaps. There is something amiss upstairs.”
Cordelia straightened, her skirts brushing the cellar dust. “Amiss?”
“Smoke.”
That one word was enough. Within moments, the quiet estate was thrown into chaos. A servant came rushing down, cheeks streaked with soot, shouting that fire had broken out on the upper floors. Adeline did not think, but she acted. She caught Cordelia’s hand and drew her swiftly up the stairs, out into the hall where already the staff were gathering in confusion.
“Outside, all of you!” she commanded, surprising even herself with the steadiness of her tone. The years at Briarwood had softened her in some ways, made her laugh and feel light. Butsomewhere within her, the girl who had learned to survive under her father’s roof still knew how to act in a crisis.
With the sun gradually making its descent across the horizon, the night air was cool when they spilled into the gardens, and for an instant, Adeline closed her eyes against it, relief shivering through her. Then she saw the orange glow spilling from the top windows, and relief became determination.
“To the well!” she called, her voice carrying across the gathered servants. “Buckets, anything that will hold water! Form a line, quickly now!”
They obeyed. They always obeyed her. For two years, she had been Cordelia’s shadow, her quiet strength, and in that time, the staff had come to look to her for steadiness where their mistress wavered. The chain began. Water was drawn with agonizing slowness from the old stone well, contained in its own squat, damp toad of an outbuilding, located behind the stables. Buckets were passed hand to hand, flung against the crackling blaze that licked at the eaves.
Adeline worked among them, skirts heavy, arms aching, face scorched by heat. The fire roared in defiance, greedy and untamed. She knew even as she shouted and flung water that they would not win. And then, as if Providence itself had stirred, the heavens split. Rain fell, thick and merciless. Drenching droplets exploded against the ground and hammered at unprotected heads. It fell in torrents, hissing where splashes struck the flames. Shouts turned to cries of relief. The blazefaltered, then sullenly subsided, smoke curling into the night like a wounded beast.
By the time the worst had passed, Adeline stood looking at the ruination, recalling her past torments. She was soaked through and shivering, just as she had been on her arrival two years before. A fateful storm-tossed night. Now it seemed her stay was ended by another thrashing storm. She winced at the pain in her hands, which were raw from handling the well rope. The house still stood, but scarred and blackened, its grandeur broken. She stared at it and felt despair seep in, dark and cold. It was too familiar, the stripping away of safety, the cruel reminder that nothing could last.
Cordelia came to her then, rain plastering silver hair against her temples. She reached for Adeline’s hand, her touch warm despite the storm.
“Do not weep for it, darling girl,” she said softly. “Bricks and wood may burn, but we do not. My son will take us in. Winston may scowl and fuss, but he will not leave us in the cold. You shall see.”
Adeline tried to smile, but the weight in her chest pressed too hard. Still, she leaned into Cordelia’s presence, drawing what comfort she could. For two years, she had hidden here, in laughter and whimsy, in a friendship that asked for nothing but sincerity. Yet even here, even now, her secret grief lingered, unspoken, as constant as her heartbeat.
Then there was Winston. The son and the Duke. The man who approved of nothing. His shadow lay across her just as the silhouette of Briarwood loomed amid the dying flames. Soon, there would be another person that she must ensure did not see through her to the secret she kept. Adeline felt trepidation at the unknown which Winston represented.
The rain fell harder, washing ash into the earth, until all that remained of Briarwood’s fire was smoke and silence.
